131 – 5. Witch Moon (7)

5. Witch’s Month – Old Dreams (7)

After the witch declared that she would make me her squire, my daily life changed dramatically again. In which direction, if asked. I can affirm that it was an unimaginably busy life now.

“Clean all the candles in the mansion. You must not light a fire to break the candle wax.”

“Yes, witch.”

To be honest, I wondered what she would ask me to do, as she seemed to have lived alone in this vast mansion, but contrary to my expectations, the witch started to entrust me with very small tasks one by one. And as the days went by, they were called like a rolling snowball.

“Collect all the bones rolling down the hallway and put them in front of my room. Humans on the left, animals on the right.”

“Take all the skeletons piled up in the kitchen to the forest. However, you cannot put more than three in the same place when discarding once.”

“The black smoke rising from the stove will eat your shadow if you leave it alone.

“If you see handprints sticking to the window, open and close the door. I have to slap her hand and she will back off.”

“If the clock stops moving——.”

“When the curtains are wavy——.”

To be honest, commands I have no idea what the heck they mean. It was no joke that it snowballed. The things the witch instructed me to do were things that only took an hour or two a day, but the problem was that the things she ordered were literally ‘routine’.

Even if I did my best to organize and clean things up, the landscape of the mansion was restored every other day or two. There were times when I stayed up all night thinking that someone other than me was playing a prank while I was asleep, but it didn’t have much effect. How was the mansion renovated?

Furthermore, she taught me the language of this world by sitting across the table after each meal, just as I had originally requested. For reference, there seems to be no such thing as a common language in any world, so the words used across lands and seas are different, or at least the notation is different.

“…… You already memorized everything? Then… ….”

She seemed a little surprised at the speed at which I was learning, and I was also a little surprised by the way she taught. A concise and clear explanation that seems to have taught others not once or twice. No, the explanation itself was short and simple, but it surprisingly points to the core.

I gradually learned how to read without relying on her ‘magic’, and at the same time, I worked hard on her body to complete all the tasks she ordered me to do. The daily routine keeps getting longer, but the amount of study I digest every day is always constant, so no matter how much I get used to it, I can’t stand it. More and more days I only slept for 3 or 4 hours a day, and even that was made up by sleeping several times in order to carry out her ‘directives’, so I became increasingly haggard.

“You finished everything? So today…….”

Yeah, to be honest, the problem was that I did too well.

I don’t know what to say, but I was a pretty savvy person, and since I didn’t know how long I’d be staying in this mansion, I tried to do what the witch told me to do as much as possible, so I managed to endure the unusual routine. However, she who did not know such a fact just constantly worked on me with the thought of ‘If you tell me to do it’.

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No, in the first place, she didn’t seem to be very interested in the limits of human stamina or the connection between sleep and concentration. Maybe she’s forgotten about a being that doesn’t belong to her.

In the end, instead of raising the white flag over my mouth, I ended up getting sick and lying down. I woke up without an alarm clock, but when I lay down on the bed until the sun went down, the witch finally woke up and handed me this one word.

“…… I forgot. Weak, you.”

Maybe she has never apologized to anyone? I sincerely thought so at that moment, but…… Recalling that I was also responsible for not speaking up, I managed to understand it. And, I thought that maybe her words might have been the maximum expression of intention to admit her own ‘mistake’ at the time. It’s been exactly one month.

Mysteriously, my physical condition returned to normal the next day, and in any case, we started getting to know each other more and more. Specifically, she, who had maintained only a fragmentary hierarchical relationship until now, started throwing ‘meaningless’ words at me from time to time.

“…… What did you say your name was?”

The witch who allowed me to eat together in front of her from a certain moment suddenly asked that question during her meal. Didn’t you tell me about the name from the moment I was able to speak in the first place? I pretended to be calm and answered.

“Yes, Jin.”

…… She spoke calmly, as if she already knew, and brought her fork to her mouth, but for a moment I felt as if she was trying to avert my gaze. So I just became Jin. A boy with no last name or middle name, just named Jin.

“…… You ate well today, Jin.”

On my 43rd day at her mansion, she greeted me for the first time after dinner. No one will ever know how sweet that greeting was to me, who had thought that I was being treated like an obedient pesky pet. Her transformation was very slow but evident.

“You learn very quickly. It is worth teaching.”

On the 51st day, in less than two months, the witch judged me for learning three languages. To be honest, it took longer than expected because there was so much work, but it seemed like it was going very fast for her nonetheless. As she started saying her “Meaningless” Things, I too started to get to know her more and more.

“What is your favorite food? …… I like everything you made. Among them…….”

She wasn’t just a transcendent being. He had tastes, he had preferences, his likes and dislikes were clear.

“Wash once a day…… ? In your world…… Laundry?”

I was curious, and I knew shame. There was a time when he looked down at his body and left as soon as he realized that I was washing the clothes I used to wash and wear every day. And the next day, he showed up wearing different clothes of different colors. It was the 57th day.

“Today instead of alcohol, can you prepare the fruit I made last time?”

At some point, the tone of speech, which used to repeat simple commands, softened little by little. The position did not change, but it changed gently and in a requesting tone before I knew it. It was on the 66th day that I realized it.

As I regained more composure in my daily life to a certain extent than before, I tried to understand the contents of the many books scattered around the mansion one by one after learning to write. To be honest, I didn’t have much entertainment other than that. On the 81st day, she suddenly leaned back to my door and told me.

“…… If there is something you do not understand, you can ask. Freely.”

That word had a completely different nuance from the words ‘do whatever you want’ that you had told me before. I saw her faint smile more and more often, and I remembered struggling hard to see it more often.

On the 83rd day, the rooms in the mansion, which were initially locked and could not be entered, were suddenly opened. I couldn’t get rid of her impression that she was testing me from then on.

On the 97th day, having grasped some of the secrets of the mansion, I finally made up my mind and knocked on her tightly closed door. The door did not open, and the usual flat tone returned.

“Why?”

I said.

“I have something to tell you.”

The door is open. A room was revealed that was larger than any room I had been in so far. The witch’s figure was hidden from view by the furniture. No, it must have been simply because I was looking at the floor.

“Tell me.”

“Please teach me magic.”

I sighed, and just trembled and waited for her answer. The conclusion I came to for exactly 97 days was that in order to understand this world, I had to eventually dig up the identity of her powers, and at the same time, I had no choice but to establish the concept of the many magics that existed in the mansion.

At the same time…… There was an expectation that I might be able to obtain the mysterious power that existed only in her creations, and a vague idea that if I could use her magic, I would be able to understand her a little more. And for him, he had to endure a level of tension different from simply asking for information. The progress of the relationship, the change. I heard footsteps, and I was still keeping my head down. Soon, the presence stopped, and the approaching witch quietly called my name.

“Jin.”

“Yes.”

I looked up. And, the flesh color spread before my eyes.

The naked body of a woman I’ve seen for the first time since I was born.

Oddly enough, she answered my question like this.

“Have you ever tried organizing your closet?”

“… ….”

“Do it.”

…… That’s how I became a witch’s apprentice.

Mummy yawned. Of course. It was a story she knew. Except for the last scene, she knew almost everything that had happened between the witch and me.

Soon she stood up beside me. I felt like she wanted to drag me away, but she realized that it was late and left after kissing me on the cheek.

“Good night.”

Remembering that one word, I fell asleep before long.

Someday, it seems like I’ve heard that.

I fell into a dream again today.

I often dream these days.

A very, very long dream.

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