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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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The witch who had entered the cabin placed the smartphone on the table and spoke. While the others remained oblivious to its significance, Johan wasn’t.
‘Why is that here…?’
The smartphone he thought he’d lost forever, confiscated by the village chief and then sold to a merchant after his arrival in this world—
The witch, seeing no one react, turned on the phone and showed them the screen.
“You really don’t recognize this?”
─!!
Johan felt his heart sink.
She hadn’t unlocked it, but months had passed since his arrival. The battery should have died long ago.
Yet the witch had turned it on without issue. As if she possessed the means to charge it.
‘Does this world… have electricity?’
It wasn’t impossible. Electricity had been invented in the 19th century. He often joked about this world being primitive, but the leap from pre-modern to modern technology wasn’t inconceivable.
This was a world with witches and supernatural powers, after all. If someone in power decided to utilize witches, technological advancement could be rapid.
‘Which means, this witch isn’t just some random person who found the phone…’
She was likely backed by a powerful organization.
She could be a witch with magic related to machinery—but it seemed unlikely that a witch living in seclusion would acquire a smartphone.
Johan looked at Evangeline, conveying his suspicions with his eyes—that this witch represented a potential threat to their peaceful life in the cabin. Evangeline, catching his wink, nodded reassuringly.
“You. What’s your name?”
“Oh? Introductions are in order, I suppose. I’m Machina. A witch, like you.”
“Machina. Leave my house.”
“Even if I’m a guest?”
“It’s the owner’s prerogative to choose their guests.”
Evangeline glared at Machina, who nodded as if conceding the point and stood up.
As she reached for the smartphone, Evangeline grabbed her wrist.
“And—leave that here.”
“…So you’re not just kicking me out, you’re robbing me too?”
“You came here because of that device. I’m making sure you can’t do it again.”
Johan stared at Evangeline, surprised by her boldness, while Machina, her eyes gleaming, looked at Evangeline with an almost admiring expression, then nodded slightly and left the cabin without another word.
Evangeline picked up the smartphone and brought it to Johan.
“Here, Johan! You wanted this, didn’t you!?”
“…Me?”
“Yes! You were giving me those ‘Master, I really want that’ eyes!”
“…When did I…?”
“…Oh? You didn’t want me to take it?”
Master, when did I…?!
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Though Evangeline’s actions had been unexpected, Johan decided to view it as a blessing in disguise and accepted the smartphone. The other witches stared at him, clearly disapproving of his having instigated the robbery, but he ignored them.
This wasn’t the time for that. He held the smartphone, a relic of modern civilization, a revolutionary invention that had divided human history.
In an era where even soldiers used smartphones, Johan, having been without one for months, felt starved for technology.
The freedom of the city, the readily available women—none of that could satisfy his craving.
He placed his finger on the screen, anticipating the feast of information that awaited him—
“…Why isn’t it working?”
“Hm? What’s wrong, Johan?”
“Ah, nothing…”
He pressed the power button repeatedly, hoping it was just a glitch, but the phone remained unresponsive. He frantically mashed the button, his frustration growing.
Finally, defeated, he sighed.
“—Sigh…”
“…Johan, is there a problem?”
“No, it’s nothing…”
He placed the phone down and returned to his room, ignoring the witches’ stares.
Reina… Asuka… I thought I’d finally see you again… I’m sorry.
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Machina, leaving the cabin, smiled to herself.
She had lost the smartphone and her plan had failed, but she wasn’t concerned.
She had gained something far more valuable.
‘One, two, three, four…’
Five witches, living together in a single cabin.
And a human man living among them.
Most people wouldn’t think there was any connection between the witches and the man. Witches were rumored to perform horrific experiments on captured humans, and their curses were said to make them hostile even towards each other.
But Machina was different. She had seen with her own eyes that the witches were all in love with the same man.
‘A human charming a witch is surprising enough… but five at the same time—’
Times were changing.
Just as the Emperor had employed her to strengthen the Empire.
The way witches interacted with humans was changing.
Machina, caught in this current of change, considered her options.
“I should… report back.”
She stuck her business card into a nearby tree, hoping they would find it and be intrigued. Then she vanished.
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Negative emotions, the kind that brought one down, clung to the mind like grime, difficult to remove.
To cleanse himself, Johan needed a powerful emotional release, and he chose… domination.
After a particularly intense session with Marguerite, who had taken him down her throat until she nearly gagged, Johan, feeling much better, left the cabin early in the morning, as usual.
He ran through the cold, misty air, heading to his training spot.
As he returned, sweat glistening on his skin despite the chill, he noticed a business card, previously hidden by the fog.
‘…What’s this?’
Business cards had existed for a long time, but this rectangular card was clearly a modern invention.
Johan, surprised by this second sign of modern civilization, picked it up.
Machina, Minister of Science and Technology, The Empire
The card contained only a name, written in elegant script, but Johan recognized it as belonging to the witch from yesterday.
And the words on the card confirmed his suspicions. The Empire. He’d never heard of it, but Evangeline and Regina probably had.
He took the card back to the cabin.
“Johan. Good morning.”
“Oh, Regina.”
“Back from your training?”
“Yeah. I found something I wanted to show you.”
Johan handed her the card, and Regina, after reading it, nodded and returned it.
“A business card from an Imperial official. Yesterday’s witch?”
“Probably. It was stuck in a tree outside.”
“Then it’s likely genuine. The Empire, you say…”
“You know about it?”
“Yes. I know it… too well.”
Regina said this, a troubled expression on her face. The Empire. The force that divided the world. The most powerful nation. And a name she hadn’t expected to encounter in this remote forest.
“The Empire is located… on the exact opposite side of the world.”
“…Opposite side? What do you mean?”
“Do you know that the Earth is round?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then this will be easy to explain. It’s exactly as I said. The Empire is located on the opposite side of the planet from this kingdom, in this remote region.”
Approximately 18,000 kilometers away. An impossible distance to travel by horse or ship.
Johan quickly calculated the distance. Even on a passenger ship traveling at the speed of sound, it would take over sixteen hours.
Considering even Evangeline, the most powerful witch, couldn’t fly at that speed for more than thirty minutes, it was an insurmountable distance.
‘But then—how did that witch…?’
He was wondering how Machina had managed to travel such a distance when the other witches, having woken up, began to emerge from their rooms.
They saw Johan standing there, lost in thought, and asked him what was wrong.
After hearing his explanation, Marguerite spoke casually.
“Want to go? To the Empire?”
“Huh? But you said it’s on the other side of the planet…”
“It won’t take long. A minute, maybe.”
Johan was reminded that Marguerite was the Witch of Space, a unique being unbound by the limitations of distance. She could travel to the moon if she wanted to.
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