A young girl emerged from the darkness.
She had a few scratches and looked lost and frightened.
Lucius was the first to approach her and asked how she had ended up there.
The little girl replied that the villagers had taken her by force in order to offer her as a sacrifice to the witch, but that she had managed to escape her grasp.
Lucius wanted to take the child into his arms to comfort her, but Emilya stopped him immediately.
“A child?!
That’s not normal,” Emilya thought.
Without warning, she pointed her staff at the little girl.
—Lucius, get away from that child… No.
Get away from that thing.
Seeing the merciless look Emilya was giving the little girl, Lucius stepped in front of her to protect her.
—Lower your weapon!
She’s just a child.
You heard what she said: the villagers offered her as a sacrifice!
—Fine.
Let’s talk about this famous village, Emilya retorted.
It doesn’t exist.
When I looked at the map, there wasn’t a single village anywhere nearby.
Besides, the shadow behind her doesn’t match her appearance.
So reveal your true identity.
What are you?
What Emilya had just said finally clicked in Lucius’s mind.
In an instant, he quickly moved away.
—You’re a very clever little mage, the child said calmly.
Suddenly, her brown hair turned black, her pupils became red, and her skin grew considerably paler.
She grew before their very eyes, and the little girl transformed into a woman: the witch they had feared so much.
Immediately, tension became palpable throughout the forest.
The forest, which had seemed dead only moments before, began to come alive.
The trees shifted, creating a vast clearing where a throne appeared right in the center.
Moonlight, which had been completely absent until then, suddenly illuminated the area.
The witch slowly walked toward her seat, sat down, crossed her legs, and rested her elbow on the armrest before staring them down.
—Bravo.
You didn’t fall for my trap.
Others, like the fool behind you, fell for it and met a rather miserable end.
To reward you, I won’t kill you just yet, she said with a smile.
The other two, however, do not deserve my mercy.
She made thorns burst from the ground, which the group barely managed to dodge.
Lucius immediately set off on his own in search of the Moon Flower.
Melvis, meanwhile, found herself separated from Emilya.
No matter how much she blocked and sliced through the brambles the witch sent her way, she was quickly overwhelmed and forced farther and farther away.
Emilya was now alone, facing the witch.
“I have to buy some time.
Think quickly!” she told herself.
Suddenly, she remembered the story she had read in the academy’s library two years earlier.
An idea came to her to capture the witch’s attention: —Lady Witch… —You can call me Melly, the latter interrupted.
—…Melly.
In the library of the academy of mages where I trained, there is a book about you.
It describes you as a ruthless witch who massacred innocent people.
You are portrayed as a true monster.
But from what I can see, this book doesn’t seem to do you justice.
Am I wrong?
The witch thought for a moment.
“I like this little one.” —You’re right.
This book doesn’t do me justice.
I’ve heard some adventurers who wandered in here say that I even ate children.
Those old beasts at the academy see me as the source of all evil, when I’m actually the victim in this story, she lamented.
—I can imagine… Then, could you help me uncover the truth about your past?
—All right.
I’ll tell you, but first… With a simple movement of her hand, she summoned a dozen enormous monsters covered in thorns.
She whispered to them to bring the thief back alive, then ordered them to chase after him.
————— —Originally, this forest was created upon the ashes of my village, which I destroyed with my own hands, she began.
—Two hundred years ago, the village of Lyra stood here.
It was a prosperous place where trade was flourishing.
I still remember the smell of flowers in the marketplace, the warmth of freshly baked bread, and the laughter of children playing in the fields.
Back then, I had a best friend who shone like the sun.
She had beautiful, golden-blond curly hair.
She was my only light in a world where we were both orphans.
My parents had died from an epidemic, while hers had been killed by bandits.
We were alone, but we had each other.
With her, I could overcome anything.
“You know, Mel, even if we don’t have parents anymore, we’ll always have each other.
I promise.
I’ll always look after you and stay by your side forever.” “Promise you’ll never leave me, okay, Limicia?” “Okay, Melly!” —We hooked our little fingers together to seal our promise, Melly continued with a faint smile.
We were six years old at the time.
An old woman from the village took us in.
She sold her vegetables at the market, and we helped her.
That was how the three of us became a family.
We shared peaceful moments together.
Limicia and I played hide-and-seek in the forest, not far from the village, and ran through the flower fields that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Since we no longer had parents, the other children didn’t want to come near us, and the adults were afraid that we would bring misfortune with us.
Only the old woman understood us.
She had lost her only son, who had become an adventurer.
So when she saw us abandoned, she took pity on us and adopted us.
On our birthdays, she would bake us cakes and give us presents.
I received plants because they were what I loved most.
Limicia, on the other hand, received little sculptures because becoming a sculptor was what she wanted to do later in life.
We were so happy… Melly paused briefly before continuing: —But when I turned twelve, I began developing magical powers.
When they discovered this, they were so happy for me that the old woman didn’t hesitate to spend all her savings to send me to the academy of magic.
I felt terrible about leaving them, but they encouraged me so much that I eventually left, with a heavy heart… I should never have left.
She let out a sigh filled with regret.
—The academy was a boarding school, and we couldn’t leave until we had completed our training.
So I worked myself almost to exhaustion.
I wanted to return to my family as soon as possible.
I finished my training in a year and a half.
Since I was particularly gifted, the professors tried to make me their personal apprentice, but I turned down every offer.
“A year and a half?!
It took me two years… And yet, they consider me a prodigy,” Emilya thought in surprise.
—When I received my diploma, the witch continued, I jumped into the first carriage I could find to return home, my heart filled with hope and joy at the thought of telling them all about my time away.
“I’ll be home soon.
I hope they haven’t changed during the year and a half I’ve been gone,” I thought innocently.
But my joy quickly faded when I arrived in front of our house.
I couldn’t believe my eyes: the bodies of my grandmother and Limicia had been displayed for everyone to see, surrounded by signs covered in insults.
I was devastated.
I couldn’t understand how this could have happened during my absence.
Since our house stood away from the village, I turned around and headed toward the center of the village.
I grabbed the first passerby I found and asked him what had happened.
Seeing the rage in my eyes, the man immediately told me everything.
Melly’s voice grew darker: —Apparently, seven months after I left, a local lord had come to visit the village.
He had taken a liking to Limicia and offered her a position as his concubine.
She politely refused, explaining that she was only fourteen years old.
But the lord didn’t care.
He kept coming every day to make the same offer, and she continued to refuse him.
Then, after her umpteenth rejection, he pretended to give up… but secretly, he had prepared his revenge.
He had given a large sum of money to the villagers so they would turn against her.
That was how the situation spiraled out of control.
Upon hearing this, I began to cry uncontrollably.
If only I hadn’t left for that academy… If only I had stayed, I could have protected them!
I began screaming in pain.
Everyone stopped and stared at me.
I glared at them all with fury.
She paused, her gaze lost in her memories.
—Suddenly, I felt my heart fill with darkness, and my magic was unleashed.
Overcome with rage, I devastated the village to punish everyone who had taken part in that heinous act.
I dragged the lord responsible before my family’s grave so that he could answer for his actions, then I sealed the fate of the entire village beneath my brambles.
Afterward, I returned to my home and buried the bodies of my grandmother and Limicia, whispering to them: “I have avenged you.
I hope you’ll forgive me for what I have done.
Rest in peace.” After that, I covered their graves with earth, destroyed the last remnants of the village, and made this forest grow.
The news spread through the few servants who had managed to escape, and this tragedy came to be known as the Massacre of Lyra.
————— Emilya couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Could the innocents mentioned in the book actually have been the children?” Emilya thought in horror.
She didn’t know whether she was more shocked by the horror Limicia and the grandmother had endured, the villagers’ crime, or Melly’s merciless revenge.
She looked at the witch in fear, but the latter still wore an enigmatic, almost nostalgic smile.
—By the way, little mage, Melly concluded, tilting her head, there is a secret I discovered about mages during my training.
Do you want to know what it is?