“Hello, Miss Witch. What a coincidence, isn’t it? You were just singing a ballad about witches, and here I find a beautiful one right before my eyes.”
Will, dressed in clothes that were clearly not those of a “bard,” held only a lute but spoke respectfully to Liya. He pointed to the empty coin plate.
“If you’re in a good mood, perhaps you could spare a little coin?”
“You, you imposter bard…” Liya walked up to him, clenching her fists, and said through gritted teeth.
Will, sitting on the ground with his lute, poked his head out, as if trying to see Liya’s expression.
Then…
Liya suddenly crouched down.
So…
Will saw—
Deep dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep.
A face that seemed pale from overwork.
And, beneath the witch’s large hat, her flushed earlobes.
As well as, her pouting lips, looking like a little angry expression.
“I sang about you so adorably, shouldn’t you be happy? Why are you charging at me like you want to kill me…”
Will’s words didn’t finish because in the next moment, Liya suddenly reached out and snatched his hat.
Her brown hair, slightly dirty from not being washed in a long time, was exposed to the air as the hat fell.
A trace of shock flashed across Will’s face, especially his right eye behind the monocle widened significantly.
“Aren’t you always hiding from people? Aren’t you planning to fake your own death? Haven’t you been avoiding us for days? And now, now you’re here playing music…”
The sound of the mage’s robe rustling through the air reached Will’s ears, and the light in his vision dimmed slightly.
Will then realized that while he was sitting on the ground playing his lute, Liya had taken off her robe and covered her head with it.
Then, she slightly lifted a corner of the robe and, in this space where he could only see her from below, she gazed at Will.
Will’s reflection appeared in her red eyes. Will felt as if he had returned to that afternoon when Liya first agreed to become his teacher.
She reached out and grabbed Will’s neck.
Will’s left eye lit up warily, but he found Liya’s grip on his neck surprisingly light.
It only caused a slight tightening sensation around his Adam’s apple.
“Alright, I just wanted to tell you—I admit it, I lost.”
“I still want… to have your undivided attention…”
“Please… please turn me back into how I was before you… ‘died’ again.”
After she finished speaking, she brushed Will’s hair aside and kissed his forehead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, you… you told that bard a story about a witch, and then… then gave him… a counterfeit Witch Coin, and he trusted you implicitly, even lending you his lute to play when he had nothing else to do?”
“Yes. But… honestly, when I used the Witch Coin to trick him, I thought he would chase after me and beat me up.”
Back in Will’s “laboratory,” Liya thought that having said all that, he would have let her taste that liquid directly.
But he didn’t.
Will seemed to be preparing something, only asking her to… sit on that old, worn-out chair for a while.
“Then, why didn’t you just give him real money? A few coins, it’s nothing significant to you…”
Liya’s words cut off mid-sentence.
She looked at Will’s back, suddenly realizing… he wasn’t that “Young Master” anymore, and perhaps he didn’t actually have much money himself…
“Well then, since you’ve agreed, let’s do some preparatory work first—like this.”
Will didn’t reply to Liya’s question. He turned around and started a new topic.
And…
He showed the bug in his hand.
It looked like steel, yet it had the flexible legs and body of a “living” bug, along with the mouthparts of an ordinary insect.
In… in Will’s previous words…
This… this should be called…
“Mechanical”?
Liya looked up. The boy who had been playing love songs on the street just moments ago seemed to have vanished. Now, he had a dark expression, with a smile playing on his lips, a hint of interest in his eyes.
“Hoo—”
“Haa—”
After taking a deep breath in and out, Liya finally sat properly on the chair.
She watched as Will reached out and placed the bug onto her neck again.
She offered no resistance, but her body still trembled slightly.
“It won’t hurt. Because the bug itself is very small, and its legs have an anesthetic liquid. It will quietly stay in your blood vessel.”
“No… it’s not that I’m afraid of pain. After all, when I fought that Snow Woman in the Dungeon, being hit by her ice arrow hurt much more than this. It’s just…”
Liya didn’t finish and turned her face away, trying not to look at the bug Will was pressing onto her neck.
“It’s just that, Teacher Liya, you’re actually afraid of bugs?”
Will, as if he could read her mind, voiced her thoughts.
That was a bug.
A bug with six legs that moved, with segmented joints, and most importantly, with eyes that were often too bizarre for humans to look at directly, and it even made a buzzing sound—!
“You… you can ask anyone, is there any girl who wouldn’t be afraid of the… bu-bugs in your hand… Mmph!”
Just as Liya finished speaking, Will took advantage of her distraction and pressed the bug slightly harder onto her neck.
Indeed, she only felt a tiny sting as the small bug burrowed into her neck, followed by a slight itch, and then it entered her bloodstream.
There was indeed no pain.
But…
It was strange. Why would Will know this? Had he used it on himself before…?
“It’s okay. Teacher Liya, who’s afraid of bugs, is still pretty cute, isn’t she?”
Will sat opposite her, propping his chin on his hand. He looked like he was staring at a well-behaved doll, all smiles.
As a teacher, being known by a student to be afraid of bugs might not be ideal.
But fortunately, Will likely wasn’t the type to play pranks with bugs.
Why did Will “inject” this bug?!
Liya touched her neck. She could feel a small bump between her skin and blood vessel, but it was harmless. In fact, when it wasn’t moving, there was no pain or any other sensation.
Indeed… because…
She looked up.
Will’s brown hair was slightly damp, as it had rained a little on the way back. His clothes were also a bit wet. He now looked like…
A “down-and-out young master” who had fallen on hard times, wandered the world, and thus acquired some ruthless survival skills, his true nature exposed, becoming crazed and pathological.
—Because he wanted to control her.
She truly couldn’t leave Will.
Especially, she couldn’t leave the potions in his hand! That’s right. The reason he still had the upper hand was because he possessed more potent potions.
Whether it was the potion to suppress her circuits or the one to help her regain herself.
Liya believed that being controlled by him in her magic circuits was only temporary. As long as she… adapted…
“Very good, you’ve behaved quite well. Here’s a little reward.”
Suddenly, Will’s fingers, which had just retracted, were stained with a viscous, cold, blood-red liquid. He wiped it on the spot where the bug had just been implanted!
