Rewrite That Witch
CH533 · Rewrite
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Chapter 533: An Unexpected Incident

The following morning, Roland took the witches and relevant personnel north of the city wall, to a stretch of grassland at the edge of the Misty Forest, for a proper assessment of Breeze, Iffy, and Softfeathers.

Nightingale, Wendy, Carter, and Iron Axe accompanied them. The First Army sealed off the surrounding field; Leaf took the forest boundary.

Softfeathers went first.

She stood no taller than Honey—at most a meter and forty centimeters—with long brownish-red hair and blunt-cut bangs that just reached her brows. She appeared to be around sixteen, but she had awakened four years ago, earlier than most, which meant she had survived the Demonic Torture four times. Her magic reserves showed it: roughly half of what Anna had held before her adulthood, a significant store for someone her age. And she used it with the precision of someone who had been working at the craft for years—she could make an entire object adhesive, or a single surface, or a precise spot, all while consuming what Nightingale could barely detect in the Mist.

“How long can an object stay adhesive?” Roland asked.

“If I use my full reserve to bond two stones together—decades.” A flicker of something near satisfaction crossed her otherwise still face. “Though I’ve never actually tried it. That’s my estimate based on how much power it takes.”

“What’s the largest thing you’ve applied your ability to?”

“A seawall.” The satisfaction became more legible. “During a high tide, a section of wall on Sleeping Island cracked—arm-thick. Lotus was away, so I turned the crack adhesive and packed it with linen and pebbles to seal it. If I hadn’t, the waves would have brought the whole section down.”

She was asking for acknowledgment. The realization arrived with a small, odd warmth.

“Well done,” Roland said.

Softfeathers became composed again immediately. There was nothing childlike in the way she controlled her reactions—she suppressed them the way someone learns to suppress them, through long practice. What kind of life had these witches led, before Sleeping Island? He pushed the question aside for now.

Breeze was next.

She offered a graceful curtsy and said, “I regretted having to leave the Western Region so soon the first time. I’m glad to be back.” Her manner was easy, warm, the kind of presence that slackened a room’s shoulders without anyone noticing. No one would guess she was a combat witch.

Her ability was field control—anyone within five meters fell under her authority over their body. Against ranged weapons, the power offered nothing; in close quarters, she was very nearly unbeatable. It was summoned ability, affected by the God’s Stone of Retaliation like all such things, but she could activate it more than ten times per day, each lasting while she maintained it, with no constraint on her own movement while it was active. Invisible to the naked eye, impossible to anticipate.

Against a demon at short range, the power was obvious.

Iffy was last.

She looked to be around twenty, lean and sharp-edged in a close-fitted black leather outfit, knee-high boots, chestnut hair to her waist catching the light. She stepped forward without ceremony.

Her ability was the magic cage—conjured in the blink of an eye from any distance within reach, capable of closing around a target and then, if she chose, compressing. Whatever she caged became weightless to carry. She had demonstrated it often enough to understand its limits precisely.

“What’s the maximum size you can contain?” Roland asked.

“The cage scales to my power consumption. Even a whale in the sea couldn’t escape.”

“How many can you hold at once?”

“Two.” She spread her hands, a dry edge in it. “I only have two hands, Your Majesty.”

“Is escape possible?”

“No. Not even Ashes, without a God’s Stone, has gotten out.” Then, unprompted: “If you want to test the upper bound, use Maggie. I’ve heard she’s evolved and can transform into something comparable to a demon’s mount. If you see that even she can’t break free, you’ll have nothing left to wonder about.”

The suggestion was practical. The form Maggie could take was nearly identical to what they would encounter on any demon-capture mission. Roland nodded at Nightingale.

“Ask Leaf to bring Maggie here.”

When Maggie was not on patrol she flew with Lightning over the Misty Forest, Leaf guiding them to patches of Bird Beak Mushrooms and birds’ nests, filling the hours with small pleasures and casual foraging. The benefits showed: in her pigeon form she was now the size of a bald eagle, though when she shifted back she was the same small white-haired girl as always.

They appeared in the sky within minutes.

Maggie dropped to Roland’s head as she usually did, an act of habit he had long since stopped objecting to. “Maggie is here, coo! What do you need?”

He explained the test and asked her to shift into her giant bird form and try to break free.

“I see, coo!”

She flew up and changed—and the shadow that spread across the grass was immense, the transformation more complete than he remembered from the first time she’d evolved.

“Begin,” he told Iffy.

Iffy’s expression flickered—something contemptuous—and she raised her right hand, fingers spread. A dozen threads of purple light appeared above Maggie and curved inward in an instant, closing into a sphere. Maggie’s wings slammed against the bars; her talons raked; her beak drove at the seams. Nothing gave. The cage held without visible effort on Iffy’s part, her posture relaxed, her left hand free.

Roland was about to call a halt when Iffy closed her fist.

The cage contracted. Maggie’s scream split the air.

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