Surprisingly, the Tin Knight’s head was not smashed into a U-shape.

It was too obvious that if the self-proclaimed mage suddenly started beating the heads of her companions with her staff, the cinder-covered girl would be terrified and frightened.

While Dorothea showed no mercy to those who were hostile, conversely, this meant that she maintained a certain line with neutral or friendly parties.

Especially, the more innocent the other party was, and the more they were a powerless ordinary person, the more her response tended to soften.

The cinder-covered girl was a case that perfectly fit these conditions.

Of course, this didn’t mean that Dorothea forgave the Tin Knight’s sarcasm. She just postponed the punishment.

Thinking it would look strange for four people to rush into a house with just one girl, Dorothea left her companions waiting outside and stepped into the building alone.

Contrary to the girl’s overall filthy appearance, the inside of the building was quite clean.

It was as if the girl had absorbed all the dirt inside the building.

Considering the essence of the act of cleaning, this might be a surprisingly accurate interpretation.

As Dorothea looked around various parts of the building, the girl spoke with a somewhat restless air, “Um, but will it take long to find that thing? I don’t know when my mother and sisters will return…”

Although she had let them in due to being overwhelmed by Dorothea’s presence, if other family members saw the current situation, it would be quite troublesome.

Dorothea looked at the girl’s appearance with a strange expression.

If interpreting the girl’s behavior by general standards, she should be seen as “a child afraid of being scolded for letting outsiders into the house while the family is away”, but somehow to Dorothea, she looked more like “a servant anxiously worried about being caught by the master for doing something wrong”.

Dorothea shrugged her shoulders, “It’ll be over soon, so don’t worry. I’ll give you a reward too.”

After finishing the Wicked Witch of the West Subjugation, she had become very financially abundant.

Changing the girl’s filthy clothes into a beautiful dress was no problem at all, and if she felt like it, she could even rebuild this house anew. Though she didn’t intend to go that far, as a transaction too heavily tilted to one side wouldn’t be good for either Dorothea or the girl.

The presence of necromancy is… over there?

“What’s behind that door over there?”

“That’s the door leading to the backyard.”

“Can I go take a look for a moment?”

“Ah, yes. That’s fine.”

Perhaps because it was okay to let her into that area, the cinder-covered girl showed visible signs of relief.

Letting that reaction slide, Dorothea stepped out into the backyard.

She could find the target soon.

The backyard itself wasn’t very spacious, and as soon as she entered, something plausible caught her eye.

A hazel tree, about 5 meters in size.

Dorothea frowned.

She felt the mana around her body being sucked towards the tree.

To be precise, not the mana itself, but something like the remnants left after using necromancy was being absorbed.

As if reacting to a similar type of existence, Dorothea’s staff showed a slight trembling.

I thought it was strange that there were no traces of souls around.

Stray spirits, grudges, negative mana, curses in the surrounding area.

The hazel tree before her eyes seemed to be sucking in all of these and using them as nutrients.

What was peculiar was that usually, trees that absorbed negative things in this way became mediums of curses themselves, inducing people around them to commit suicide or spreading misfortune, but this tree simply absorbed those energies purely as nutrients without affecting the outside at all.

“What’s this tree?”

“Um…”

The cinder-covered girl seemed to be choosing her words for a moment.

Seeing that she was contemplating whether it was okay to tell or not, Dorothea snapped her fingers with her right hand wearing a glove.

As the power of the Gloves of Haider was exerted, a gold coin suddenly popped out of thin air and fell onto the girl’s palm.

“I don’t intend to do any harm, and as you’ve just seen, I’ll pay proper compensation, so I’d appreciate it if you answered honestly.”

“W, w-wooooah!”

Although Dorothea spoke rather politely, the girl’s reaction was dramatic.

Dorothea had thought, “Is a gold coin that good?” but the point of excitement for the girl was elsewhere.

“I-it’s real magic! Real! It was real! It’s not a fairy tale! A real witch!”

“Uh, yeah, that’s right.”

Dorothea flinched and took a step back at the sight of the girl seemingly emitting starlight from her eyes.

After dealing with the Tin Knight, who was like a self-propelled Moai statue, Dorothea found it hard to adapt to the sight of a girl reacting so dramatically to each little thing. Although Adelaide still had many pure aspects remaining, she was of a different kind as she was tin-contaminated.

Dorothea thought that if a stranger showed mysterious abilities, shouldn’t one show more wariness, but the girl seemed to feel goodwill just because Dorothea was a mage, and spoke with a much more active attitude than before, “When my mother was younger than me, she got lost in a place called the Forbidden Forest. She said she was almost eaten by a big, smelly green monster living in the forest, but at that time, she received help from a witch living in the forest.”

Dorothea’s body flinched.

Whether knowing this or not, the girl continued her story with an excited air, “The witch took my mother as a servant for a year in exchange for saving her life, making her do household chores and various errands, but on the last day, the errand she gave took quite a long time, so my mother worked for an extra week. When the Witch of the East later realized she had made her work beyond the promised time, she clicked her tongue and said,” the girl cleared her throat, then spoke as if imitating the witch in the story, “「Tsk, I’ve received more than what was set, so I must pay a price for that. I’ll allow you to take any one thing from this house, whatever you like.」”

Dorothea remained silent.

The appearance of the “witch” uttering those words perfectly matched the image of someone she recalled in her mind.

“Mother was torn between choosing a skull staff and a wooden doll with a strange luster, but the witch said this,「The skull staff is an item for yourself. If someone tries to harm you, it will burn that person to ashes with fire.」

“「The wooden doll is an item for your child. When you leave this world someday, it will protect your child from disease and curses.」

“Mother chose the wooden doll. She said the skull staff seemed too scary, but if it were me, I would have chosen the skull staff!”

Dorothea thought.

Is this kid secretly quite radical?

And there was something strange about this.

“Wait, you said it was a wooden doll? But why has it become a tree?”

“Oh, um. You see, most of my personal belongings that look decent are always tras… I mean, my sisters take them away or break them. I buried the wooden doll near my mother’s grave where my sisters never come near, afraid they might take it away or throw it out, but for some reason it turned into a tree. It’s only been three years since I planted this tree, you know? But it’s already this big.

“Moreover, as if the witch’s words were true, I’ve never gotten sick even once until now. Considering I’m living in such a terrible environment, it wouldn’t be strange if I had gotten tuberculosis or skin diseases long ago! Isn’t it amazing!? Well… I wish there were other effects besides not getting sick, though.”

The girl who got excited and deflated on her own, showing extreme emotional swings.

It wasn’t something to be dismissed simply as having rich emotional expressions.

She’s basiaclly appealing to me by saying, “It’s hard, I’m experiencing such misfortune, can’t you help me a bit?”

Although she didn’t openly demand it, the girl’s words and actions were subtly mixed with such expectations.

Dorothea smirked.

She had thought the girl was just stupid and naive, but she had a subtly cunning side.

Of course, she didn’t think that was bad. Compared to living naively like a pushover, the attitude of trying to grasp opportunities somehow was even desirable.

Unlike a certain friend she had met in this kingdom before.

— Dorothea, help me.

Erasing the image of the tiny black-haired girl, who had pleadingly asked for help, from her mind, Dorothea said, “Thank you. I’ve found out everything I needed to know, so I’ll be going now.”

“Huh?”

Bewilderment settled on the girl’s face.

As if this was a different development from what she had expected.

“Didn’t you say you came because you felt mana?”

“And I checked it, didn’t I? It’s not particularly a problematic object, and as you said, it’s a beneficial tree for you. At least as long as you’re near this tree, you won’t get sick and can avoid things like curses. Other people around will also benefit, though not as much as you.”

A person’s appearance was partly innate, but it was also greatly influenced by the environment.

The reason why there were many handsome men and beautiful women among the nobles of this era wasn’t for any special reason.

Unlike commoners who had to endure rough labor to survive day by day, nobles who could eat well, sleep well, bathe in warm water, or apply perfumes had different basic conditions.

However, despite living in quite poor conditions, the cinder-covered girl was exceptionally beautiful.

Without even common skin problems like rashes or eczema.

Even those were absorbed by the tree as “diseases”.

Dorothea took out two more gold coins from thin air and handed them to the girl.

“One for letting me look inside the house, two for telling me about the circumstances of the tree. Doesn’t seem bad as compensation, right?”

In fact, it was beyond not bad, it was an exceptional level of compensation.

Even if the girl did the same intensity of menial work as a maid in another house, the money she could earn in a day wouldn’t even reach one silver coin, let alone a gold coin.

It was just that she wasn’t the “Madam Witch” who conveniently took care of everything without any particular compensation, as the girl had expected.

For Dorothea, who knew well the personality of the witch the girl’s mother had met, she could only laugh wryly.

It seemed that because the item her mother received from the witch only helped her, mixed with the image of fairy tale witches, she had vaguely mistaken it for something benevolent and gullible.

The girl hesitated, seeming to ponder what to say, and Dorothea turned her back as if she had said all she needed to say.

It was when she was about to step out the door.

“—Please!” the cinder-covered girl shouted in a strong voice, “I don’t want to live like this anymore! I’m sick and tired of my stepmother and sisters! I’m willing to do menial work for a year like my mother! So please, help me…”

The last part was almost in a sobbing tone.

Dorothea turned around.

She spoke with a crooked posture, “I don’t know what your wish is specifically, but I don’t do free service, so I’ll receive proper compensation. But I don’t need a maid, and while that tree might be somewhat useful as a magic catalyst, I don’t want to touch it because it might cause unnecessary trouble. Other than that, do you have anything to offer?”

The girl’s face darkened at Dorothea’s words.

She was a girl who couldn’t even have proper personal belongings.

There was no way she had any proper compensation to offer to a witch who casually handed out several gold coins as payment for odd jobs.

But perhaps it was like grasping at straws.

The girl asked for a moment to wait, then ran to the backyard and came back again.

With hands covered in dirt as if she had dug up the ground, the girl held out a small wooden box.

Inside were several copper coins that seemed to have been diligently collected, glass marbles in good shape, and a handkerchief that looked old but of good quality.

She had said she hid the wooden doll near the grave to prevent her sisters from taking it or breaking it, and it seemed she had dug up other items she had hidden besides the wooden doll.

“Would this… would this work somehow?”

Dorothea narrowed her eyes.

To be honest, in her view, most of it was just junk.

To begin with, she had other things to do, and even if proper compensation was paid, it was difficult to grant wishes that took a long time.

Yet, not immediately dismissing it and at least checking whether it was valid as compensation or not was a minimum courtesy towards the girl who had mustered up courage.

It was then that the compass at Dorothea’s waist moved on its own.

The animal compass seemed to contain a small light, and then a golden lizard rushed towards the girl.

“Kyaak?!”

The girl fell backwards in shock, and the contents of the box she was holding scattered on the floor.

The golden lizard, without paying attention to other objects, approached one ring among them and thrust its head forward.

Dorothea muttered blankly, “…The ‘Ring of Dracaena’?”

It was the moment when a new sacred treasure appeared before her, all too conveniently.

***

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