Reborn as a witch in another world [slice of life, isekai] (ch. 82)
Blurb:
What does it take to turn your life around? Death, of course!
I died in this lame ass world of ours and woke up in a completely new one. I had a new name, a new face and a new body. This was my second chance to live a better life than the previous one.
But goddamn it, why did I have to be a witch? Now I don't just have to be on the run from the Inquisition that wants to burn me and my friends. But I also have to earn a living?
Follow Elsa Grimly as she:
- Makes new friends and tries to save them and herself from getting burned
- Finds redemption from the deeds of her previous life
- Tries to get along with a cat who (like most cats) believes she runs the world
- Deals with other slice of life shenanigans.
--
Chapter 82. Interlude: Children of Malice
“Malice…in my bones?” Lenora said as she swept up the blue ash into a dust pan.
“Indeed,” Smokewell said, lounging on Lily's bed leisurely while the woman cleaned up the mess left behind. “What we just did was the Pentacle Burning ritual. We do it to determine whether or not a person has malice in them. Candidates who aren't even at Initiate echelon don't know how to use their malice. So we provoke them into anger. The pentacle drawn by a charcoal chalk catches fire easily when the person at the center of the five pointed star gets angry. If the ash left behind after the burning is green, then it means the anger was regular--not malice infused. If the ash turns blue–”
“Then it means the candidate has malice,” Lenora said, clearing up the last bits of blue ash off the floor.
“Precisely.” The cat nodded.
Lenora stood there in the middle of a, now spotless, room. She turned to look at the feline sprawled carelessly on the bed. With a grave look on her face, Lenora asked, “Does this mean…I'm a witch?”
The cat regarded her with a serious expression before saying, “No.”
--
The two of them returned downstairs and into the backyard. The big lot of land was still empty and without any flowers or trees. The lone house on the slight incline owned by their landlord was the only thing breaking their view of the horizon.
The woman and the cat settled on the steps outside the kitchen door. Smokewell had pulled out her ivory pipe and lit it as she began to talk. “Whether or not a woman can become a witch is decided right when she is born.”
“So it's her destiny?” Lenora asked.
“Destiny is a pretty word for it.” The cat took a drag of her pipe. “You see, before the Steam Elemental arrived, society functioned on something called ‘trade by blood’. It's a fancy way of describing a simple thing–a butcher's son is born to be a butcher. A baker's son will only become a baker. A seamstress’s daughter will only become a seamstress and so on. I don’t think that someone becoming a baker or a butcher is a call of destiny. And I don't think a woman becoming a witch is any different than her becoming a seamstress. It's just a job. But in a world where a person's trade was determined by who they were born to, you can imagine what people thought when they saw a witch walking around.”
Lenora looked at the bare soil in front of her. “That she was born to be a witch.”
“And the thought following that was that she was a bringer of misfortune,” Smokewell said. “In a way, they weren't really wrong. As I was saying, babies are born with the potential of malice. And though non-users have no way of knowing that, signs start showing eventually.”
“Signs?”
The cat nodded. “Signs of a child not being like the other children. A person is born with the potential of malice. That potential is unleashed when something bad happens in that person's life early on. But malice only starts to develop when the person starts practicing certain specific things to deal with the bad things that happened to them.”
Lenora frowned. “I don't get it.” She looked at the cat. “Are you saying that a person needs to suffer in order to develop their malice?”
The cat blew a cloud of smoke. “No, a person needs to deal with their suffering in order to shape the nature of their malice.”
“Wait.” The woman raised a finger. “So if my father died and that affected me deeply and I started to sew to distract myself from my misery, my malice is going to become something…that helps me sew better?”
“Close enough.” Smokewell gave a single nod. “If sewing regularly keeps you from mourning constantly for your father, then your malice might develop and enhance your focus, eyesight or precision. Really depends on which part of sewing consistently keeps you from slipping into grief and sadness. Sewing allows you to not let that malice affect you more. A person with malice who is also dealing with problems can suffer more than someone without malice.”
“And what role does witchcraft play in all of this?” Lenora asked.
“Witchcraft gives you tools to enhance your malice even more.” The cat shrugged. “Taking your sewing example further, you can craft rituals around the act of sewing. Or you can stitch malice infused clothes or even forge special needles for special tasks or make dyes that enhance attributes of clothes or something like that. Or you can mix a ritual along with specially crafted items. A person's malice can really be anything. It can be harmless on the surface but still be something downright dangerous.”
Silence swept over the two of them after the cat was done talking. Lenora watched the clouds of tobacco swirl in the air above their heads as she asked, “Why did you do it? What do you expect me to do with this information? What do you expect me to do with my malice?”
“I don't think you can do much with your malice right now,” the cat said before taking another drag. “Also, we don't know exactly what your malice is. Right now you just know that you have it in you. It is up to you whether or not you want to become a witch.”
Lenora looked at her hands ponderously. “What if I…don't become a witch?”
“Then you'll have to live with the curse of malice, go away and join a coven where they’ll make you perform dark rituals to unleash your true potential.” The cat waved her ivory pipe around as she spoke in a faux-ominous tone.
Lenora squealed in fear.
Smokewell laughed. “That's what the non-users would've told you. The best thing about witchcraft is that it gives the woman a chance to decide whether she wants to use the malice within her for something more than just the daily chores.”
“So, nothing bad will happen to me if I don't use my malice for witchcraft right?” Lenora asked nervously.
“No, as I said, right now you just have it in you. You haven't done anything to develop it and start advancing up the witchcraft echelons.” Smokewell made a ring from the smoke she had dragged.
Lenora tapped her chin. “And what happens once I start practicing witchcraft?”
The cat said nothing for a minute. Then she looked Lenora in the eyes. “We'll talk about it when you decide to do it or pass up the chance for sure.” Then she stood up on her hind legs and walked back into the house, still smoking from her pipe.
“Wait,” Lenora said as she scrambled up to her own feet. “Shouldn't I know the dangers of practicing witchcraft before I decide to do it? I'm not just talking about the dangers like being someone who the Inquisition might arrest but the dangers that come with the act of performing the art itself.”
The cat paused in her steps. “If you want to do it, you will do it. You think Elsa and Lily aren't scared of dark magic? You think it doesn't make them anxious that they might take one wrong step in witchcraft and lose everything? Witchcraft isn't an art, it's a discipline. It lets you live a better life with the darkness within you. And it comes with its own costs. If you feel too afraid of paying those costs then maybe witchcraft isn't for you.”
--
Lenora finished her remaining breakfast and did the dishes. Next she put out the laundry to dry and then she left the house to go buy groceries.
Her conversation with Smokewell had already crawled to the back of her mind and huddled into a quiet corner, not interrupting her other thoughts. Now she was busy thinking of what to cook for lunch. She would have to get to it right after she returned home. Elsa and Lily could get back from their little expedition any moment. They would be hungry. She wondered if she had changed the sheets in their rooms. She would have to check that too.
She boarded the tram to Orowen and decided to walk the rest of the way to the market. On her way she helped an old lady cross the street. Then she spared some change to a couple of homeless men staring into the bustling street as if they intended to jump in front of a carriage at the right moment. The clink of firebolts falling in their paper bags distracted them from their grim reveries. A couple of them bowed their heads in gratitude as the kind woman passed them by.
At the market, she first visited a butcher to get steaks for Lily. The girl loved to have steaks for any meal of the day. She would be so happy to have a nice steak waiting for her after returning from her two-day trip to wherever they had been to.
She wondered what she should get for Elsa. The girl wasn't a demanding eater at all. But Lenora was sure she would appreciate something nice after returning home. So she headed to the bakery and bought scones and honeydrop buns.
Then she took the carriage back to the tram station. But she had to halt halfway on her commute when something caught her eye.
She hastily climbed out of the carriage and rushed up to the edge of the street where a throng of people was gathering up as if a very efficient snake oil seller had been hailing his wares. But it wasn't about any snake oil. Nor was it anything as harmless as a fake hair growth potion or virility elixir. This was the kind of crowd that gathered around a carriage accident and stared at the dying people rather than do anything to help.
Lenora made her way through the wall of people blocking the clear view of the destruction laid before them. Her breath kept trembling until she was at the very front.
She didn't want to believe it. But it's hard to not believe in something that is right in front of your eyes. And in front of Lenora's eyes was the Radcliff mansion, lying in a pile of shattered stone and bricks and bent steel. And close by was a crater in the ground that the Internal Police was investigating, along with a bunch of women in dark dresses and pointy hats who walked around with their brooms in one hand and they all wore dark blindfolds for some reason. Lenora remembered her ex husband talking about the local coven that used to help the Internal Police with the investigations every once in a while. The Blind Oracle coven.
But despite all of that, there was another thing on the Radcliff estate that had captivated people's attention a lot more than the destroyed house or the crater in the ground or the blindfolded witches.
The thing had appendages sticking out of its back like spider legs and its torso was blue and bloated and crystalline. Lenora couldn't see the dead creature's head because it was on the opposite side of the onlookers and blocked by the dome-like stomach of the beast.
Lenora felt her chest tighten. She whimpered. Her eyes were tearing up at the memory of her two rich friends. “Cynthia…Rowland…”
“Hi, Lenora,” two voices said in unison.
It was the Radcliff siblings. Lenora started at the sight of them. “Y-You are alive!” She jabbed a finger at them.
“Of course we are,” Cynthia said. “We were touring the Copperwall province to look for property for our business. Remember?”
“We arrived back in Orowen just a few minutes ago,” Rowland added.
“Why is there such a crowd outside our home?” Cynthia said.
“Yes, I haven't even drawn any shady loans recently,” Rowland added. “So who are they?”
Lenora lifted a shivering finger to point at the desolate mansion.
The siblings turned to look at the destruction as if they were noticing it just now. Rowland was the first one to go slack jawed. Cynthia just pursed her lips and said, “Well, shit.”
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Posted Nov 18, 2025, 3:30 AM UTC