Reborn as a witch in another world [slice of life, isekai] (ch. 88)
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 88. Snow White, Cinderella and Baba Yaga vs Iron Snakes (part 2)
They were maybe fifty meters away and still on their bikes when they whipped out their guns and began firing.
I grabbed Lily and pulled her back into the hallway. The weird bullets began to storm into the front walls and make the concrete explode and fly. Dust swirled in the air like an ethereal curtain.
“Let me send Opal,” Lily said before closing her eyes to summon the windcleaver mentally.
“Wait,” I said. “We should send Smokewell with her.”
“Where is madam?” Lily said.
“Right here,” the cat said after taking a deep drag of her pipe and her muscles lengthened and bulked up. “Eight souls will last me long enough to reap more.”
I nodded. “Good job. Now go and hop on top of Opal. Do as I had suggested,” I said.
“Alright. And stop giving me orders!” the cat said as she rushed upstairs to go to the balcony where Opal's summoning card was.
Lily closed her eyes and with malice infused in her voice she said, “Eripio.”
I heard a loud, familiar screech from upstairs and flapping of wings. Then the men outside began to scream in awe and horror and pain.
The gunfire stopped for a second. Lily and I rushed at the bay window riddled with holes. Smokewell was riding Opal like a knight charging into war. While the windcleaver seized men with her talons, the large, bulky cat scooped them up with her superhuman strength, snapping their necks while casting spells that snatched their souls simultaneously.
I could see the cloudy white glow of souls that were trying to escape to the spirit realm getting sucked into Smokewell's body, making her more fierce.
“How did so many of them show up all of a sudden?” Lily asked, frowning at the small battle that had erupted in front of the Cuthbert house.
“They were probably standing as reinforcements on further ends of the road and maybe around the block,” I said. “Instructed to interfere if things went out of hand in some way. They were planning on doing something really bad to Cuthbert and his family if he didn't comply.”
The men tried to fire shots at Smokewell and Opal, but the cat moved like a sword in a formidable hand, not letting the men have a chance at bucking her. The rest, Opal picked off with her talons and sharp beak.
“There are still far too many of them,” Lily said, frowning deeper now.
“Let's just end this then,” I said. “I'm getting hungry.” I closed my eyes, connecting myself to the abyss posted in the bottle in the backyard. I commanded it mentally to escape the bottle and grab the metal box which contained the paper doll. Then I commanded the abyss to fly into the battle with the box and drop it in the middle of the little warzone. “Impedirent**,”** I said and the road in front of the house transformed into quicksand. Because activating the legs of the doll does two things–they either render all movement of the target useless or attack with one powerful strike, like stomping a bug. This time the spell had done the former.
The men sank deep into the road that had turned to jelly, flailing around in futility.
Lily shouted a command at Opal to scoop Smokewell off the ground and fly up. The windcleaver complied quickly and I intoned another spell to finish this pathetic battle right away, “Arca.”
The torso of a doll activated the most destructive spell. And it was the only part of the body that didn't have a set limit on the number of kills. Since it expended so much energy, it meant that this was the part of the curse that thirsted for the most number of lives. I'd never used such an attack. I was curious what it would do other than just killing a lot of people.
There was a loud bang that reverberated up and down the neighborhood. A tremor shook the nearby trees and the curtains in the living room and then everything went silent.
I called back the abyss. And Smokewell returned on Opal's back after harvesting the souls of the dead that were now buried and blasted deep under the ground.
Lily and I stood in the silence that sounded like what you hear after a hurricane passes by. We waited. Nothing happened.
“That's it?” Smokewell said, returning back to her regular feline form.
Lily didn't say anything. I paused before saying, “That's it.” I nodded.
Then lights came on in the windows of the neighboring houses, curtains were lifted, families were probably chattering among themselves, wondering what had just transpired. I looked at the motorcycles and guns cluttering the road.
Lily finally spoke up. “Um, who is going to clean all that?”
--
I put all my abysses to cleaning duty. They grabbed all the guns off the roads and bundled them up in a cloth. Opal lifted the motorcycles off the road and hauled them into a large unmarked truck owned by Cuthbert's company. The truck was driven off to his warehouse.
Next I performed the Mending Ritual on the entire house while Lily and Smokewell picked up the bullet casings lying around. The Mending ritual was the opposite of the Dismantling Ritual. The latter destroyed things. The former put broken things back to the way they were. In close to half an hour, the house was spotless. As if there hadn't been a gangwar at all.
We finally called the family back out of the basement. Enola and Eugene moved their gazes around the living room in surprise. “We heard gunshots,” Eugene said.
“And shouting and yelling,” Enola added.
“And explosions!” Little Carla waved her arms in circles to demonstrate the loudness.
“Well, now it doesn't look like any of that happened,” I said, knocking on the walls to show how solid they were.
“A-And the…Iron Snakes?” Cuthbert asked nervously.
“All taken care of,” I said.
“All?” Enola said in surprise.
I looked at Smokewell. “I absorbed thirty two souls,” she said.
“How many people were there in the gang?” I asked Eugene.
“I have no idea,” he said, shaking his head. “I just know that they were growing in numbers quite rapidly.”
“But they were still quite new, weren't they?” Lily asked. “They couldn't have recruited a mini-army.”
“I hope not,” Eugene said, putting a hand on his daughter’s head and wrapping an arm around his wife's shoulder.
“I think there's a good source to confirm the numbers of the gang,” I said, turning my head to look at Inspector Wilkerson who lay in the corner of the living room, unconscious.
Enola gave a small yelp while Carla covered her mouth with her hands, gasping.
“Cinderella,” I said. “Lock the Inspector and that Constable in the basement for now and make sure you bind them to something solid and gag them, so they won't be able to escape or make a fuss.”
While Lily went about doing that, I turned back to the Cuthberts. “Well why are we standing around now? Our dinner was interrupted by those guys, wasn’t it? We should get back to it. I’m starving.”
--
Although we had fixed the house, the food on the dining table was now riddled with bits of plaster and wood splinters. So Enola served us the cakes and pastries we had brought for everyone and made some tea.
“I'm really grateful for what you've done for us,” Eugene said. “It was a matter of my family's safety. I'm ready to pay any amount you want.”
I caught an excited glint in Smokewell and Lily's eyes at Eugene's statement. I held back a grin and said, “My friends and I aren't really scrambling for money, you see?” Which was true. There were at least two million steambolts in each of our bank accounts. (However, Smokewell kept hers in a wooden chest in the room). “I personally believe loyalty is a much more valuable commodity. Can you offer me that, Mr. Cuthbert?”
Cuthbert frowned. “Loyalty?”
“Yes, since I helped you out of your problem, you can help me out of mine. And if you have another problem similar to the one I just solved, you can call upon our help again,” I said. “I'm proposing a business partnership where we all win in one way or another, Mr. Cuthbert.”
“What kind of business are we talking about here?” The man leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin. “And what exactly will be my job in this business?” he said.
“It's a business not much different from what I helped you with,” I said. “Only this time, it's going to be on a much larger scale. And there are millions of steambolts to earn from it. For each of us.”
Eugene took a cautious pause before speaking. “Miss Snow White I'm a businessman and when I hear the kind of offer which makes it sound like I won't have to do enough work and still make millions in the process, I see red flags waving in front of me. What you are suggesting sounds too good to be true.”
“You certainly won't be earning millions for doing nothing,” I said. “And there are a few risks in it. I won't go into those details here. Because I want to involve a few other people in it. And I want to address them all together.”
“Who are these people going to be?” Eugene asked.
“That's where your job begins,” I said. “I want you and Sydny Canning to bring your other wealthy friends. Friends who are in need of help like you were. People who will need someone like me and my friends.”
Eugene nodded slowly. “So you want me and my contacts to invest in your venture in exchange for your help,” he said. “And you want people like me who couldn't hope for the law to help them out. And you are suggesting there are millions to reap while not telling exactly what the business is going to be. Miss Snow White, are we going to be doing something against the law?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Just like I had to do what the law forbids to help keep you and your family safe. Mr. Cuthbert, we are witches. Our talents are considered dangerous in this country even if we don't intend to harm anyone. And being open and honest about my ambitions can get me and my friends in trouble with the law. That's why I prefer secrecy, even if my motivations are clean. So, yes, we will be breaking the law. But would we be hurting innocent people? No. Not even as a consequence of our actions.”
“I don't doubt you, Miss White,” he said. “Sydny told me about your friend who caught the monster that murdered his daughter. And now I've seen for myself how capable you and your friends are. It's just that some of my other friends that you'd like to meet might be more skeptical in working with you.”
“Let us be the ones worrying about convincing them. I only want you to show me your loyalty and bring those people for a meeting where I'll talk about my business in more detail,” I said. “Make sure you and Mr. Canning tell them how we dealt with your problems.”
Eugene thought about it for a moment before saying, “I will make sure.”
I nodded. That's when I heard the voice of an abyss in my head. It was the one I'd put in the basement before we sat down for tea. It said, “Master, the two policemen have gained consciousness.”
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Posted Dec 26, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC