Reborn as a witch in another world [slice of life, isekai] (ch. 91)
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 91. Interlude: A Knight In the Forest
After leaving the train station, Lily and Smokewell headed for a restaurant. Lily had been starving after skipping dinner last night. Cake and pastries were good on the tongue but they were just that. Cake and pastries. Not nearly enough to sate the appetite after a small battle. Especially for someone like Lily whose malice was wrath. It gave her inhuman strength. But it was also draining.
Lily set Smokwell on an adjacent chair at the restaurant and ordered two plates of waffles, a plate of pancakes, eggs and bacon. And she washed it all down with two cups of sweet, creamy tea. The cat watched quietly as the girl feasted on the food.
Smokewell herself didn't care much to eat. She had taken a puff of her pipe, sucking in a soul and a half. It could keep her going for days without food or water, provided that she didn't get into any fights or change from her stray cat form.
“Waiter, can I get more tea, please?” Lily called out. “You know what? Bring over some biscuits as well.”
“Certainly, madam,” the waiter said as he refilled her cup for a third time and rushed off to get her biscuits.
“Feeling better now?” Smokewell said as the girl sipped on her tea.
Lily nodded. “I almost passed out on the way over.” She giggled softly. “But I'm much better now, yes.”
The waiter returned with a plate of biscuits. Lily gave a gracious nod and a smile.
“Have you noticed any changes in Elsa recently?” Smokewell said, lighting up her pipe, not caring about the curious glances from the other diners.
“Nope.” Lily munched on a biscuit.
The cat sighed a small cloud of smoke. “Think harder,” she said.
Lily squinted in thought, her mouth still busy devouring biscuits. “Hmm…I think she has grown prettier. And she is also growing her hair out. It looks really good on her.”
The cat brought a paw to her head. “I meant changes in terms of her abilities.”
“Oh?” Lily swallowed and then took a sip of tea. “I have. She has been quite relentless actually. I've noticed that in her since our little expedition to Noblegate.”
“And that didn't make you think of anything?” Smokewell said. “Elsa is treating her progress much more seriously than you.”
Lily paused, the cup half raised in her hand. “I-I'm also studying,” she said nervously.
“Not as hard as Elsa, though.”
“She is smarter than me.”
“You are stronger than her.”
Lily rolled her lips and put her cup of tea down. She wanted to say something but forming any words certainly seemed difficult from her expression.
That's when the waiter arrived at their table. “Um, madam. The dining area is a no-smoking zone,” he said, gesturing at the cat holding the pipe but unsure about addressing the feline directly.
“My bad,” Smokewell said and covered the tobacco well with an ivory lid. “There. Now don't interrupt us again.” She waved her paw at the waiter.
The waiter pursed his lips, unable to believe what he was seeing and left with a curt nod.
“I've been a bad girl,” Lily said.
“Don't start with that now,” Smokewell said, licking her paw.
The girl shook her head. “You are right. I've let myself go ever since we got that big payment from the angels,” she said. “Everyone is doing their best. You, Miss Elsa, Lenora, even Cynthia and Rowland are working constantly to get the adventurers guild running. I've just been lazing around, trying to spend the money I made.”
“And there is nothing wrong with that,” Smokewell said. “Money was invented so we could spend it. If people didn’t spend it everyday, money wouldn’t be important. But I won't deny that you are getting more comfortable with what you've earned. Once you advance to the Adept echelon, you are going to be more vulnerable to malice illnesses than Elsa. Because your malice is more dangerous. And it’s harder to control. Do you want to turn into a hag someday?”
Lily shook her head. “I…don't know what to do…” she said. “I've been trying to understand what I can do to progress to the Adept echelon. But it feels like grasping at straws.”
“Maybe you are trying to see it from the wrong lens. Wrath is a physical malice,” Smokewell said. “Just because Elsa can learn new and more difficult rituals and enhance her knowledge doesn't mean that you are going to find your answers in the books. Getting another familiar or mixing new potions might give you an upper hand in a fight but that isn't going to develop your malice.”
“Then where am I supposed to look?” Lily said.
“I have something in mind,” Smokewell said. “If this doesn't help you, I don't know if anything can.”
--
“Um, madam, why are we in the forest?” Lily said as they made their way through the woods just outside of Orowen.
“You do know that nearly all the mages in this country are soldiers, right?” Smokewell said.
“No, you never told me that,” Lily said. “And neither did you send us to school.”
“Well, mages are soldiers.” The cat shrugged. “That has been the case since the seven kingdoms of Ravenwind had been fighting each other for complete dominance over the country.”
“Yes, we went to that museum in Noblegate and there were exhibits on the wars and battles that happened.” Lily nodded.
“One of those battles almost destroyed Noblegate itself. The Vargstronds attacked the Copperwall province and were trying to conquer the capital. They were an army of seven hundred mages. The only thing holding them back was an army of two hundred mages from Copperwall. The battle went on for the entire day. And no, those two hundred men didn't win. A hundred and ninety nine of them perished. The reason Copperwall didn't go to the Vargstronds was because they were held back just long enough for the Copperwall to bring in the reinforcement,” Smokewell said as they kept walking.
“What happened to the last remaining soldier?” Lily asked.
“He was never heard from again,” Smokewell said. “His body was never discovered. And though that’s not uncommon, no one was able to track him down either. There were some small rumors that said he was living in Orowen.”
“Oh.” Lily nodded. “So we are going to his place that's hidden in the forest?”
“No.” The cat stopped in the middle of the clearing and the girl stopped with her. “He will find us. Or maybe he already has.”
As soon as Smokewell said that, an axe flew in towards Lily. She grasped it without flinching, the edge of it coming close to an inch from slicing into her face. “Yes, certainly seems like it.”
“Begone,” a man's voice spoke up. “This is not a land for wanderers.”
Lily and the cat looked in the direction of the voice. The man was dressed in red plate armor from head to toe. He had a long sword on his back and several knives on his waist belt.
“So you are indeed alive, Gregory,” Smokewell said. “I don't say this often but I'm glad to see that.”
The man in the armor cocked his head. “Alana, what have you done to yourself?” he said.
“I’ve got myself a better life now. Though I doubt you can say the same for yourself,” she said.
“Go away, Alana,” Gregory said. “I don't spare anyone who comes this far in the forest. You are fortunate that I'm giving you a chance to turn back.”
“You are fortunate I still remember you,” the cat said. “The rest of the world doesn't even know that you were a real person.”
“That is everyone's fate,” Gregory said.
“Isn't that the easiest thing to say?” Smokewell said with a smirk in her voice. “Is that what you tell yourself when you start missing the human world?”
“Okay, wait,” Lily said, spinning the axe between her fingers as if it was a mere stick. “What is going on here? I don't have a clue about how you two know each other. Also is bickering really the most important thing right now?”
“She doesn't know me,” Gregory said.
“My girl is right,” Smokewell said. “Now is not the time to squabble. I came here to take you out of your little cave, Gregory.”
“I'm trying to be cordial,” Gregory said. “Return back, Alana.”
“You come with us like the gentleman that you are. Or my girl is going to drag you by your ankle like a boar she hunted,” the cat said.
“And if I kill her, you will take her corpse with you because you can't take a warning,” Gregory said.
“Make me proud, Lily,” Smokewell said and hopped away.
Gregory didn't wait for Lily to take a proper stance. He zipped forward in a red haze, knives raised in both hands. Lily slammed the flat surface of the axe against the man's head. The impact made an empty clang and the pieces of armor fell to the ground in a heap.
Lily only took a second to frown before she ducked down to dodge the sword swung at her head from behind. She somersaulted back to make some distance between them. Usually Lily wasn't the type to do that. But this man was different. “Enchanted armor. You can control it at will. And you are fast. And sneaky,” she said.
“You think I'm impressed that you can deduce all that?” Gregory said, holding his long sword in a double handed grip.
Before Lily could answer, Gregory had already swung the large sword towards her. She perked up to react but the blow never came. Instead she felt a rough jerk in her hand that was holding the axe. The edge flew in to slice her face again.
The girl gasped, quickly letting go of the weapon and jumping sideways. But Gregory was already swinging his sword at her from the opposite side while the axe was still flying towards her.
She whipped out her summoning card. Opal appeared out of a blast of smoke and flew upwards to draw her out of the striking range of the axe and the swordsman.
The windcleaver carried her to a higher branch of a tree before perching on it.
Gregory snapped his fingers and his armor pieces flew towards him, opening up like bits of paper and wrapping around him in a perfect armor like before.
That was Lily's window. She launched down at the man with a hard push of her feet on the tree and flew at the man like a human cannonball. She drove her wrath enforced fist into his breast plate, sending him flying back several feet.
She raised her fists in a fighter's stance and Opal landed behind her, spreading her large black wings and screeching at the sky as if daring the knight in red to charge at her master. Lily smiled. “You are not the only one who is quick on his feet,” she said.
Gregory stood at least at a distance of two meters. He puffed his chest. The dent that Lily's punch had put in his breastplate restored itself on its own. “Such force in a bare knuckled strike and the nimbleness. Your malice is made of some kind of anger,” he observed aloud.
The smile remained on Lily's face. But her eyes glinted with excitement. “You think I'm impressed that you can deduce all that?”
That statement from Lily was like a gong being struck. Then their fight truly began.
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Posted Jan 5, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC