Rapunzel thought there were three turning points in her life.

The first was when she was sold by her parents because the family had no money.

Her brother screamed that it shouldn’t happen, but he couldn’t change the minds of their parents, who had already considered Rapunzel an “unsettling” child, especially with the family’s financial situation worsened by a bad harvest.

The reason Rapunzel was disliked by her parents was simple.

Rapunzel’s hair grew quickly.

No, beyond simply growing fast, her hair grew at a speed that could be described with modifiers such as “extremely” or “abnormally”.

It took less than a week for her bob-length hair to reach her knees.

It was an abnormality that couldn’t be dismissed as just a unique constitution, and it was enough  for her parents to consider their child not as their own flesh and blood, but as a monster or something cursed.

Three silver coins.

It was quite an exceptional price for a young girl who hadn’t properly learned anything and wasn’t much help with physical labor.

It was an era when people were even sold in fairy tales.

However, this trait didn’t only bring misfortune to Rapunzel.

The merchant who bought Rapunzel regularly cut her hair to make and sell wigs, and they were quite popular.

Thanks to this, while other slaves were frequently beaten and starved for not working properly, she could avoid such treatment.

The reason was that it would be troublesome if Rapunzel’s body was harmed and her “product value” decreased.

Apart from receiving jealous ostracism from other slaves, her slave life was relatively comfortable. At least in the sense that she didn’t have to worry about food.

The second turning point was when Rapunzel’s brother came to find her.

To be honest, Rapunzel didn’t recognize her brother right away.

Her brother, who was already quite older than her, looked seriously emaciated when they met again. It was enough to make one suspect if he had been working in some toxic mine.

At first, the merchant refused to give up Rapunzel, but after having several “conversations” with her brother, he changed like a gentle lamb and let Rapunzel go.

When Rapunzel asked if they were going back home, her brother just shook his head silently.

She couldn’t hear a single word about what happened to their other siblings and parents. She could only guess from his dark expression.

The life with her brother, which had continued for several years, came to an abrupt end on a rainy day.

One day, he disappeared leaving only a brief note saying he’d have difficulty showing his face for a while, Rapunzel couldn’t help but feel inwardly dumbfounded.

It made her wonder if this was why he had taught her to read and write.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t guess the reason.

Although he always tried not to show it in front of Rapunzel, if she couldn’t sense something strange from the strong smell of blood occasionally emanating from her brother’s body and his frequent outings, that would truly be having eyes like knotholes.

As if the person himself had given up on hiding his identity later, he even openly sent various items through undead.

While she could tolerate the money pouches, she really wanted to punch his face for the sensibility of sending food through corpses.

Life alone in a remote forest was quite challenging, but also somewhat peaceful in its own way.

Thanks to her damn brother’s help, she wasn’t financially strapped, and Rapunzel herself was somewhat accustomed to rough work due to her upbringing.

If the third turning point hadn’t come, she might have been able to live a peaceful life like that.

— There’s a witch! An evil witch living in the forest!

— I clearly saw dead animals bringing gold and silver treasures to that witch! Where do you think those treasures came from? She must have harmed others and stolen them!

— The wild beasts in the forest becoming violent must be because of the witch’s curse!

— Actually, the witch is a monster that has lived for over hundreds of years, maintaining her current beauty by sucking the vitality of young maidens!

— There’s a large spinning wheel in the witch’s house, and she turns straw into golden thread by spinning it! If this isn’t magic, what else could it be!?

Rapunzel was dumbfounded.

Up to using corpses to gather wealth, she could somewhat understand.

Given her brother’s profession, she never thought this money was particularly clean to begin with.

In the same context, she could even accept the accusation of “harming others and stealing money”.

Although she doubted whether the eyewitness accounts were true, she had received money more than once or twice, so it made sense if one of those instances had been witnessed.

But that was as far as she would acknowledge.

Freely handling wild beasts? If she had such ability, she wouldn’t need to practice self-defense every day.

A monster that had lived for hundreds of years, sucking the essence of virgins? Why should she hear such things when she wasn’t even twenty years old yet?

When it came to the rumor about turning straw into gold, she was so flabbergasted she couldn’t even speak.

This hair that grew vigorously every day. It was awkward to sell it as wigs like before, and it was tiring to throw it away somewhere every day, so she had been piling it up appropriately, but it seemed this had been strangely distorted.

She earnestly argued that she was neither an evil witch nor a necromancer handling corpses, but people wouldn’t listen.

At this rate, it seemed like she might be tied to a stake and burned at any moment.

Rapunzel thought about a bold escape, but the lord’s wife shielded her.

— I simply cannot think of her as an evil witch.

— I will take her as my adopted daughter and prove this.

At the words of the lord’s wife, known for her wisdom and benevolence, people put down the farm tools they had raised high. Rapunzel also loosened the fist she had been secretly clenching.

She shouldn’t have done that.

The price of letting her guard down was terrible, and what awaited Rapunzel was not a warm and dignified life as a young lady, but a cold prison.

In front of a prison she couldn’t escape no matter how hard she tried, she became completely helpless.

It was right then, as she was feeling dejected thinking about her gloomy future, that a bone mouse appeared before Rapunzel’s eyes, one that clearly looked like “Ah, this must be a creation of an evil necromancer!”

With unparalleled joy and anger towards the culprit of this situation.

Amidst these two emotions, Rapunzel let out a roar towards her enemy-like brother…

***

“…So that’s what happened, and I misunderstood. I’m truly sorry.”

Thud.

The image of the girl apologizing, not just bowing her head but almost prostrating herself on the floor, was reflected through the water mirror.

At first, the girl had been raising her voice while literally shaking the mouse, but soon after regaining her composure and learning that the one who sent the bone mouse was not her brother but someone else, she showed a dramatic change in attitude.

It was a great fortune.

In the sense that the sacrifice of the mouse, which had to consume about half of its body as bone chalk to explain the situation, was not in vain.

Additionally, the fact that her brother was already in the other world was still a secret.

The amount of chalk to convey Dorothea’s side’s intentions was limited, and it would have been troublesome if the shocked girl had stammered and wasted time.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if witches aren’t basically strong!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ wonders why the villagers are so reckless, what if they tried witch hunting and got the reverse instead!]

To the Tin Knight’s questions, Dorothea snorted.

“Not all witches have abilities like the Four Great Witches, and ordinary people can’t accurately know how strong witches are. Actually, that perception isn’t so wrong. You remember that bandit leader who kidnapped Adel using sword energy?”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says he remembers the guy also used curved energy!]

“Where do you think a bandit like that properly learned martial arts or mana cultivation methods? He probably obtained fragmented knowledge from somewhere or just figured it out by intuition.”

Dorothea explained that mages were the same.

“It’s not just formally trained mages under masters, there are quite a few cases where someone born with mana by chance learned one family spell, or learned one magic from a strange book and uses it day and night. Even that looks like an excellent mage to ordinary people.”

Therefore, the perception of mages in the world varied greatly depending on the region.

There were places where stories of respected and loved mages were passed down, places where people trembled at just hearing the name out of endless fear, and places where they were treated as beings so stupid they could be easily fooled by a child’s trick, and so flimsy they could easily die just by being pushed into a fireplace.

“The perception of witches in this region is probably like this. ‘Unpleasant and detestable, but beings that need to be struck first and eliminated rather than trembled in fear.’”

After grumbling that this was worse in rural areas than in big cities, she moved her familiar.

The skeleton mouse familiar used its own body as chalk to write new words.

It was fortunate that Rapunzel could read.

You want out?

The girl beyond the water mirror answered, “Yes, please! I don’t want to be trapped in here anymore!”

Come down as you are. We’ll take the guards in front of tower. First, we open door. Hold mouse in hand, and towards doorkn

“W-wait a moment. In front of the tower? Then what about the guards inside the tower?”

Dorothea’s eyebrows furrowed.

Inside? Nothing but you inside?

“I’ve tried breaking the door and coming out several times.”

As Rapunzel raised her hand, mana rippled from her hand. It was something that could be called sword energy, no, hand energy or fist energy.

The party recalled Rapunzel’s earlier explanation that she had “practiced self-defense”.

“But, every time I was going down, I was caught by strange guys and always brought back here.”

What mean by strange guys?

“I’m not sure. They’re wearing something like armor, but the parts where skin should be are like black mud…”

Dorothea thought for a moment and then answered.

Alright, we’ll come, you wait. If have energy, share mana with mice.

After confirming that Rapunzel nodded, Dorothea said to Adelaide, “Adel, do you still have that mask you used when you were running wild in Justitia last time? The one that makes people’s perception of you ambiguous.”

“Yes.”

“If you use that together with this gem, anyone who’s not quite skilled won’t know your identity. Go open the door and climb the tower.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

Adelaide nodded with a determined expression.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks what he should do!]

“Stand by. There’s no guarantee we won’t be attacked if the situation goes wrong.”

After the role assignments were finished, actions were swift.

Adelaide put on the mask, and holding the gem to her chest, sprinted towards the tower.

“Who goes there!? Stop right—guhk!”

The guards guarding the tower tried to stop her, but unless they were knights who could handle mana, ordinary soldiers were no match for her.

After knocking out the soldiers and cutting through the heavy door of the tower in one go, Adelaide climbed the tower stairs.

Earnestly recalling the number of floors the mouse had climbed, just as she entered the second floor—a blurry shadow appeared before her eyes.

Adelaide reflexively swung her sword and.

Soon after, she had to desperately stop it.

Swish.

The sword, following its owner’s will by a hair’s breadth, stopped after cutting only a few strands of hair.

“Huh?”

And a girl in loose-fitting pajamas made a dumbfounded sound seeing the sword thrust in front of her face.

Her expression, the atmosphere ingrained in her body, nothing was out of the ordinary range of a normal person.

Adelaide looked around.

Three or four rooms. Girls who had been wandering around defenseless, now frozen at the sight of the sudden intruder.

If one gathered girls for group living and they were just getting ready for bed, wouldn’t it look something like this?

The desolation and barrenness that the mice had observed while climbing up did not exist there.

In the room where Dorothea was, the girl in the water mirror asked anxiously, “Um, is it not time yet? How much longer do I have to wait?”

***

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