Home/The Reason I Was Reincarnated as a Witch in a Novel/ch 3

Chapter 003

Lindsay soon realized it would be a pointless effort and shook her head.

"Forget it. If he notices a gap in his memory, that'll be even more troublesome."

[If we overwrite it with different memories, he'd be hard-pressed to notice the blank.]

"Lionel would be highly likely to notice. Rather than doing something unnecessary, it's faster to just let him tire himself out and give up on his own."

Lionel wasn't the second male lead of the novel for nothing. Though not many existed, he was the master of the Magic Tower that every mage aspired to enter in this Golden Age of Magic—enough to have established an academy for mages. His vast mana reserves, delicate mana control, and every other element that composed him made him the greatest mage. If such a man helped her, things would become much easier...

But for now, she lacked the evidence to persuade him. Pushing aside her regret, Lindsay set the cat down on the floor. To begin cooking in earnest, she pulled out a bottle containing a dark red substance from the pantry. The cat's pupils dilated sharply at the sight of the bottle she held.

[Surely... you're not about to make that, are you?]

"What's 'that'?"

[Tteokbokki.]

The cat's whiskers trembled as it answered, and Lindsay's eyes went round.

"You can tell just by looking at the ingredients now?"

[Other food... Let's eat something else, please.]

The cat glanced at the gochujang bottle in Lindsay's hand, then turned its head away in refusal. For Lindsay, who remembered the cat praising tteokbokki as delicious, this reaction was quite baffling.

"What's wrong? You love tteokbokki."

[...I did love it. Until you started adding spicy seasonings.]

Ah. So he can't handle spicy food.

After a hundred years, Lindsay finally realized that Nero couldn't eat spicy food.

It had been odd, in hindsight. Around the time she began recalling her past life and making Korean dishes with various spices, Nero's appetite had grown picky. That it was because he couldn't handle spice...

Filled with belated guilt, Lindsay put the gochujang made from hot peppers back into the pantry. She muttered in an embarrassed tone.

"Well... if it was too spicy, you should have said something."

[How was I supposed to say anything while eating it in tears?]

At Nero's flat reply, Lindsay scratched her head and changed the dinner menu.

She poured water into a pot and lit the stove, powered by a mana stone. The mana stone glowed, flames rose on the burner, and the aluminum pot was placed atop it.

"Let's have kalguksu. Anchovy kalguksu."

[Good, meow.]

The cat settled comfortably on the floor, and Lindsay quickly cleaned the anchovies and dropped them into the pot. Soon the water bubbled and boiled, and the anchovies drifted among the foam.

While the broth simmered, Lindsay took out the dough she had prepared earlier and rolled it out with a round, long wooden rolling pin. As her hands moved mechanically, she asked Nero:

"Nero, it'll take about twenty minutes to finish. Could you make a quick trip to the Demon Realm in the meantime?"

[Why all of a sudden? You just restocked ingredients not long ago.]

The cat asked, puzzled. It hadn't been long since Lindsay had sent him to the Demon Realm to gather potion ingredients.

"I need some materials urgently."

As she answered, Lindsay folded the wide, flat dough three times, then cut it neatly with a knife. The dough quickly transformed into kalguksu noodles.

[What do you need, meow?]

"Sulfur-Hell Duck's webbed feet and Hellweed."

The cat, who knew exactly what potions used Sulfur-Hell Duck's webbed feet and Hellweed as ingredients, narrowed its eyes and stared at Lindsay.

His contractor had an unusual birth among witches. Unlike humans born from a mother's womb, witches were born from the fruit of the laurel tree. They formed their vessels within the fruit, and upon receiving mana through resonance with moonlight, they emerged. At that moment, the amount of mana a witch would use for life was determined—and his contractor was a witch born on the new moon.

Since no moon rose that night, naturally there was no moonlight, and Lindsay, who could not resonate with it, became an unfortunate witch without mana.

But Lindsay did not give up and tried all sorts of methods to obtain mana. One of those was a mana-enhancing potion made with Sulfur-Hell Duck's webbed feet and Hellweed.

[A mana-enhancing potion? Why? It's useless to you.]

However, mana-enhancing potions increased the mana a user already possessed; they did not create mana from nothing. For Lindsay, who had no mana at all, it was utterly useless.

"I think I'll have a use for it."

[Think?]

The cat latched onto Lindsay's trailing words. At his persistent attitude, Lindsay shot him a light glare.

"Nero, you're being awfully persistent today?"

[If you want the ingredients, just say so.]

As if you weren't going to fetch them anyway, despite all your grumbling.

Lindsay had been with Nero for over a century now. Having spent so many years together, she knew well how soft-hearted this cat who pretended to be difficult truly was. A high-ranking demon wouldn't have made a contract with a mana-less witch for no reason.

"I plan to put them on the black market."

[Suspicious, don't you think?]

Unnecessarily sharp.

Even her words mixed with a convenient truth didn't sway Nero, so Lindsay chose her final resort.

"Well, if it can't be done, I suppose it can't be helped... I'm sure the mana-enhancing potion would sell for a good price... I just wanted to contribute to our household finances..."

At her wheedling voice, the cat flicked its ear with its hind leg. Moved by the emotional appeal, the cat rose from its spot.

[...What a bother, meow.]

A black spot appeared on the floor where the cat had lightly landed, and it began to trace a shape. Six black lines emerged, and a hexagram was completed.

[Set the anchovies from the broth aside, meow.]

Black smoke rose from the hexagram, and the cat vanished in an instant.

Following Nero's instructions, Lindsay scooped the anchovies out of the pot and gathered them in a small bowl.

After straining the broth and refilling the pot with fresh water, she popped one of the steaming anchovies into her mouth—then spat it out with a ptui. Her face twisted in an ambiguous expression.

"Am I acquiring a cat's palate?"

Well, having spent a hundred years in a cat's form, he's practically a cat.

Having understood Nero in her own way, Lindsay prepared the garnish for the kalguksu. She sautéed zucchini in a frying pan, made egg crepes, and julienned green onions into long strips.

After finishing all the ingredient prep except for boiling the noodles, Lindsay magically tidied the messy kitchen.

The cutting board and knife she had used rose into the air and moved toward the basin. Water streamed down from the air, filling the basin. A clump of foaming tree bark moved left and right, scrubbing the used utensils clean.

Is this what 'watching water' feels like?

Watching the dishes wash themselves in a daze, Lindsay felt that the dissonance between her past life and present life had finally begun to fade.

A month ago, while living just fine, the memories of her previous life had suddenly surfaced. And it hadn't taken her long to realize that the world she had been reborn into was that of a novel she had read before her death.

After all, the empire's name and the noble houses from the novel were all right there, exactly as described.

Coincidentally, the timing of her past-life memories returning coincided with the novel's starting point, so she had briefly left her 'home' and settled in the capital of the Roman Empire, where the story unfolded.

There were two reasons she had established herself in the empire where the protagonists' love would blossom.

To confirm that this was indeed the world of the novel.

And if it truly was... to save the humans who would die in an unexpected calamity.

Though her memories weren't perfectly aligned, Lionel had indeed suffered from mana corruption, just as in the novel. That fact gave Lindsay certainty.

So this really is the world of that novel.

Recalling the novel's ending—unconventional for a romance—Lindsay let out a deep sigh.

She should have gotten off early, when the second male lead Lionel was rejected by the heroine and died suddenly. If she had, perhaps she wouldn't have been born into this world at all.

Lindsay roughly raked her hair and muttered:

"First, I'll save the heroine..."

Let me start by saving the heroine, who should have picked up Lionel after his mana-runaway collapse and escaped her short-lived fate.

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