Whose youth romance story begins with a witch's trial?!

Enveloped in an overly beautiful dream, all of this ironically made Hannah Tohno finally remember her true self before arriving at Witch Island. She came to loathe that version of herself, completely at odds with the ideals of 'shoujo manga'.

She wasn't some rich girl, and she had no right to take Chang Rong's gentleness for granted.

It all started when she found a shoujo manga in a garbage dump—the protagonist in that manga was so dazzling that Hannah Tono was involuntarily drawn to it and inevitably became involved in it.

If I were that protagonist... if I were that carefree young lady who only wanted to pursue love... how wonderful that would be.

At that time, she had nothing but her younger sister, who was also abandoned by their mother and was still an infant, and the [magic] that allowed her to float slightly.

For Hannah Tono, simply surviving was already an incredibly difficult task.

Before finding that manga, Hannah Tohno always felt that her levitation magic was meaningless. But after seeing the dreamlike experiences of the rich girl in the manga, Hannah Tohno realized that the magic she possessed was the 'qualification' to one day fly freely and become a heroine.

So Hannah Tohno kept trying to improve her magic, spending all the time she should have been using to take care of her younger sister on it, and was completely unaware that her sister had a fever.

In the end, by the time she realized something was wrong with her sister, it was too late. She didn't even have the money for a taxi to take her sister to the hospital.

Hannah Tono neither became a rich heiress nor was she able to soar freely in the sky. The only thing she did was abandon her younger sister, just as her mother had abandoned her.

Hannah Tono, who has never been embraced by her mother, can no longer embrace her younger sister either. This act is like a curse, mocking her ugly state of being trapped in a dream of being a pampered young lady and unwilling to wake up.

"I thought that if I were on this witch's island where no one knew me, I might be able to really pretend to be a young lady, but a fake is a fake, and no matter how you try to hide it, it won't change... I can't accept being hugged, and I'm fed up with this kind of low-class pretense—Ugh!?"

As Tono Hannah whispered to Chang Rong with her back to him, she was suddenly hugged from behind again.

"What...what are you doing, Chang Rong...!?"

"Still not used to it?"

"Adapt to...adapt to what—" Tono Hannah struggled to break free from his embrace, but the white-haired boy who usually got half-killed by Hiro whenever they met, and whose fighting power was even less than 0.5 Emma's, was now motionless, holding her tightly in his arms.

"I told you no, stop hugging me...! Ugh!?"

brake!

Hannah Tono's levitation magic activated uncontrollably, and she carried Chang Rong, who was hugging her, directly into the air through the skylight of the sunroom.

The two were instantly plunged into the boundless blue sky, with the flower fields and rainbows behind the castle in full view, and even the azure horizon could be seen through the wall.

"I will stay with you like this until you get used to it, Miss! I will not leave, nor will I let you run away!" Chang Rong still held Tono Hannah tightly. He was not afraid of Hannah's magic going berserk. His tone was still firm, as if he were stating an ordinary fact.

"What... This is so inexplicable... Why would they do this..."

Hannah Tono's struggles gradually subsided, and the violent fluctuations slowly stabilized.

The glaring sunlight made it hard for her to open her eyes for a moment; she could only feel the warmth coming from behind her.

"I can't compensate you with that 'Bitcoin'...?" "That's okay."

"Clearly, clearly I'm just someone who only indulges in fantasies..." "The world of illusion isn't so bad after all."

"I'm just a pretentious guy who's actually cowardly and fragile..." "Isn't that why we need knights?"

"Then...in that case...you have to promise me, you absolutely, absolutely won't abandon me...!" "Mmm."

In mid-air, everything was eerily quiet. She could only hear her own heartbeat and the boy's calm promise behind her.

Finally, she took the initiative to hold onto the hands that were hugging her from behind, and slowly descended back into the sunroom.

After stepping back onto the floor, Tono Hannah took a breath. This time, she mustered her courage, turned around, and wanted to kiss her "knight" with her own will, without any 'fantasy' mixed in. However—

"Waaaaah, I thought I was going to die! 100 points, 100 points in every sense of the word! Such emotional turmoil! ^q^...!"

Chang Rong lay sprawled on the chair, her legs spinning uncontrollably like noodles.

"Um, yes, I'm sorry Chang Rong... Normally, my magic shouldn't be able to float that high..."

Even Hannah Tono, who had never been in a relationship, knew very well that the post-bungee jump experience was generally not a good time to say anything romantic.

"No, no, no... As expected, the concentration of the witch factor is related to emotional fluctuations... So there's no need to score this time—whoa!"

Chang Rong shakily took out her notebook, but before she could organize it, Tono Hannah, who had been incredibly curious, snatched it away.

"50 points, 60 points... What, what is this?"

Tono Hannah was stunned for a moment. The various numbers on the notebook seemed to be scoring and evaluating their 'date'.

"Um, well, saying it's my QQ number probably won't work, haha..." Chang Rong, who had just returned from a reverse bungee jump, swallowed hard, thinking about how to answer.

"...You know what, Chang Rong? I can wrap a few strands of your hair around yourself and then let you do Thomas Flair with me in the air while riding a drop tower, okay?"

"Hey!?"

Faced with Tono Hannah, who was gradually developing ways to use magic, Chang Rong begged for mercy at lightning speed.

"Um... actually I was testing the correlation between the concentration of witch factor and the emotional fluctuations of prospective witches..."

Chang Rong, who didn't want to be a citizen of the motherland, could only answer honestly.

"The concentration of the witch factor...? Why did you suddenly test this kind of thing, you stupid knight?" Tono Hannah was even more curious. Although she knew some things about the 'witch factor', she had never thought about the relationship between its concentration and her emotional fluctuations.

“Because—well, since you’ve told me your hidden secret, Miss, I’ll be frank with you too.”

Chang Rong's expression also became much more serious. As for Tono Hanna, who had shared her deepest wounds with her, all she could do now was to tell her the secret she had kept buried all along.

"Actually—strictly speaking, I can't be considered 'human' right now, but rather somewhere between human and remains, surviving on witch factors... a corpse."

"...corpse?"

Tono Hannah's eyes widened; for a moment, she couldn't even comprehend the meaning of Chang Rong's words.

Meanwhile, in the cramped storage room right next to the sunroom:

"Relying on the corpse of the witch factor—"

Hiroema, who had only come to eavesdrop to prevent Hannah from sneaking away to eat, overheard something unbelievable.

"Oh dear... what should we do now?"

Shirley Tachibana, standing to the side, rubbed her hair, sensing that things were about to get complicated.

Volume 1: 131. After careful analysis, the conclusion is that it's a fan-made meal (10K).

(This chapter is a long 10 words, sorry, there's a reason... it's related to the next chapter...)

"What are you talking about, you idiot knight... a corpse? Is that some kind of twisted adjective?"

After hearing Chang Rong's words about her situation, Tono Hannah looked somewhat confused and bewildered.

That's right. If anyone were to see a lively, energetic person suddenly say, "Actually, I'm a corpse," their first reaction would probably be, "Is this guy having some kind of pretentious, pretentious phase?"

“It’s not an adjective, Miss. It’s just the way it’s understood literally… I can’t be considered ‘human’ in the broad sense right now. Although I’ve thought about deceiving myself, it’s hard to keep doing that now.”

Chang Rong shook her head. Actually, up until now, Chang Rong still had the chance to suddenly put on a "successful prank!" expression and say that she had just made it up on the spot to deceive the young lady.

How could someone as lively and warm as me be a warm corpse? I'm not like Anna, who sees a black egg charging towards her face in the scope two seconds before she catches a punch.

However, Chang Rong decided to be honest with Tono Hannah and reveal the truth. After all, the young lady had just revealed her most taboo wound, and he shouldn't continue to hide it from her.

Also, if you chuckle and say "just kidding" at this point, it feels like you're really going to be thrown into the air for a reverse bungee jump without a rope the next second...

"Not human in the broad sense...? But, but you stupid knight, you're clearly human! Not only can I touch you like this, but I can also—"

"Waaaah! After hearing someone say you're not human, your first reaction is to strip off your clothes to confirm it—isn't that a bit too strange, Miss!?"

With a blush on her face, Tono Hannah, her hands still dirty, tried to slip inside Chang Rong's clothes, but the latter quickly stopped her, blushing as well.

I have this feeling that my honest confession, made with a clear conscience, has somehow become part of the setup for some strange game...?

"Ahem... If the word 'corpse' is a bit too much and makes it difficult for the young lady to understand, then let me put it another way—I am something between 'remains' and 'human.' Although I can't become a witch due to physical reasons, I have long since transcended the category of ordinary humans."

Chang Rong coughed twice, offering another way to explain his constitution.

"Remains? You mean those monsters that completely lost their human consciousness after the witches were executed...? But you can't see any remains at all, you stupid knight."

"So it's something in between... I've recovered some of my memories, and in those memories I did participate in the witch trial—and although I don't know the specific reason, I definitely died in that trial, otherwise why would I have ended up in the basement in the first place, right?"

"Hmm... that makes sense... At first, I was just dragged there by Sherry, so I didn't understand the purpose of that dark and somewhat cold place. But now that I know it's a 'morgue' used to store witches and the people they killed, then, you stupid knight, appearing there, frozen in a state, must be because..."

Tono Hannah's gaze was somewhat unfocused. In fact, when Chang Rong said that she was a 'corpse,' she had already thought of something. Having witnessed Chang Rong being 'frozen' herself, and after learning about the true purpose of the cryogenic chamber from Chang Rong, Arisa, and the other two's account of exploring the underground cryogenic chamber, she already had some vague guesses in her heart.

However, those speculations were too heavy for Hannah to bear, so she chose to put them aside for the time being and attributed all the strange mysteries surrounding Chang Rong to 'perhaps the effect of his magic'.

However, now that the person involved has confessed, Tono Hannah knows very well that she can no longer deceive herself.

"That's right. The reason I appeared in the underground cryo-chamber in that state must be because I died inexplicably as a victim in a past witch trial... Well, it's also possible that I stabbed someone and got voted out, but I didn't have witch genes at the time, and I got along fairly well with everyone. To be honest, I shouldn't have done anything on my own initiative."

Chang Rong still firmly believed that she was just a kind-hearted god of the Gala Wood Domain. Moreover, she had not been corrupted by the will of heaven at that time (she did not have the witch factor), so she could not have done anything strange like acting on impulse.

"And as evidence—Miss, look." Chang Rong lifted her clothes to reveal the wound on her lower abdomen, but—

"Waaaah...! Do I have to prove it that way? I... I... I'm not incapable... Yes, I'm ready...!"

When Tono Hannah saw Chang Rong lift her clothes, her cheeks instantly turned red. She frantically waved her hands, but did not run away. Instead, after a brief moment of confusion, she made up her mind and looked at Chang Rong with a determined expression.

"No, no, Miss, what are you preparing?! I just wanted to show you my wound...!"

"Huh? I see..."

Hannah, on the contrary, showed a disappointed expression.

Chang Rong lifted her clothes to reveal the wound on her side, where there was indeed a very shallow wound.

"When I encountered the wreckage in the basement, I was stabbed by a tentacle in this spot. I don't know the exact extent of the injury, but considering that it knocked me unconscious, it shouldn't be shallow. But even with this wound, it's almost completely healed in just two days."

Chang Rong pointed to the wound on her abdomen and then put her clothes back on, looking at Tono Hannah.

"This healing ability is just like..."

"...It's like she's turned into a witch." Tono Hannah suppressed her somewhat inappropriate emotions. The evidence was right in front of her, and she had to admit that Chang Rong was no longer a 'normal person'.

"Then, what should we do, Chang Rong? Witchhood makes people paranoid and aggressive, just like Mag back then..."

"Don't be nervous, young lady. As I said before, I'm more like a creature between wreckage and a human than a witch or a human. At least I don't feel like I'm being possessed by any strange impulses."

Chang Rong quickly reassured Tono Hannah, indicating that her mind was still rational at least for now, and that she hadn't been hijacked by Da hope Wang.

"Hmm...that's true, after all, Chang Rong, you even comforted me just now and invited me to spend the rest of my life with you—"

"Wait a minute, don't mix your personal opinions into the truth with such a calm expression, Miss!"

False testimony has become as easy as breathing. Ever since Hiro open-sourced the ability to give false testimony, it seems that all the prospective witches on Witch Island have found a new continent. With the arrival of the new version, the innocent children who cannot give false testimony are in luck.

“It’s not about personal opinion—so Chang Rong, your current situation… well, is it the same as those remains, theoretically immortal?” Tono Hannah covered her face with her fan and complained softly, then continued to ask.