?
Perhaps the witches had used magic to influence the weather. In any case, the weather here in the Land of Mages had been lovely for the past few days. The days were all bright, warm, and sunny, and it only occasionally rained or grew windy late at night when everything was quiet. By dawn, though, the skies would instantly clear again. It was all quite miraculous.
But those were little things, not important at all!
Because a certain troublesome little girl named Annie had been lazing around in this extraordinarily luxurious hotel in the Land of Mages for several days now. She'd been living the life of a pampered freeloader, with several mage maids tending to her every need, food brought straight to her mouth and clothes placed right in her hands. Every day brought a new assortment of delicious snacks, never the same twice. She'd been completely absorbed in the bliss of eating and was starting to forget all about the outside world.
"Ah-ha!"
ヾ(⌒?⌒*)??
"Tibbers, look, look! This stuff is so delicious! It's at least a thousand times better than those weed soups and grass sandwiches Elaina makes... No! At least ten thousand times better!!"
(?????)?
"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm..."
(￣~￣) Chomp!
Anyway, Annie had long since completely forgotten the gray-haired apprentice who'd been traveling around the world with her—or perhaps she'd been traveling with the apprentice?
At most, when she ate something tasty, she'd pull the other girl out from a dusty corner of her memory and compare her cooking to it. Then, once the comparison was over, she'd promptly kick her right back into that corner.
(...)
(′???`)
(Tibbers paid no attention to its troublesome little mistress, and it hadn't mentioned that her apprentice, Elaina, had come to the hotel looking for her several times. Anyway, as