Beta Town North District, Gu Diao Street.
Sakura Tavern.
Second floor, Genie's Hut lounge, in front of the bar.
A black cat arched its back, shoved both front paws into a basin of water, and scrubbed them fiercely. Pink bubbles spilled over the rim, nearly submerging half its body, yet they did nothing to disrupt its absorbed washing.
Behind the bar, the two witches laughed so hard they doubled over.
"Don't cats usually clean themselves by licking their paws? Did you try licking yours just now?" Colmar held a glass of Green Bee and wiped the corner of her eye. After hearing Ilena recount the black cat's ordeal, she had laughed until tears came out.
"What a nightmare." The Gypsy witch shuddered and cast a pitying glance at the black cat. "I'd bet that skinned toad had been rotting there for over a week."
"I suddenly feel like having some canned herring." Colmar snickered and started giggling foolishly again.
The black cat darkened its face and kept scrubbing its paws, unwilling to pay either of them any attention.
Around eight or nine at night, Genie's Hut was at its liveliest. Young trick mages who had spent the day gathering in the Silent Forest, working as servants in alchemy workshops, performing as clowns on the streets, or hauling cargo at the docks appeared in the hall in twos and threes. They began praying together and exchanging what they had learned about "magic."
The black cat's hearing was exceptionally sharp. It easily caught that most of the "magic" the trick mages discussed had never touched true power. At most, it was the sparks created by friction between their fingertips when they snapped—those young trick mages were eagerly discussing how the sparks differed when they rubbed their fingertips at different angles.
The more