The first thing he felt was a cool breeze brushing against the nape of his neck.

The next thing he noticed was the scent of earth and trees, faintly mixed with the acrid smell of dust.

It’s a forest. A forest not too far from where people lived.

Isaac blinked. The sensation of a blinding light flashing beneath his eyelids hadn’t completely faded yet. The intense burst of light from just moments ago was still seared into his vision.

As he blinked two, three times, the white light covering his eyes slowly dissipated, and in contrast, his pitch-black vision gradually began to brighten. And right around the time he could finally make out his surroundings……

「MANBANG-IE!」

A large, fluffy mass flew at him from behind like lightning, smacking him in the back of the head. Isaac’s neck snapped forward, and he stumbled as a clump of black fur clung to his head.

「MANBANG-IE! MANBANG-IE!」

「WHERE DID YOU GO! WHY ARE YOU ONLY HERE NOW!」

The moment he grabbed the furball dangling from the back of his head and yanked it off, a new furball struck him from behind, as if it had been waiting in line. This time, his neck really felt like it was going to snap. “Urgh!” Isaac gasped, swallowing a sharp breath.

“I free you guys from being locked up, and you try to kill a person……”

Isaac glared at the furballs he was holding by the scruff in each hand. Suddenly, he stopped mid-sentence and swiftly dodged to the side. Sure enough, he narrowly avoided a third attack lunging at him from behind. That third strike was a furball the size of a house; if he hadn’t dodged it, his neck would have surely broken and killed him.

「Huh? You’ve gotten pretty quick……?」

「Did you go work out somewhere while we were locked up……?」

The two dangling from Isaac’s hands tilted their heads and meowed. The tiger, which had face-planted exactly where Isaac had been standing a moment ago, paused for a second. Then, acting as if it hadn’t failed at all and had simply intended to lie down, it nonchalantly began to lick its front paws. Meanwhile, its massive body shrank down like cotton candy hit by water, turning back into a cat.

“Of course I’m quick, do you think I’m as slow as you guys? How slow do you have to be for all three of you to get caught without even a squeak and locked in birdcages?”

“I couldn’t sleep because of your crying,” Isaac grumbled, giving them a side-eye. Before he could even finish, the cats hissed, 「Khaaaak!」, raised their fur, and dug their claws into Isaac’s cheeks.

“Ack!!”

Isaac hunched over, clutching his cheek where thin red lines of claw marks had appeared. The two cats that had leaped from his hands landed next to him, puffing out their cheeks like peanuts as they licked their front paws.

「What do you mean, locked up? We were just exhausted from our long travels and took a nice, long rest for a few days!」

「Exactly, exactly. He crafted us a bed of pure silver, begging our noble and elegant selves to please use it. We had to humor him out of pity for his admirable devotion.」

“Is that why you cried and begged me to let you out every time I tried to sleep?”

「Khaaaak!!」

The cats bared their teeth. Even when they opened their jaws as giant tigers it wasn’t scary, so Isaac simply scoffed at their cat forms.

“As soon as we cross over to the Land of the Dark Moon, I’m going to custom-order a pure silver birdcage.”

「What are you going to do with something like that!」

“I’ll take it to the temple and ask the priest to bless it……”

「…….」

“……. Wait, do they even have temples there?”

「Manbang-ie ah. Do you honestly think you’d be able to touch blessed silver before you even got to a temple?」

“…….”

Isaac shut his mouth. The cats shut their mouths too. Four pairs of eyes tangled in the air.

「Yep, this kid is a bit dense. Clueless and dense about everything. But that’s what makes him our Manbang-ie,」 the three of them put their heads together and whispered. And Isaac admitted it: ‘Yeah, I’m an idiot.’ When making his second wish, he shouldn’t have asked to free them; he should have just asked to transport them to the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat, cages and all.

Still, seeing the three of them putting their heads together, tapping their tails, and meowing, they looked perfectly fine with no injuries. Considering he’s the kind of man who would unhesitatingly slice off these little witches’ heads if they annoyed him even slightly. ‘I was worried. But thank goodness.’

“Did Prince Kyan not torment you?”

When Isaac asked, the cats lifted their heads.

「He served us with the utmost devotion! Giving us goat meat and wine every day!」

“……That’s surprising.”

「And he threatened to snap our necks! Told us not to even think about taking you away!」

“……Somehow that doesn’t add up? Who exactly is this bastard—”

Isaac, who had been tilting his head, stopped mid-sentence.

‘Told them not to take me. ——Said I couldn’t go.’

Isaac looked down silently at his feet before quietly shaking his head. I need to stop thinking about it. If I keep thinking about it, I feel like I’ll want to see him more. And if I do, sitting here without even having boarded the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat yet, I might actually want to go back.

“After coming all this way.”

Isaac murmured softly. Then, he suddenly looked around.

Come to think of it, where was this? For his third wish, he had asked to be taken to where the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat was.

Isaac looked around. But he couldn’t see anything unusual. Just trees swaying quietly in the night breeze beneath the brightly risen full moon. The moonlight was so brilliant that the trees were illuminated clearly.

It was a forest, just as Isaac had thought. A forest overlooking the city lights below. Tracing the lights lined up like stars along the streets, Isaac murmured, “Ah.” The neatly arranged layout of the streets was familiar.

Isaac quickly followed the lights to the end of the streets, looking at the center where the roads spread out like a spiderweb.

A beautiful building, glowing white, floated in the center of the vast city. Even in the middle of the night, the bright lights surrounding the building illuminated it beautifully.

The Royal Palace.

Only then did Isaac realize that he was on a hillside on the outskirts of the capital. A not-too-high mountain hill.

“…….”

Suddenly, all the strength drained from Isaac’s body. ‘So I departed from there and arrived here.’ Staring at that scenery, he acutely felt how far away he was now. The distance was, at most, an hour or two by foot, yet it felt so incredibly far away, as if he could never return.

Standing blankly and staring at that distant scenery, Isaac finally averted his eyes. ‘This won’t do. I really am starting to miss it.’ The urge to run back right this instant was swelling up inside him. If he had one more wish left, he might have used it to beg to be sent back.

It’s better to just leave quickly. Isaac drew a deep breath into his heavy chest and lifted his head. Trying hard not to look toward the city, he scanned his surroundings. There were only trees.

“But where is the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat?”

Isaac, looking around in confusion, had just turned to the cats. As he met the eyes of the cats, who were rolling their eyes at him as if to say, ‘What are you talking about?’ Isaac suddenly froze.

A forest under a full moon?

Today was the new moon. There was no way a moon could be in the sky.

Isaac lifted his head and looked at the bright full moon floating above the forest. It was an unusually large and bright moon. Its soft silver glow was dazzling.

“The moon is…….”

A low whisper slipped from Isaac’s lips.

The moon was slowly falling.

Slowly, and slowly, silently descending, as if it were leaving the pitch-black night sky to settle upon the earth.

As it descended, the moon grew larger and larger. Only when it reached the point where it almost touched the tops of the forest trees did Isaac realize it was not a moon at all…… It was the bottom of a massive, round boat. A hull so smooth and round it looked as if the moon had been carved into shape.

As if bewitched, Isaac backed away while staring up at it. He didn’t stop until his back bumped against a tree at the edge of the forest. Only then could Isaac see it properly.

The thing he had seen exactly once, 14 years ago.

The white, smooth hull that looked as if it were carved from the moon, and the massive sails that fluttered slowly as if scattering silver dust even though there was no wind—it was exactly as it was in Isaac’s memory.

The dazzling sailing ship he had never once forgotten.

The Crescent Moon-Silver Boat was descending upon the forest.

“…—.”

The boat stopped. Parting the large trees as if cutting through waves, the boat ceased its descent, hovering at about a human’s height above the ground. Just by that height alone, the boat seemed entirely disconnected from anything in this world.

Isaac stared blankly at that beautiful hull that did not belong to this world. Then, something slid down from the bow of the boat. It was a staircase, the exact same color as the boat.

When the staircase stopped at human height, a figure cast a shadow over it.

「It seems you have finally reclaimed the precious treasure of the Gregoroborius family. I was originally heading for the Valhallis Mountains this time as well, but because an object emitting a tremendous amount of magical energy appeared nearby, the boat was pulled in this direction.」

The figure, appearing as he stepped down the stairs, looked down and spoke. It was a short, stocky man whose entire face was practically covered by a white beard. Isaac knew who the man holding a large oar in one hand was.

“The boatman of the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat…….”

As Isaac muttered, the man – who had been making way for the black cats excitedly hopping up the stairs – looked at Isaac. Black eyes peered at Isaac through the thick beard covering his face. Blinking a few times, he shouted, 「Ah, it’s Kali’s son!」

14 years ago, when Isaac had sent his mother off on the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat, this was the boatman who had refused his mother’s desperate pleas to take Isaac with her, stating that a half-blood child could not board.

「You’ve grown this much already? Humans really do grow fast. But what brings you here? ……Huh?」

The boatman, who had been clicking his tongue in marvel, suddenly raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. He leaned his face forward, thrusting it right in front of Isaac’s nose.

「Huh? This is strange…… you were definitely a half-blood? Why do you look like a witch?」

「Because he is a witch.」

「Our Manbang-ie became a true dragon, yes he did.」

The cats, who had bounced up the stairs, plopped their rears down on the gunwale next to the ladder and meowed. The boatman, blinking his eyes and closely observing Isaac and the cats back and forth, suddenly clapped his hands together and exclaimed, 「Aha! I get it!」

「Now I see, you borrowed the power of that treasure! No doubt about it! There’s no other way a human could become a witch!」

「Of course, of course. It’s only possible through the magnificent treasure passed down for generations in our Gregoroborius family.」 

The cat, sitting with its front paws proudly resting on the tinderbox, nodded in deep satisfaction. The boatman, staring at the tinderbox with a mix of awe and covetousness, reached out his hand.

「Let me have a look. It’s been a very long time. Has it continuously been in the hands of humans since Amnemika died? Oho, perhaps because it’s aged so well, its power feels even richer.」

「Hey now, don’t touch it! Don’t you dare put your dirty hands on another family’s treasure!」

「Oh, just hand it over, who says I’m going to steal it? I just want to admire a rare item after such a long time.」

While the boatman and the cats squabbled, Isaac walked up the stairs. Even when he stepped off the gunwale and onto the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat, the boatman did not block his path this time…….Though Isaac suspected he might have just been too distracted squabbling with the cats to stop him.

Isaac looked around the ship. The sailing ship with its beautiful fluttering sails looked much more spacious inside than it appeared from the outside. From the outside, it looked like it would be full with 30 or 40 people, but looking from within, it could easily hold twice as many. No, maybe three times. No, four times…….

“…….”

Isaac tilted his head. It was strange. Even though the inside of the boat was completely visible to his eyes, he couldn’t gauge its true size. Trying hard to estimate the space with a bizarre feeling as if he were bewitched by a ghost, he ultimately failed.

Recalling the countless people who had casually boarded the ship 14 years ago, even when it seemed the deck was already full, Isaac nodded to himself—unable to comprehend it, but accepting it as fact.

While he did, he didn’t know how they knew the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat had dropped its anchor here, but witches began to arrive one by one and board the ship. When he saw them at the Witches’ Great Banquet, there were all sorts—those who looked human, those who looked like beasts, those with grotesque forms,…… but the ones boarding the ship today were mostly those who took human forms.

「Mister Moon, it’s been a while. The Gregoroborius brothers are here early too. Oh my, isn’t this Kali’s son? I heard he was a half-blood, but he became a witch in the meantime. How did you do it?」

A young woman with long hair greeted them as she boarded. She blinked in surprise upon seeing Isaac and asked, but she didn’t seem particularly interested, heading inside without even waiting for an answer.

Isaac was pondering, She looks like a stranger, how does she know me? Have I seen her somewhere before? when a middle-aged gentleman who boarded next did the exact same thing. After greeting the boatman and the cats, he looked at Isaac and said, “It’s Kali’s son. You’ve grown a lot. So you became a witch, I see,” and then walked in. It seemed witches had their own way of knowing each other’s origins. He decided he would ask them how later.

In front of a fascinated Isaac, the boatman, entirely indifferent to who was boarding the ship, was still bickering with the cats.

「Ah, what’s the harm in letting me see that battered old wooden box! Will it wear out? Will it?! Just let me see it!」

Eventually losing his temper, the boatman snatched the tinderbox right out from under the cat’s front paws. Turning his back sharply on the screaming cats demanding he return it instantly, the boatman stroked and examined the tinderbox.

「Ooh, as expected, it truly is a masterpiece that the legendary artisan Arlegione spent his entire life carefully crafting. Beautiful, beautiful. Hoho, this perfect size, this perfect shape, this perfect feel!」

The boatman, looking at the tinderbox at eye level and then holding it above his head while stroking it in rapture, suddenly frowned with a “Huh?”

「But why is this corner chipped? Where did the corner piece go?」

「WHAT?!」

The moment the boatman spoke, all three cats raised their tail fur simultaneously. They hurriedly lunged forward, snatched the box, and examined it from all angles before……

「KYAHAAAAAANG!!!」

「WHAT IS THIS! WHY IS IT BROKEN!! THE CORNER! WHERE DID THE CORNER GO!」

「OUR PRECIOUS TREASURE! OUR PRICELESS TINDERBOX!」

The three of them shrieked, every hair on their bodies standing on end.

Isaac, who had been indifferently looking around the ship, finally recalled the memory from earlier upon hearing their screams.

“Ah, sorry. I did that. Earlier in the dungeon, when I was trying to pull the tinderbox inside…… the iron bars were too narrow, and when I forcefully yanked it, the corner flew off.”

“Still, it didn’t cause any problems using it, and the wish was granted perfectly fine,” Isaac mumbled nonchalantly, only to get smacked hard in the back of the head by a cat’s tail. Three consecutive times.

「This precious thing!」

「What are you going to do about the corner, the corner? Where did you leave it?!」

“Ouch! I mean, it’s just a tiny piece of the corner that fell off……, ow, ouch!!” The moment he opened his mouth, he was hit with another three-hit combo from those steel-like tails. Isaac clutched the back of his head and crouched down, while the cats circled the box, stamping their feet in distress. Seeing them act like that made him feel a bit sorry, so Isaac asked cautiously.

“If that piece falls off, does it cause a problem……?”

「It’s a problem! A huge problem!」

「It’s less pretty now!」

「The elegant and beautiful box has become less elegant and beautiful!」

“……. Is that it?”

「Is that it?! THAT’S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM OF ALL!」

Because this guy grew up dirt poor, he doesn’t know what a great virtue beauty is! The cats threw a hissy fit. Sitting on the gunwale, Isaac was quietly taking a beating from the cats’ tails as punishment for damaging another family’s treasure.

「It’s fine, it will find its way back on its own anyway. What’s the fuss.」

Perhaps taking pity on Isaac, who kept getting smacked, the boatman spoke with a tobacco pipe in his mouth. Isaac looked up at the boatman and blinked.

“What will find its way back? The corner?”

「Uhm.」

“…….”

Isaac thought he was joking, but the boatman nodded far too cheerfully. Behind Isaac, who was staring blankly at the boatman in silence, another witch boarded the ship. The boatman exchanged nods with the witch and said:

「You guys all found your way here, didn’t you? Things born with innate magical power are naturally drawn to places with stronger magical power. Just as you knew where this boat would drop anchor without anyone telling you the location. Just as you knew where the Witches’ Great Banquet would be held. Just as this boat was drawn here by the aura of this treasure instead of heading to Valhalis. So, the corner piece will find its own way back to its body, too.」

“……Is a corner piece even alive?”

「If it’s an object this old and holding this much magical power, you have to consider it alive. Whether a mouse carries it in its mouth or a bird carries it in its beak, it will be brought back.」

Isaac stared blankly at the boatman, then looked at the cats. The three cats, who had been lamenting the broken corner, seemed to have already forgotten as they gleefully rubbed their cheeks against a different corner. Cherishing it oh so dearly, taking turns stroking the box as if afraid it might blow away if they breathed on it or break if they squeezed it, refusing to leave its side.

‘Are they really that happy?’

Isaac gazed softly at the three of them before letting out a small chuckle and turning his head. Beneath the pitch-black night sky, he looked down at the night view of the city, which still had its lights twinkling brightly late into the night. A large bird was gliding in wide circles through the night sky.

Once this night ended, the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat would pull up its anchor and depart. And once he went to the Land of the Dark Moon like that, he would never be able to return.

It was the land where he had been born, raised, and lived his entire life. Right in the middle of it, he could see the Royal Palace glowing white in the darkness. Looking down at all of it, Isaac felt a corner of his heart ache.

“In seven years, when the Crescent Moon-Silver Boat returns, do you think I’ll be able to come back then?” 

Isaac muttered, looking at the distant Royal Palace. The boatman, who had been chatting with the boarded witches, looked back.

「The Crescent Moon-Silver Boat doesn’t visit lands without witches. Unless even one remains. I heard that all the witches living in this land decided to leave this Great New Moon.」

「Let’s see, we just need one or two more,」 the boatman said as he looked around the inside of the boat. Isaac’s heart sank heavily. Once I leave now, I can never return. Isaac slumped his shoulders and turned his gaze back toward the city.

「What’s the point of coming back? Those heartless humans hunted down and killed every last witch.」

「Exactly. We just wanted to live together, but they insisted on being the only ones left.」

As the boatman spoke up abruptly, the witches chatting with him chimed in. Witches, always highly interested in other people’s business, had been sitting inside the boat, and upon hearing this, they joined in with, 「Right, right!」

「There’s an overwhelming abundance of humans in the world, so they got eaten just a tiny bit—maybe one, two, three, four, ten, or twenty—and they make such a massive fuss?」

「To be perfectly honest, what does it matter if a few get eaten? When you live together in the same world, bumping into each other, isn’t it normal to kill and be killed a little?」

「Look at how they completely massacred our kids this time. Just because they didn’t want to share a little bit of their lifeforce. Anyway, those human kids have nasty dispositions.」

「Because they wiped out all the witches, I couldn’t even get the ring back that I lent to Ermania. That damn bitch, she should have returned the ring before she died!」

「Fufufu, I saw Tetina die right next to me, so I hurried to her house and snatched up all the lifeforce orbs she had collected first. I made a profit.」

The witches started chattering loudly. The previously quiet boat instantly filled with the sound of cackling laughter.

Isaac kept his mouth shut. A corner of his mind turned icy cold. It was much lighter than what he had felt at the Witches’ Great Banquet, but it was a similar type of emotion. An alienating feeling, as if an uncrossable river existed between them and him.

To them, that was a completely natural and normal conversation. They were people who always prioritized themselves above all else and could not empathize with the pain of others.

The people of the world Isaac had lived in until now——.

“……Well, it’s not like they were that moral or good either, but…….”

Unless they were great saints or terrible villains, they were all more or less the same. Everyone was moderately selfish, greedy, and mean. And moderately kind, good-hearted, and giving. Among them, there were treasure-like moments, and moments that brought tears. And there were moments that couldn’t be neatly categorized as either.

What suddenly came to his mind were his colleagues, who had been so close to him, yet looked at him with reluctant and fearful eyes once they found out he was a witch. And yet, Hoden, who couldn’t shake off his concern and paced restlessly when Isaac collapsed as if dying. While fulfilling Isaac’s request, he feared it might bring harm to him, and even then, when the Prince approached Isaac with a terrifying expression, he didn’t know what to do, constantly looking back at Isaac with anxiety.

Even within the same person, even in a single connected event, disappointment and gratitude were intertwined like this. Thinking about it, nothing was purely good, and nothing was purely bad.

So now, as he crossed over to the land of witches and lived among them, there would be good things and bad things, but……

“……I just can’t adapt right away……. It would have been better if not just my body, but the very structure of my brain had changed into a witch’s.”

Isaac muttered, half-listening to the witches bickering over who was better or worse in the distance.

‘Yeah, it really would have been nice if even the inside of my head had changed into a witch’s.’

Then maybe he wouldn’t feel this regretful. Maybe he wouldn’t miss it this much. He was already feeling this much regret and longing.

“I miss him…….”

「What is there to miss?!」

No sooner had Isaac muttered to himself than the cats smacked him in the back with their tails, but still, he missed what he missed.

What remained vividly etched in his mind was the Prince’s expression right before Isaac left this place, just as the Prince stepped inside the iron bars and approached him.

His usual expressionless aura washed completely away, a face seen for the first time——a face of desperation, anxiety, and utter fear.

He had never seen such a face before. He never even thought the man was capable of making such a face. That utterly desperate face was fading within the spreading white light.

Within that light, he had opened his mouth as if trying to say something.

What was he trying to say? There was no way to know now, but the intense curiosity remained caught in his chest. 

‘It would have been nice if I could have heard it before coming.’

“Why did he try to catch me…….”

Isaac muttered abruptly. At that moment, the boatman, who had been exchanging greetings with a witch just boarding the ship, looked back.

「Try to catch what.」

“……. I wonder what an ‘intense emotion’ is.”