Lacey Longs for Freedom: The Dawn Witch's Low-Key Life after Defeating the Demon King Volume 3 (eBook)

Hyogo Amagasa (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
250 Seiten
J-Novel Heart (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7524-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Thanks to the upcoming wedding of the royal princess, Lady Alicia, getting married has become a fad all over the land of Croix, and Plume Village is no exception. When Wayne comes back for a month-long visit, he and Lacey stumble upon Cedric, who asks Lacey to help him celebrate his daughter's wedding. With only two weeks to prepare, can she, Wayne, and three rambunctious children manage to help him before it's too late? Not long after, she finds out that Wayne's month of vacation was a pretext for a request from none other than the royal family! Can she handle this huge responsibility? Lacey continues her small-town adventures in this third volume!

Textauszug

“I-I’m not sure wh-what’s going on m-myself!” Lacey stammered. Her face was so hot that it felt like steam was popping out of her ears. She glared hard at her own hands gripping tightly onto her staff—hard enough that tears started to well from her eyes. Then, a pillar of fire erupted up into the sky, not from Lacey’s staff, but from behind her.

“Kweeeeee!!!”

“Grr-oink! Grr-oink! Grr-oiiiink!!!”

“...”

“...”

Wayne and Lacey turned and found a boar and phoenix crying out with all their might. Tee was doing its best to light a single tree on fire while Noi was cheering from the sidelines. Lacey stared blankly, while Wayne, upon noticing the raging flames, immediately grabbed her shoulders and shielded her with his body. But while doing so, the strange sight of the two creatures caught his eye.

“What are those two doing, exactly?” Wayne asked.

“No idea.” Lacey tilted her head in confusion. She noticed that her heartbeat had returned to normal and breathed a sigh of relief.

***

The Dawn Witch Lacey arrived at Plume Village a little over a year ago. She was an orphan who happened to possess a high aptitude for magic, leading to her dedicating her entire life so far to honing that skill. After defeating the Demon King alongside Wayne the hero and their comrades, she had no goals or dreams to follow, leading to her nearly getting married and becoming a trophy wife to a noble. It was Wayne who pushed her to acknowledge the thoughts and feelings she didn’t even know that she had.

Now that she was free from her obligations to her nation, she was no longer the greatest mage in the country of Croix, but just “Lacey Aster.” Her wish was to live and do as she pleased, and the first thing she did was start an “anything shop.” She named her business “Starseeking” and managed to reconnect with her old friends along the way. She had grown stronger and more reliable than ever. But still...

“G-Gyaah! No, no, no! That’s too much fire! Everything’s up in flames!” Lacey screamed as she watched the burning tree in shock and horror. She and Wayne had managed to reach Tee and Noi, and they ended up standing in a clearing with no vegetation in sight other than a single conifer tree. Tee had been focusing all its efforts into burning down that tree, opening its mouth as much as it could and breathing out as much fire as possible. It was a mystery how its tiny body could produce flames that were over ten times larger than itself. The fires danced and wrapped around the tree’s leaves, completely covering them up to their tips.

Tee was a hatchling born from an egg left by a phoenix that Lacey rescued. It had accompanied her ever since her arrival at Plume Village, and it was now over a year old. However, this was not the time to be impressed by the gigantic flames it was breathing out.

Next to Tee was its best friend, Noi the wild boar. He was sitting calmly with a satisfied look on his face. Even the sharp fang jutting out of his mouth looked much less menacing—mild, even.

“This is not the time to be sitting around and enjoying a bonfire! What are you two doing?! H-Hey! Tee, come on!” Lacey yelled frantically.

“Lacey, calm down.” Wayne stopped her from making her staff bigger. He gently grabbed her arms. Lacey thought that he would raise them up high, but he grabbed on to her waist and raised her whole body up instead. She felt like a baby in a parent’s hands, but this was no time for such thoughts.

“Wh-What are you doing?”

“Sorry, reflex. Forget about that—look at that. The tree’s on fire, but it’s not burning. Do you know about fire-resistant trees?”

“Fire-resistant trees?”

It was the first time Lacey had ever seen one. They were trees that were completely immune to the effects of fire. Just as leaves gathered energy from sunlight, heat-resistant trees were able to use fire as a source of energy.

A variety of trees, plants, and herbs grew in Lacey’s garden, and this tree that drew Tee’s attention was just one of them. Thinking about the irregularities growing in her own garden drew a frown to Lacey’s face. However, this did not solve the mystery of why Tee was frantically blowing fire at the tree.

“Tee looks like it’s in pain...”

Wayne had put Lacey down, but she still couldn’t help but worry about Tee’s condition. She kept looking back at the baby phoenix. It had its wings wide open, and its body was trembling. It was almost as if it didn’t want to breathe fire, but it had to force itself to do so. Noi was doing his best to cheer Tee on. It was almost as if he were shouting words of encouragement at his friend. They didn’t need to push themselves so hard, Lacey thought.

“I think Tee might be fire-breathing,” Wayne suggested.

“Fire-breathing?” Lacey echoed.

“Yeah. You know how when babies are teething, they try to chew on anything they can get their hands on? Monsters that breathe fire have their fire-breathing organ around here.” Wayne motioned toward his upper abdomen. “There’s a period when it undergoes changes and starts to grow more powerful. It should happen once it grows into a mature phoenix, so maybe it’s getting tummy aches from that. Or maybe it needs to breathe out all the fire that’s stored inside.”

“I see...”

“It looks like it chose the fire-resistant tree to breathe on. It would’ve been a problem if the flowers and herbs caught fire. It’s even minding the direction of the wind.”

Tee was blowing fire as hard as it could. The sight of its small, trembling body moved Lacey to tears. She realized that Tee had grown much bigger as of late. It had gotten pretty close in size to the phoenix that had entrusted Tee’s egg to Lacey.

You’ve grown so big... Lacey nodded as tears welled in her eyes.

“Wait, this means that Tee is an adult phoenix now, right?” Lacey asked.

“Well, you could say that, yeah.”

“Wh-Wh-What?! No way!” Even though Tee had grown bigger, Lacey couldn’t help but feel that it was still a baby. Her eyes darted all over the place before looking at Wayne.

“Sh-Should I celebrate?! I haven’t prepared anything!” Lacey’s eyes shot wide open, and she gripped her staff tight.

“There’s no rule that says you absolutely have to, but it might be nice to do that. Well, it might be hard to pull off a party immediately,” Wayne said. Behind them, the tree was still ablaze. Each time the wind blew, it picked up the flames from Tee’s powerful breath and also ruffled Lacey’s long, black hair.

“I guess you’re right,” Lacey said.

“The fire-breathing phase shouldn’t last for too long, maybe one or two days at most. It should calm down soon,” Wayne assured her.

“Really? Tee looked like it was in pain, so I’m relieved to hear that.”

“Oh yeah, Lacey, are you okay with me staying around here for a while?” Wayne asked.

“Sure. How long are you going to stay here?”

Wayne must have been waiting for the right time to say it. He paused for a bit before asking Lacey, who nodded in response. Usually, Wayne would stick around for a day or two. He always seemed to be quite busy and would often go back to the capital or leave for an expedition before long. According to Wayne, it wasn’t that he had too much free time; it was that he spent all his free time visiting Plume Village.

Lacey was keenly aware of Wayne’s busy schedule, so considering that he’d said that he would stick around for “a while,” she wondered if he had managed to take a long break. A week, perhaps? In any case, this made her quite happy for him.

“About a month,” Wayne answered.

“A-A month?!” Now that was quite long. Lacey floundered about before replying. “C-Could it be...?”

Wayne urged her to continue. Lacey gulped, then gave him a timid look. “D-Did you get fired?”

“Like hell I did.”

It would seem that she had made a rude misunderstanding.

“I-I guess not. Your break’s pretty long this time, huh?”

Wayne, as the former hero, was often tasked by the royal court to hunt down monsters that terrorized villages. It was a dangerous job, so it should be a good thing that he managed to get a long break from it. But was it really?

“Wayne, are you really just on a break?” Lacey asked, worried about Wayne. He turned his head to her. “Did something happen? Did you do something?”

Lacey gestured to suggest that she was worried about his well-being, but Wayne kept his lips pursed and merely folded his arms in response. It seemed like he didn’t want to discuss this matter any further. There was no point in prodding him, so Lacey gave up. Just then, Tee, who had been breathing fire nonstop behind them, suddenly lost consciousness and plopped down.

“Tee!” “Grr-oink!” Lacey and Noi cried out at the same time. Lacey hurried to pick up Tee, whose eyes were spinning.

“I-I think I should give it some medicine...”

Tee’s usual meals consisted of the herbs that Lacey raised in her garden. She had no idea if that was appropriate food for a phoenix, but if Tee was hurting, this must be the right time to feed some to it.

“Let’s see here...”...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.8.2025
• Reihe/Serie: Lacey Longs for Freedom: The Dawn Witch's Low-Key Life after Defeating the Demon King
• Illustrationen: Hyogo Amagasa
• Übersetzer: Hyogo Amagasa
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: Fantasy • female protagonist • Magic • Malewife • Personal Growth • shrinking violet • Slow life
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7524-7 / 1718375247
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7524-6 / 9781718375246