Otaku Witch

"Sis, are you ready yet?"

Outside the door, Alice's voice interrupted Dorothy's reminiscing.

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Girls always need to get ready before they head out, what's the rush?"

She didn't actually have much to prepare; she just casually picked up the scarf hanging on the clothes rack nearby, wrapped it around herself, completely covering her last exposed features—her chin and lips—and walked out of the room, fully shielded.

"Sis, what the hell kind of getup is this?"

Outside, Alice looked at her sister, who was wrapped up tight, and couldn't help but be speechless.

But she wasn't surprised, after all. Her sister had always been like this—undeniably beautiful to the point of envy, yet she always hid and covered herself up as if shy of the world.

"Hmph, my unrivaled beauty is for me alone. I'd be at a loss if people saw it."

To her sister's helplessness, Dorothy was full of smug pride.

This body was a gift from the deities, and how could she casually let outsiders see her own girlfriend?

"Let's go, let's go. Where are we going to buy stuff, the supermarket in town?"

Seeing her sister hesitate as if wanting to persuade her further, Dorothy quickly intervened.

She walked briskly to the front door, reached for her flying broomstick on the broom rack, and then looked at her sister Alice.

Alice didn't say anything more either. She also stepped forward and took her own broom.

"Of course, we're heading to the city. What's there to see in a town's supermarket? They don't have a full range of items, and the quality isn't up to snuff. Sis, we can't skimp on school supplies. We're going to buy some good-quality ones today at the Witches' Specialty Store."

She gave her sister, who once more wore a sullen face, a blank look, feeling even more helpless about her homebody sister who had never liked going out since she was little.

"Alright."

Thinking of the long distance from their home to the city center, Dorothy really didn't feel like moving, but her sister's sharp gaze made her choose to keep quiet. She simply nodded her head and dared not say more.

The quality of the magical items in the town's magic shop was indeed mediocre at best, rarely offering high-end merchandise. The items of average quality often could not bear the burden produced when witches' immense magic power flowed through them, leading to potential issues. Therefore, it was generally best to shop at a Witches' Specialty Store for witch-related goods.

Since, however, the number of witches wasn't exactly high, stores catering specifically to witches were few and far between. While they were fairly common in big cities, for the small eighteenth-tier city where the sisters lived, such a store would only be found in the city center.

"Then you lead the way. I'm not too familiar with that area."

Dorothy said to her sister.

She was indeed not very familiar with the location of the Witches' Specialty Store; it wasn't just because she was a homebody who disliked going out, but more so because there had been no need for her to visit such a place before.

After all, strictly speaking, she was only a half-witch, the child of a Mortal Mage father and a witch mother, with only half of a witch's bloodline in her veins.

This brings us to the origin of the witches as a race. The first witches were essentially mutations from mortal female witches; hence, witches are technically a branch of the human race, an evolved species without reproductive isolation from humans.

However, such witches who had evolved from mortals were now scarce, and these were referred to as primeval witches, a rather rare existence even among witches.

Most existing pureblood witches are the result of witch families reproducing together—not a natural conception between members of the same sex (to be clear, not same-sex reproduction)—but through a special magical ceremony that seeks a boon from the consciousness of the world.

The ritual required two witches who were partners to preside over it, praying together for the blessing of the Mother of the World, and if their feelings were strong enough, the ritual would succeed. The world consciousness would then absorb the magic power of both witches to form a Dew of the Origin. Afterwards, either one who consumed the drop of Dew of the Origin would become pregnant.

It was similar to the setting of the Mother-Child River water in the Daughter Country from the Journey to the West that Dorothy had watched in her past life.

However, witches have always been open and free, so there was no such thing as a rule that witches must pair up with other witches, although indeed there were some witches who pursued supreme power and tended to have this inclination, but most witches had more freedom in their choice of partners.

Dorothy's mother was such a witch who chose a Human Mage as her partner. She fell in love with her father's looks at first sight, and then the two of them fell in love, which resulted in her birth. Afterwards, her freedom-loving witch mother quickly grew tired of the boring emotion of love, realizing that love was nowhere near as entertaining as magic, so after their feelings fell apart, she chose to immerse herself in endless magic research.

The story then followed with her dad meeting her current stepmother and restructuring the family.

Of course, because she was a half-witch born from the natural gestation of a man and woman, lacking the most important blessing process of the world consciousness, her talents were significantly inferior to those of pureblood witches.

Being only half-witch by blood, Dorothy was naturally considered a prodigy among Human Mages, but by witches' standards, she was actually low-ability, otherwise, she wouldn't have barely met the admissions criteria of Witch School at the age of sixteen.

Keep in mind that her sister Alice, a pureblood witch, enrolled in school at the age of three and, now at thirteen, she had already completed half of the twenty years of compulsory witch education. This year, Dorothy was just about to start first grade.

Mm, starting from tomorrow, when she meets her sister at school, she'll probably have to call Alice "senior."

"Alright, then follow me closely, sis,"

Alice nodded, understanding that her sister wasn't very familiar with the city and was a little worried, so she fervently instructed her.

At this moment, the sisters' roles seemed to have reversed, with the younger sister far more mature than the older one.

"Yes, yes, just fly slowly. If you go too fast, I can't keep up. Try to be considerate of your weak and pitiful low-ability big sister,"

Dorothy said, nodding.

"What are you talking about? You're not low-ability, don't talk nonsense. Nowadays, many Peak Witches are also of half-witch origin. Pureblood witches just get a head start, that's all. Later on, everyone's the same. You're going to be awesome in the future,"

Dorothy was just teasing, but Alice retorted stubbornly, the blonde beauty looked at her seriously, her emerald-like eyes filled with confidence in her older sister.

This caught Dorothy off guard, and she felt somewhat embarrassed. All she could do was reach out and mess up her sister's hair like when they were children, leaving it all tousled.

Heh, she hadn't doted on this little girl all these years in vain; she still knew how to be tender to her older sister. That's what she's talking about.

"Okay, okay, I'll do my best. Let's set off quickly, it's quite a long way to the town, and we should get there and back early,"

With that, she reached out and directly opened the door.

And thus, the world outside the door revealed itself, and what met her eyes was a vast sea of clouds.

"Good morning, Dorothy, and Little Alice, heading out, are we?"

The granny next door flew past their doorstep on her steampunk-style modified broomstick, gave the sisters a brief greeting, and then zoomed off again, leaving behind billowing black exhaust smoke and a single sentence.

"The supermarket next door is having a half-off sale today, I'm heading there first."

Dorothy: "...."

Tsk, even after so many years, she still wasn't quite used to this fantastical style.

She thought to herself, while mounting her own broom.