I Reincarnated as an NPC Witch

Introduction to the Dark Side

“Who is that!?” She turns her head where she felt the breath of someone, someone that has a voice she isn’t familiar with. No one was behind her. She slowly stands, rising from her kneeling position. She’s a bit crouching and holding the flower with all her might. “Who’s there!?” She looks around, finding where the voice came from. Suddenly, she heard yet another whisper in her ear. “You decide my identity…” She turns her head again, no one was behind her once more. “Whoever you are, stop screwing with me!” She looks at the way she took before and starts walking up to it. She took a deep breath, “Just ignore it.” She keeps walking as she looks around. For a minute, she’s starting to realize that she’s walking for an extra time just to get back to the area where she came from. She looks around, everything is still the same. She feels that there’s no sort of progression. “What’s happening?” She thought to herself and starts running. “I need to catch up to them. I’ve been in this area for a while now.” She muttered and looks around, looking for any remarkable landmark to test her theory out.

She sets a cluster of frayed-looking vines with some pink buds on them as her reference. She kept walking as she slowly realizes that she’s being tricked. “What’s happening here?” She looks around in confusion. She flinched as someone suddenly laughs. It was a rather ominous cackle. The surroundings started to get foggy. She runs away in fear, trying to ignore everything. “Just ignore its existence…” She muttered to herself as she kept running. She felt a sudden push and something stopping her feet from going any further. She almost tripped on the ground. But, something was wrapped around her waist, keeping her standing. She looks down below, she can see two separate ways that she is frozen in place. There’s a black fog on her feet, gluing her to the ground. The other was a vine that has flowers on it, full-bloomed purple flowers. She fixed her position and stands straight. She looks around, she can’t deny that she’s scared right now. It wasn’t her first time to be in this scary situation but it’s incomparable to her Virtual Reality horror experience on her setup. She can feel she’s going to perish anytime soon and it’s not a good indication for her situation.

“Interesting.” A rough, deep, and rather nasal-toned voice speaks. A stream of wind suddenly hits her face that makes her close her eyes shut. “Such an interesting addition.” It added. Abigail is breathing heavily and her heart is pounding faster than earlier. The vines are holding her tight and providing the light in the middle of this fog of darkness. Unlike the Nightingale Bluebell in her hands, these flowers illuminate everything with their petals rather than their core. It glows in a warm yellow color rather than a cold and calming blue. “Flowers…” The voice spoke again. “You must be the one they have been telling about.”

Abigail gulps, “I am just new to this place and I am already someone’s target. What a mess.” She whispered to herself. She flinched and almost screamed when the voice spoke again, “What are you saying? Hmm?” She shivers in fear as she looks around. Even with the light, she can’t see the tall and majestic trees that were once around her. She can definitely see the ground around her, some roots sticking out of it, and the plant life around the trees. She took a deep breath and pulled every courage she has in store deep inside herself. She opens her eyes and her facial expression became tougher. “What do you want from me? If you want to kill me then sure. I am an easy target.” She squeezes her hand, she regretted everything she just said. “Easy target indeed.” The fog forms a hand that holds her on the neck. Before the fog-made hand squeeze her neck, another flowery vine went up to her neck, warding off the hand that was going to kill her. It retracted and fled to where it belongs, the thick fog that surrounds the poor gal. The flowery vine wraps around her chest and to her back, resting its tip near her neck. It’s wrapping on her like a snake. The flowers in the vines glow brighter, making the vacant space around her bigger and the fog farther from her.

“I guess they didn’t call you the Floral Witch for nothing…” The voice snickers. Abigail looks in front of her with her determination visible on her face. “What do you need? I may not be trained to this but I will do my very best to let out whatever ability I have inside me.” Silence ensued for a while. Abigail looks below her as she saw the vines started to grow out around her and growing in the opposite direction. They’re going after the fog. There was a positive result as the fog retracts and distances itself from the vines that are crawling after it. “You still can’t understand my reasons, purpose, and goal. You are still new to this world, am I right?” Abigail stayed silent and refused to answer. “I supposed it’s a bit rude for me to haunt you in your very first day with your lack of knowledge of your own self and the world around you. I know I have the high ground right now. And, I don’t take advantage of the weak, especially the one who I am destined to fight against.”

The fog slowly gets farther and farther away from her which makes her be relieved a little. “I will let you free this time. But, the next time that we meet, I will not have any doubts of delivering you your own death.” The fog slowly fades away, “Until the next time, Abigail.”

Suddenly, she can hear a battle cry and something landing beside her. She turns around as she saw Gallant on the ground with his arms stretched out. He’s holding a sword with both of his hands. “What are you doing here!?” The vines let her go and slowly crawl their way back to the ground. He helps himself up with the help of his sword as something he could hold onto. It was thrust on the ground. “Saving you!” Then, another man ran up to them, it was Edsel. “Are you okay, Crocus?” He pulled Gallant’s hand to help him stand up. “Yes, I am fine.” She wiped the dust out from her dress. “Did he do something to you? We saw a ball of fog when we are finding you. Gallant tried to break you out of there but obviously, he failed.” She giggled a bit and sigh, “Is it the dark wizard that I just encountered earlier?” Gallant wipes off the dust on his suit. “Of course, he always pulls up those tricks. What could you expect from a ‘dark wizard’, hmmm?”

“He didn’t do much to me. Apart from almost choking me to death, he only just talked to me rather mysteriously.” Edsel sighs in relief. “Do you think he cursed you or something like that?” Gallant puts his sword back to its sheath. “Even if he did, I have no idea. The only thing he said was that he needs to fight me, blah blah, I am the floral witch, blah blah, threats, all of those things. He freed me because I am not strong enough to even fight him back. He requires me to get stronger and know who I am. He knows that I am just new in this world.”

Edsel was visibly confused as Gallant sighs, “He must be already lurking when we arrived here. Of course, he will know everything.” She looks around as she spotted the last vine burying itself on the ground. “Also, I have discovered something.” She crouched to get nearer to the ground and put her hand on it. She started to think about the vines again. She was successful in her attempt to bring them back. Some started to rise up on the ground again. She looks back at the two men behind her. “I could grow these flowering vines.” She stands and wipes the dirt out of her hand. “They seemed to have protected me against the dark wizard. When they started crawling towards the fog that surrounds me, they seem to scare the fog away. It started retracting when they are getting nearer and nearer to it. They also glowed.” As she said that, one flower bloomed from the small vines that are going out of the ground. It glows rather quite bright. It even dominates the Nightingale Bluebell that she has in her hand. Which, speaking of, is a little bit frayed from the sudden interruption. But, it’s still glowing nicely even with the specks of dust around it.

“We need to go back now. They specifically stopped in their tracks just to wait for us. We wouldn’t want Catrina to be impatient and Lavena to take care of her. It will be a mess.” Gallant started walking and leading them back to the rest of the group.

“I am glad you came back alive.” Lavena smiles as she looks at Abigail, “What happened back there?” The latter sighs, “I encountered the dark wizard.” Keeana gasps rather quite exaggerated, “What did he do to you? Did he say something that he will kill us all? Did he somewhat sucked all of your powers?” She continuously asked which made Abigail shake her head as a disagreement. “He didn’t do anything to me. It was just like an introduction for both of us. It’s just rather quite traumatic and scary. It’s almost just like when I meet a stranger but there’s a dreadful feeling of death lingering in my mind and my whole body feels like it’s going to collapse any second.” She sighs, “He also threatened to kill us, of course, especially me. Although, he said it’s not the time to execute that yet. I am far too weak for him to fight. He wants a fair and maybe challenging fight, just reading on what he's trying to say.”

Winsel sighs, “This is why we needed you badly. He has been getting destructive since. It’s not just all about wars and crimes in the whole continent. Weeks ago, he told us he was awakened in his somber sleep. Now, he wants to kill us all because of his petty reasons.” “In short, he’s trying to take back the life he had before when he was asleep. Such a lazy man.” Keeana hops out of the tree and looks at Abigail. “But, you’re nowhere with us. His chances of committing g******e are nowhere near as certain now.” Abigail shrugs, “As I have said to you all, I am just new. I am still discovering myself. I can’t save the whole world with just me only knowing how to grow vines off the ground and brewing potions, not even offensive ones to fight this evil dark lord that is trying to harm us.” She sighs, “I am not the hero you’re looking for.”

“The great thing against him is a counterpart of him. Someone that knows how wizardry and witchcraft works. Because you will know his every move and what he could do against you.” She looks at Lavena, “I don’t know those at all. I am not some veteran witch. The only thing that probably makes me special because I have the title of ‘floral witch’ and I have some sort of advantage with flowers. But, that’s all I got and everything is new to me. I don’t know a lot of things like how you think I am. This is already overwhelming me. I can’t—”

She was suddenly cut off as she was pulled away from where they are. “Retreat! Another danger has came from the fauna!”