Chapter 77: A Magnificent World Tour

If riding a space broom was a whimsical fantasy drift,
then traveling aboard a starship was pure science fiction.

Witches’ starships might have been powered by magitech rather than engines,
but in design and comfort, they were almost indistinguishable from the vessels of advanced technological civilizations.

Last time, Jiang Cha’s trip with Mottel had only been a short hop — she hadn’t really gotten a feel for it.
This time, though, the Fragment Belt was far beyond the solar system.
Their voyage would take an entire day.

Well—
an entire subjective day.

In truth, with faster-than-light travel and a few space-gate jumps, the actual time elapsed in the real world was only about three hours.
For witches—long-lived beings with near-eternal lifespans—that wasn’t even a blink.

“Our rooms are connected,” Daisy reminded her, glancing over.
“If anything happens, just knock on the door. I’ll be right next door.”

It was just a casual remark, really.
Witches were considered fully capable of taking care of themselves by the age of fourteen,
so even though Jiang Cha was young, she wasn’t treated like a child.

“You can go explore if you want, but I’d suggest you rest first,” Daisy added.
“Once we enter the Hyperspace Corridor, that’s when the view gets good.”

The empty void outside their current window was dull — black, cold, and lifeless.
But once they slipped into the hyperspace world-line, the scenery would become breathtaking.

Long-distance FTL travel affected witches the way jet lag affected humans —
a wave of soul-deep fatigue that came from the strain of moving faster than time itself.
A short nap was usually enough to fix it.

Oddly enough, world travel and dimensional travel didn’t cause the same exhaustion.
According to researchers, witches’ souls were inherently attuned to fantasy-rule motion,
but that explanation had always sounded like a handwave.
Whenever they didn’t understand something, they just blamed it on “the soul and the laws.”
Slightly more elegant than saying “aliens did it,” but not by much.

“Got it, Daisy-senpai. Thank you.”

Jiang Cha nodded softly. She could already feel that familiar haze creeping in —
a gentle drowsiness that seemed to come from the depths of her soul.

Her last starship trip had been too short to cause this.
They’d only taken wormholes, never entered true FTL space.

Now, she could feel the difference.

Her cabin wasn’t much different from one on a luxury cruise ship — compact but elegant.
Even the crew had tidy single rooms like this.
Not that there were many crew members on a semi-automated witch ship anyway.

Still, this wasn’t a vacation cruise.
They hadn’t paid for the deluxe suite tickets that cost hundreds of times more.

The ship flew smooth and silent, no turbulence, no motion sickness.
Only that faint buzz in the skull — the echo of space itself — made Jiang Cha decide to rest for a bit.

It had been so long since she’d had a proper sleep.
She usually relied on stimulant potions to stay awake.
Now, the idea of a real nap almost felt like a luxury.

She shrugged off her spring jacket and sat on the edge of the bed,
kicking off her combat boots and sliding out of her black dress.

Underneath, she wore a crisp white blouse and loose-cut denim pants that reached mid-calf —
a practical, slightly boyish outfit she’d chosen specifically for this job.
Comfort over formality.

Witches didn’t judge by appearances the way humans did.
There were no “business suits” or “uniforms” in their culture.
To them, function mattered more than form.

Their equipment — magical or mechanical — was always tailored to personal taste.
The result was a chaotic explosion of styles.

Rumor had it that the Witch Guard and the Internal Auditors under the Council of Sages
wore standardized uniforms.
But Jiang Cha had never met anyone from those mysterious departments to confirm it.

Knock, knock, knock.

The soft, rhythmic sound at her door pulled her from sleep.
Jiang Cha sat up, rubbing her temples — the faint ache was a familiar side effect of FTL travel.
Soul feedback, technically speaking.
Still, massaging her temples made it feel better, even if it was just psychological.

“Sorry, I overslept—”

She opened the door, half-apologetic, only to find herself face-to-face with Kelly —
the cheerful little mechanist witch, who couldn’t speak because of her silent meditation.

Kelly winked brightly, her whole face saying “Don’t worry about it.”

Witches practicing silent vows usually had ways to communicate —
spell-script in the air, psychic tablets, mana-signal projection…
Simple stuff for a mechanist of her level.

But Kelly didn’t need any of that.
Her expressions were that vivid.

Every twitch of her mouth could have been a sticker pack.

Before Jiang Cha could even respond, Kelly grabbed her hand and tugged her down the corridor,
shooting her another mischievous wink as they ran.

And somehow, Jiang Cha understood her perfectly.

“Daisy and Misa are waiting! Hurry, hurry!”

Kelly never said a word — yet Jiang Cha heard her clearly.

It was uncanny.
Like an anime girl brought to life —
every gesture, every grin, perfectly expressive,
effortlessly bridging the gap between 2D and reality.

Perhaps it was her sunny personality.
Or perhaps it was just that her heart was simple and pure enough to shine through everything she did.

Each smile, each blink, each puff of breath carried her emotions clearly.

It felt dreamlike.

Especially here — in the half-transparent corridors of the starship,
where the mana-infused hull shimmered like glass,
and starlight painted Kelly’s figure in soft gold and pink.

For a moment, Jiang Cha thought:

So this is what it feels like to step into the second dimension.

“Ah, there you are! Come on, dinner’s ready!”

Daisy waved from the other end of the panoramic dining hall, laughing.

“Shipboard meals like this? You won’t find them anywhere else in the universe.”

Jiang Cha joined them at the table, still half-dazed by the dreamlike sight before her.

The dining hall’s walls and ceiling were completely transparent —
outside, the edge of the world shimmered where dimensions met,
a breathtaking fusion of magic and cosmos.

Around them, other travelers chatted and laughed,
their voices adding a cozy hum of life to the surreal panorama.

From above, ribbons of aurora spilled down like liquid light.
Beautiful.
And impossibly real.

World travel and interstellar travel —
two utterly different things.
Different methods, different laws, different vistas.

Today I’ll be adjusting my schedule — just one update tonight. If all goes well, I’ll make up for it with three chapters tomorrow.

By the way, I think I’ve settled on the tone for this story — a slow, peaceful everyday life sprinkled with moments of wonder and adventure. I hope you’ll like it.