The Black Witch Runs Her Own Boarding House in Another World
Okay, so you know how most of these stories I've been recommend start with someone dying and waking up in a world out of one of the books they've been reading?
Well, I intend to avoid Truck-kun but when I die of Very Old Age in about a hundred years or so I would not mind waking up as this story's heroine at all. She's basically living my dream.
The story goes like this. A woman from the modern world ends up dying in a fire while working at a boarding house. She wakes up in a new, magical world to find that she's a very rare Black Witch, capable of - if she can master her powers - changing the very world.
So she decides to open a boarding house in the forest near an adventure's questing cave.
There she spends her days gardening, foraging in the woods, taking to her all the forest animals as well as her cat (because witches can understand animals), brewing super helpful potions and cooking delicious meals. There's really only one problem.
The boarding house she runs has yet to have even a single guest.
That all changes one rainy night when a stranger appears at her door asking to rent a room for the night.
There's only one problem - the adventurer is a demi-human.
That's right - dude's got ears and a tail. And in this world, demi-humans and beastfolk are considered second class and not welcome in most human run businesses. Our girl though is a modern-day woman with modern-day attitudes. Which is to say:
And so our story gets rolling. Once word gets out, our girl finds herself running an inn for adventurers of the more furred variety.
This is a short story, clocking in at only twelve chapters but despite that the world building feels very solid and the large amount of characters introduced all have their own distinct personalities, hinted at histories and moments to shine. Lunan, our heroine, is upbeat and competent as well as helpful and kind. There are a couple of darker threads that never get tugged on too hard but give the world a scary tinge under its surface. The story doesn't go too deep in its twelve chapters but it stays interesting all the way through and even if I haven't found them yet, there seem to be at least two more 'books' in this series - which is good because I would have happily immersed myself in another hundred chapters or so of this if it had let me. I'm usually a snob that only reads full-color comics but this one was so perfect I couldn't resist it and the art is beautiful enough that it really doesn't need color. In fact, I feel as if the lack of color forced me to focus more on the drawn story itself. Overall, this was a cozy, filling, delicious short story and I would dip back into the world in a heart-beat for more of it.
warnings: violence, humans are monsters, abuse, prejudice, segregation, child endangerment, allusions to the sale and consumption of body parts (told you it hints at a darker thread), plot points set up for obvious future stories
abs?: chapter 6 (because we're equal opportunity here)
