Miss Witch Doesn't Want to be a Diva

August 15th, sunny, at Hexia's home.

The girl sat in her bedroom, a suitcase on the bed, surrounded by various scattered items, including clothes, souvenirs from her childhood, beloved photo albums, and so on.

"Which ones should I take?" the girl knelt on the bed, her gaze sweeping over these objects, pondering for a moment.

She could foresee that in the coming years, she would rarely have time to come back, so it wasn't suitable to leave some precious items at home, especially her sister's few sets of special Transcendent dresses.

Forget it, just take everything—although it means the next few days will be tiring, the girl gave up on making choices, her fingertips tracing through the air.

Purple specks whirled, and many of the items from the bed and desk flew into them, vanishing from sight.

While using such spatial abilities to store items was convenient, retrieving them was noisy, and hence not suitable for objects that were frequently used.

After placing some rarely used but valuable items into the crevices of the spatial folds, the number of objects left around Hexia diminished significantly, making the room clearer.

Some regularly worn clothes, pajamas, notes, sketchbooks, and some small souvenirs given to her by others—after putting these items one by one into the suitcase, Hexia tried lifting it.

It's somewhat heavy, she thought to herself.

Dragging the suitcase to the door to set it down temporarily, Hexia turned back and looked at the room, now cool and dusty from disuse.

"I really should clean it up; otherwise, it feels like something is missing," Hexia took off her shoes and socks, put on light sandals, walked through the hall, and fetched a bucket of water and cleaning tools from the bathroom. She rolled up her sleeves and tied her hair up.

Just as the girl was about to start working, she suddenly remembered something, turned around, and nudged the giant spider hiding in her shadow with her foot.

"You can't be lazy either, at least help me wipe down the ceiling," she said, crouching down to stroke the creature's head.

"Hiss, hiss~"—although she couldn't understand the meaning, it was probably 'no problem.' The giant spider suddenly leaped from her hand onto her head.

"Ah, you're pulling my hair again," Hexia felt her hair being tugged and patted the giant spider on her head.

...

"Alright, alright, stay up there then, there's just no helping it," lately, the girl had become used to having the giant spider perch on her head.

Then she raised her arms slightly, and in a moment, the water in the bucket began to spin, its speed increasing under her control, and it formed a small tornado that shot out.

Because she hadn't practiced any Transcendent Profession related to water, she could only manipulate objects using a generic mental control formula, which was quite strenuous and less efficient.

However, she only needed to control the water roughly.

The whirling liquid quickly took shape in the air, forming rising icicle stools. Stepping on the stools, she could easily reach the high walls, while the giant spider on her head could lift a rag to clean the overhead ceiling.

Time to get to work~

After preparing another bucket of fresh water, Hexia began to patiently and meticulously clean the corners of the house, seemingly filled with a faint sense of nostalgia.

Time slowly passed—first the ceiling and walls, then the surfaces of desks and cabinets, followed by various nooks and crevices, and discarding some old, useless items.

When the clock reached 3 p.m., the entire house was transformed, everything neat and orderly.

The air retained a faint mist, the floor still damp, but none of this diminished the girl's slightly cheerful and relaxed mood.

She walked through each room in the house with the large spider, the doors to all the rooms opened wide, with cleanliness inside and out.

"Let it be," the young girl nodded slightly.

She placed a high-legged chair in the center of the living room, then took out the violin Andusia had given her before parting ways. Made of rosewood and adorned with the "Tilan flower" patterns on its edges, it was extraordinarily beautiful.

Sitting on the chair, she supported the neck of the violin with one hand and held the bow with the other. After tuning briefly, the metallic strings vibrated, emitting a resonant and crisp sound.

The prelude of the melody was simple yet distant, its repetition akin to a solitary walk in the labyrinth of memory.

With her eyes slightly closed, the young girl gradually altered the angle and amplitude of the bow, and with it, the music slowly transformed, reminiscent of spring days in memory with sunlight filtering through the trees, the hot and lazy summers, the refreshing and joyous autumns, the peaceful and cozy winters...

Although the music was rich in emotions, it always carried a faint nostalgia and distance, as if separated from reality by a sheer veil of time, unable to touch that genuine feeling.

The melody surged and ebbed, turning and repeating time and again as the breeze wafted through the rooms of the house.

Gradually, a thin layer of frost appeared in all the corners and slowly spread around.

Finally, the music slowly ceased, and the girl put down her bow. The entire house was covered with frost-like crystals, utterly silent.

The large spider by the high-legged chair rubbed against Hexia's ankle, its fuzz causing a slight tickle, prompting her to instinctively want to move away.

"All right, no need to fuss. It's not so bad, really," she said as she hopped down from the chair, standing on the frost-covered floor, gazing around.
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In this way, perhaps everything inside the house could be preserved for a long time at this very moment, she thought silently to herself.

She packed up her violin carefully into its case and walked to the door. Picking up her ready-packed suitcase, she waved a final goodbye to the living room.

"I'm off to school," she said, just like she used to every morning when she was little.

Soon, the door shut quietly; gears meshed and locked, and the house blanketed in frost fell into hushed silence, frozen in memory.

Dragging her suitcase, Hexia arrived at the roadside of the residential area, where a car was already waiting for her.

Yilin stood there, waving at Hexia, then helped the girl stow her suitcase before they both got into the car.

The world outside the car was slowly obscured by the pale gray glass, growing more and more distant, until the old and cluttered corridor, the tunnel filled with rust and rubbish, could no longer be seen.

Seeing the girl still looking at the rearview mirror, Yilin spoke softly.

"We'll be back."

"Yeah," the girl nodded and then shook her head, indicating there was no need to worry about her.

"It's just a bit nostalgic, that's all."

For many people within the Federation, the summer of their sixteenth year might be just memories of playing games at home or going out to dine and have fun with friends while chatting about various complaints and trivial matters. It may take many years for everyone to slowly realize that on that ordinary, somewhat dreary day, life's trajectory diverged as everyone headed down different paths. The decision made in perhaps just half an hour, choosing which school to report to, deeply influenced and changed the course of life for decades to come.

But even years later, when many have come to realize this, they still remain helpless when facing their past selves at that moment in time, because no one can predict the future changes in the world, the ups and downs of various industries, the vast differences between regions and schools, nor the faces that would come into their lives.

All one could do in this one and only life was to keep walking, through laughter and tears alike.