Aloha Zachou – illustratör

Looks like I’ve been reincarnated into a gamelike world filled with monsters and dungeons. But don’t worry—it’s nothing I can’t handle. I chose Creation Magic for my unique skill, you see, and it lets me make whatever item I want...so long as I’ve got enough mana. Ah, there’s always a catch, isn’t there? But where there’s a rule, there’s a loophole—and this little witch knows just the trick to expand her mana pool a bit more each day.As for what I’ll be up to in the meantime, first I’ll make a friend. (Literally. Golems are a thing in this world.) Next, I’ll make some tracks. (And the sooner, the better. The goddess dropped me off in the middle of the wastelands). Then finally, one day, I’ll make myself a place where I can truly belong. (That’s the plan, at least.) Time to make some magic!

A full year after leaving the pioneer village, Chise and Teto are still searching for a safe place to call home. But with winter coming, they decide to settle down for the season in Apanemis—also known as “Dungeon City.” There, the girls take up adventuring work in hopes of finding clues to the location of the Wasteland of Nothingness, but instead, a chance encounter with a young boy leads the duo to a struggling orphanage. Chise thus takes up a new goal for the short term: now, she’ll do everything in her (over)power to save the orphans!

On their quest for a safe place to call home, Chise and Teto cross paths with a dying woman and wind up entrusted with her infant daughter. And after uncovering a plot on the poor thing’s life, they can’t just leave her at an orphanage—so the girls decide to take baby Selene with them to the elusive Wasteland of Nothingness to keep her safe. Chise is resolved to raise Selene as her own, and thus begins an all-new journey for this little witch: motherhood!

After being forced to say their goodbyes to Selene, Chise and Teto return to the Wasteland of Nothingness with heavy hearts. To curb their loneliness, the pair preoccupy themselves with building a new home and aiding Prince Gyunton in breaking a secret network of slavers operating in Gald. Their work is put on hold, however, when a strange drain on Chise’s mana restoration project in the Wasteland reveals a precursor ruin practically underfoot! Home and garden will have to wait! Adventure calls, and waiting in those sunken vaults, an enigmatic new friend in need of mending—a task that may prove impossible even for Chise.

Having taken care of their holy mission from Lariel, Chise and Teto have earned some time off. And what says “vacation” better than sunny beaches and tasty seafood? They accordingly decide to linger in the Kingdom of Lawbyle a little longer, clearing a few quests here and there as they take in the pleasures of seaside life. But strange circumstances leave a little black kitten and an absolute mess of a magician in Chise’s care, and it’s not clear which will be more daunting: bringing out her new student’s true potential, or returning the stray to its home—on an isle that roams the open sky.

With her apprentice Yuicia and the little cat-sith Kuro gone, Chise resumes her daily life in the Wasteland of Nothingness alongside her trusty companion Teto and their twenty-odd attendant dolls. Over the years, what used to be a desolate, barren land has turned into a beautiful, lush forest and the new tenants from the floating island have left it busier than ever, to Chise’s delight. But these changes soon catch the attention of the nations next door, and it isn’t long before they start making “housewarming visits.” Unable to live in hiding any longer, Chise has to do the one thing she’s been dreading the most: open the wasteland to the rest of the world.

The stampede is over, and the souls lost outside space-time have been purified. After spending a year helping out at a refugee camp, Chise can finally head back home to the Wasteland of Nothingness (now renamed the Witch of Creation’s Forest). However, her respite is short-lived. Three thousand refugees of many different races move into the Forest all at once, so it’s only a matter of time before issues start to rear their ugly heads. Can Chise really keep the peace between all of her neighbors, new and old?

After ten years resettling the new residents of the Witch of Creation’s Forest, wanderlust strikes Chise again. Itching to embark on a new journey, but weary of her fame, she decides to blow her copious reserves of mana on disguising herself. Forging a new identity as a C-rank adventurer and marginally older girl, she departs with her bestie Teto for the Sunfield Empire. The pair spend their days in leisure until a job gone wildly off-track lands them an invitation to the elves’ great forest, an enigmatic place where outsiders are rarely welcomed. Eager to learn more about elves’ customs and culture, Chise eagerly accepts the invitation. But who knows what awaits them there?