"How much do you know about the witches and their current situation?" Leena asked as she held Anna in her lap and patted her head slightly. Anna, too, was silently letting her do that while patting a brown teddy bear.
I probably knew quite a lot about witches, even more than these two, but for starters, let's say something basic that a travelling adventurer would know.
"They live in the underworld and have an entirely unique system there. I have also heard that they were trapped there by a curse, but there is another theory about them developing more there than on the surface."
I started with a very basic, letting Leena guide me towards the information she wanted to hear.
"What about the Witches of Flame, Nature and Ocean?" She asked, and I pondered a little before speaking.
"Other than their strong affinity towards the respective elements? I know that witches of Ocean manage the connection between the different witches by sharing the information. Flame witches are fighter witches and nature witches are more of a support or healer type?"
She looked at me and nodded," that is correct. Is there anything else you want to add that you know?"
I pondered a little, wondering if I should throw something big?
"There is one more thing that I heard during my travels, but honestly… I have no idea if that is true. It was something that I just happened to hear in a tavern by a random Witch Hunter."
Leena's eyes narrowed at me while Anna, who was busy with the teddy bear, turned to me.
"The man spoke, and I quote,' there is a disease spreading among those wh*res. If you give them a blast of a highly concentrated mana attack of another nature, they will drop like flies. Though not all of them are suffering, so that's too bad,' "I said to them.
My eyes were concentrated on them, wondering how they would respond. Anna seemed to be rather agitated by this information, while Leena was looking at me with a half glare.
"Where did you hear this?" Leena asked as she looked at me with a threatening glare.
"In a tavern on the east of the Aurelian Empire near the Orion Peninsula. About a year ago," I spoke as I recalled that the disease started from there.
I remember it because it was a worldwide Event Epic Quest that anyone can participate in. It was issued by the witches to ask the players to hunt for materials to heal the disease.
About a dozen people, who had the [Witch] class, even took part in the following Unique Quest. And then, 3 of them which managed to complete the quest were given the insane quest rewards.
Since the story was interesting, the players shared it and it was quite well received by the community. There was even a movie and a drama over this, so it was hard to forget.
"Orion Peninsula, huh? Guess it makes sense if it is there," Leena murmured as she looked at me, before she pondered a bit more.
"Well. If a random person like you already know about this, it wouldn't be long before others know it as well," she spoke before continuing,
"I will keep it to a minimum. The disease occurs when a witch gives birth to another witch of an opposite nature. It is as simple as that."
'It's not,' I smiled as I saw her lying without batting an eye. The disease comes from an experiment and is pretty much infectious.
"Our Mother is a Witch of Wind. While we happen to be Flame witches, our youngest… she is a Witch of the Land," she said, expecting me to understand the rest of the situation myself.
After a momentary silence, I looked at Anna before asking,
"And how is it connected to Anna and you coming here? And Anna asking me to learn Arrays?"
Leena and Anna looked at each other for a couple of seconds, before Leena sighed, patting Anna's head. Anna, on the other hand, turned sad as she sulked a little.
"Remember when I said that we aren't from here?" Leena asked.
"Yeah. When you seemed like you were about to cry," I smirked at her, while she rolled her eyes away from me.
"You need not to remember that," she added before her gaze turned melancholic. I could see a little warmth in that distant look of hers.
"We actually came from a far-away region. Near the northern edge of Muspelheim, from a small town called Riva Town. Though because of the influence of the Goddess of Fire being high there, we had to escape along with our mother.
We never met our father. Mother said that she was a runaway dark mage, so that kind of made things worse for us than the normal.
We journeyed to find other witches, but it wasn't anything even close to easy. Witch hunters, other Dark Mages, slave traders, there was no end to the people who wanted to harm us.
Though we somehow were able to reach one of the entrances to the underworld. However, things didn't turn out as we expected them to."
A slight pause in her story before she added the closing statements to how it was connected to me.
"On our check up at the entrance, they found that our youngest had Mana Inversion disease. I had… another weakness, and our mother had an extremely powerful array placed on her back. Supposedly, it was a mind control array placed by our so-called father on her."
Anna turned sad as she hugged her teddy bear even more while putting her head on Leena's chest.
"We can't disclose our location to anyone and especially not to our mother. Hence, probably why Anna didn't ask you for your help but asked you to teach it to her. There, you have it all now… is there anything you want to ask?"
Leena looked at me with a serious gaze, while I wondered how I should handle the situation next.