The Optimistic Authour

This feels like one of those polygonal new age cakes, like the ones that are just a gradient sphere on the outside.

OH GRANDPA DREW IT HIMSELF??? Somehow I thought it was the dude that decided to draw on his own hand. This..........this makes it wAY worse. Holy fuck. This is just murder with extra steps.

FINALLY SOMEONE ACKNOWLEDGES THE PARTS THAT EXIT THE RING I am very excited to Know These Things

Also, so many questions! Where did Engendale learn this shit? How many OTHER people are visually aware of the forbidden spells, or could reliably replicate them?

A Very Old Technique, huh. I wonder where you learned that technique.

The part on the back looks like a heart shape..... The rest look like they're roughly following the nervous system? Or the vascular system?

THat's what I'm sayin.

Also, WOW seeing his final moments like this.... he really is just some stupid kid. I was saying about how draconian it is to force him to experience the complete annihilation of most of his memories for his crimes, but this crosses into infinitely more fucked up territory. Surely he does not deserve this.

Shirahama has a VERY well balanced see-saw here, and it keeps on tipping back and forth between the Knights level of tyranny and the Brimhats level of Ruthlessness and it's VERY compelling.

EEEeeehh...... I guess he didn't........technically.........lie.

I think it's a little funny how he's concerned about respecting the Wise Ones when he literally already violated the principles and invented the glasses......

Hm. Maybe he did lie after all.

So. Wait. I thought that giant thing WAS him, slime-y-fied. Clearly that was a red herring. Is that thing something ELSE?

............seems like something you'd keep to yourself until someone else tested out whether or not it was just outside the window, waiting for its doordash order.......

Shirahama really went off with this one.

So. Did the seal just like. Not work?

OR. Did it work.... but only as the leech began to drag parts of him outside? So he was slurped up instead of bitten all over? Because he was already in slushie form?

That Dragon CLEARLY got the memo. They're about to get the FUCK outta dodge.

NOOOO THE DRAGONSSSS

Is there. A reason the leech isn't targeting him?

But also, sir, don a brim, please. It's the rules. Wouldn't want you to get a ticket.

THE BRIM!@!!!!! OOOOOHOHHOHOH THAT'S GOOOOD.

I mean, it's bad. This is fucked up. But in such a cool way.

Also, who is he talking to? "Let's leave the leech be" - is there something else here? Is that why it's forming his brim? Does he control the slime somehow????

SuUUUUUCH a fucking incredible spread!

If I was an adult witch and that shit showed up, I'd be yoinking the kids outta the sky without asking. Get the FUCK away from where it's easy to make yourself a target!

Man, the days of Yore were FUCKED

I LITERALLY TOLD YOU TO GET OUTTA THE FUCKING SKY

THASNK FUCK

YOU'RE AWFULLY CALM FOR SOMEONE WITHIN CHOMP CHOMP RANGE

.................yeah I hope so too. But. Uh.

Unfortunately, I think winning against forbidden magic with.... non-forbidden magic MIGHT be difficult without a WHLE ASS lot of backup.

Which, I suppose makes it good that this entire event is a huge ass gathering of witches. I assume they're just not here yet because they're drawing.

GIRL PLS YOU'RE GOOD BUT ALSO STILL VERY VULNERABLE

Ah yes, the spell of FLAMETHROWER

OOOOH YES GIRL USE YOUR KNOWLEDGE to help the guy who wanted to wipe your memories immediately upon meeting you

FIREBALL!! FIREBALL!!!! GET IT, OLLY

He's better than me. I just leave my drafts open in my art program for days on end, hoping they'll eventually bully me into working on them.......

It's like Sunk Cost Fallacy, but...the other side of that......

I support Olruggio taking time off! Very good.

I've just fuckin' realized that the reason his name is so easy to PUN in Japanese is because you just take a verb that ends with る(many such cases) and just fuckin. Stick it in there. And it works.

(in this case it's だるい, an adjective but my point stands. mad respect for the translators trying to keep it up in English)

why is this dude so relatable

Dad Misses Family Even When THey've Finally Left Him Alone To Have Some Peace, More at 5

Backstory? In MY cosy bonus chapter?

Olruggio of the Flame, huh. :(

Oh, don't worry. That's not a Someday. It's already here. They're already crushed.

Won't fool me, I know you're like, 24.

Yes, let's not have a repeat of the Donnor Party. Those look like some dark mountains up ahead, Qifrey...

Santa's here, kids!

For fun. It's for fun!

Me, when I need to draw comics for Patreon but I instead wanna do comics about my dog..........

....what's that you got there, Coco? A smoothie?

We're brainstorming DURING the performance. It's an evolving live artpiece.

The best thing is, Agott went out there BECAUSE she knew, on some level, Coco is like this. She knew she would be welcomed. Instead of accusations and people telling her she might be stealing, or perhaps trying to take someone's thunder, Coco just wants to work together with her.

I'm sure that heals something in Agott, teaching her that there's other ways to live in this world.

Yeah, the spell she traced from the book was for the love of the game.

I'm going to hang on to that comment about her father. I don't feel like that's just a throwaway line. Her mother said that he... passed from illness? I wonder if it was the sort of thing forbidden magic could have theoretically fixed. Or hell, regular magic.

OOOOhhh yess! Callback to adding animal sigils to the seals!!!

damnit I'm tearing up again. No matter how far down we go, no matter how dark it gets... this manga always comes back to the thesis that Kindness Is Important. And that's. So cool, actually. It's so fucking rad.

Oh, that's neat. I suppose that fixes one problem!

LMAO fair play

Very heartwarming that the spell that did the trick is basically just... an aid. Something that helps the common people. So often, magic is focused on the flashiest, most damaging or most powerful type of world-changing spell.

But instead, having THIS kind of magic be staged, it's really neat. Really good reminder what innovation is really riding on.

The spell could also just be for YOU Coco.... you don't have to make EVERYONE happy with EVERY spell all the time.....

Thank FUCK for Agott.

YESSSSSSSS AGOTT IS THE QUEEN OF PUTTING HERSELF FIRST, WHICH IS ALSO A VERY NECESSARY SKILL. SIDE BY SIDE WITH CARING ABOUT OTHERS, AS BOTH ARE IMPORTANT. WE. LOVE. TO. SEE. IT.!!!!

So does Olly.

I hear the pokemon battle encounter music playing...

Uh oh... Mama Agott.... did she see Agott helping another witch? Will that get a thumbs up or thumbs down...

Surely Custas didn't choose THIS time to attack......... that seems weird timing. He needs Coco to succeed? Or is this something else???

The fact that it was Olruggio that saved them when so many other powerful witches are nearby...True Dad Instincts.

Is there like, a mouse or a snake or something...?

Their faces are--- ........... ........shaped.

At first I thought he was responsible for something, but there are, apparently other witches up there also looking at stuff.

okay, so clearly there's some eldritch monstrosity we're about to get a whole eyefull of, but I need to make guesses as to what it's going to be.

The giant forest spirit from Princess Mononoke? A gigantic homonculus. A..... cloud dragon that's also a storm. Idk I feel like that's pretty far.

That. Was not on the bingo card.

Thing, from the Addams Family???

Okay so is that. Is that the kid's hand? The prev. Wise in Friendships (WOAW okay so obviously he has had lots of time to perfect manipulating people) tricked him into using the ring, I'm presuming?

...........

Oh. Okay that. That sounds more like..... he gave the dude the ring, and the dude himself decided to draw on his own hand???????

I thought he would be trying to draw on the castle's outer wall?!!??! Or on a piece of rock that he stuck out of the window???? WHAT

FLUFFY BONUS CHAPTER?

NOW??????

RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY BLOOD MAGIC ABOMINATION??????