🍅 rom.

Spoilers below for chapter 93 btw

witch hat NOW

throughout the manga, we've seen a lot of abusive adults blame children for causing them stress and shame. eunie's former master, riche's former master, the list goes on. so many times, the blame is cast on children for causing adults stress and misery just by existing.

and that's clearly what qifrey thought, what he picked up on. was probably surrounded by a ton of teachers fresh out of their fifth test, commiserating about how rough apprentices are, how much of a headache they cause. so he thought: huh, well, i need a constant level of misery to survive, may as well take apprentices.

like. he literally took apprentices specifically to stress himself out and make him miserable, just like many witches said it would

and it didn't work.

because qifrey is a good teacher. because out of guilt for his selfish motives he put so much effort into being the best teacher he could. and because of that, his apprentices will never be able to stop him from dying.