Week 11: サイレント・ウィッチ 🤫 🧙‍♀️

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Silent Witch :shushing_face: :woman_mage: Home Thread

Week 11

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Start Date: Mar 15
Previous Part: Week 10
Next Part: Week 12

Reading:

Week Chapter End page End % End on Page Count
11 七章 1/2 ~167 57% やがて何事もなかったかのようにページをめくりだした。 ~16

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle_the_explorer:

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Proper nouns

Name Note
ケルベック伯爵領
ウォーガン山脈
リディル王国
アガサ 侍女
イザベル・ノートン ケルベック伯爵令嬢
アラン 馬丁、アガサの弟
シェフィールド 風の精霊王
モニカ・エヴァレット 沈黙の魔女
ネロ
アニー
ミネルヴァ school
ルイス・ミラー 結界の魔術師
リィンズベルフィード (リン) 風の上位精霊
ライオネル 第一王子, 27 yo
フェリクス 第二王子, 18 yo
アルバート 第三王子, 14 yo
セレンディア学園
クロックフォード公爵 第二王子の祖父
ダスティン・ギュンター 作家
ロザリー・ミラー ルイスの妻
アーロン・オブライエン 生徒会会計
エリオット・ハワード 生徒会書記
ブリジェット・グレイアム 生徒会書記
ニール・クレイ・メイウッド 生徒会庶務
シリル・アシュリー 生徒会副会長
(フェリクス・アーク・リディル) 第二王子、生徒会長
ヴィクター・ソーンリー 先生
ラナ・コレット 2年生
セルマ・カーシュ 保健委員
カロライン
ウィルディアヌ トカゲ

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Impressions

I’m glad that Felix understands that Monica is not just a student. It makes me feel that he’ll find out her identity rather sooner that later.

It’s also clear that the real culprit, who distorted Aaron’s mind is still roaming around, I’m surprised that Monica didn’t mention it in her thoughts. Selma’s actions feel a bit too simple and straightforward (or stupid), and I wonder, of she was manipulated as well.

Monica feels a bit useless as a bodyguard, considering that she easily hides in her own reality :joy:

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Chapter impressions

Same. Though it strikes me as ironic that Monica finally takes her chance to revel in her private joy of proof-reading the council record’s messed up math, and that is what makes Felix suspect that she’s some sort of undercover agent :joy:.

Definitely. Selma herself also refers to some mysterious あの人, who told her that only she can save Aron. Wouldn’t surprise me if the entire hare-brained plan was that person’s suggestion.

I’m adding Brigitte to my growing list of suspects, because of the rumors that Aron was into her and that he spent his embezzled money on other women than his fiance.

Looking forward to the second part of this chapter. The title makes it sound like Felix has secrets we haven’t found out yet. It can’t just be his contracted lizard spirit, right?

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Life hack: Time your reading towards the end of the week to be able to read a whole chapter in one go.

Expectation: A whole chapter! Yay! :partying_face:

Reality: I want to see what @lifev and @Boodil have been saying about this week’s reading, but I haven’t even started reading so I can’t. :grimacing:

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a bit more

Yeah, it is definitely suspicious! I hope we find out the truth in this book :eyes:

I am a weak person, so I finished the chapter, but I will say no more. :shushing_face:

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Week 11 notes

手袋にはセルマさんのイニシャルが、刺繡されてました

I know all the other facts Monica previously mentioned are also relevant and pointing to Selma, but this feels like ending a long explanation of why you think someone is the criminal ending with “…oh, and also the gun you discarded had your name written on it, so that’s also a factor I guess” :laughing:

「植木鉢を落としたのも、看板を落としたのも……生徒会の予算を着服したのも私です！ 全部全部私がやりました！ アーロンを唆したのも私です！ 彼は私に騙されていただけなんです！ ですから……あぁ、お願いです、どうか、アーロンにご慈悲を……彼は悪くないんです。彼が着服したお金は、私が全部返しますから！」

Kids, if you want something from a person in power, try to assassinate them first and then ask them for the favor when you get caught.

I wonder what the actual plan was. It sounded earlier like she wanted to help Aaron by doing all this, right? But I don’t see how that whole thing helped; even if she would’ve killed Felix, Aaron wouldn’t be free. I can only see it making sense if she tried to threaten Felix into freeing Aaron, but for that she would’ve needed to get her intent across somehow, and nothing like that happened. The whole thing just makes no sense. I assume her mind was tampered with?

It did sound earlier like there was some nebulous あの人 who definitely has some influence in her decisions:

（だから、私が彼を助けてあげないと。彼を助けてあげられるのは、私だけだって、あの人も言っていたのだから……）

Probably Aaron’s magically-forgotten “collaborator”.

それでもセルマは、アーロンを断罪したフェリクスを恨み、危害を加え、最後は着服の罪を全て自分が背負おうとした。

…are we actually going with this as what happened? That “See, I am the criminal and I also did all the other things, so that other criminal surely isn’t the criminal” was the plan?

「……と言いたいところだけど、セルマ・カーシュ嬢が起こした事件を公にするのは難しいだろうし、彼女もまた体調不良ということで自主退学してもらうのが妥当だろう」

I feel like neither “kill her and all of her family” nor “I guess maybe she should drop out of school” feel like appropriate punishments for attempted assassination.

「ねぇ、ノートン嬢。もしよければ、会計記録の見直しを手伝ってくれないかい？」

I think this is the first time in the book Monica is asked to do something she actually wants to do :laughing:

「もしノートン嬢が拾った鍵で無関係の棚を漁っていたら、報告してくれ」

I’m calling it now: She’s going to use the keys to find and fix the remainder of the account books when she’s done in 20 minutes with the first batch :laughing:

そのためにフェリクスは、どの資料がどの棚にあるかをモニカに教えたのだ。

Ah, I was wondering what was going on there. I guess that does make it faster to see what someone might be interested in.

（そろそろ、フェリクス様がこの廊下を通るお時間だわ）

Haha. Is Monica going to come out? Or Felix and Monica together?

[Neither happened; we just seem to forget the girls standing in the corridor and switch our viewpoint to this new person who’s coming along. I wonder what the point of that whole passage was.]

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Summary

Ooh, i missed this part of Selma’s confession that あの人 told her. That’s a pertinent clue!

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Reply

Yeah, definitely a good clue!

It wasn’t part of the confession though; she was just thinking that part to herself:

（だから、私が彼を助けてあげないと。彼を助けてあげられるのは、私だけだって、あの人も言っていたのだから……）

So our protagonist and most of the cast have absolutely no idea.

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Summary

When I read that passage, I remember thinking it was Aaron who asked her to take the fall… Selma seemed to be so devoted to him, even though he wasn’t in love with her.

I was disappointed that Selma took the blame for everything and that my theory about Professor Thornley and Cyril being the co-conspirators was wrong. But! with あの人 seemingly implicated, maybe my theory isn’t quite out of the realm of possibilities…

I confess I am having a little trouble with the genre of this book. I really want it to be a British crime detective mystery so I’m mostly focusing on clues. And that may be the wrong approach to this book. It’s a young person’s romance? An underdog fairytale?

Monica sure seems super damaged by a terrible past. It’s good she has Nero who she can be completely at ease with. The whole social order of beautiful children of nobility and the bullying of plain or non-“old monied” students seems kind of mean and antiquated (?) I’m glad the club chose this book because I would not have chosen this book on my own (edit: ie., I gravitate toward certain genres sometimes to my detriment…). Those are usually the ones I remember the most…

Also, there are plenty of grammar points and expressions that I am mining for ANKI review that I never seem to get to…

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Chapter Thoughts

Lots of WaniKani words in this part. Made for a pleasant experience as I was trying to do as few lookup as possible.

I don’t really understand Selma’s game plan either, so I hope it gets fleshed out later!

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