Over the course of the rest of the spring the Witch Princess seemed to have surprisingly listened to Jack's demand and didn't try any more tricks on Keira. After she returned back to full health Jack soon found himself falling back into his old routine of having to divide his time between both Keira and Nami, though this time he didn't have to tire himself out as much. A few days after summer had begun to set in however, things began to get strange again.

Jack was busy out in his field, planting some seeds around, when the cutesy voice of a certain girl attracted his attention.

"Hey Jack, you got a moment?" He heard Popuri's voice ask him.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Tomorrow's the chicken festival so I came to see if you have one you'd like to enter." She told him as happy as ever at the mention of chickens.

"Yeah, I got a chicken I'll enter." He told her. "Let me go fetch him."

He motioned for her to follow him as walked over to the chicken coop and entered it. It was unusually cold inside, but he thought nothing of it as he began to look around for the particular chicken.

"Ah, here he is." Jack said as he picked it out of the group.

As he began to reach for the chicken he felt a cold breeze blow past him, with a faint laugh trailing behind it. Though what disturbed him even more was that as he placed his hand on the chicken it suddenly collapsed in front of him, dead, as Popuri let out a small cry.

"Did… did it just die?" She asked, frightened.

"I think so." He said a little calm. "I just touched it and it died."

Since chickens we're her favorite animal Popuri wasn't able to stand the site of the dead animal for long, and soon left without saying a word. Jack understood though, even he found the scene unsettling. He delicately picked up the dead chicken and brought it outside to dispose of it. After he buried it he entered the farm house and gave a sad look to Keira, who was busy tidying up the place. With all the time she had spent up on the surface she was beginning to regain the strength in her legs and her skin was returning to its, ironic, peach like tone.

"Hey Keira." He said.

She walked over to the table and picked up her notebook and began to write in it. "Hello Jack, is something wrong?"

"Not really, it's just that the strangest thing just happened." He began as he took a seat at the table. "When I went to the chicken coop to get submit an entry for the chicken festival tomorrow when I went to grab one it suddenly died as soon as I touched it."

"Really?" She wrote.

"Yeah, and I heard what sounded like some laughing right before it happened." He told her.

"That's strange." She wrote.

"It's not the bad though, it was only a chicken. So what are you going to do today?" He asked.

"I was planning on fixing up the house a bit, maybe go take a walk." She wrote.

"Alright, I think I'm going to go and see what Nami's up to so I guess I'll see you later today." He told.

"I hope you two have fun. You always seem like a nice couple." She wrote before she watched him leave.

It was always comments like those that made Jack conflicted inside. He would always recall the first time they met down in the mines and how she had referred to him as a peasant, almost as if she was disappointed with him. Though with everything he had done for her to help her reenter the world he couldn't help but wonder what she thought of him now. There were times where he would think if maybe she felt attached to him for being more than her savoir now and was maybe a little disappointed with his current relationship. But of course, at the time being it wouldn't matter.

When he arrived at the Inn Jack headed up the stairs to the second floor and walked up to Nami's room and knocked on the door.

"Jack, what a surprise." She said as she opened the door. "Is Keira not busy or something today?"

"She said that she was just going to spend time around the house and maybe go outside later so I thought that I figured I come and see what you were up to today." He told her.

"That's nice, come on in." She said, stepping aside to let him through.

"So what's new with you?" He asked.

"Oh not much, I've just been hanging around here. It's a little too hot outside for me this time of year." She replied. "You?"

"Nothing really, except today I somehow manage to kill one of my chickens by touching it." He said.

"Really?" She said, almost as if she was expecting to hear him say that.

"Yeah, all I did was touch it and it died. I heard this strange laugh before it happened too. It was really weird." He explained.

"Oh, I'm sure it was nothing." She told him.

"Yeah, nothing." He said.


Back at the farm house Keira had finished cleaning it and began to walk over towards Vesta's farm to visit Celia. Since her move to the surface Keira had become close friends with her and found walking over to her house every now and then for a visit was a great way to regain her strength when Jack wasn't around to help her. When she approached the farm's fields, Celia who was busy working noticed her walking by and walked over to her.

"Hey Keira." Celia greeted.

"Hello Celia." Keira wrote.

"What brings you over here today?" Celia asked.

"Jack decided to go and visit Nami today so I thought that I would come and visit you." Keira wrote.

"Your life seems to be centered around him." Celia told her.

"What do you mean?" Keira wrote.

"It's just that you always seem to base what you do each day off of what he does." Celia said.

"Well he did save me from the mines and I do live with him." Keira wrote.

"It's so lovely, that story about how he saved you. How he would risk his health to go down there every day in order to make sure you survived. You could write a novel about it." Celia told her.

"It is pretty nice the way he tries to make me happy." Keira wrote.

"It's a shame he's already taken though." Celia said.

"I don't think of him that way, Celia." Keira wrote.

"How could you not? You're pretty lucky to have him as such a close friend." Celia told her.

"Can we talk about something else?" Keira wrote.

"Fine." Celia said.


As summer continued to drag on Jack began to notice how all of the crops he had planted either failed to grow or once they did, died with a day or two of sprouting. Even any new crops he'd try to plant would suffer the same fate. Like the chickens death he didn't pay any real attention to it as he was currently troubled by the recent illness that befell Betsy. A few days after the chicken's death she became dangerously ill and no medicine seemed to help her at all. It pained him to see his most prized farm animal in such tragic condition but it seemed as if nothing could help her that was until he got a proposal from a certain magic being.

"Come one Betsy, what's wrong." Jack asked the cow as it sat down on the ground and let out a weak moo. "What's making you so sick?"

"Having animal troubles are we?" Someone asked him from behind.

"Witch Princess?" He asked as he turned around and saw her standing over in the corner.

"Could it be that you're most treasured possession is in trouble and you can't help it?" She asked in a manipulative tone.

"You, you did this didn't you?" He asked her in anger.

The Witch Princess formed a sadistic looking grin.

"Wait, the dead chicken and crops that was all you wasn't it?" He asked angrier than before.

"Hm, you catch on fast don't you?" She asked.

"Why are doing this?" He asked as he ran up to her only for her to disappear and reappear behind him.

"Come on Jack, you told me yourself not to mess around with Keira anymore so I decided to do the next best thing." She explained.

"Hurt me? How is that going to help you get rid of Keira?" He asked.

"Simple, I can make all the suffering on your farm end if you send her back down to the mines." She told him.

"Do you really think killing my farm is going to make me want to hurt her?" He asked. "You're crazy."

"So be it Jack." She said before waving her hand down.

As soon as she finished the motion Betsy let out a loud painful moo before collapsing on the ground dead. Jack turned to face her for a moment before turning back at the Witch Princess in anger only to find her gone.

"Guess it's time for plan B…"


A/N: Did I break the fourth wall in there or something?