The Overgrown Workshop (Patreon)

Hey guys! I wrote a little story accompanying this illustration of mine. It describes Lena's and Charlotte's discovery of this very room. Once again I wrote it in German, machine TL'd it and then went over the English text once again and fixed a few things. Anyways, hope you like it!

“Heave-hooo!”KRAAAAAIt groaned in protest, as if I had dragged it out of a deep slumber and it was now in a foul, furious mood. With all my strength, I tugged at the old wooden door, my fingers wedged into the crack as the timber shrieked.

“Why won’t this damn thing budge? Nnngh…”“Lena, Lena, look—something seems to have grown over it!” Charlotte chimed in.

Apparently, the door I was struggling with had ivy crawling across its inside, making our entry much harder. You could barely see the ivy through the narrow gap I managed to create by pulling the door with all my strength.

“Either the owner used this as a greenhouse once… or a window inside broke.” I muttered as I kept pulling to no avail.

“Come on, Charlotte, give me a hand! You’re strong, aren’t you? If you can swing that massive frying pan around without trouble, then the two of us together should be able to manage this easily!”

Charlotte stared blankly at me for a moment, then gave a smug smile.“As you wish, Master. But let me first set down my extremely heavy pan.”

She lifted her gigantic cast-iron pan with just two fingers, deliberately slow, flashing me proud looks and a wink the entire time, before lowering it to the ground with theatrical grace—never breaking eye contact.

She had clearly taken my comment as a compliment when I called her “strong.” Charlotte had an… irritating way of handling compliments. Lately, it had made me hold back more than once. But her threshold for what counted as flattery seemed to have dropped drastically.

After flexing her arms for me one more time, complete with an elegant bow, she finally came to my aid.

This little scene played out on the second floor of a ruined house. Charlotte had stumbled across it by chance—while chasing a bee.

Deep inside the forest, a quaint country villa lay hidden here, tucked away between the trees and bushes.

Of course, nature had long since claimed it. Thick roots strangled the building, bushes sprouted from its roof, and dense vines covered the walls. A faded echo of civilization ensnared in the tight grip of the untamed nature… For a fleeting moment, I thought of the house as a lone person—lost in the wilderness, surrounded by hungry tigers, his life at the wild beasts’ mercy. A faint pang of pity rose in me.

Despite its age and outer decay, the interior of the villa was surprisingly intact. Yet we found nothing of real use on either floor. There was, however, a piano in the salon—still functional. Charlotte, who apparently knew how to play, gave me a short performance. Hard to say how talented she was—the instrument was utterly out of tune.

The two floors were quickly searched, but no tools, no magical texts, no useful items appeared. By the time we reached the last door at the far end of the second-floor corridor, we had already resigned ourselves: this was just another ordinary house, with no “treasures.”

But the ivy that bound the door from within refused to let us pass. So Charlotte and I gave it everything we had.

“WoaAH!”With a sudden crack, the door tore free of the vines and threw me backward onto the floor.“Ouch…”I landed squarely on my backside.

“Ooooooh.”Charlotte gasped in surprise—she must have seen something intriguing beyond the now-open door!

“What is it? Something interes—”

But Charlotte’s attention wasn’t on the room at all. She looked down at me, one hand under her chin, her face alight in an excited, mock-thoughtful pose.

“Hmmm, yes… rabbit stew, with rosemary, pepper, garlic and a red wine sauce… mmm, delicious… hehehe.”

…? Charlotte had suddenly started talking about cooking. I know she’s… unusual, but sometimes I truly wished I could follow her thoughts.

“What are you babbling about now? Let’s first check what’s in the roo—”

My hand touched metal, and I realized I had fallen straight into her giant frying pan, the one she had set down earlier.

“Ah. Ha-ha. Very funny.” I said with a weary smile.

“Stop fooling around and help me up already!” I pouted.

“Sorry, just teasing hehee~, here, take my hand.”

With a wide grin, Charlotte stretched out her gauntleted hand. I clasped it, and with absurd ease she hauled me to my feet. Once again, I was reminded how much raw strength hid within this quirky, delicate woman.

“All good, Lena? Here, let me dust you off. Hmmm, but still—I think rabbit wouldn’t be bad tonight. Maybe we’ll find a decent bottle of wine for the sauce, that would be perfect. What do you say, eating rabbit doesn’t bother you, does it?”

“Oooohhh.”

This time, the sound of wonder came from me—which clearly delighted Charlotte.

“I knew you had good taste, Lena! Settled then—rabbit tonight!” she declared.

But my eyes were fixed on the door we had just opened. Or rather, on the room it had hidden. Until now, I had been distracted by my sore backside and my unwanted role as the evening’s main course. But as Charlotte pulled me upright, the view beyond the threshold became impossible to ignore.

Charlotte, standing with her back to the entrance, was still thinking about food.

But with only one glance, I knew this room was a jackpot.

Charlotte noticed my sudden excitement wasn’t about dinner and, with a slightly disappointed face, followed my gaze. But her eyes lit up the moment she saw the ivy-draped chamber.

Stepping inside, it felt as though we had crossed into another world.

Before us stretched a high wall of windows, flooding the room with natural light. Almost the entire surface was a mosaic of large and small panes, accented with blue glass, giving the atmosphere a magical touch.

Some of the glass was shattered, ivy spilling inward as if claiming the space for its own. The window sill as well as the desk, that was placed before the window, were completely overgrown.

Unlike the other rooms, untouched by the wilderness outside, here it felt as if we stood both within the forest and inside the house at once.

Small bookshelves, a chest, and strange-looking alchemical instruments dotted the chamber.

But the true wonder lay elsewhere.

“Woah, how beautiful…” Charlotte whispered dreamily, tapping one of the glass spheres that hung from the ceiling. I recognized them instantly.

“They must be mana catchers, I’ve seen them before. I think this study— this house must've belonged to a wizard of some sort.”

All across the room, head-sized orbs dangled from golden chains, some filled with a bluish liquid.

“They’re vessels once used to draw mana from the air. See the golden studs around the sphere? Those are the receptors. But now… there’s no more magic left in the world. That age is over. These days, they’re nothing more than extravagant decorations for a ceiling.”

I sighed. Though the mana catchers were a marvelous discovery, they were useless to me. Artifacts like this still turned up here and there, but what I longed for were records—something to shed light on what had happened to our world, and on the practice of magic itself. A glimpse into that vanished age, when humans still wielded sorcery.

“Huuuh, what a pity,” Charlotte murmured, taking one of the orbs into her hand.

Surrounded by wonders, I scoured the room for books and notebooks. Most had already been ruined by wind and rain. My hopes rested on the chest or a locked cabinet.

“And what are these glowy thingies, Lena?”

Glowy… thingies? I hadn’t the faintest idea what she meant. I hadn’t had the chance to examine the room closely yet, but I hadn’t noticed any “glowy thingies” before. Maybe she had found a crystal scattering the sunlight into specks across the floor?

I turned back to Charlotte—still playing with the mana catchers—and my pulse spiked.

“What the…?” was all I managed to say.

Charlotte stood there, gazing innocently into the orb she held aloft, smiling in fascination.

The blue liquid, once lifeless, now swarmed with activity like a pond full of tadpoles. But these were no tadpoles—colored, glowing motes shot in every direction. Blue, yellow, red, green, turquoise—chaotic sparks of every hue in the spectrum.

“I gave it a little shake and suddenly the glowy thingies started swimming and shining, haha!”

She said showing me the most innocent of smiles.

Mouth hanging open, I stepped closer, hardly believing my eyes.

“M-Mana…” I whispered.

Was this truly magical energy? Real mana, extracted for human use? So close I could touch it?

For a few moments, I could only watch in silence as Charlotte played with the mana catcher like a child. The glowing motes painted her dreamy face with light as she turned the orb over in her hands.

The particles must have settled at the bottom over the years, as if asleep. Can mana sleep, like a living creature? Or… could the mana catchers still function?

Bit by bit, my ability to think returned—along with countless questions.

But one truth was undeniable: never before had I been so close to the forgotten world of magic.