The Witch Is Actually Me [Western Fantasy]

Floods come first, plagues follow, and famine fills in the gaps...

Born in an awful enough era, everyone has a life so short they can see the end of it from the start.

So when Phyllis realizes that she has transmigrated to the Middle Ages and gained the ability to see ghosts, she starts gathering all sorts of information to prepare for the future.

Through sheer effort and shamelessness, she finally finds a well-informed ghost to teach her, and learns the crucial skill of writing.

This skill helps her make a place for herself in a world where 99% of people are illiterate. By chance, she ends up in a count's castle, and by the age of twenty, lands her dream job:

A proud copyist, currently assigned to make a Book of Hours for the new count.

What a perfect job for slacking off!

Phyllis feels her life is complete. Every day, she copies texts and draws illustrations according to schedule, chats and shares gossip with the dead, and occasionally sends an evil spirit to meet its god.

As for the lords outside fighting over territory, and the struggles between the Church and the kings, none of it has anything to do with her... And even if she does get dragged into it, she'll have to pretend she hasn't. Nothing can get in the way of her grand slacking-off project.

That's what Phyllis, who only wants to lie flat, tells herself as she pokes a spy trying to sneak into the castle through the privy and into the cesspit.

Then one day, she is temporarily assigned to another department to copy wanted posters, and sees a description of a “witch” for the first time.

They say witches can speak to all living creatures and spirits of the dead. Powerful witches can even control the minds of those they speak to and bend them to their will...

Phyllis is stunned after reading this. She's the witch!

Lance Deller, the illegitimate son of Count Nito, has a secret he can never reveal: he inherited a special bloodline from his mother's side, and has been able to see things others can't since childhood.

Countless vengeful spirits and ghosts drift through his father's castle. Since being brought there, he's often shouted in fright, earning the contempt of his father and half-brothers.

Lance has wanted to escape the maddening castle ever since he was a child. But fate has other plans. After Count Nito's entire family is beheaded by political rivals, Lance is used as a token to appease the other lords, and the emperor personally appoints him the new Count Nito. Not only is he trapped in the castle forever, he also has to deal with all the internal and external troubles plaguing the county. Each day is worse than the last.

Lance: Let it all burn.

One day, the young count wakes as usual surrounded by a crowd of ghosts. He endures his usual discomfort, hoping to go outside and get some sun to drive the nuisances away, when he runs into a copyist on her way to work in one of the castle's narrow corridors.

The copyist looks at her current boss with pity. “There's dust on your shoulder,” she says, reaching out to brush it off. In an instant, she drives away all the evil spirits clinging to the count, then quietly heads to work without taking credit.

Lance, finally able to think clearly after the spirits' shrieking: Wait, what?!

Note:

1. Set in a fictionalized fourteenth century, with low magic. This isn't the sort of Western fantasy found in Dungeons & Dragons. The magic level really is very, very low. Some people are unusual, but no one is invincible.

2. Slow-paced and focused on the ensemble, with a serious tone. It's not a light, fluffy romance, a wish-fulfillment story, or a tale about a powerful female lead. The plot takes priority, with little romance. The story unfolds slowly, year by year. It's a personal passion project, so there's no need to force yourself to read it if it's not to your taste.

3. The story spans a long period, starting when the heroine is eight. The main characters meet late, and the events described in the blurb happen much later. Those events are just one of the main storylines. The main storyline is the characters' lives.

4. A harsh historical setting: people die quickly, and in great numbers.

Theme: Cherish ordinary life and strive to survive.