@miyako19 The currently ruling witches hunted down and erased the memories of (or killed) all the witches whose profession was something as terrible and nefarious as healing wounds and diseases. That's like your government deciding all physicians and nurses are criminals henceforth. Yet funnily enough erasing memories is perfectly okay. Saving a sick or injured person's life is illegal, but erasing someone's whole life is fine. Jolly good fellows. They are as evil as the other strong factions waging war back in the history of that world, but unlike the others, they won the war. We can only imagine by what monstrous means. After winning the war, they did whatever they wanted, vilifying the losers being the foremost thing, like always happens in human wars. There are no good witch factions in this story, mark my words. There of course could be good individuals in any faction.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the real leaders of the current official witch world were using forbidden magic on themselves to live longer and healthier, while regular witches out there are killed by any mundane disease or accident.

The original lich from Slavic folklore wasn't a skeleton and just had an emaciated appearance. The phylactery is the important part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koschei

@Neuralhub

Tartar is a dude?!!

Regarding what was taken from Quiffrey, that probably has to do with his right eye.

Memory erasure magic (considering the control they have), could just as easily be used as memory alteration magic. That would likely ultimately result in body swapping immortality. In more benign applications, PTSD treatment and skill transfer, yet the so called "good" witches practice none but destruction.

The art is really something else. Not only great backgrounds and designs but also beautiful movement and characters. Also, Coco is just the cutest thing.

@JCVocke
Yep, yep. What you've said is right. The creation of a phylactery should be considered necromancy, too. Essentially, they'd just skip the title of Necromancer straight to Lich this way. Interesting..... And thank you for discussing it in detail. I really love magic, and only wish that there were more mangas like this one which do a great job with the epic fantasy world building. Cheers.

@Send_in_the_Killer_Clowns
I would actually agree that one must be a Necromancer and Immortal to be a Lich, but I use Phylacteries as the prime requirement because I see that as combining those requirements, and also providing a way of making them distinct from the other methods of achieving Immortality you mention. For instance, a Necromancer who achieves Immortality by willingly infecting themselves with Vampirism would become a Vampire, not a Lich, despite in both cases they use Necromancy to achieve Immortality.

In my experience, Creating a Phylactery is usually considered a part of Necromancy, both because it deals with Souls and Death Magic, and often requires the sacrifice of a Life, such as in Oldy Voldy's case. Though I could easily see a Magic System where that isn't the case, where working with Souls, even removing them to create a Phylactery, does not in any way involve what we generally consider Necromancy, or any magic that directly relates to Death. That could be an interesting system, because I would wonder if Magic that manipulates the Soul would still have the negative associate that Necromancy usually has.

Now the potential Spanner in my definition I've just thought of are Golems, which usually in modern Fantasy are created by removing the Soul of a Living Thing and putting them into a Construct. Would the count as a Lich? I think it wouldn't because the Seat of the Soul is not Separate from the Entity the Soul is Controlling, which I suppose I would consider to be Part of the Definition of a Phylactery. Alternatively, Golems usually just use the Soul as a Power Source, and don't allow it to assert its will, so that's another potential distinction.

Interesting Thoughts. Ultimately I could see Liches having other restrictions for different systems, and I won't try to impose the Phylactery Requirement on a setting that wanted to do something different.

So this invisible witch is going to kidnap her or he will try to convert her to the "dark side"???

well, even i don't really adore this, it's good that it continue.

??<3 thank you so much Dropout!!!! ?

bless #dropout!

Dropout, we don't deserve you.

@JCVocke
You've convinced me that placing a soul within an object is not too far off form placing it within a decaying corpse but I still don't think using a phylactery would classify them as a Lich. Putting aside the skeleton appearance, I think they'd have to be both immortal and a necromancer to be called a Lich. My reasoning being that Witches and Warlocks could always use the dark arts to extend their lifespan or create a phylactery, but wouldn't ordinarily be called a Lich without presenting a control over death or being called one due to their undead appearance + manipulation of magic.

(After googling a little bit): Phylacteries have been used by Liches in video games before. Damn, well, I still think being immortal and a necromancer should be the defining features of a Lich since there are always other magical ways to become immortal.

I consider any being who removes their Soul and places it into another Object for the purpose of achieving Immortality to be a Lich. The Skeletonation is a Side Effect/Consequence of that, not a Requirement, and depending on the Media doesn't even really apply. I would consider Oldy Voldy a Lich after all, albeit a lame and boring one.

@ miyako19: But the Brimhats didn't turn Coco's mother to Stone, Coco did. And it's not like the Petrification one was the first Glyph in the book, Coco busted out over a Dozen Glyphs before she got to that one. So far the only time a Brimhat has directly and intentionally caused harm to another person is just recently, when they tried to drown Qifrey because he was trying to track them down. Combine that with the fundamentally flawed idea behind the Wizards Secrecy and yeah, Team Brimhat FTW.

Also in checking back over chapter 1 I like that Qifrey actually directly states that he needs to erase Coco's memory, indicating he knows how to do that and establishing that he can do this long before he does it to poor old gramps. Combined with the fact that Cowboy Cop from the Bridge/River Episode obviously new Qifrey , and I'm guessing he was once an Enforcer himself, but either quit or got fired after some sort of Incident, probably related to whatever the Brimhats ""Took"" from him.

ahhh thank you for releasing 16 and 17! My heart is full again.

I kinda ship tartar and coco.. they're so cute!

@#dropout you guys are the real MVP's

Thank you guys so damn much!!! These last two chapters were so cute, too... Agh, my heart..!!

"Atelier is too damn good to be left by the wayside"

The heroes we don't deserve

Coco was the real badass this chapter