The Occupation of Every Library (1)
Every Library existed separately for each year of students.
Because it doubled as a storage warehouse for magical ingredients, vast quantities were preserved there, so it had been divided by year to match the curriculum each grade needed.
Thus, despite the name, actual magic books were few and far between.
The majority of magical tomes were kept in the Academy's Central Library. That place held truly critical materials, so professors guarded it in strict rotation—
but the Every Libraries for each year ran entirely on student autonomy.
The librarian was a student. So was the guard.
Because the highest-ranked class, the Expert Class, monopolized the library's key positions, the outrage of restricting commoners from the entrance had become possible.
Luid had come to Every Library Building No. 1 to scout the place out beforehand. He had left Hershey and Miho behind—he intended to do something a little covert.
A tall male student spotted Luid, his eyes going wide, and hurried over to greet him.
"Ah, Young Master Luid. A pleasure. My name is Caron Maximus."
So he's the gatekeeper.
This was the man who would become the commoners' first obstacle.
Luid recalled the original novel, where the scene had felt like heading into a boss raid. Which was absurd, given they were just fellow students.
"Nice to meet you, Caron."
"I believe this is your first time visiting the library. Shall I show you around?"
Luid nodded. "Sure."
"Of course. This way, please."
The moment they stepped inside, Caron said to a student nearby, "Cover for me for about ten minutes," then walked ahead.
…Shouldn't he be a knight instead of a mage?
The man's build was quite formidable, and his manner of conducting himself felt closer to a knight's than a Magic Department student's.
"You don't have to be so formal. We're in the same year."
"Haha, I appreciate the sentiment, but I couldn't possibly speak casually before a high noble. House Maximus is only a barony, after all."
It was one of the Academy's unwritten rules. Nobles who weren't close addressed each other formally. Even among friends, some refused to drop honorifics depending on temperament.
Luid thought it all sounded exhausting to live with, but since they claimed it was more comfortable that way, he had no intention of forcing the issue.
"This is the reading hall. It's nothing compared to the Central Library, but all the essential texts are stocked here."
A vast hall on the first floor. At its center was a space for sitting and reading, while bookshelves packed edge to edge lined the outer rim.
Closest to the entrance stood a large desk, where a bespectacled woman was busily writing something. Caron guided him there.
"Just check in here. Isabella."
Isabella was so absorbed in something that she didn't look up. Still scribbling away, she spoke.
"Ah, yep, yep. What's your name?"
"Luid."
"Luid… that's a rather dashing name…"
Isabella's pen stopped. She looked up at him with eyes gone round as saucers.
Caron sighed. "Finish your assignments in advance. The library isn't a place for you to do your homework."
"The, the Fairy of Delin…!"
Thank goodness she didn't call me Lazy Luid.
People called him by all sorts of names, but whenever someone used Lazy Luid, it always made him feel like he'd been tagged as a named monster in a raid.
"Register me."
"Ah—yes, yes, sir!"
Isabella hastily pulled out a ledger and wrote down Luid's name. She shot him a nervous glance.
"Um, m-may I ask what the purpose of your visit is…?"
"Secret."
"Ah, yes. Secret…"
Isabella stared at him with a blank look on her face. But Luid was perfectly composed.
"It's a secret, so just write something down."
Caron tilted his head and gave her a pointed look. Isabella scrambled to scribble something.
"Yes…! You've come for reading and herb collecting! You're, you're truly brilliant, sir!"
"Mm."
Having completed registration without incident, Luid walked toward the center of the hall. Caron followed and asked carefully,
"Shall I leave the tour here?"
He was mindful of the "secret" Luid had mentioned. But Luid simply didn't know the layout of this place, so he shook his head.
"Guide me to the ingredient storage too."
"Yes, of course."
What's that smell?
He couldn't describe it exactly, but something fishy and briny hung in the air—that particular salty tang of the sea.
Luid's gaze swept the surroundings. A few of the students reading books were stealing glances at him while pretending not to.
Commoners?
Luid's gaze stopped on one girl in particular. It was Hannah, the one who had bombarded him with questions the other day.
"The ingredient storage is over there."
Caron pointed to a large staircase straight ahead. Luid nodded and started climbing.
"Wasn't our class supposed to have seized this library?"
"Ah, you saw that."
Caron spoke as if the whole business left a bad taste in his mouth.
"That's right. It was to restrict commoner access, but since they were bound to nitpick about commoner discrimination and the like, we limited entry requirements to the 'Expert Class.' Even so, a small handful of commoners are still allowed in."
"…And that's fine?"
"Yes. His Majesty the great First Emperor commanded that we must not discriminate by status in this land of learning—but he said nothing about not discriminating by ability. It's a fine line, but it's within the permitted bounds."
As Luid rounded the corner of the staircase, he asked in passing,
"Do you hate commoners?"
Caron answered without a moment's hesitation. "Yes."
"Why?"
It was pure, unfiltered curiosity. Caron shook his head slowly.
"When I first enrolled, I thought nothing of it. If anything, I wanted to faithfully follow His Majesty the First Emperor's decree… but that changed in less than a week."
Caron looked down at the floor below, his eyes narrowing.
"I don't suppose you'd know, Young Master Luid, what happened at the start of the semester? The period when commoners could come and go from the library freely."
Back then, Luid had been asleep at Delin's Lake. That much, at least, hadn't changed even now.
Luid shook his head.
"I thought as much. You take no interest whatsoever in the Academy, after all."
By the time they reached the ingredient storage, Luid had stopped in his tracks, looking back at Caron. He wanted to hear more.
And here I thought there'd be no reason for it beyond the novel.
He had only ever known the original story's version of events; he'd never actually asked anyone why commoners were restricted.
"Tell me. What happened?"
"Forgive me if I've judged too quickly, but… earlier, I saw you wrinkle your nose. The smell of that commoner must have bothered you."
Luid flinched inwardly, then gave a slow nod.
"Commoners give off a strange smell. It varies from person to person, but… it's something you can't quite put into words. A thoroughly revolting smell."
That much, he could agree with.
Not every commoner smelled.
But most of them did.
Unlike nobles, they didn't wash.
To commoners, using vast quantities of water to bathe was considered a terribly inefficient act. In extreme cases, there were those who went their entire lives without bathing even once.
The nobles of this world, on the other hand, were fastidiously clean—taking a half-body soak at least once a day.
It was a world where magic existed, after all. Water could be produced in any amount by a mage's hand.
Some of the more perceptive commoners who'd entered the Academy did wash regularly, but an odor ingrained over a lifetime couldn't vanish overnight.
"So you kicked them out because of the smell?"
"No, that's not it. That much isn't the commoners' fault, is it? They simply had no choice but to live that way. As long as they can borrow books, I can simply move aside myself."
"Then what?"
Caron frowned as though the mere thought of it were unpleasant.
"Their behavior and attitude. They handle books without hesitation with the same hands that touched filth. Soot smears onto pages until the writing is unreadable. Bringing snacks in from somewhere and leaving the mess behind, or borrowing books and never returning them—those are everyday occurrences. And when you point it out, they call it discrimination."
That bad, huh.
Commoners received no instruction in etiquette. The Academy, the only institution of education in this world, set its minimum entrance requirement by sheer quantity of mana. He had known that it produced a fair number of unruly commoners, but still…
"Once, someone had spread open a book containing 3rd Tier magic, and another person had picked their nose and smeared it across the page. I vomited in the bathroom and made my vow then. The commoners must be barred from entry."
Hearing it firsthand, it was worse than he'd imagined. Luid looked at Caron with an expression of pure disgust, and Caron, seeing that face, smiled.
"Truly shocking things happen here all the time. I considered it an honor to serve in the Every Library, you see… I never imagined there would be such an unforeseen ambush. Books are stolen far too often as well. Why do you think even the seniors before me cracked down on commoners?"
Caron stopped walking and gestured with his hand.
"This is the ingredient storage. Everything is organized alphabetically, so just write the name in the ledger and take what you need. I'll take my leave now."
"Mm. Thanks."
Caron bowed his head politely and returned to his post.
Luid looked over the countless ingredients stacked inside the square wooden compartments.
[A~Z]
He walked toward the section with that sign.
"Should be around here."
The ingredient storage was laid out as a complicated maze. Not because they wanted people to get lost—simply to maximize the space and stock as many ingredients as possible.
He crossed paths with a few students searching for ingredients. They nodded wordlessly and moved aside quietly.
Luid headed for the emptiest area he could find. Above the spot he arrived at, a sign read:
[Nothing beyond this point.]
"This is the place, right?"
It was suspicious handwriting by anyone's standards.
But the sign wasn't lying.
After all, the wooden compartments that had been packed full up to that point stood utterly empty beyond it.
Luid stopped at the very end of the storage. It wasn't a square compartment, but a shelf lined with unnamed books.
Beneath that shelf, a cluster of tattered books bound with cords sat heaped together.
It looked, to anyone, like an unused storage space.
Luid extended his hand.
He let his mana flow.
Grrrrrumble—.
A sound like some great mechanism turning filled the air.
Creeeak—.
The bookshelf that had clearly been blocking the way slid open just enough.
"Found it."
With a bright smile on his face, Luid stepped inside.
At the end of the Every Library's ingredient storage lies a hidden passage.
For in the past, the Every Library served as the testing ground for a survival project meant to field magic knights.
A faint description from the original novel.
Luid didn't remember everything, but when it came to the major episodes, his memory was rock solid.
He closed the bookshelf door behind him.
Darkness so total it swallowed everything a hand's breadth ahead rushed in.
Drip—
The sound of a water droplet echoed from somewhere. It came from the holy relic, the Chalice of Mana.
Of course, Luid had no interest in that. His interest lay solely—entirely—in this space itself.
"Light up—"
As Luid's mana-laden voice spread through the darkness,
with a soft fwoosh, the space brightened.
It was a transparent space on all sides—a mystical chamber that felt as if it were floating in midair.
Along both sides stood six knight statues each, planted in what looked like a very old black floor, lined up in formation. Luid addressed them.
"I'll just stay a little while and then go."
"……"
No answer came. They were somewhat reticent friends, it seemed.
Luid reached out into empty air and drew his personal pillow out of his Subspace.
He tossed it onto the floor, then flopped down on it immediately.
"Ah, that's the stuff."
This space was a little special.
It had been designed by that famous Great Magician, Delin, in order to create a secret escape route.
A space made by the genius of the century.
The space itself was a work of art.
The entire interior of the library was visible from within, allowing one to keep watch on pursuers while fleeing. In fact, directly beneath where Luid lay sprawled, the first floor of the library spread out in full view. Lift your head, and the second floor appeared; crane your neck further, and the third floor came into sight.
It was a space where the whole of Every Library could be taken in at a glance. Luid tilted his head back to look up—
—and caught a glimpse of someone's panties, dropping his head at once.
"…Good grief, that startled me."
Anyway. Luid propped the pillow against his chest and swung his legs back and forth.
This was a place where the entire episode about to unfold would play out in plain sight—while bringing him no harm whatsoever.
In other words: the eye of the storm.
Luid intended to watch the episode unfold from here, at his leisure.