ASMR - The Sound of Crackling Firewood
ASMR — The Sound of Crackling Firewood
The villainess Hershey.
As the story's main antagonist, she was a character everyone loved to hate. The readers, and the characters within the novel alike.
She had even earned herself a proud first-place spot in a reader survey once released, voted the villain you most love to despise.
Her behavior during this particular incident especially drew widespread condemnation — losing her feather through her own carelessness, only to turn around and rage at the protagonist for it.
But Luid saw things a little differently.
Honestly, back then or now, I just feel sorry for her.
There was no denying it was Hershey's fault — flying into a fury at the protagonist without even properly investigating who had stolen her feather. That much was on her.
But the protagonist was at fault too. No matter how it had come into her hands, wasn't she obligated to return it the moment its owner appeared?
And yet, claiming Hershey had gotten on her nerves, the protagonist simply swallowed it down — gulp.
From then on, true to form for a protagonist, she awakened a prodigious magical talent and went on to perform one dazzling feat after another, her name spreading far and wide.
The wand crafted from the Phoenix's feather had played no small part in that. Luid used his own only as a pillow, but a Phoenix feather, when shaped into a wand, was an enormously powerful item that granted incredible advantages.
From Hershey's perspective, it must have been enough to drive her mad.
Losing the precious Phoenix feather her father had given her to some thief was bad enough — and then a commoner she had never once spared a glance for climbed higher than she did.
She must have believed that if she didn't pay it back somehow, she'd be disqualified as a candidate to succeed Minerva.
Setting all that aside, this was a medieval era. No noble would ever sit back and swallow being made a fool of by a commoner.
But a protagonist is a protagonist for a reason, after all.
Far from being humiliated, it was Hershey who ended up utterly crushed.
Afterward came the changed attitudes of the students who had once looked up to her. For Hershey, born a noble through and through, there was no enduring it.
In the end, the story reached its catastrophe: Hershey crossed the line, was expelled from the Academy, and cast out of the Minerva family entirely.
A single noble daughter, completely ruined.
Being driven to utter ruin just for upsetting the protagonist — wasn't that a bit much?
Which is why helping Hershey isn't a bad idea.
Part of the reason he'd decided to act personally was the worry of getting on her bad side, but honestly, the reasons above weighed on him a little more.
Luid genuinely despised people who badmouthed others just because their feelings got hurt.
"What is with him, seriously."
Hershey grumbled as she walked.
"Help me? Ha. What does he take Minerva for?"
Thinking it over, the whole thing was simply absurd.
She stopped walking and gazed out toward Delin's Lake.
A magical genius born into a family of swordsmen.
Luid Christopher.
She'd known that name since she was a child — it had been famous for so long that she knew all about him.
"I can be the one to help you, can't I?"
"Forget it. I don't need it. Who does he think he is?"
She gave the answer she'd failed to give earlier, then pressed her lips shut.
The truth of the matter was—
"I-if you did that…… I'd be grateful."
That was what she had wanted to say.
Hershey's face flushed red.
But refusing when the great genius Luid himself offered to help her personally would have been the height of foolishness. It didn't fit the Minerva family motto, which demanded that one be ever rational and pragmatic.
A genius was a genius for a reason, after all.
Hadn't even the Academy Headmaster — famed for his scrupulous fairness — said that Luid alone didn't need to attend classes?
Some claimed the Headmaster had received massive donations from the Windsor family, that it was all a scheme to paper over the flaws of a good-for-nothing noble brat who couldn't even manage the bare minimum.
That was truly, genuinely ridiculous.
The Grand Duke of the North, whom not even the imperial family could treat lightly, had no need for such crude tricks — and besides, the Windsors were famous for never caring what anyone thought of them. They had been a do-things-their-own-way family since time immemorial.
Above all, there was the matter of Luid lounging at Delin's Lake all day long — even sleeping there. That was no easy feat, even for an active mage. Hershey herself could only manage three hours at that place before she had to leave.
That alone was proof his magical talent was the genuine article.
"Ugh, how embarrassing."
Hershey let out a long, deep sigh.
But it wasn't as if she truly disliked the idea.
Hershey's pride was immense. If she had genuinely hated Luid, she would have refused no matter the benefit.
"……Not that I haven't noticed he's handsome."
"Handsome" wasn't quite the word — he was more on the adorable side, honestly.
In any case, Luid was Hershey's type.
"……I wonder if we could become close?"
Her innermost feelings slipped out despite herself.
But somewhere in the depths of her heart, another thought stirred.
If I got close to Luid, perhaps Father would finally acknowledge me too.
"God, I'm trash."
With a bitter smile, Hershey resumed walking.
Once again, Luid made his unhurried way to Delin's Lake.
The emerald waters glittered and shimmered in welcome, but Luid was anything but glad to see them.
"Slept too much, huh."
Even resting his head on the Phoenix-feather pillow, no sleep came — his eyes just stayed wide open, staring blankly at nothing.
Apparently knocking out for twenty straight hours yesterday had thrown him off.
"This is a problem…"
Academy classes ran until four in the afternoon. A long stretch of time — if he couldn't sleep, it would feel like the clock had simply stopped.
Luid felt a genuine flicker of crisis.
What did I do back in my old life again?
Luid had suffered from insomnia in his previous life. He'd tried countless methods in the pursuit of sleep.
And since the terrible insomnia that had haunted him had vanished after his transmigration, anything he tried now would surely work that much better.
"Normally…"
Ironically, the most effective remedy had been YouTube.
Putting on ASMR or watching videos of deep space — either one let him drift off a little faster.
Granted, it only worked at first; eventually even that lost its power. But he kept at it regardless, because without it he couldn't fall asleep at all.
"Except there's no YouTube here."
However omnipotent magic was, it couldn't summon a space-science YouTuber from another world.
"……Magic?"
Luid blinked. Come to think of it — couldn't ASMR actually be recreated with magic?
"I'm a genius."
A smile of pure self-satisfaction spread across Luid's face, and he resolved to put it into action immediately.
First, a brief deliberation: what kind of ASMR should he recreate?
The one he'd listened to most often was the sound of burning firewood. In other words — a campfire.
"Grab a few logs, set them on fire. Simple enough."
Layer on an odor-blocking spell and a barrier, and it would be more or less the real thing.
Which means first, I need firewood.
Luid rose, pillow in hand.
The lake was surrounded by dense, sprawling forest. Finding firewood here was like searching for sand in the desert.
He walked toward the nearest trees.
"These are way too big."
Perhaps because of the lake's dense mana concentration, there wasn't a single ordinary tree in sight — only colossal ones, like the baobabs of his old world.
"Fine. I'll just cut off one piece and split it up."
Luid reached a hand toward a suitable tree — then paused.
How exactly was he supposed to cut down a tree?
Magic could only be cast by specifying a concrete form. Simply thinking I want to cut that tree wouldn't slice anything. And cut it with an axe for me wouldn't work either — magic couldn't create an axe.
"Hmm."
It wasn't a difficult problem. The character Luid Christopher hadn't been written as a munchkin for nothing. The only reason he had to think at all was that there were simply too many options to choose from.
"Something blade-like, something blade-like…"
A blade. Wind came to mind first.
"Compress the wind, and…"
The trouble was that Luid's mana was overwhelmingly potent. Careless use, and the entire forest of Delin would be reduced to bare stumps.
"So I'll designate a range."
Luid imagined a thin, rectangular frame and locked the tree inside it. Then he compressed the ambient air and swept his hand.
Shhk—!
With a crisp, clean sound, the tree came apart in a perfect slice. It was so clean that at first glance it seemed the tree hadn't been cut at all — only a few moments later did the smooth, angled cross-section of the felled trunk reveal itself.
Guuuung.
The tree was so enormous that, left as it was, its fall would have caused a tremendous commotion. Fortunately, this was one spell he could use without a moment's thought: telekinesis.
Luid halted the tree in midair with his mind before it could touch the ground.
Tak.
Then, using the same technique as before, he divided it into ten equal sections.
Tuduk.
Ten pieces of wood rose gently into the air, every one of them suspended by telekinesis.
In truth, this was an extraordinarily difficult feat of magical control. Telekinesis acted upon a single object — but having split the tree into ten, Luid was effectively casting ten separate spells simultaneously.
Considering that the average mage could sustain perhaps two at once, the word genius barely did him justice.
Luid discarded most of the ten blocks and floated a single one over to himself.
Koom.
Even that one piece was impressively large, given the original tree's sheer scale. Still, it felt like enough to build a proper campfire.
Tuduk.
In an instant, Luid split the wood into tidy pieces and stacked them into a pleasing arrangement.
After all, ASMR that was pleasant to watch tended to be pleasant to hear as well. He dusted off his hands with a light clap.
Then he raised his index finger. A tiny ember bloomed above it.
"This should do it, right?"
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the flame lightly at the stack.
Tik.
It didn't catch. The ember struck the wood and bounced clean off.
"……"
A little embarrassed, Luid swelled the ember to several times its previous size and threw again.
Whaaruru!
"Ah, crap."
Now it was far too big. He hastily reached out and smothered the flame back down.
"Phew."
He'd nearly turned his painstakingly (and lovingly) assembled woodpile into a pile of ash before the fire even started.
"Okay, now it's about right."
Luid cast the two spells he'd planned out in advance, then laid his pillow down in front of the fire and settled onto it.
Tadadak.
The campfire of his heartfelt devotion was a resounding success.
The very same ASMR he used to hear through YouTube now poured straight into Luid's ears.
Not too loud, not too soft — just right.
A drowsy warmth washed over him, and before long, Luid slipped effortlessly into sleep.
Today was March 1st, Year 52 of the Remed Calendar.
The Placement Exam — the great gateway of the Imperial Academy — would begin tomorrow.