No Deceiver, Only the Deceived

The horses went clip-clop. The carriage jolted and rattled. And the man up front was... well. The man up front.

Already the third time through the exact same scene.

You could call it the most agonizing slow grind in history, the kind of dragged-out stretch that sticks in the throat. Even so, it was far too early to lose heart.

If the first loop had been me knowing nothing, going uh, uh, and getting swept along into whatever came, then the second had been the run where I dug up roughly every clue and scraped the pot clean. Something like that.

My nerve was nowhere near breaking. This was only the third attempt, wasn't it? When you play by bashing your head against the wall with no guide, this much is normal.

Oh, right. Stats first, thinking later.

I hurriedly opened my notebook.

Seven of that I'd earned this time; one was left over from the last allocation. How was I supposed to spend it if I wanted people saying I'd distributed my points like a genius?

The deliberation didn't last long.

Right now the only spell I could actually cast was Ignis, the one that called up a ball of fire. Pouring points into what was practically my only tool couldn't be a bad call. Aside from the courtesy point I'd dropped into divine magic, I dumped everything into stats that looked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like they might have something to do with elemental magic.

Next I had to settle this loop's plan of action.

I was fairly sure I'd worked out, more or less, everything that happened across the first three days.

One: by the starting point, somebody had already slipped a grimoire of black magic into my luggage. Two: late in the evening of the second day, a black magician came to take it back—or to collect it. And judging by the way they hadn't simply left once the book was in hand, but had tried to quietly dispose of me, they seemed to want the grimoire's very existence kept hidden.

Simple, wasn't it?

Catch that black magician, and the whole mess was solved!

At the start the clues had been so thin I'd had to fling out every inference I could invent. Olivia had looked suspicious. I'd had to worry there might be a spy in the Faculty Guild. And so on, and so on.

But Olivia had turned out decent. And even after I'd hidden the grimoire, the black magician had come looking on their own.

So?

"Sister! The magic school's here, so get down, quick!"

"Ah—yes!"

The hour to act on my own initiative had arrived.

"Excuse me, driver. Which way do I go to reach the Central Post Office?"

Ding—

"Excuse me."

The city of Oxenbridge was an academic city-state grown up around the Oxenbridge Academy of Magic. Its people were, first of all, students and faculty, and around them a whole thicket of secondary and tertiary trades did a roaring business. Scribes, bookbinders, printers—anyone who could make a living off books. And taverns, of course, which no university population can ever quite be peeled away from. Proper eateries were harder to spot, maybe because the student dining hall already existed; still, once you noticed the taverns pushing every kind of bar snack, you could fairly say a tavern was a restaurant by another name.

How did I know all that so well? Every word of it had come from Meheris while she was showing me around the school. Those hours it took to reach the dormitory hadn't been for nothing.

"Welcome! What brings you in today?"

"There's a delivery scheduled for this evening. I came to collect it early."

The Central Post Office had been one of the off-campus facilities Meheris pointed out on that tour. Thousands of people's worth of foodstuffs poured into Oxenbridge every day. Letters and allowances passing between students and their families added up to a considerable volume of mail on their own. At the start and end of term, the flood of luggage could paralyze the whole logistics chain.

"Of course. May I have your name and affiliation?"

"Anastacia of Tallin. I'm a new student moving into the dormitory today."

"One moment, please. I'll look that up!"

Put simply, the Central Post Office was Oxenbridge's answer to a mega fulfillment hub—the kind of warehouse every parcel in a realm eventually funnels through.

My luggage was in there too.

That's right.

This loop began with collecting the bag early. From there, straight to the Academy Main Building to tip off the Bailiff. That was stage one of the plan.

If I sat quietly in the dormitory and waited, the bag showed up somewhere around half past five. Who had time to wait around for that? Rush the Main Building then, and the Bailiff would already have gone home. So I had to pull the timeline forward as far as it would go.

"Confirmed. Anastacia of Tallin, twenty-one, new student. One standard-size leather travel bag, scheduled for delivery to Villa No. 4 of the North Girls' Dormitory. Is that correct?"

"Yes. That's right."

"Please sign the recipient line. If you can't write, you may press a thumbprint in the ink beside it, or infuse the mark with your internal mana."

"I'll sign."

"Have a seat for just a moment, please. I'll bring it out from the warehouse!"

The Central Post Office was a building ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of considerable size—the sort of spacious central post office you get one of per city, or per district. Clerks handled customers at the counters, and behind them other staff hurried back and forth with carts piled high with deliveries. Carts, trolleys, hand trucks, wheelbarrows, dollies—call them whatever you like. The resemblance held either way.

"Customer Anastacia?"

"Ah, yes."

I'd been sitting in the waiting area maybe ten minutes when my name was called, and I went up to the counter. My bag, familiar by now, sat on the counter to greet me.

"Is this the right bag?"

"Yes, it is."

"Are you aware that if this is not your own property, if you are collecting it on someone else's behalf, or if you obtain another person's goods by improper means, you personally bear civil and criminal liability under academy law, church law, and imperial law?"

......?

"...Yes. Yes, I'm aware."

"Thank you for using our service. Have a good day!"

"You too. Take care."

They really clamped down hard...

Then again, this was a pseudo-late-medieval world with no databases and no resident identification. You'd have to police it strictly. The thought made a certain amount of sense.

Anyway.

The moment I stepped out of the Central Post Office, I crouched at the mouth of an alley, undid the bag's buckle, and sneaked a look at what was inside.

Sure enough, right on top, the black-magic grimoire poked its head out in a little peekaboo. Sleeping with it under my head for a night had not, in fact, made it familiar. I simply couldn't stand the sight of the thing.

Better get rid of it, and fast.

So I'd come to get rid of it fast.

The Academy Main Building.

"...So you are saying this grimoire of black magic was inside your bag?"

"Yes, that's what I'm telling you! I collected the bag, opened it, saw the grimoire, got the shock of my life, and brought it straight here."

"Hmm..."

The man letting out that thoughtful hum in front of me was the Bailiff of the Faculty Guild. Seeing his face somewhere other than the underground cells had a flavor all its own.

Just to get a meeting with him, I'd had to seize a clerk the moment I set foot in the Main Building and throw an enormous tantrum.

...Best not to dwell on that.

The Bailiff came out wearing a face that all but said, written across the forehead, if this isn't important, you are dead. Then I gave him a glimpse of the grimoire, he went white as a sheet, and he led me deep into an office in the inner building.

Which brought us to now.

"Smuggling in a grimoire of black magic—truly a grave matter. You did very well to come to me. As it happens, an Inquisitor from the Magisterium is scheduled to visit next week, and the timing is... unfortunate."

"Right? It is grave, isn't it? Grave enough that a black magician might sneak into the school to collect this book and quietly dispose of someone...?"

I'd tacked on a line grounded in experience, and the Bailiff turned a peculiar look on me, studying me as if something didn't add up.

Oops. Too specific? I'd only said it hoping he'd post watchers by the dormitory, or assign me an escort—anything at all.

The Bailiff soon composed his face into something serious and spoke.

"Anastacia of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Tallin. By any chance..."

By any chance...? I swallowed. A dry gulp went down on its own.

"By any chance... did you feel some sort of premonition?"

"...What?"

I echoed him like an idiot. The Bailiff swept his hair back and chose his next words slowly.

At the words that followed, I blinked. A premonition, out of nowhere? Divination? A revelation?

"Uh... that is, I mean..."

Oh.

Nice. There was my opening.

I quickly scrunched my eyes and arranged my face into the most anguished expression in the world. Pretending to think. Pretending to drag a memory up from the deep. Pretending I had seen the future! (Depending on your point of view, you could argue that I actually had.)

"Um... I think I kind of saw something that's going to happen. In the future. That is... what happens tomorrow? Ahead of time? Looked into it? That sort of feeling? One branch of the future? Peeked at it? Do you know what I mean...?"

"Oh... oh...!"

I threw myself into the performance—someone who had seen something without knowing what it was, who felt that something might be there, something that seemed important, sunk in terrible anguish—and the Bailiff started volleying back all on his own, with perfect timing.

"Truly astonishing... astonishing. To see with my own eyes a student with the makings of a seer...! Yes, Anastacia of Tallin. Tell me, quickly. I will not let a single minor detail pass unheard. Won't you recount what you saw?"

Uh... hmm. Had I fooled him a little too magnificently? This was almost embarrassing.

...At this point, even I didn't know. Might as well keep time with him.

"So, um, it was late evening. No—it's something that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will happen late tomorrow evening. After dinner, back to the dormitory..."

After that, I had to keep reciting my foresight for quite a long while.