Lena Youngstern (1)
The weekend had arrived. The academy grew unusually peaceful on weekends. Probably because all the professors had gone home.
Tap. Tap-tap. I walked across the academy campus, listening to the sound of raindrops striking my umbrella. For the past few days, it had rained unusually often near the academy grounds. The weather mages were buzzing about it being a “rare abnormal climate phenomenon,” but honestly, that wasn’t my problem. If anything, it worked in my favor.
When it rained, people tended to hole up in their dorms or indoors, which naturally lowered the chances of anyone noticing my movements. Plus, the white noise of rainfall made for excellent background music while brainstorming my next project.
There was just one thing that bothered me.
‘Lena hasn’t shown her face for two whole days now.’
She’d been skipping classes, and the morning calls that used to hammer my dorm door like it owed her money had completely stopped. I’d gone to check on her, but—
“Miss Lena is doing fine, so please don’t worry. And for the hundredth time, you are not allowed inside the female dormitory! Especially not you, Ian Ash!”
I’d only ended up getting treated like a pervert by the dorm supervisor. Well, if she said Lena was fine, I had to believe her. She had looked a bit off lately—maybe she’d caught a cold or something.
The mana explosion inducer I’d prepared with herbs from the apothecary was still safely tucked in my pocket. Once Lena got back on her feet, I’d casually mix it into a snack and feed it to her.
“Ohohoho. For my upcoming debutante, Father ordered the dress design that’s all the rage at Salon Valenti.”
“Really? That one’s supposed to be nearly impossible to get… I’m so jealous.”
“Our family doesn’t have money, so they told me to just use our exclusive tailor! It’s my one and only debutante!”
In a corner of the rain-soaked corridor, female students folding their umbrellas chattered nonstop about the upcoming academy debutante. A social debut for the empire’s elite gathered at the academy. It’d be strange if they weren’t excited.
On the other hand, the guys’ conversations were more like this:
“Hey, did you see it? That new release going around the back alleys lately.”
“Oh, that? Extra’s new work? Of course I borrowed it, dumbass.”
“Krrgh! It’s seriously insane.”
“Right?! The way it depicts the pure childhood friend’s gradual corruption, plus those sensual illustrations! This is art, man. Art!”
Heh heh. Folding my umbrella, I secretly curled my lips into a smirk. These bastards actually had decent taste. All those all-nighters slathering ink had been worth it.
With a light step, I headed toward my sanctuary—the academy’s annex library.
Creeeeak—
As I opened the old door and stepped inside, the familiar scent of aged paper and dust welcomed me. The annex library was even quieter than usual on weekends. In fact, it was practically empty.
I went to my usual corner seat, casually flipped open my notebook, and picked up my pen. After the maid and childhood friend routes, what concept should I use to corrupt the empire next? Maybe a cold and arrogant villainess story? Or a gyaru angle?
Scratch. Scratch.
I was lightly jotting down ideas that came to mind and focusing when—
“Zzz… mmm… snore…”
Right next to me. A very steady, rhythmic breathing tickled my ear. Who the hell dares to sleep in a sacred library!
…I couldn’t exactly get mad about it. The person sleeping with her silver hair draped over the desk was a being far more sacred than any library, after all.
‘She’s persistent. So persistent.’
Her Holiness the Saintess. After my iron wall defense and ignoring skills hit their limit, she must have either given up or come up with a new strategy. Now whenever I came to the library, she’d naturally sit beside me, read a book, and eventually pass out like this.
At first, just having the Saintess next to me made me break into a cold sweat thinking about the Crown Prince’s death flags. But humans really are creatures of adaptation. She slept quietly with gentle breathing, so now I just treated her like White Noise Generator No. 1. Watching her sleeping face was even kind of healing.
Seeing the tiny bit of drool at the corner of her mouth, I couldn’t help but wonder what delicious dream she was having.
“Mmm… you can’t… this is blasphemy…”
Her sleep-talking was quite spectacular. I let out a light snort and turned my gaze back to my notebook.
A rainy day in the library, the scratching of my pen, and the gentle sleep-talking from beside me. It was the perfect peaceful weekend.
“I wish every day could be like this.”
Did she hear the mutter I let slip without thinking?
Whoosh!
The girl who had been face-down asleep beside me—Arina—sprang up like a spring.
“Hic!”
Her violet eyes were wide open and shaking wildly. Her face had gone deathly pale. She was gasping for breath, frantically looking around. It was like she’d been enjoying a peaceful dream only to be suddenly thrown into the middle of a horrific nightmare.
“Are you alright?”
I spoke without thinking, forgetting my usual character. But the Saintess didn’t seem to hear me at all. She kicked her chair back and shot to her feet.
“The energy…! Such a terrible, sorrowful energy…!”
Mumbling incoherently, Arina dashed toward the library exit. Her saintess robes nearly caught on the chair and made her trip, but she barely caught her balance, flung the library door open with a bang (the librarian’s brow furrowed), then suddenly spun back around and shouted.
“I-Ian! Please stay somewhere safe! You absolutely must!”
Leaving that urgent cry behind, the Saintess violently threw open the library door and ran out into the pouring rain.
“……What the hell?”
I blinked, still holding the pen that had been left hanging in midair. The Saintess of the church wakes up from a nap, starts babbling about sorrowful energy, and runs off? And she tells me to stay safe?
This was ominous. Extremely ominous. A crow cawing or my shoelace suddenly snapping couldn’t possibly feel more foreboding than this.
The peaceful atmosphere suddenly felt like it had frozen over with a chill. And as if to hammer the final nail into that sense of dread—
A massive thunderclap shook the entire academy library.
The windows rattled. The old wooden floor of the library trembled faintly, as if an earthquake had struck.
“What the…?”
I tossed my pen aside and headed straight for the door. The moment I cracked it open to check the outside scenery—
“……Huh?”
It was raining. No, calling it “raining” felt woefully inadequate. It was like someone was dumping buckets of water from the sky. But what was even more shocking was the scene unfolding at the academy’s central plaza.
“What the hell is that?”
At the academy’s central fountain—where students would normally gather in small groups to eat sandwiches or chat—a massive pillar of water was surging upward, piercing the sky. Had the ground split open or something? The water column, as if underground water had exploded upward, slammed directly into the magical barrier covering the academy’s airspace.
Rumble—!
The water crashing against the transparent magical barrier spread out in a round dome shape, violently scattering in every direction. It immediately turned into a torrential downpour that began pouring madly across the entire academy.
After silently watching the spectacle, I wordlessly closed the door.
Thud—
I kicked the rainwater that had seeped through the door crack back outside with my foot and nodded.
“Yeah. I didn’t see anything.”
I quietly turned around and walked back to my seat.
Even after sitting back down and placing my hand on the notebook, I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the pen. Outside the window, the sound of rain and thunder capable of swallowing the world continued without pause. Beyond the usual tap, tap-tap, there was now a deafening roaaaaar! mercilessly hammering the annex library’s old outer walls.
‘Calm down. Let’s organize the situation.’
I ran both hands down my face, forcibly cooling my rapidly chilling mind and making it work.
The main story of Volume 1 had begun. Lena Youngstern’s mana explosion.
The colossal disaster described in the original work—where a water-attribute genius, unable to control her emotions, tried to sweep the entire academy away with water. The main episode that required the Crown Prince to draw his sword and the Saintess to suppress it with holy power.
The problem was—
‘I haven’t fed Lena the explosion inducer yet.’
The drug meant to trigger a mana explosion was still sleeping peacefully in my pocket. My perfect plan to forcibly induce the explosion and prevent her mana circuits from getting tangled hadn’t even started.
It wasn’t like I’d proposed marriage to her either. So why the hell had the mana explosion episode begun?
— “Don’t worry, Lena. I’ll stop the marriage.”
The conversation under the tree shade yesterday flashed through my mind like lightning. Lena, shedding thick tears as she ran away.
‘……No way.’
Was the line I delivered the trigger? But that should have been a comment meant to calm Lena’s mentality, right? I didn’t say let’s get married—I said I’d stop it.
Whoosh! Crash—!
The situation outside was growing increasingly dire. Raindrops hammered the glass windows as if trying to shatter them, and dampness had already begun seeping through the door cracks.
For now, dealing with the immediate situation took priority. Whether I’d caused this or not, minimizing damage inside that rampaging mana storm was number one.
So what should a third-rate villain like me do?
“Uhh……”
Come to think of it, I don’t remember Ian Ash having any part in this scene.
‘Now that I think about it, do I really need to do anything?’
Disasters on this massive scale were meant to be handled by the protagonists. The Saintess Arina, who had just run out in a panic, had probably rushed straight to the scene. And Leonhardt, who hadn’t gone mad with bloodlust yet, wouldn’t just sit still if he was still playing the holy monarch role. Kano Ameri was probably watching this situation with great interest from somewhere. Not to mention the villainess Judith La Roche and Princess Eiphrid.
The professors might all be out since it was the weekend, but there were more than enough people to handle this. All I had to do was stay safely holed up in this library and wait for the storm to pass.
‘Now that I think about it, the annex library didn’t get damaged, did it?’
I couldn’t quite remember. Since it was tucked away in a corner of the academy, it was rarely even mentioned. But that very fact made it important to me.
I asked the librarian, who was blankly staring out the window.
“We should block the windows and door gaps. Do you have anything we can use?”
The librarian silently shook her head. Nothing, huh.
I looked around inside the library. There were lots of windows and doors. Plenty of books, but using them to plug gaps was a last resort. Paper should be used to hold knowledge, not as a waterproofing material. That was my personal belief, at least.
That was when the librarian’s eyes suddenly widened as if she’d remembered something. She hurried over to the storage room with quick steps.
“Ugh— ngh.”
A short while later, she returned carrying an armful of thick leather sheets that had been folded like dust covers, accompanied by a strained groan. They seemed to be for covering old bookshelves or collections—tough and wide.
“Oh. These are perfect.”
The librarian silently set down the pile of leather. Her expression remained deadpan, but I could have sworn she looked just a tiny bit proud. Must be my imagination.
I looked around the library again. There really were quite a few windows and doors. Correction: not quite a few. There were insanely many. Who the hell designed a library with this much obsession over natural lighting? Go yell at the architect.
Rumble—!
The rain grew even heavier. Alright.
I rolled up my sleeves.
“Alright, let’s get to work.”
After that, things became a blur. Padding leather over window frames, rolling it up and stuffing it into door gaps, securing it with desks and chairs, then running to the next spot when another gap opened.
The librarian moved with astonishing speed and silence, while I, as a modern person who knew how to use his body, became a diligent laborer. There were about two moments when I thought, ‘Why the hell am I doing waterproofing work in a library on my weekend?’ But when you think about it, the world is full of things that can’t be explained. Like getting kicked by the Magic Tower Master, for example.
Some time later.
“Hoo……”
After securing the last window, I finally straightened my back. My palms were damp, and my shoulders were stiff. Still, the inside of the library looked like it could hold out for now. At the very least, we’d prevented the catastrophe of entire bookshelves being submerged.
The librarian quietly looked my way. I shook the moisture off my hands and said,
“Don’t leave the library for a while. This place is on higher ground, so it should be relatively safe. Only use the one exit I left open. And absolutely do not go outside just to see what’s happening.”
The librarian gave a small nod. I walked toward the door, then turned back.
“And.”
“……”
“Take good care of the books.”
They might be a gathering of third-rate books just like me, but that’s exactly why this library had so many useful ones.
This time, the corner of the librarian’s mouth lifted ever so slightly. So she could smile after all. Good.
This should make the annex library safe enough. I opened my umbrella again in front of the only exit I’d left open. Cold moisture rushed in through the door gap. Outside, rain, water sounds, and lightning still mixed together, shaking the entire academy.
“I should at least check the situation.”
No matter who was resolving it, I needed to know what kind of mess was unfolding right now. I adjusted my grip on the umbrella and stepped outside.
In a place where even the violently pouring rain seemed to avoid it.
A woman was lying in the air above the waterlogged stone floor.
Lena Youngstern.
Her closed eyelids didn’t stir at all. There was no sign of consciousness. Yet the shallow puddle of water beneath her rippled as if alive. Thin ripples spread and vanished repeatedly, reacting to even the slightest emotion.
Moonlight seeped through a gap in the clouds. The white, cold light settled on Lena’s wet hair and cheeks. And around her—
Countless water droplets floated in the air. As if they were guards protecting the sleeping girl.
The sleeping girl’s eyelids trembled, ever so slightly.