What Do You Expect Me to Do?
What Do You Expect Me to Do?
Elves generally don't sleep much. So even late at night, the Magic Department shop was perfectly accessible.
The shop stocked a wide variety of items, and perfume was naturally among them.
Becky carefully held out a scent strip toward me.
"Hey, Plan. What do you think of this one?"
I took a sniff. A moderately understated scent. An inoffensive sandalwood. I gave it a vaguely approving nod.
Becky looked more serious picking out perfume than I'd ever seen her. She brought another strip to my nose.
"This one's... rose, right? I feel like it might make me smell too old. Pass."
Becky went on sniffing samples for a while, then abruptly asked me.
"Plan. Say something. Which one's better?"
"Rose."
So my taste really hadn't changed even after switching bodies. If I had to compare, I slightly preferred the rose.
"Oh... yeah?"
Looking a little sheepish, Becky scratched her cheek and set the strips down.
"Huh, rose... This one's the cheapest, actually. Guess I wasn't looking at the prices while I was sniffing. Might as well grab the cheap one. Gotta keep the budget in mind..."
And with that, she abruptly paid for three bottles of rose perfume.
I wasn't sure what shift in mindset had occurred, but I was grateful the transaction wrapped up faster than expected.
On the walk back toward the dorms, Becky held her Trivia out to me.
"My code. We agreed to trade, remember?"
"Sure."
I tucked it away into my pocket for the time being. Walking with my face buried in a Trivia is something I can't abide.
By the time we'd nearly reached the dorms, Becky asked.
"Oh yeah. Hey, Plan. Have you thought about a club?"
Now that she mentioned it. The "club" matter was one more thing I needed to address right now.
There was no way Violet had granted me an entire week of free time with no strings attached.
That professor had stressed, emphatically, that club activities were essentially a privilege, and that I was obligated to join a club within the week.
For first-years, only A-grade students were permitted to take part in club activities, so calling it a privilege wasn't wrong. It checks out by the rules too.
"Haven't yet, no."
"She said club attendance and activity reports all factor into our grades. Shouldn't you settle it soon?"
She was right. Since it's directly tied to grades, I couldn't exactly blow it off.
Even founding my own club was out of the question. I'd looked into it and confirmed that founding a club is only possible from third year onward.
"No... well, I'm not trying to push you or anything. The club I'm joining has a pretty good reputation. The ice is prettier than you'd expect, and..."
Becky nudged the ground with the tip of her shoe.
I was still puzzled why Violet was so intent on making me do club activities.
In any case, no club interested me. Even more so if I couldn't just found my own.
...In that case, my best move would be to join the same club as someone easy to make use of.
"Becky."
I called her name quietly. Becky's eyes went wide as she looked up at me.
"That club you said you're joining. Put my name on the roster too."
"Whoa, really?! You're joining too, Plan?"
Becky's face lit up. I left her looking inexplicably pleased.
Because the thirty minutes I'd set aside for her had just expired.
"Hey, Plan! It starts tomorrow! You absolutely have to show up for club attendance! Got it!"
I could hear Becky shouting from behind me.
◈
The next day.
Early in the morning, I visited the cafe situated on the first floor of the Academy Magic Tower.
I had no particular interest in coffee. But I had business with the Trivia I'd set on the table.
My original plan had been a modification related to "location tracking," but a modification better suited to my current situation was more appropriate.
This world is full of variables. The recent exploration assessment, for example.
The right move is to create conditions that let me exclude variables. The more I can guarantee my own tomorrow, the more things I can prove.
In that case, what can I wield to fend off variables that come at me unexpectedly? The answer was obvious.
'Artifacts.'
Artifacts. Mysterious materials that form naturally as mana intertwines across the continent.
Even at this very moment, new artifacts were constantly being regenerated within the continent's interior.
Furthermore, depending on their properties, artifacts were assigned a wide range of grades, from trash to holy relics.
Artifacts would offer me excellent protection from all sorts of variables.
Stepping into an auction to acquire one would be the most straightforward method... but at present, I lacked the funds.
Window-shopping sometime would be fine.
I would visit an auction house at least once someday, but not now. I could just modify my Trivia and search directly.
A low vibration—
I laid my palm over the Trivia with full confidence. Mana responded instantly.
I could feel the mana lines connecting the Magic Tower and the Trivia. I wove strands of magic power and then traced them back in precise reverse order.
A surge of mana, like a crashing wave, shot upward in the opposite direction.
Now came the crucial part.
I drew out an interference formula in my head, then focused my entire consciousness on the "characters." This was to modify the Trivia so it could isolate specific types of text.
This was only possible because the Trivia used mana to form its characters in the first place.
As long as mana with fixed circuits exists, reading it is a mage's role and duty.
I concentrated my mind and fused the consciousness in my head with the mana rising through my spinal cord. The churning mana began cycling from the crown of my head to my fingertips at great speed.
I synchronized the Trivia's mana wavelength to my own. At that same moment, my vision flickered and I stepped entirely into a blank white world.
WOOSH—
A tidal wave of text, densely clumped in pitch-black, came rushing at me.
From within that, I would isolate only the words I wanted.
I carved a verbal mantra into the root of the Trivia's system. I pulverized the tidal wave and extracted only the characters related to hiding something—'conceal,' 'hide,' 'secrecy'...
The reason was simple.
Those who know of the existence of a high-grade artifact will never try to speak of it directly. Nor will they store it in any ordinary fashion.
They will hide it, and hide it again, and hide it once more. That is true no matter the world.
There would be no error in this Trivia modification. I calculated it myself, so I personally guarantee it.
No hesitation. I shoved my entire mana reserves in at once.
— — —!
For a brief instant, the weight of the cafe interior shifted.
I found myself gripping the Trivia's cover. I'd squeezed it so hard the blood had drained from my knuckles.
"Hoo."
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
The Trivia I opened again now displayed an entirely different world.
[＊I hid my grades. If my parents find out I'm dead.]
[＊What's the point of just memorizing formulas by rote? You have to grasp the hidden meaning.]
[＊Don't hide it, just say it. Did you sleep with him?]
.
.
.
I smiled, satisfied.
Failure had never even crossed my mind. I succeeded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
From now on, any conversation within the Trivia network related to hiding something—I could check all of it.
All that remained was to find the pearls within this flood of information. I moved my eyes quickly.
[＊Oppa, you're not hiding anything from me, right?]
Even after using my head, I saw nothing but pointless chatter.
I diligently scanned the lists after that, but with no results to speak of.
Back in my old world, doing this would've yielded a haul. Guess this place is different.
Just as I was about to close the Trivia.
[＊What did you do with the stolen goods. Did you hide them properly?]
There was one exchange that grabbed my attention. Stolen goods. I examined it in detail immediately.
[＊I hid it at the bottom of Tir Lake. Even if someone finds it, it's at a depth they can't retrieve.]
Because only conversations where the word "hide" was used were visible, I couldn't see every detail.
[＊Just in case, double-check it's properly hidden. That thing isn't a toy. One slip and we're all dead.]
But this brief glimpse alone was more than enough to pique my interest.
An item where one slip means everyone dies. That sounds entertaining.
If it were an artifact that already had a rightful owner, I wouldn't touch it. But judging from the conversation, it was clearly stolen goods even to them.
I'd find out what kind of item it was by confirming it in person. For now, I set Tir Lake as my next destination.
With my destination decided, I was about to close the Trivia when I noticed a pile of piled-up messages.
[▶ sowwy >< ]
[▶ are you angwy...? ]
[▶ I was bad ㅠㅅㅠ ]
[▶ please reply... ]
[▶ I can't do anything... ]
[▶ I'll give you 10 gold coins per reply! ]
[▶ 20! ]
.
.
.
Tch. I clicked my tongue and shut the Trivia.
I'm no courtesan, and I have zero intention of extracting gold by entertaining frivolous chatter.
In an hour, I had to be present at the ice element research club known as "Prozen." I planned to use the floating time to read some books at the library.
I already had a book I'd marked. 'Refinement, Harmony, Explosion.'
I was just wrapping up my plans and about to rise from my seat.
"Ah~ Fancy meeting you all here! Plan, right?"
Some woman I didn't know sat down across from me.
Orange hair hanging down to her waist and freckles. A tomboy who vaguely resembled Violet.
What was certain was that she and I were meeting for the first time. Before I could even ask who she was, she slid a business card across the table.
[Sepia Whisper. Deputy Head, Merhenilbo Magic Department.]
I looked from the card to Sepia and back again.
It wasn't that I found the journalist part surprising—it was that she was the deputy head. Going by her appearance, she was the spitting image of the most junior reporter on staff.
"About that exploration assessment the other day. You were the one who stayed to the end in the Magic Labyrinth, right? If it's not too much trouble, I'd love to have a little chat~"
This wasn't something she needed to ask me about.
"I think you'd do better to go find another student."
"I've been making the rounds! The Hailey student said she didn't remember anything, and Becky told me to go ask you, you know?"
"I don't remember much either."
I made to stand up, but she desperately tried to hold me back. I evaded her when she tried to grab my hand.
"Oh... your reflexes are crazy fast? No, no, that's not it! Talking with me is a huge advantage for you too!"
She glanced around furtively, then whispered carefully into my ear.
"...And besides, I also know that you're a Yudit."
I nodded.
I see. So she knows I'm from the Yudit family.
I looked at Sepia and replied, utterly unruffled.
"What's your point?"