Chapter 86
Chapter 86
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 85
Chapter Title: Librarian Ernst (6) - Green Trauma
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Dormitory private room.
Eris scanned the page of the book she was reading once more with her eyes.
The protagonist falls into a trap due to betrayal by a trusted comrade.
All the former allies have either fallen or been held up elsewhere, and the protagonist himself is on the verge of collapse.
In that moment of utter desperation, the villain the protagonist had once defeated appears and saves him.
The villain sneers at the protagonist pitifully, and the protagonist rebels against the villain while forcing himself back to his feet.
The two blades that once pointed at each other now face the same direction.
And—
[—Please look forward to the next volume!]
"Aaaahhh!!"
Eris clutched her head and screamed.
It would be a sight to make any students who only knew her cool and mysterious aura doubt their eyes. Thank goodness the dormitory rooms had excellent soundproofing.
Eris lamented with a face full of despair.
"Why, just why! Why are all the books that guy gives me like this?!"
The heroine's confession gets cut off!
The protagonist's awakening of a new power gets cut off!
The protagonist, who's been a pushover all along, is about to get revenge on the villains who've tormented him, and it gets cut off!
Every time, it cuts off at the most exquisite moments, leaving the reader frustrated beyond measure, their composure shattered.
If it weren't fun, she'd just toss it aside, but it was fun—that made it all the more insidious.
"Haa."
Letting out a deep sigh, Eris glanced at the clock.
There was still some time before the Raid Hall session began, but it was an awkward hour to try sleeping.
She wasn't feeling tired anyway, thanks to the effects of the grimoire, so she finished preparing a bit early and left the dormitory.
"Oh my, Eris. You're out early."
Raid Hall entrance.
A mild-mannered middle-aged woman spotted Eris and greeted her warmly.
Eris bowed politely.
"Good morning, Professor Weston."
"The session hasn't started yet, so you can call me Mary sis like old times. If you hate calling an old lady like me 'sis,' I guess there's nothing to be done."
At the casual yet pointed remark, Eris gave a wry smile.
Mary Weston.
One of the instructors at the Aldrich Raid Hall, and among the disciples who had trained under Grand Archmage Delphinaris like Eris, she had played the role of the eldest sister.
Delphinaris's disciples, tangled in various interests, didn't always get along well, but even they behaved themselves in front of Mary.
Eris wasn't much different in that regard, so she readily raised the white flag and changed her words.
"Mary sis."
"That's right, that's how it should be. All the other kids act like 'I'm not a child anymore' and pull away—do you know how hurt I feel?"
"They're probably embarrassed to do it in front of others. If they didn't have to worry about prying eyes, they'd react differently."
At Eris's words, Professor Mary's eyes widened round.
Her reaction, as if she'd heard something astonishing, left Eris puzzled.
She hadn't said anything strange, so why?
"Eris, you've changed a bit lately, haven't you?"
"Changed how?"
"Before, you'd just chime in with 'Yeah, that's too much' and move on. You never cared about what others were thinking or why they reacted that way."
"……."
The blunt critique, delivered right to her face, left Eris momentarily speechless.
It wasn't because she thought it was nonsense. On the contrary, Eris felt the professor had hit the nail on the head.
The old Eris wouldn't have bothered trying to understand others from their perspective.
No, she wouldn't have cared in the first place.
With magic research and honing her skills keeping her mind fully occupied, where would she find the time for that?
Yet the current Eris had naturally speculated on their psychology and defended them without even thinking about it.
Why was that possible?
...Because I've seen it so many times.
Novels don't always stick strictly to the protagonist's viewpoint.
They often depict how others perceive the protagonist's words from an objective angle or even switch to that person's perspective to describe their feelings.
So when she heard Mary, Eris had thought without hesitation.
If she were in their shoes, she'd probably act that way for those reasons.
This was separate from the studying Eris had done so far.
It wasn't the result of cramming knowledge into her brain—it was just unconsciously accepting that 'what one person does thinking it's A can be seen as B by someone else.'
Misreading Eris's dazed expression, Professor Mary suddenly burst into good-natured laughter.
"I've been thinking your face has more life to it lately. Did you meet someone nice?"
"No. Meet someone nice? Nothing like that."
Eris straightened up seriously.
A 'nice' meeting with that foul-tempered librarian? No way.
"'Unpleasant,' 'creepy,' 'annoying' maybe, but 'nice' is absolutely not a fitting word."
"Hehe, okay, okay. I get it."
To Eris, Mary’s words sounded like empty flattery no matter how she looked at it.
Because in the romance novels she'd read, the side characters looking warmly at the heroine who vehemently denied her feelings had that exact vibe—
—Wait, hold on! I can't use that example here!!
Eris covered her face with both hands and rubbed it dryly.
For some reason, she felt an endless urge to scream, punch and kick the air.
Objectively realizing how she must look to Professor Mary only intensified the impulse, and hunching over to suppress it made her newly aware of what she was doing—an endless vicious cycle.
Eris was feeling more acutely than ever that knowledge could be poison.
Professor Mary, who had been watching fondly at first, realized that leaving it like this might make her fellow disciple's face turn from red to exploding, so she hurriedly changed the subject.
"Ahem. Anyway, Eris, clear your schedule next week on the holiday."
"My schedule...?"
"We're gathering at Master's estate. She's taking on a new disciple, so even if not everyone can make it, those who can should show up out of courtesy, right?"
As Labelrosia's national treasure, Delphinaris periodically took on promising talents from across the kingdom as disciples to contribute to the nation.
Her students typically spent 1-2 years under her direct tutelage, then scattered to pursue their paths, reuniting occasionally for major events like this.
For Eris, who had been taken in young and trained for over five years, it was a familiar event, so she had no objections to attending.
Plus, after devouring theory books lately and seeing her skills surge, she wanted to show off to her master.
That said, she did have one question.
"But isn't this not the time for taking disciples?"
A 6th-circle mage could suppress aging and maintain peak physical condition, but even they had limits on pure lifespan extension.
Without extreme measures like becoming a lich through forbidden arts or receiving a divine blessing from a god, even 6th-circle mages topped out around 150 years.
Of course, that was the 'longest recorded' in the archives, so actual lifespans were likely shorter.
Delphinaris looked middle-aged like Professor Mary here, but her real age was already over ninety.
It wasn't imminent death, but at an age where preparing for the end of life wouldn't be strange, Labelrosia's grand archmage was gradually reducing the number of new disciples.
No more proactively seeking out standouts like before—just once every two years, the bare minimum at the royal family's request.
So hearing she'd taken a new one outside the usual schedule left Eris puzzled.
"I looked into it because I was curious too, but it doesn't seem like a live-in disciple like us. It's a student already attending the Raid Hall. Probably just occasional advice, so no big burden—maybe that's why."
"Do you know who this new disciple is?"
"I think it's Count Grimrun's adopted son? He sends estate specialties as gifts every year, treats Master specially, so maybe she made an exception."
There were no major contradictions in Professor Mary's explanation.
Full-time mentoring was different from occasional pointers.
Extra attention for a friendly noble's ward made sense.
But for some reason.
Eris couldn't shake off a nagging unease.
Pondering where it came from, she suddenly recalled what the young ladies of the Raid Hall had been gossiping about.
"By the way, have you heard? There's a weirdo at Lowton Raid Hall."
"A weirdo?"
"Count Grimrun's adopted son. Theory classes? Rock bottom. But practicals? No one can keep up. Rumor is he's one of their reps for the exchange meet."
"……."
An eccentric with exceptional practical skills.
Someone she might face soon.
And her revered master had taken him as a disciple, breaking her usual schedule.
Overinterpreting it.
Just coincidences stacking up.
Her reason whispered that, but instinctual displeasure and wariness surged in her heart.
It was a scar and trauma etched from hearing her master's complaints as a child.
'Think I'm going to lose?'
Eris's eyes gleamed coldly.
Her once-wide field of view had narrowed again.