The Library
Though the meal had been thoroughly satisfying, lunch was allotted a generous two hours, leaving a fair stretch of free time even after they had finished eating.
Luke pondered how best to spend it, then suddenly recalled the existence of the library.
With facilities of this caliber, the quality of the books ought to surpass that of any neighborhood bookshop. In which case, I may well find the materials I seek.
Recalling the rough map from the pamphlet he had glanced at earlier, he set off—and Mery and Shirud fell into step behind him.
Curious about the transfer student's decisive stride, Mery asked,
"Luke, where are you going?"
"I mean to visit the library. Have you been there before?"
"The library? I've never gone."
Shirud shook his head at Mery's puzzled tilt of the head, as if to say, This kid's never even set foot in a library, has she?
He asked,
"Is there something you want to borrow?"
"Hard to say until I look. Though—can one borrow books here as well?"
In ages past, when books commanded staggering prices, borrowing had been far more common than buying. Yet even in this modern era of cheap print, the concept of lending seemed to persist.
"Of course. Oh—do you have your student ID?"
"Student ID? You mean this?"
Luke rummaged through an inner pocket and produced the card. A firm, thin rectangle with rounded corners, stamped with his photograph and name—proof that he was a student of Teag Academy.
Confirming that Luke's ID was in order, Shirud nodded.
"That's the one. With it, you can borrow up to five books."
"Five volumes… That is rather generous. And the rental fee per volume?"
"It's free for students."
"Oh? Indeed."
If it was free, there was no reason not to make use of it. Luke found himself thinking that even in this age, an academy might prove more useful than expected.
"Then let's go already!"
Mery thrust her hand high in the air, bright with excitement.
"Library!"
Pai, mimicking Mery, sprayed a jet of mana fragments upward. Watching, Luke had the distinct impression that Pai was growing steadily more human.
Whether Pai learns to speak human tongue first, or I come to understand the language of spirits… It promises to be a rather interesting contest, does it not?
True to its reputation as a prestigious institution, Teag Academy's library was immense. Luke was mildly astonished by its size and scale.
In sheer size alone, it rivals a royal palace library.
The true worth of its holdings remained to be seen, but the volume of its collection was nearly the greatest he had known since five thousand years ago. That such a place existed within an institution educating children of this age was nothing short of remarkable.
Full of anticipation, Luke approached the shelves.
Mery, who had arrived with him, picked out a picture book that looked entertaining, claimed a seat, and settled in. She was curious what books Luke would choose—but curiosity took second place to the boredom of the moment. The drowsiness that hit the instant she opened the book was almost certainly post-meal lethargy. She managed perhaps two pages before her head dropped onto the book and her eyes closed.
Watching her, Shirud found his preconceptions about beastfolk reaffirmed.
"Sheesh."
Luke over there carefully picking through the shelves is the odd one. Ordinary beastfolk are more like this.
Luke carefully scanned the shelves labeled "History," and whenever an intriguing title caught his eye, he flipped through the volume quickly before slotting it back into place. He repeated the process again and again—until a thought struck him as strange.
"Why are materials on Arinseia from two thousand years ago so scarce?"
Arinseia had certainly existed. Founded five thousand years ago, it should have endured for at least three millennia. And who had been its king? None other than the Immortal King herself—Renie Arinseia. Succession of the ordinary sort would never have occurred. A nation more powerful than any other ought to have left behind a wealth of records. Or had they, relying on their sovereign's immortality, simply never bothered to keep any?
"And yet materials on the modern age are so abundant."
Luke glanced down at the book tucked under his left arm and sighed softly. It was a modern history text that meticulously chronicled the major world events of the past two thousand years. Finding a solid volume on recent history within two minutes of searching had been a stroke of luck.
"On Arinseia, nothing remains but fairy tales."
Perhaps a larger library would yield something better. For now, he would make do by borrowing the fairy tales with the most detailed descriptions.
Luke gathered a suitable selection and approached the seat where Shirud sat.
"I kept you waiting."
"What is all that?"
Shirud set aside the book he had been reading and stared, slightly flustered, at the roughly fifteen volumes Luke had brought. Well—he had rather expected Luke to be the sort who liked books…
"I have a favor to ask. Might you borrow these five on your student ID?"
"Uh… I mean, I guess that's fine."
"My thanks. You have been a great help."
Faced with Luke's radiant smile, Shirud suddenly felt bashful and looked away. The titles that flickered past his gaze were, every one of them, fairy-tale-like books related to Arinseia.
Interested in fairy tales, is she?
Come to think of it, the name Luke Irushi appeared in the Legend of the Immortal King, didn't it? Maybe that was where the name came from. Still—Luke was a masculine name.
"Incidentally, Shirud—what were you reading?"
"Ah. A magic textbook. Figured it might help."
"Hmm. Let me have a look."
Luke stepped closer and skimmed the pages. The contents did not strike him as particularly useful—little more than basic formulas and calculation tips.
"This sort of thing will serve you well in class, but it will be of little use for circle magic. Still, you are a student; studying this as well is no bad thing."
"Really? Then how am I supposed to study circle magic?"
"Focus on coordinate equations and mana calculation formulas. The rest is best learned by cultivating the sensation itself."
"I see."
Shirud looked down at his own hands and sighed. He still could not clearly define the feeling of mana. Fragments of the superficial lessons he had absorbed at school kept surfacing in his mind, getting in the way.
If only I'd concentrated harder on the circle back then…
He still regretted how thoroughly he had failed to sense the circle, drowned as he had been in the sensation of touching a peer girl's chest for the first time. But it wasn't as though he could just say something like, Can I touch it again? That would be far too embarrassing.
What would Luke think of me? Wait—come to think of it, Luke was the one who grabbed my hand first. So maybe it's fine?
Shirud fumbled for the words.
"Luke, uh… about the circle."
"I understand. You wish to feel mine once more, do you?"
Luke gave a short laugh and shrugged. At that reaction, Shirud flushed and met his eyes.
"I mean… is that not okay?"
Seen like this, Shirud was still a child after all. There was something truly endearing about a young one's bashfulness. It reminded Luke of a child long ago who had been caught stealing candy from a general store and stood there red-faced through his punishment.
But—
"Of course not. Absolutely not."
No.
"Y-yeah, I figured…"
Well, it is a girl's chest, so of course…
Shirud averted his gaze, half-convinced his face must now match his eyes in color.
That time was my mistake. Had I known you were so easily swayed by emotion, I would have been more careful about such contact.
He should never have assumed that the mages of this age were the same as those of the past. The magic systems had changed, true—but because Shirud possessed a circle, Luke had presumed he would be like a mage of five thousand years ago, and that presumption had been the root of the problem. In those days, a circle was something only the cool-headed and intellectual could inscribe upon themselves. This age, however, classified circles as a disease and made their removal the rule—something Luke had not known until speaking with Shirud.
All of that information had been things Yerna alone had been told separately, and she had deliberately kept them from him. Had Luke thought it through carefully, he might have deduced the truth himself—but he had never felt the need to dig that deep. Until now, there had been no reason to deliberately question and correct what he took for common sense.
But now he understood: the mages of the present and those of the past had to be regarded as entirely separate. Of everyone he had met so far, the only one who truly deserved to be called a "mage" was Gerard Colson. Miriam Daphne he set aside—he had yet to properly assess her skill.
Still, it does seem he needs to feel mana once more.
Luke was concerned that Shirud was struggling so badly to grasp the sensation. Without the ability to feel mana, meditation was impossible.
He held out his hand.
"Instead, hold out your hand."
"My hand…?"
Luke had suggested the hand because he recalled that when Shirud had touched his chest, the boy had become so emotional he nearly entered a mana rampage—whereas holding hands had not provoked nearly so strong a reaction.
Shirud shyly offered his hand. Luke layered his own over it and said,
"Now close your eyes, breathe deeply, and empty yourself of emotion."
Shirud obediently closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and let his feelings settle. Once, merely holding hands would have set his heart racing in panic—but he understood now that this was not that kind of contact. When it came to his circle, Luke was not simply a girl but his teacher. A little like a grandfather, even…
Just as a sense of calm began to bloom in the pitch-dark of his closed eyes, Luke's gentle voice reached him.
"Now then—receive the mana. Can you feel it?"
"I can. So this is mana."
Something warm and soft. A fluffy, cloudlike feeling in his chest—with a sensation like this, one might almost mistake it for falling in love with mana itself.
At last, Shirud felt the circle that had been grinding and stuttering begin to turn with a solid, steady weight.
"It's a strange feeling."
"This is meditation. Concentrate. In time, you must be able to do this alone."
Luke carefully, methodically pressed the mana into the circle seated in Shirud's chest. Without direct contact against the chest, the drain on Luke's mental strength and mana was all the greater—but there was no helping it for now. Once Shirud reached the second circle, this would no longer be necessary. If Luke endured a little hardship while the boy was still at the first, Shirud would thereafter be able to maintain the circle on his own and live an ordinary life.
For a while Luke worked the mana, helping the circle at Shirud's heart grow whole and sound—until his head began to nod, and at last dropped onto the desk.
Post-meal drowsiness, the fatigue of overtaxing his mana, and the quiet, tranquil atmosphere—perhaps all three together. Breathing evenly, Luke slipped into sleep still in the posture of meditation.
"…Luke?"
A poke, a tap—no, the boy was definitely asleep. Shirud figured Luke must simply have been tired. What he did not know was that a second-circle mage aiding a first-circle mage in accumulating mana within a circle—without even laying a hand directly upon it, through purely indirect mana manipulation—was a feat that would have left a mage of five thousand years ago flat on the floor in shock. It meant that with nothing more than a clasped hand, Luke could freely shape and mold the circle of a lesser mage at will.
Ignorant of all that, Shirud could only sit flustered, still holding the hand of the Luke who had simply fallen asleep mid-meditation, and found himself unable to continue. Luke's hand was soft, as a girl's ought to be, and the sleeping figure looked somehow defenseless and cute—
"…"
Then he felt a gaze from directly ahead.
At some point Mery had opened her eyes—or rather, she had been watching Luke and Shirud the whole time through narrowed slits, pretending to sleep.
"…Mery? How long have you been watching?"
"Eheh… I saw the whole thing. Holding hands, eyes closed. Are you two already that close?"
"N-no! This is—I mean—! The mana! I was trying to feel the mana…"
"Hmm, well, a girl's hand is soft."
"That's not—!"
A completely baseless misunderstanding. And he had no idea how to explain it.
As Shirud flailed about searching for words, a librarian approached and spoke in a displeased voice.
"If you're going to make noise, take it outside."
"S-sorry…!"