The Public Library That Isn't
The moment the library opened, I strode proudly through the front entrance—and stopped dead in the lobby.
Something like a subway fare gate blocked the way, waiting to recognize whatever it needed before it would open.
After a moment of hesitation, I asked the front desk how I was supposed to get in. The receptionist’s answer came back ice-cold.
“You must have your identification scanned to enter. There are no exceptions.”
“I-Is that so….”
Especially not someone wrapped up from head to toe the way I was. Under her freezing gaze, I meekly nodded.
No amount of stubbornness was going to get me through that gate. Afraid of looking even more suspicious, I muttered that I’d only been asking and hurriedly backed away.
Still, I couldn’t leave empty-handed. On my way out I let my eyes roam, taking in the library’s interior as quickly as I could.
I can feel the flow of mana. Magic is layered all over this place.
The locks on doors and windows, in particular, were sealed with a specialized magic whose structure I couldn’t read from the outside.
Of course—if they only locked things physically, any mage could open them with a simple spell. I understood the point of the countermeasure.
As things stood, short of tearing the devices apart to examine their insides, cracking the magic itself was going to be difficult. They’d put some real thought into this.
Satisfied with what I’d managed to confirm up close, I hurried out of the library before any more suspicious stares could settle on me.
“In what universe is this a public library…? If it’s public, shouldn’t it be open to everyone?!”
“Is a public library a place anyone can enter?”
“That’s what ‘public’ means! At least every library I know works that way!”
A free space open to every citizen. A utopia made flesh in this world. That was supposed to be the whole reason public libraries existed…!
Too cruel, too cruel, too cruel. Near the library, in a quiet stretch with few people around, I paced in tight circles like a racehorse spooked by its own nerves.
Cheshire hopped up onto a nearby crate and looked at me with something like concern.
“Perhaps other libraries restrict entry the same way. Did you find a method to get inside?”
“I think I could manage the locks somehow. The security cameras and sensors, though—I still don’t have a feel for those. Without neutralizing the magic across a certain range, making a gap might be hard.”
“Hmm…. Didn’t you say this world has tens of millions of books, my lady? And yet the surveillance seems terribly strict.”
“That’s exactly my point! Why go this far?”
It wasn’t as if a single book could buy twenty head of cattle! With skyscrapers and automobiles, books ought to be something stamped out in a factory, right?
So why guard them this fiercely…? The whole thing left me baffled—and a little resentful.
“This isn’t working. In that case… we go with Plan B.”
“What is Plan B?”
“We buy books. My subspace is full of things that ought to be worth money. We take them to a pawnshop or a goldsmith’s and convert them into cash.”
“Things that would be worth money….”
“Selling one piece of gold jewelry should do it, don’t you think?”
Gold and jewels were always in demand, no matter the era. Hand over a decent gold bracelet, and I ought to be able to buy dozens of books.
The only real problem was that I’d just arrived in this city. I had no idea which shops I could trust.
I at least didn’t want to get scammed. Under a patch of shade where the sunlight didn’t reach, I thought it over for a long while—then made up my mind.
“…It’s embarrassing, but maybe I’ll impose on someone after all.”
Madam. Earlier, when I’d fretted about identification, she’d tried to introduce me to a broker. She clearly had useful information.
I wasn’t about to ask her for money. I only wanted a recommendation for a reliable goldsmith. No reason for her to feel put upon.
Decision made, I headed back to the house where we’d parted. Please still be home, I prayed with everything I had.
But when I arrived at Madam’s house, I went pale. Along with every last possession, Madam and Ellie had already vanished somewhere.
“…Cheshire. Tell me this is a lie.”
“It would seem they left in the meantime. Come to think of it, they did appear to be running from some rather dangerous people.”
“Th-This can’t be happening! Why did they disappear in the tiny window while I was changing my mind?! Right now, that woman is the only person I can trust!”
“But… you’re the one who coolly traded her offer of ‘anything’ for the library’s location, my lady. You should have taken her up on it when she offered.”
“Ugh, uuugh….”
I had no comeback. But how was I supposed to know I’d need her help this soon?
I dropped heavily onto the floor of Madam’s emptied living room. No wonder the house had felt strangely quiet the moment I opened the door.
This left me in a bind. I would have to find a place to convert my valuables on my own, with no one’s help.
I didn’t even know the currency, or what gold was worth here. The odds of getting fleeced like a perfect mark were high.
So this was how terrifying it was to have no information and no knowledge. A long sigh slipped out of me.
“Haa…. This is rougher than I expected. I thought if I came to the future, I could read books to my heart’s content without a single worry.”
“Here, neither your reputation nor your money is of any use, my lady. And when you can’t even use magic freely, well… there’s little to be done.”
“Yeah. That’s the biggest problem. I still don’t understand why there’s so little mana in the air here.”
Thinking about it only made me feel more wronged. If I could just use magic properly, there would have been so much more I could do.
My specialty was star magic—spells that dealt with space and time. If I’d forced the mana out of myself, I might even have walked into the library by magic alone.
But if I cast something like that now, I might end up wandering this city as an empty shell with not a scrap of mana left until I got home. Just imagining it was awful.
Ah—and I was already hungry. My motivation was gone. Maybe I should just go to a police station and tell them I was a lost child. Technically, it wouldn’t even be a lie.
I lay on my side with warm, soft Cheshire cradled in my arms, wallowing in self-pity—when a good idea suddenly struck me.
“Wait. Could there be books in this house?”
“My lady? That’s….”
“It’s fine. The owners abandoned the place. Everything left here is basically discarded property, right? You know I’m right.”
“They might only have stepped out for a little while.”
“Cheshire. Are you going to keep arguing with me? What homeowner packs up every last belonging just to run an errand? That makes no sense. Well? Answer me. Go on.”
“Guek! Kack, kack.”
Appetite for the hunt suddenly rising, I applied a rear naked choke to the uncooperative Cheshire and sprang to my feet.
Stealing books would have bothered me a little—but claiming books someone had abandoned didn’t prick my conscience at all. No: abandoned books were the ones that deserved pity. As someone who loved books, I had no choice but to take responsibility for them.
A sense of mission blazed up in me. Of course, looking at the storm-swept state of the house, any books that had been here were unlikely to have survived intact. Even so, the mere thought of reading put life back into my exhausted brain.
“So where would they be…. Here? Maybe here? Or… here?”
“All misses.”
“Hmm. Looks like there’s nothing in the living room. That’s fair enough.”
There had to be at least one volume somewhere. I searched Madam’s house from top to bottom—a place spacious enough for a family of six to live in comfort.
I checked the bedrooms, the little room where the girl named Ellie had been lying, even a room that looked like a storage closet.
I searched the entryway, the attic, even the bathroom—and when I finally returned to the living room, I sank to the floor in despair.
“Why aren’t there any?! This is wrong!”
“Perhaps Madam simply isn’t very fond of books.”
“I even gave her fruit as a get-well gift…!”
“That has nothing to do with the lack of books, does it?”
I knew that. I just couldn’t stand how the hope I’d finally allowed myself had been shredded in an instant.
Aaah, I hated this. Was I really going to have to walk into some random goldsmith’s, knowing I’d get scammed, and sell my things for a pittance? Unfair.
I was still pouting and grumbling under the weight of that unbearable frustration when, all of a sudden, I felt a presence at the entrance.
Had Madam come back? Instinctively I went silent, pretending no one was there, and exchanged a quick glance with Cheshire.
That doesn’t seem to be Madam.
I think so too.
Sensing something off, I slipped quickly behind a piece of furniture. Two sets of footsteps approached, and the living room door burst open.
“…What. They already ran? Damn bitch! How dare she get in our way!”
“Tch. I figured Malek would round them up and come back…. Now we’ve got extra work for nothing.”
The voices belonged to an angry man and a cold, level one. Unwelcome visitors looking for Madam, then.
Ears pricked, I listened—and from the cold-voiced man I felt a flicker of mana.
A residual signature similar to what I’d sensed from the man called Malek. A mage? I wanted a look at his face.
Unlike with Malek, I had no reason to fight. I would have preferred to slip past without meeting them at all—but the man with the mana chose an inconvenient topic.
“Hey. Search every room for traces. Malek was only just arrested. There’s no way they’ve made it out of the city yet. If we lose them, we’ll be the ones who take the fall.”
“Yes, sir!”
Unfortunately, I had no magic for vanishing from sight. At this rate, a confrontation was unavoidable.
So what now? I read the situation as it unfolded, thought for a moment, and soon made my decision.
From what I’d overheard, they were clearly in the same outfit as that Malek fellow—and they meant to find Madam and do her harm….
They can hardly complain if I step in, right?
Without further hesitation I stood up and stepped out from behind the furniture.
The two men, who hadn’t noticed me at all, startled violently at my sudden appearance.
“Wh-What the fuck! You scared the hell out of me! Who the hell are you?!”
“…A vagrant? Looks like she wandered in thinking the place was empty. Bad luck.”
Well—anyone would jump if a hooded freak in a robe popped out of a house they thought was deserted.
The moment the man who looked like a mage leveled a magic tool at me—similar to the one Malek had used—I drew my staff as well.
“A s-staff? Boss! That one’s a mage!”
“Impossible. The detection tool isn’t picking anything up. That’s a fake that only looks the part.”
“What the…. Ha! You little street rat! Trying to scare us with that cheap act!”
I ignored whatever they were saying and looked from one man to the other. Which of them would be easier to talk to?
The angry one, or the one holding the magic tool. Honestly, I didn’t want to chat with either…. Just then, the mage spoke.
“One question. Do you know where the woman and the brat who were here went?”
“….”
“If you don’t answer, I’ll put you in such a state you’ll beg me to kill you.”
Mm. Decision made. Not you. As the mage activated his tool, I spoke a spell of my own.
“Flare.”
"Sagitta Stella."
⟨ Starlight Arrows ⟩
A spell that loosed starlight like arrows.
An ominous gout of flame erupted from the other side—but starlight with real physical force punched straight through the fire and slammed the mage into the wall.
“Guh…!”
“B-Boss?!”
CRASH! The mage struck the wall hard, eyes flying wide as the breath left him—then the whites of his eyes showed and he crumpled unconscious.
He wouldn’t be in any danger of dying. For various reasons, I was quite practiced at controlling my strength so people stayed alive.
Still, a hit like that would keep him down for a while. I strolled leisurely toward the remaining man, who was staring at the collapsed mage in pure horror.
“Th-That’s impossible…. The boss is a 3rd-Class Mage…. H-He even has defensive tools. How… in one hit….”
“….”
“Eek! D-Don’t come any closer! P-Please spare me!”
Muttering to himself as if trapped in a nightmare, the man collapsed onto the floor the moment I drew near.
He was probably fine—but maybe because the mage was half-embedded in the wall, this one seemed to think his partner had been killed in a single blow.
Well, if he wanted to believe that, conversation would only get easier. I stepped on the terrified man’s thigh where he lay and spoke.
“Ugh, uuugh…!”
“If you don’t want to die, do exactly as I say. Understood?”
“Y-Yes! I will!”
Perfect. One local hired hand acquired. The thought of putting him to good use brought a smile unbidden to my lips.