The Incubus Who Visited the Church #7
The Incubus Who Visited the Church #7
An hour later, I arrived in front of a magic shop at Yoen-su.
It was a store tucked near the entrance to the underground waterway.
The whole area was sunless and steeped in gloom.
I stared at the dingy magic shop with a dubious expression.
"Is it really okay to go in here? What if a ghost pops out the moment I walk inside?"
I'd never seen anyone coming or going from this magic shop before.
I couldn't even tell if it was actually open for business.
Still, I'd at least knock first.
Knock, knock.
I gave the door a light rap. No response, so I tried opening it — luckily, it wasn't locked.
I called out, "Excuse me!" as I stepped inside.
Naturally, there was no answer.
"Why is it so dark in here?"
The only thing that could even be called lighting was a wall-mounted oil lamp.
In the dim light, a skull sitting on a display shelf caught my eye and sent an instant chill down my spine.
The hell? Is that skull made of real human bone?
This isn't some killer's hidden dungeon, is it?
"Ah, fuck... Where's the shopkeeper?"
Feeling deeply unsettled, I tried to find the counter.
Following the display shelves deeper inside, I finally spotted it.
But sprawled across the counter was some girl, limp as a dead fish.
Her hair spread out like a wild mane, and her head hung down as if she were dead.
'Wait, is this actually a corpse?'
She didn't seem to be breathing, so I instinctively thought: I'm screwed.
If this really is a dead body, am I supposed to report it to the city guard first?
Shaking, I reached out and touched her shoulder with my hand.
Right at that moment.
The girl's head shot straight up toward the ceiling.
Eyes snapping wide open, she opened her mouth.
"...O-oh, welcome! Welcome to the Magic Shop!!"
There was drool trickling down from the corner of her mouth.
Seeing her puffy eyes, I finally understood the situation.
She'd just been catching some sleep during business hours.
I let out a sigh and spoke.
"Are you actually open for business?"
"Yes! We sure are! What are you looking for? Our magic shop's inventory includes...!"
As she rattled on enthusiastically, her eyes suddenly met mine.
That instant, a sense of déjà vu hit me — I felt like I'd seen this girl somewhere before. Apparently she felt the same way.
"Luke?"
"Huh?"
She knows my name?
I studied her face more carefully, and after a moment I was certain she was someone I knew.
"Are you Lili?"
Lili.
The Magic Tower student who had previously commissioned a quest from me. The wealthy girl who paid a whole 1 silver and 50 coppers as a daily wage. She was a client I'd meant to remember, but her features were so plain that I hadn't recognized her right away.
"That's me! Fancy meeting you again in a place like this!"
Lili looked at my horns and clapped her hands as if delighted.
Watching Lili sit behind the counter, I couldn't help but feel puzzled.
If she's a Magic Tower student, she should be from a wealthy family. So why is she working in such a dreary shop? I'd heard magic shops were usually run by wandering magicians.
Unable to hold back my curiosity, I asked Lili.
"Do you work here?"
"Yes! I'm doing a part-time job at this magic shop!"
"You didn't seem hard up enough to need a part-time job? All the students studying at the Magic Tower are loaded, aren't they?"
"Actually, my relative runs this store. He's from a branch family, so he's lived as a wandering magician. I ended up in his debt a few times when I was little. So while I'm staying at Yoen-su, I've been helping out at the shop."
"Ahh, it's a relative's shop."
"Still, the work isn't all bad. I get lots of chances to see magical tools with my own eyes."
"You say the work is fine? Then why were you napping during business hours...?"
"Heh, I ended up staying up until dawn finishing an assignment my professor gave me, so..."
Lili looked at me with a smile that asked for forgiveness. It was pretty damn cute, so I decided to let it slide just this once.
If a guy had tried that kind of aegyo on me, I'd have socked him in the face and then some.
"I'll turn the lights on—!"
After getting my unspoken consent, Lili waved a wand that had been rolling around under the counter. In an instant, the inside of the magic shop brightened. The mana lamps on the ceiling began pouring out light.
I looked around the shop, now as bright as high noon, and felt flabbergasted.
So this girl had even turned off all the lights and was sleeping?
She'd have nothing to say for herself if the owner sued her.
Lili read my expression and quickly spoke up.
"I only turned off the lights today. Honestly, this shop rarely gets customers. Mornings are practically dead empty. I don't even know why I'm sitting here."
"It does look like business isn't going too well."
"So, what do you need, Luke? You came here looking for magical help, right?"
"I need spellbooks. Pick out some easy beginner-level ones for me. I haven't been learning magic for long, so anything too difficult would be tough."
"Alright!"
With a cheerful laugh, Lili started picking spellbooks from the bookshelf behind the counter. After some deliberation, she laid four spellbooks on the counter in order.
I read the titles.
- Rope Trick
- Mage Hand
- Message
- Clean
Just from the titles, I couldn't tell what kind of magic they were.
I asked Lili to explain.
"What are all of these?"
"Rope Trick is magic that moves a rope to bind an enemy. Mage Hand is magic that creates a hand made of mana. Message is magic that transmits your intent to a nearby target, and the Clean spell is exactly what it sounds like — clean! It removes contaminants from your surroundings."
Lili then gave me additional explanations about the four spells.
Things like the rope moved by Rope Trick having length restrictions, and what kinds of contaminants the Clean spell can wash away.
I listened to Lili chatter away with genuine interest.
After all, there's nothing quite as fun as hearing about magic.
"The hand created by Mage Hand shares the sense of touch with the caster! That means you can feel the texture of an object touched by the mana hand even from far away."
It shares the sense of touch?
Hearing that, some thoroughly improper thoughts suddenly popped into my head.
So that means I could feel a woman's breast from a distance? Maybe I could even pull off a tit-grope-and-run with magic.
If I can just manipulate a mana hand properly.
If there was one pair of breasts I wanted to grope most in Yoen-su City, there was only one.
My personal guild receptionist, Wendy's, breasts.
Any male adventurer who visits the Adventurer's Guild would think the same thing.
Because once you see those huge, bouncing tits, you can't tear your eyes away.
I let myself fantasize about teasing Wendy's big boobs with Mage Hand. In broad daylight while adventurers were milling about, if I could grope her tits from a distance with magic...
'Oh, fuck.'
I got so turned on I had to stop that thought immediately.
I couldn't exactly pop a boner in front of a young girl.
I emptied my head and calmly listened to Lili's explanation.
Maybe Rope Trick could also manage shibari bondage, but I didn't have the guts to ask Lili about that.
"...Now, the explanation's done. Which spell would you like? These spellbooks are 2 silvers each!"
"2 silvers? You're really selling them at that price?"
"They're all basic-level magic, after all. Even so, I picked spells that could be plenty useful for adventurer work. Most basic magic is useless junk."
I was relieved that she hadn't named a higher price than I expected. Sure, 2 silvers wasn't pocket change, but if you thought of it as the cost of equipping a single piece of gear, it seemed about right. I looked at the four spellbooks and fell into thought for a moment. Which ones should I pick? All of them seemed like they'd help with adventuring.
While mulling it over, I threw a question at Lili.
Because I had something to check before buying the spellbooks.
"Do you have a Fire Magic book by any chance? That's basic magic too, isn't it?"
"Fire Magic? Of course we do!"
"Then bring me that one too. It seems like Fire Magic would be more useful than these other spells."
Lili looked at me with the eyes of someone who hadn't even considered that. She scratched her cheek and said,
"Ah, I assumed you already knew it..."
"You saw me lighting a fire with my hands back in Morris Forest. I don't know Fire Magic."
"Since that happened, I naturally thought you'd have learned it by now."
"Are you mocking me right now?"
"No!"
Lili scurried off and brought back one more spellbook. The very Fire Magic spellbook I'd been searching for. I really liked the cover, with its blazing flames painted on the front. Honestly, I wanted to crack it open and check the contents right then and there, but every spellbook sold in the shop was bound with a tight cord around the cover. I took it to mean you couldn't open it until you bought it.
"The Fire Magic book is also 2 silvers. Would you like to purchase it?"
"Yes. I'll buy the Fire Magic spellbook and the Mage Hand spellbook too."
After some deliberation, I bought two spellbooks. I'd bought the Fire Magic book according to plan, but I ended up impulsively buying the Mage Hand spellbook.
Because the mental image of Wendy getting her tits groped was way too hot.
Even if I didn't use it for that purpose, learning it will probably come in handy someday.
"Come again!"
I left Lili waving her hand at my back and stepped outside the shop.
It seemed like Lili wanted to chat a bit more, but I had no such desire.
I wanted to get back to the inn as quickly as possible and learn magic.
I absolutely had to see how a book that depicted an ascetic differed from a normal spellbook.
"Tit-grope-and-run!"
My heart pounding, I sprinted toward the inn.
*
As soon as I got back to my inn room, I untied the cords binding the two spellbooks.
The first one I opened was the Fire Magic book.
Since learning Fire Magic first seemed like it would be more helpful for adventuring than Mage Hand.
'This isn't all that different, huh? Just like the books I've read so far.'
After lightly skimming through the spellbook, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Its structure wasn't drastically different from the books I'd read before. All it contained were illustrated hand diagrams showing hand seals and written commentary explaining the magic.
The problem was, that commentary was pointlessly bloated with content.
It felt like they'd drawn out an explanation that could have been finished in one sentence into a painfully long spiel.
Don't tell me the bastards who wrote this
padded the page count just to squeeze out more money?
That possibility was plenty plausible.
Anyway, the core of learning magic is looking at the hand seals and copying them.
All those long blocks of text around the diagrams are just decoration.
The kind of thing you might read once in a while to kill time.
This spellbook had padded dozens of pages by forcibly stretching out that filler. It was completely different from the book that had delivered only the essentials in concise prose. The book I'd bought from that old man.
"What a piece of shit, goddammit."
As I read the spellbook, I cursed the author who peddled such shameless textbooks.
Because the commentary was full of stories that had nothing to do with magic.
In the middle of learning Fire Magic, political discourse suddenly popped out.
Looks like he wrote it while drunk, following his stream of consciousness.
Getting stiffed for 2 silvers at that magic shop stung.
The actual pages useful for learning magic were only a few sheets. But even if I felt ripped off, I couldn't exactly demand a refund.
I really wanted to learn fire-making magic.
Just like how carrying a lighter around on Earth can be a huge help sometimes, fire magic is crazy useful in this other world too.
Like making a torch on the spot.
Or kindling a campfire at a campsite.
Which meant it was more beneficial than the 5-silver shield Rebecca bought.
If I could just pick up Fire Magic before heading out on our next quest, I wouldn't have to feel outdone by her.
A moment later, I laid the spellbook open and began forming hand seals. Just as I'd always done, I planned to start by memorizing the hand seals with my hands. I didn't expect the spell to succeed right from the start. Since it had taken me several hours just to conjure a tiny water droplet, lighting a fire would probably require a similar amount of time.
And my prediction hit the mark.
Half a day later, I managed to produce a tiny flame on the tip of my finger.
"Oooh!"
I cheered at the sight of the flickering flame.
It was only a flame the size of a fingernail, but I'd never been so happy.
Remembering how I'd spent thirty minutes rubbing sticks together to start a fire in Morris Forest brought tears to my eyes. I'd never have to pull that reckless crap again.
Because from today on, I'm a walking lighter.