The Grimoire That Devours Its Masters
The Sage of the Stars explained the book to him.
"Originally, I had set this book aside with the intention of giving it to the puppet that guards the outside of the observatory."
"A puppet, you say?"
"Hm? Did you not notice? The assailants you met on this mountain were all puppets of my own making."
At those words, Oscar froze.
The mage he had faced just before entering this place had been so vivid that even his emotions had shown through his eyes.
If that hadn't been the case, he wouldn't have felt a trace of regret or guilt at all.
"If they're puppets, do you mean they were illusions?"
"Illusions are a slightly different concept altogether."
When the Sage of the Stars lightly waved his hand, countless fragments of starlight glimmered softly to life.
One look at that light was enough to tell who they were.
The attackers Oscar had cut down on his way up the mountain.
"Every one of them lost their life on this mountain. To be precise, they were wretches who died trying to steal another's invitation."
"Ah……"
So as punishment for that wickedness, they were stored here, living on as puppets.
Oscar thought of the ice mage he had faced last.
"Then don't tell me the one guarding the entrance to the observatory was also……?"
"Ah, no, not him."
The Sage of the Stars shook his head hurriedly, as if warning him not to say something so rash.
"Of all those I turned into puppets, he is the only one who made himself into one of his own volition."
"Of his own volition?"
"That is so. You can surely guess the reason well enough yourself, can't you?"
"……Ah."
At something he remembered, Oscar's expression turned bitter.
There is exactly one thing I desire. To live as a mage, and to die as one. That, and nothing more.
In a certain sense, couldn't it be said the man had achieved his dream?
Though even so, Oscar still believed that to live and die as a mage was closer to a punishment inflicted upon him.
So much so that, if it were possible, he wished he could pull the man free of that yoke.
"Do not grieve too deeply. I promised him that should he ever wish it, I would free him at any time."
"……I see."
Oscar gave a small nod and looked at the book, which blazed with a brilliant radiance even while closed.
"What manner of magic is the one you've drawn out now?"
"Quite an old magic, that. A fragment left behind by a certain mage who failed to realize his dream, one hundred and four years ago."
Sshhhrk!
When the Sage of the Stars opened the book, a light so dazzling it nearly blinded the eye poured forth from within.
"Now, this magic was the legacy of the one who froze the world itself, the…… hm?"
At that moment, the light flowing from the book gradually dimmed, and before long it vanished entirely.
Oscar, who had been staring at it blankly, asked, "The light just stopped coming out. Is something wrong with it, perhaps? It didn't do that before, I think."
"I-I haven't the faintest idea."
"……I beg your pardon?"
Oscar made an incredulous face.
The man who managed this place — the librarian who wielded near-absolute power — didn't know?
Yet the Sage truly seemed not to know, shaking his head again and again. Even the two eyes fixed on Oscar were trembling in a way quite unlike him.
"Even I have never encountered such a case, so I confess I am at a loss."
"You must be joking."
A path even he, who had lived for nearly a thousand years, had never once walked?
No, why would something that rare have to happen at precisely the moment I came to visit……
Just as Oscar opened his mouth to add something more—
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The books tucked into the shelves, each flaunting its own splendor, began to go dark one by one.
In the library, which had plunged into darkness in an instant, the Sage of the Stars stiffened and raised a hand to block the space before him.
"Oscar. It may be dangerous — get behind me."
"I'm already behind you, Sage."
"……"
What, what is it? Of all places, from the man whose power rivals a god's on this mountain.
Reading the meaning packed into Oscar's gaze, the Sage reluctantly turned his head — and at that very moment—
A single book, wedged into a bookshelf at the far end of the library, began to blink slowly.
Like a heart beating, it pulsed with light and dimmed again, over and over.
"That book is……"
Approaching it with a startled expression, the Sage pulled the book out and clicked his tongue.
"Good grief."
The continuously flickering book was bound fast in thick chains.
As though restraining some heinous criminal.
"What is it?"
"……Let us step outside. You needn't hide behind my back any longer."
"Ah — yes."
Only then did Oscar sidle cautiously up beside the Sage and ask, "So what book is this? This thing — it's practically calling out to me."
"Calling to you…… That may be the most accurate way to put it. It would not even permit the other stars to make their presence known before you."
The Sage of the Stars nodded.
"This is a grimoire I sealed away myself. I judged it to be far too dangerous."
"Sealed? Could it be one of the forbidden books?"
Forbidden books, as classified by the magic towers, shared one common trait.
The moment one read the contents within, the mind would collapse, and the reader would go mad.
"No, it is not that. I would never have admitted a forbidden text so vile as that into this Starlight Library in the first place."
"Then why is this thing forbidden?"
"……Three hundred and seventy-two people."
Flrrrsssh!
Pressing both hands down hard on the book, which thrashed like a fish laid out on a cutting board, the Sage spoke.
"That is the number of mages who, to this day, have wished to inherit this star. Every one of them was hailed as a genius in their era. But the book always refused them, and the instant they took hold of it, every single one lost their mind. After that, I never even considered showing it to anyone again. It is an arrogant thing that looks down on mages and seeks to keep them beneath its feet."
"……"
Three hundred and seventy-two. A magic that had brought far more geniuses than that to their knees.
A pure, honest question sprang up in Oscar's mind, and he asked it.
"Just what kind of incredible magic is this, that everyone wanted so desperately to become its master?"
"Hm……"
The Sage of the Stars deliberated for a moment.
On his face, the hesitation over whether he ought to explain at all was plainly visible.
As though he were certain that if Oscar heard the whole explanation, the young man would whine and beg until he got it.
Vmmm!
At that, the book threw a full-blown tantrum — as if to say, hurry up and explain already.
"Tch. Fine, fine. I hear you, so hold still for a moment."
At last, yielding to that force, the Sage soothed the book and opened his mouth.
"Oscar. What do you consider the supreme attribute of magic?"
"Wind."
It was a question that required no thought at all.
Since time immemorial, wind had been the king of attributes — the one element that could embrace all the others.
"Wind, is it. Certainly a fine attribute. It blends easily with the other elements and governs them in harmony. Then let me ask you something else. Do you know how many kinds of magic humanity has recorded in all its history?"
"……I don't. There must be too many to count in the first place."
Merely tracing the origins of each school of magic would yield tens of thousands at the least.
Factor in the forms individuals had refined and completed on their own, and the number would swell far beyond that.
His own improved Wind Shield, after all, was an entirely different spell from the original.
"Now — this much, I'd say."
The Sage of the Stars snapped his fingers.
At once, tens of thousands of motes of light rose up between them, arranging themselves into the shape of an atom's structure.
"Forty-two thousand, seven hundred and eighty-five magics have been recorded to this day. Though that figure counts only those treated as origin spells."
"……Include every spell each mage developed into their own form, and it would casually exceed ten million."
He felt almost overwhelmed by the knowledge that each and every one of those enormous points of light was a spell in its own right.
The Sage of the Stars spoke.
"Then let me ask once more. Among all these countless magics — is wind still the supreme attribute?"
"……Ah!"
Only then did Oscar grasp what the Sage was getting at.
Any man who could look at this and fail to understand would be no mage at all.
"Are you speaking of attributeless magic?"
"Precisely right."
Compared to the attributes of the Four Great Magic Towers — and further still, the attributes of the lesser towers — wind was, without question, supreme.
On this one opinion alone, Oscar had no wish to deny it, nor to yield an inch.
He had, after all, spent his entire life as a drifter of the wind, wielding nothing but wind magic within the White Tower.
But if the scope extends to attributeless magic……
Then the story changed entirely.
He murmured the words he had always spoken whenever he taught magic in his past life.
"Time is a river that flows without cease, and so cannot be stopped. Space is a sky that unfolds without end, and so cannot be filled."
"Oho. A rather delightful way of putting it. And it is the correct answer."
Letting out a soft laugh, the Sage gave the chained book a light shake.
"If I may borrow your phrasing for a moment — within this book lies the secret of that sky which cannot be filled."
"……!"
Oscar stared at the book, eyes gone wide and round.
Only moments ago it had seemed nothing more than a spoiled, graceless thing that rejected its masters without even knowing what it wanted — but now it looked like a treasure that had more than earned that standing. No, that right.
"Spatial magic…… wasn't that a magic one could never touch unless born with a Special Attribute?"
"Ordinarily, yes. But then, is this not the Starlight Library?"
Just as the Sage had said before.
A place where every magic existed, save for those that did not.
"So long as one possesses the necessary qualification, even a special-attribute magic can be learned here."
"……I had no idea."
"That is because so few have ever possessed that qualification. One in several hundred years, at best."
One in several hundred years.
Oscar gazed at the book that seemed to be calling out to him and asked, "……Could the original owner of this magic be someone I know?"
"Quick-witted as ever. You are right."
The Sage of the Stars nodded.
"This star is the special-attribute magic of Ado Bale — the first Tower Master of the White Tower."
"……Then is it trying to claim me as its master because I am his descendant?"
"Did I not tell you just now that I have never seen this phenomenon before? Naturally, I have no idea what this thing is thinking, either."
The Sage of the Stars unfastened the chains binding the book and held it out to him.
"It is one of the two — magic of time and of space — that the people call the power of god itself. Its pride runs every bit as high as you'd expect. As for your question, you had best ask it yourself."
"……"
Swallowing hard, Oscar set his face with resolve and took the book in both hands.
Sshhhhrrrrk!
The book flung itself open of its own accord, as though it had been waiting all along.
And at the very instant a colossal burst of light erupted, as if to swallow the space where the two men stood—
"Hm…… Now even this old man finds himself curious. Will he become the three hundred and seventy-third failure?"
The Sage of the Stars murmured to himself in the library, now empty but for him.
"Or will he become its first true master?"
It was a place at once familiar and strange.
The White Magic Tower.
That pristine, circular white structure stood only half-built.
"……"
Oscar gazed up at it for a long moment, then murmured in a voice thick with awe.
"So this is what the First Tower Master's mana felt like."
As he finished speaking and turned to look behind him, there at the forest's edge sat an old man clad in a white robe.
The old man's wistful gaze was fixed upon the White Tower, still rising into the sky.
"Oscar Sage. Seventeenth Tower Master. Do you have some notion of why I called you here?"
"……Yes."
Oscar nodded slowly.
Upon his face bloomed the grim resolve of a general marching off to war.
"You intend to test whether I am worthy of inheriting the First Tower Master's Space."
Whatever trial might be laid before him, he was confident he would pass.
Only then did the First Tower Master lower his gaze. Looking at Oscar's taut, drawn face, he said—
"Hm? What? No, no. I was just going to hand it to you. There's hardly anyone alive who could wield it better than you, after all."
"……I beg your pardon?"
Oscar's face went blank at once. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air.
Then why on earth had the man gone to the trouble of summoning him all the way to a place like this?
Just as he stood blinking, utterly lost—
"Say, Seventeenth Tower Master. Come over here and sit down in front of me for a moment, will you?"
"……?"
Somehow, before he knew it, Oscar found himself walking over and sitting down meekly before the old man.
He couldn't have said why he sat so obediently. It simply felt like the thing to do.
"Now listen, and listen well to what I'm about to say. When I was running my tower, you understand, I couldn't even imagine making a blunder like losing all my records and research materials. Why do you think we studied magic day and night, ran our experiments, piled up our archives? It was all for your sake — you and your descendants, the generations to come, so that everything we built could be passed down to you in good order……"
"……"
The First Tower Master's lecture went on for a full two days.
Oscar had neither family nor relatives, but he was fairly certain that now he finally understood what it must feel like to sit through a holiday scolding from a nagging grandfather.