Owl

Much to Ian’s disappointment, even after the appointed time, no one who looked like Dolores appeared. Only the red-haired loon was running around like crazy.

In the end, Ian let out a deep sigh and walked over to Dolores and Ari, who were sitting on a bench with Yuna.

“Hmm?”

Dolores, who had been idly swinging her legs, tilted her head when she saw the two approaching. Her red hair drooped with gravity.

“Who are you?”

Her voice was rather thin. If Galaxy had a pleasantly soothing ASMR-specialist voice and Yuna’s was slightly sharp, Dolores’s was just high-pitched.

A voice loud enough to make your ears ring a little if you kept listening.

Ian answered quickly before the surrounding attention could gather.

“Dolores. Right?”

At his cautious question, Dolores’s eyes widened slightly. She covered her mouth with both black-gloved hands and took a step back. Though “back” only meant scooting over to the seat beside her.

“Oh my, could it be……?”

She murmured, her pupils trembling faintly. Ian nodded.

“That ‘could it be’ would be right. It’d be hard to prove since I haven’t really decided on a nickname, but I—”

“Secondhand newbie!”

Dolores cut Ian off and shouted. Passersby nearby were startled and turned to look at her. That attention only deepened the furrow between Ian’s brows.

“No, could you lower your vo—”

“You weren’t a girl?! Why are you a guy?!!!?!”

Her voice shot up another decibel. Ian, having suddenly been turned into a net-kama, twisted his face in disgust. He could let the loud voice drawing attention slide, but he couldn’t tolerate her making up nonsense in that booming voice.

Lies spread by loudmouths somehow sounded more convincing. He needed to clear this up quickly before Yuna got the wrong idea.

“I’ve never once acted like a girl, so what the hell are you talking about?”

“No! Your way of speaking was definitely feminine! Stuff like, ‘I’m doing this and that, you know,’ and the like!”

“That was just a persona.”

“What!”

“I’m honestly more surprised that you aren’t even playing a character yourself…….”

Ian let out a deep sigh and, leaving the shocked Dolores behind, turned to the other woman sitting beside her.

She was petite, with medium-length hair that brushed her shoulders. Whether it had been dyed or not, her blonde hair showed black roots. There wasn’t anything especially distinctive about her. Ian gave her a slight nod and parted his lips.

“Are you Kim Ari?”

“Ah, yes! Nice to meet you! Ah, no. Nice to meet you!”

At Ian’s question, she gave an awkward laugh and held out her hand.

Among mages, handshakes generally weren’t common. For all you knew, the other person might have set some spell on their palm. Why would you suddenly grab someone’s hand like that? What if your wrist got blown off?

But the other party was a beginner mage. At most, she was only using magic to make light at her fingertips. There was nothing especially dangerous.

Besides, unless the targeting reticle reacted, there was no need to be overly sensitive. So Ian, without much thought, extended his hand and lightly took her small hand.

“Right, nice to mee—”

That was when it happened.

[Bzzzz!]

A familiar vibration sound rang out from somewhere.

It was the vibration that sounded when a grimoire conveyed its will. But Ian’s grimoires were all quiet. The Hand of Re-Creation tucked inside his coat, the Book of Contract getting beaten up inside his bag, and the Deep-Sea Chronicle beating up the Book of Contract—they weren’t making any vibrations at all.

Then who was the cause?

“Ahh!”

It was something that didn’t even require thought. The only people here who had grimoires were Ian and Ari.

“Why, why is it acting up, Moses?”

Saying something that would get her smacked over the head with a Bible if a devout Christian heard it, Kim Ari patted the pocket of her brown coat with her palm. But the vibration didn’t stop. If anything, it got even louder.

[Bzzzz! Bzz! Bzzzz!!!!]

“Ah, why are you doing this, seriously! You’re embarrassing me! Stop it, stop! I don’t even know what you’re saying!”

[Bzzzzzzzz!!!!!]

“Stop just vibrating and say something, please!”

Ari stomped her feet.

It seemed that, not long after becoming the owner of a grimoire, figuring out why it was vibrating was difficult. Ian himself hadn’t known, when he first picked up a grimoire, that the reason it vibrated was because it wanted to talk.

Even now, he didn’t fully understand a grimoire’s will, but he could roughly make sense of it. Helping a rookie mage a little was possible. Ian released the handshake and, looking down at her vibrating coat, spoke casually.

“It looks like your grimoire is throwing a fit. Can I see it for a moment?”

This was a stretch of road with hardly anyone passing by, so there was no need to worry about someone spotting the grimoire.

Even if it were spotted, a grimoire basically just looked like a pretty book. Unless you were steeped in the occult and knew nothing about magic, there was no way to recognize it as a grimoire. Thanks to that, he could make the suggestion without hesitation.

Ari readily accepted his suggestion.

“Ah, yes! Come to think of it, Secondhand Newbie senior also said he had a grimoire too!”

“……Shin Ian.”

“Got it, Ian senior! Here, your grimoire!”

Fumble, fumble.

Ari rummaged through her coat and took out a tiny grimoire.

About half the size of the grimoire Ian had.

The writing on the cover was in Ancient Greek. For Ian, a native Korean, deciphering it would have been impossible, yet he could casually interpret it as ‘The Sixth Book of Moses.’

It wasn’t that he was reading and interpreting it with his eyes; he just understood it in his head.

It felt like reading his native language. Just like ‘The Eighth Book of Moses,’ this grimoire also seemed to have no language barrier.

Was the overall compatibility with grimoires high? Even if it already had an owner, there was no problem reading it.

Ian had even managed to decipher the title of the grimoire Galaxy had, The Lesser Key of Solomon, right away.

But even if compatibility was high, it was meaningless if he couldn’t read it anyway. Still, he could at least threaten it into cooperating.

“Let me borrow it for a moment.”

“Ah, yes! Here…….”

Ari handed the grimoire to Ian without the slightest suspicion. Dolores, who had been listening to their conversation, let out a sharp gasp and grabbed Ian’s wrist.

“Wait a second! Directly touching another mage’s grimoire will give you a headache so intense it’s hard to bear! Reading the contents is even worse! I’ve even seen someone pass out!”

“It’s fine. I just need to say one thing.”

Ian gently peeled Dolores’s hand away and gave a faint smile.

“And I should probably be fine.”

“Huh? What do you mea—”

Before her words could continue, Ian placed his hand over the Sixth Book of Moses. The grimoire, which had been thrashing more wildly as his hand drew near, went still the moment his fingers touched the cover.

[……]

Stone-still. After confirming that touching the grimoire hadn’t given him so much as a headache, Ian grinned and tapped the cover with his finger. Then he brought his mouth close to the cover and whispered.

“If you don’t quiet down, I’ll tear you in half.”

……Shiver.

At Ian’s words, the grimoire trembled wildly from side to side. But there was no vibration sound. The threat had worked.

The Sixth Book of Moses, as if terrified, trembled and obediently crawled up onto Ari’s arm. She picked it up with an amazed expression.

“Ooh……! How did you do that? Mine won’t listen no matter what I say?”

“When someone who’s really killed before says they’ll kill you, it tends to sound convincing.”

“……?”

“That’s mage basics, so burn it into your brain.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying…….”

Ari made a dubious face and stuffed the grimoire into her coat pocket. Ian turned away without bothering to make her understand.

The Sixth Book of Moses vibrating the moment he shook hands was probably because he was carrying a foreign god’s grimoire.

At the library, the ‘Eighth Book of Moses’ had also known that Ian was carrying a foreign god’s grimoire. That was why it had struggled to keep its cover from opening. The Sixth Book shouldn’t be any different.

‘No, maybe it was because it realized who had killed the Eighth Book.’

That thought suddenly came to him, and Ian’s face grew cold.

Of course, it was still only a guess. With the Lemegeton in Korea, there was no reason Moses’s Book couldn’t be in Korea too.

But when he shook hands with Ari.

Once actual contact was made, it started thrashing. The closer his hand got, the more violently it vibrated. Clues like that made it easy enough to guess.

‘For now, it’d be better to stay cautious.’

He didn’t think Moses’s Book could do anything to harm them. Still, he didn’t want to be too optimistic. It might suddenly summon an angel to attack, so keeping at least a minimum level of suspicion seemed wise.

If it came to that, he’d have to consider killing Ari and destroying the grimoire.

“…….”

Well, that would be the last resort too. It wasn’t likely to come to that.

Thinking that, Ian looked back at Dolores. She was gazing at him with sparkling eyes, as if deeply impressed that touching a grimoire hadn’t affected him at all.

“You’re amazing! Touching a grimoire and being fine afterward! Are you some kind of special constitution? Or a psychic mage? Whatever it is, that’s still amazing! This young lady is deeply moved!”

“Oh, right. More importantly, when are we going to our owl?”

One way to deal with a madwoman was not to contradict the world in her head. Thankfully, it seemed to work, as Dolores covered her mouth with a gasp and coughed in embarrassment.

“K-khm! Right! It looks like it’s time to guide you! Then everyone, follow me! It isn’t very far from here?”

She immediately switched to an elegant expression, spun around, and started walking off somewhere. Ari trotted after her, and Yuna whispered from behind Ian.

“D-do you think we should run while she’s acting like a crazy woman…?”

“……She is crazy, but more the classy kind. I don’t think it’ll be a problem if we follow her.”

“Ugh…… Just in case, I’d better get ready to cast magic…….”

Yuna shivered as she fumbled around stuffing the potion made from ghoul blood into her pocket.

Ian let out a deep sigh and followed Dolores.

For some reason, it felt like this wasn’t going to be an easy outing.