Chapter 81
#81 Librarian Ernst (2) - The Librarian of the Unopenable Coffin
East of Aldridge.
Even as she walked toward the Unopenable Coffin, Eris harbored doubts.
‘But why would a trading company build something like a library?’
At least in Eris’s view, a library was not a facility suited to making money.
Books themselves were expensive, so simply buying them and stocking them required a considerable amount of seed money, and there was hardly any way to recoup that cost besides charging an admission fee just to enter the library.
Lend books out and charge a rental fee?
‘Nobles would rather just buy books than feel miserly borrowing them cheaply, and ordinary commoners usually don’t have the credit. Even if they don’t intend to steal it themselves, there’s a high chance they won’t be able to properly compensate for losses if someone else steals the book or damages it.’
Thus, in most countries, a “library” was either attached as a supplementary facility to an educational institution, or else a noble or wealthy person would open their private library to the public.
In other words, it wasn’t the sort of field a merchant company, which valued profit above all else, should be getting involved in.
The only halfway reasonable explanation she could think of was that they were aiming for long-term profits from the students of Aldridge Training School.
In any case, unless state policy changed, new students would keep coming to the training school, and some of them would eventually, like Eris now, make their way to the library.
Tap.
By the time she’d finished mulling things over, Eris had reached her destination and examined the library’s exterior.
At least, its outward appearance hadn’t changed much.
You’d think that if the trading company had finally reopened it, they would decorate the exterior lavishly and do some advertising, but the building was wrapped in an astonishing stillness.
Half doubtful, Eris cautiously reached for the entrance, and the library’s main door opened with ease, making its nickname, “the Unopenable Coffin,” seem almost ironic.
And at the sight before her, Eris let out an involuntary gasp.
Among all the book-related spaces Eris had seen, the largest and most richly stocked was the Lavellosia royal archive, which she’d once visited with her master.
And the feast of books spread out before her didn’t fall far behind even that royal archive.
No, it lacked the royal archive’s characteristic lavish decorations and grandeur, but if you judged by the sheer number of volumes alone, this place even seemed more overwhelming.
Eris’s eyes lit up.
She’d come thinking it would be enough just to kill time, but at this scale, there might even be rare books on magic.
Eris, who had been about to head straight for the shelves, stopped when she remembered she still hadn’t paid the entrance fee.
Turning her head toward the counter, she saw a man sitting in a chair, reading a book.
Curly blond hair and glasses. A suit worn as a matter of courtesy, though not especially well tailored.
His sharply chiseled face was handsome enough, but his eyes were so cold that they made one hesitate to speak casually.
No matter how she looked at it, his face didn’t suit a reception desk that had to face so many people.
A timid person would probably not even dare ask a question, and would sneak away after gauging his mood.
But that had nothing to do with Eris, who was anything but timid—if anything, she was bold to a fault.
She approached him confidently and opened her mouth.
“I’d like to use the library.”
A sidelong glance.
The man’s eyes shifted from the book to Eris, and she forced herself to keep her legs from reflexively stepping back.
If a gaze were turned into an arrow, would it feel like this?
His eyes were so sharp that “piercing” suited them better than “staring.”
“Is there a book you’re looking for?”
Polite yet businesslike.
As if denying that she’d been momentarily intimidated by a mere librarian, Eris answered in a slightly sharp voice.
“I’d like to browse at my own pace first. How much is the fee?”
“One Central Continent copper coin.”
“…Per hour?”
“No. Once you come in, you can use it without any additional charge until you leave.”
Eris was speechless.
Because it was an outrageous rip-off?
No—the opposite.
‘They’ve prepared this many books, and the price is only that much?’
Things had improved a lot since paper began flowing in large quantities from the eastern part of the continent, but even so, books were still expensive.
Yet the rental fee here was about the price of a small loaf of bread by Aldridge standards.
Unlike bread, which disappears when eaten, books could be read again and again, but even so, to Eris it felt almost like charity.
She felt vaguely uneasy, but if the library insisted on charging that much, it was hard to complain as a customer.
Eris took a Central Continent copper coin from a leather wallet a little fancier than the cloth pouches most people used, and handed it over; the librarian accepted it and calmly continued his explanation.
“Please keep the noise down in the library, and eating is prohibited as well. Books may not be taken out of the library, and after reading one, please bring it here to the counter instead of putting it back in the stacks yourself. If you’re looking for a specific book or have any other questions, please let me know.”
With that, the librarian lowered his head again and returned to his reading.
At that impassive attitude, Eris let out a dry chuckle.
A handsome face, remarkable skill, and the halo of being the Great Magician’s disciple.
For Eris, who had always received an excessive amount of attention, the librarian’s cold and indifferent attitude was, in a sense, refreshing.
Well, it wasn’t a bad situation for Eris either.
If he had kept sneaking glances at her from the side or trying some odd advances the whole time she was reading, that would have been exhausting.
Without hesitation, Eris turned away from the counter and began scanning the books from the corner of the library.
And then she realized.
‘...It’s incredibly well organized, isn’t it?’
History, Technology, Literature, Art, Nature, Language, Society, Philosophy, Religion, General Works.
The various books were rigidly sorted by their respective themes, and even within the same theme, they were ordered based on Central Continent language, making it easy to find whatever book you wanted.
Even the Lavellosia royal archive had only been careful to keep dust from gathering and prevent books from being damaged by moisture; it hadn’t gone so far as to do classification work this thorough.
It was the kind of sensible efficiency Eris, who disliked waste, greatly appreciated.
‘Still, as expected, there’s no magic-related section.’
It wasn’t strange.
If an ordinary book was something even a commoner could obtain somehow with enough effort, then magic-related books were things even nobles couldn’t easily get their hands on.
In a library this large, having even one or two would count as hitting the jackpot, so there was no way they had enough to make a separate category for them.
As Eris continued looking over the library, she soon noticed something and tilted her head.
A corner of the library.
Because the space that would, structurally speaking, probably have held the stairs to the second floor was firmly sealed off by a thick door.
If you thought about it rationally, it wasn’t all that strange.
Whether it was an employee rest area, a storeroom, or some other space used for another purpose, it was common for a shop to have areas customers couldn’t casually enter.
But Eris couldn’t just pass by that door.
Beyond the door.
To be exact, because a mysterious magical aura could be felt from the second floor.
And not just one, but several.
“Excuse me, wait a moment. What’s up there? Are there books on the upper floor too?”
At Eris’s question, the librarian lifted his head again and answered.
“Yes, there are books.”
“Then I’d like to go up.”
“No.”
At that immediate answer without even a hint of hesitation, Eris’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because what’s up there are still unclassified grimoires. To prevent accidents from happening if they’re carelessly shown to someone with insufficient skill, we’ll check them over and then move them down to the first floor.”
At the word “grimoire,” Eris’s gaze sharpened even further.
She had vaguely guessed it from the aura alone, but having the librarian confirm it out loud made it even harder to sit still.
“If it’s something you can’t show to people without sufficient skill, that’s no problem for me. I’m a student at Aldridge Training School.”
Aldridge Training School is a place of learning for both commoners and nobles.
However, because most of the students who strut around and loaf about on the streets near the school are nobles, the public strongly associates Aldridge Training School with being noble.
For an ordinary librarian, those words would have been enough to change his attitude─
“Is that so? But no means no.”
─but it didn’t.
Eris’s mask cracked.
She forced herself to control the expression that was about to grow rough and continued speaking.
“Are you worried about what your superior at Brown Trading Company will say? Then contact your superior. I’ll negotiate with them myself. You won’t have to take responsibility for anything.”
“This is indeed a library operated by Brown Trading Company, but I have full authority over matters inside the library. Therefore, the action you mentioned wouldn’t mean much even if you tried it.”
Eris almost snapped at him, asking if he knew whose disciple she was, but she somehow endured the words that had surged up to her throat.
If the other party was willing to defer on their own, that was one thing, but the name of the Great Magician Delphinaris wasn’t something to throw around over a trifling matter like this.
“If you have full authority over this library, doesn’t that mean how the books inside are handled is also up to you? If you let me go upstairs, I won’t forget a little ‘token of sincerity.’”
Eris took out the wallet she had brought out earlier once more, and this time set the entire thing down on the counter.
The librarian stared at the wallet for a moment, then extended a hand and seized it.
Eris snorted, thinking, ‘I knew it.’
That was, until the librarian returned the wallet to her exactly as it was.
“…So you’re saying the amount isn’t enough?”
“That’s not the issue. Still, I could at least tell how much determination the customer has.”
Then let’s do it this way, the librarian continued.
“Once a day. If you answer the problem I give you correctly, I’ll hand over one book brought from the second floor. Normally books from this library may not be taken out, but if you win the wager and obtain one, I won’t say anything if you take it outside as long as you return it afterward.”
Eris stared at the librarian with a displeased expression.
It wasn’t a condition she liked very much.
But she wasn’t the kind of barbarian who’d threaten the librarian with force and then force her way upstairs.
“Fine. But if you try to deceive me with some bogus problem, you’d better be prepared for the consequences.”
“Understood. I’ll prepare a problem with as clear-cut an answer as possible.”
The librarian took out a sheet of paper, scribbled something on it with a pen, and then held it out to Eris.
Eris accepted it with a bored expression.
If it was one of those questions where the answer could be twisted around, like ‘State the author’s feelings when writing this sentence,’ or if he put forward something impossible to guess from common knowledge, like ‘What did I have for breakfast this morning?’ as a so-called problem, she was ready to protest immediately.
[Q. The two magic circles drawn below differ in details but have the same effect. Describe the effect of the magic circles and the differences between them.]
Eris went through a whole range of reactions.
At first she raised her brows as if about to ask what sort of pointless nonsense this was; then she began studying the problem closely, as if thinking, ‘Huh? That seems plausible?’ and finally she shut her mouth and stared hard at the two magic circles.
For about five minutes.
“...Heat-generating magic circles. A uses mana as fuel to generate flames, while B converts mana into electricity, passes it through a material, and generates heat through its resistance. A is superior in mana efficiency, but B is better in terms of delicate temperature control and stability. Is that right?”
“Correct.”
At the librarian’s declaration, Eris felt both pride and doubt at once.
A magic circle was a delicate craft such that even changing a single line’s angle, or one glyph’s type or placement, could alter its effect from one extreme to the other.
Yet the magic circles drawn on the sheet the librarian had just handed her were so perfect that, given the proper catalyst, they could have been activated exactly as drawn.
And a mere librarian drew that? In a span so short you could barely catch your breath?
“Who are you, really?”
“I’m Ernst, the librarian.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Even if you say that, here I’m nothing more than a librarian.”
The librarian answered that way with a cold attitude, then held out to Eris the book he had been reading—or rather, the one he had just finished.
“What’s this?”
“『The Life and Strange, Astonishing Adventures of Roland Gambison, a sailor from Ariand who, after being shipwrecked and losing all his crew, lived alone for 28 years on the shore of an uninhabited island near the Dakiren River on the Kronesha Continent, and was finally miraculously rescued by a pirate ship』.”
“So why are you giving me that ridiculous book?”
“You said you wanted a book brought from the second floor, didn’t you?”
For a moment, Eris felt her mind go blank.
And then she got angry.
“Th-there’s no such thing!! I wanted a grimoire from the second floor!”
“Even if you say that, the word ‘grimoire’ wasn’t included as a condition in the wager in the first place.”
The librarian continued in an unruffled tone.
“If you want a new book, please come back tomorrow. Ah, and for the record, the ‘next problem’ will be based on the book you’re holding right now.”
It was a teasing remark, as if he hadn’t liked Eris calling it a ‘ridiculous book.’
And yet his face remained as cold and expressionless as ever, making the whole thing all the more jarringly unbalanced.
Only then did Eris reach a realization.
“I really, really hate this man...!!”