Chapter 84
#Chapter 84: Librarian Ernst (5) - Two of the Four
Eris clutched her head and let out a silent scream.
‘So what happens next!!’
She wanted to read the next volume.
She wanted to check what happened next as soon as possible.
But Eris read novels only in order to pass that narrow-eyed librarian's 'test' and get magic-related books.
She hadn't even finished absorbing the theory book she'd just received, so returning it to take a new test novel would be putting the cart before the horse.
‘If I could at least know whether he lives or dies, I'd feel less hung up on it!’
That librarian had some strange tendency to make Eris read novels for some reason, so maybe if she just asked for the next volume, he'd hand it over willingly.
But Eris couldn't bring herself to choose that option.
The way the librarian would react to her request was just too obvious.
「Oh dear, I recommended reading it last for a reason... Well, it can't be helped. Here you are, the next volume. This time, I sincerely hope you can keep to the proper order.」
Grrk.
Eris clenched her teeth before she knew it.
Just imagining Ernst chattering away with an expressionless face as if this were nothing, while slipping subtle mockery into his tone, made anger and resentment rise up on their own.
“I won't cave to a trick like that...!?”
Eris glared and reached for the stack of theory books.
First she had to absorb all of those books.
Only then could she legitimately(?) wring the next volume out of Ernst.
If the Eris from before she got involved with the library had seen this, she'd have stopped her, shouting that it was utter nonsense, but unfortunately Eris had no way to talk to a self from another timeline.
What needed to be cut down was sleep.
Eris burned through the night.
***
“I-it's done...!”
Three days later.
Eris trembled with the sense of accomplishment of having read all of the theory books.
For an ordinary student at the institute, it would have taken more than half a year for a single volume, and even for Eris herself at least a month; absorbing two volumes' worth of theory books at that speed was truly astonishing.
She got a great benefit from the annotated edition, but above all, it was possible because Eris burned with passion.
As luck would have it, the institute was also on holiday today.
Without the slightest hesitation, Eris made a grand entrance at the library first thing in the morning.
“Librarian, right now─”
Eris, who had reflexively been about to say, ‘Hand over the next book,’ paused.
“Thank you, librarian. The book you recommended last time was really fun!”
“I'm glad you liked it. Shall I recommend a new book right away?”
“No, I came today to give you this. Please accept it.”
“That looks like a delicious cookie. Eating in the library is prohibited, but I'll eat it after work later. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me!”
Despite the thanks sounding almost businesslike, the girl smiled brightly, as if delighted by something.
Eris froze in place, unable to make sense of something that seemed impossible.
Ah, come to think of it, this was a public library after all.
She'd forgotten because she'd never seen another customer when she came, but this place wasn't exactly Eris's private space.
It was a perfectly natural and common thing.
That was certainly true, though.
What was this uncomfortable feeling?
While Eris frowned at the strange emotion even she didn't fully understand, the girl left the library, and only then could Eris finally approach the librarian and speak.
“Return books. And I've come to get a new one.”
The cold voice that slipped out even startled Eris herself, but the librarian remained unfazed.
“Welcome, customer. Did you enjoy the work?”
Eris almost bristled, but soon put on a calm expression and said,
“Well, it wasn't too bad.”
“I see. I'm glad it seems it was to your liking.”
“Do you not understand what 'not too bad' means?”
“‘Not too bad’ means exactly that—‘not too bad.’ Does it have some other meaning?”
“……”
If he put it like that, there wasn't really anything else to say.
Feeling that she lost her composure whenever she stood before this librarian, Eris returned the books she had brought.
The librarian naturally held out a test sheet, and when Eris saw its contents, her eyebrows twitched.
[Is there anything about the protagonist's personality, behavior, or hobbies that needs fixing? If so, what is the reason?]
Eris started to write a slightly spiteful critique, but soon realized that her pen wasn't moving easily.
The detective protagonist in the story wasn't without flaws.
No, rather, he had quite a few flaws of one sort or another.
But if you removed all of those flaws, it felt as though even the protagonist's strange charm and individuality would die as well.
In the end, the only sentence Eris could manage to write was one line.
[He shouldn't have died there. If he's alive, I'll forgive him.]
When she submitted her answer, the librarian oddly nodded several times.
That pleased look was somehow embarrassing, so Eris snapped at him.
“Hurry up and bring me the next book.”
“Understood.”
Saying that, the librarian handed Eris two books.
One looked like the next volume of the novel she'd read, and the other gave off a faint magical power.
“A grimoire!”
Eris opened the grimoire with wide eyes.
And then she quickly panicked.
Because about two-thirds of the grimoire's pages were already a dull, dead gray, and only the remaining portion was filled with letters glowing blue.
As Eris examined the blue letters closely, parts of the letters lost their gray cast, and the magical power contained in them flowed into Eris.
At the same time, Eris's body, exhausted from consecutive all-nighters, regained its vitality.
Eris realized what this book was.
“It's a grimoire with a recovery effect. The more letters you read, the more the magic contained in the book restores the reader.”
If the previous theory books had no magical power of their own and were packed only with knowledge, this book was the opposite: it had no knowledge of its own, but simply by being read it benefited its owner.
Eris's eyes flashed with interest and desire, but soon closed in resignation.
“This book loses value the more you use it. It's a consumable. I can't borrow something like this.”
If she borrowed it and read it, she'd be damaging the book just by doing so, and if she didn't read it, then there was no point in borrowing it.
Unless she were being handed ownership of the book outright, Eris wasn't shameless enough to burn through all the magic in a book she'd only 'borrowed.'
But the librarian calmly declared.
“You may use it all you like.”
“...You mean that seriously?”
“I told you, didn't I? I have complete authority over the library. Besides, some of the things on the second floor are awkward to display on the first floor, so donating a few items that would otherwise be thrown out or left in a corner won't cause much trouble.”
“You...”
Eris was a little moved.
She'd only thought of him as a nasty librarian, and had never expected to suddenly receive a gift like this.
“Fine, if you're giving it to me, I won't refuse. Still, if I become a great mage later, I'll repay this favor then.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but you would do well not to make promises too hastily. You might change your mind tonight.”
“Do you think my word is that cheap? I'm not a woman who changes her mind that easily.”
Having made that proud declaration, Eris gathered the books and left the library, returning to the dormitory.
As much as she'd wanted to read the novel's next volume right away, regrettably her head wasn't in a very clear state.
Even so, using the consumable grimoire just to read a novel somehow felt wasteful.
‘Maybe I'll sleep a little.’
Fortunately, this book didn't require any separate studying, so taking a short nap for a few hours didn't seem like much of a problem.
If she recovered her fatigue and read it with a clear head, she'd surely enjoy the contents more—or rather, understand them better and use that for the next test.
Thinking that, Eris fell asleep.
And exactly that night.
“...This isn't the part after the waterfall!? It's a flashback!?”
Then what on earth happens after that? So is the protagonist dead, or alive?
Even as she suffered from the questions that kept popping into her mind, Eris kept turning the pages.
The questions weren't answered, but the fact that it was fun only made it even more agonizing.
***
A library with no one in it, silence hanging in the air.
Under the bright lamplight, Ernst quietly continued reading, then closed the book he had been reading and stretched.
From his shadow, a beautiful black-haired woman slowly emerged.
The great demon Lucidra wore a subtle expression as she watched Ernst roll his neck.
It was a feeling like watching someone rub sticks together to make fire even though a match was right there.
“Hey, why are you doing that?”
“What do you mean by that all of a sudden, my patron?”
“Pat...ron?”
“I am an employee hired by Brown Trading Company, and you're one of its major customers, aren't you? So I can call you a patron.”
What the hell is this?
Lucidra had the urge to say that this was all his doing, but she soon gave up.
Using the Crown Prince's own phrasing, the role in a work and the actor who plays it, or a TRPG character and the player, are separate people.
In other words, pointing at Librarian Ernst and saying, 'You're actually the Crown Prince, aren't you?' has no meaning.
“Fine, then I guess I'll call you my patron. More importantly, you don't even take a few minutes to read a book anyway, so why are you holding the same one for over an hour?”
In response to Lucidra's question, Ernst answered.
“Suppose two people ate the same meal. Person A scarfed it down without caring about the taste or anything else, just to get to the next task quickly, while Person B slowly savored each dish. A saved time, but B was the one who enjoyed the food.”
Just because you can do something quickly doesn't mean rushing is always the best option.
Especially when it comes to the enjoyment of life, the so-called 'hobbies.'
As a devil thoroughly versed in desire, Lucidra immediately understood Ernst's words.
“So what you're doing now is also a leisurely investment to enjoy your hobby?”
The library had closed, but that didn't mean the day was over.
It was only just after dinner.
If he were to read, he still had time for a few more volumes, but instead of pulling out a new book, Ernst prepared paper and a pen and began writing something furiously.
His movements were so swift it was hard to believe he was the same person who had just been leisurely turning pages.
Normally, ink takes some time to dry, but the letters he wrote dried perfectly in less than a tenth of a second, and the sheets he'd finished writing on were neatly sorted as if an invisible hand were moving them.
Once the prepared contents were bound together, a cover added, and the finishing work handled with magic, that completed a single book.
Anyone in the central continent's publishing and binding trades, where printing and binding technology wasn't very advanced, would have been foaming at the mouth and shouting that he was cheating.
Lucidra said, dumbfounded.
“Before long, you'll probably say you're going to switch careers and become a full-time writer.”
“That's an interesting hypothesis, but I suspect that would be difficult. All I'm doing right now is translating the original into a suitable language and adapting some of its content to local tastes. It can hardly be called true creation. As for Your Highness, you seem to have quite an interest in the distribution side.”
In fact, Ernst had never once written his own name in the author field.
He was making books half out of a desire to tease Eris and half out of a desire to share his thoughts on the work, but from the start he had never regarded them as his own creations.
Besides, when Lucidra asked who the 'original' was supposed to belong to, he said the Crown Prince would know, and the Crown Prince casually brought up his previous life.
Of course, Lucidra didn't really take that seriously.
It was a story that didn't fit the common sense she knew, and if by some chance the Crown Prince's claim were true, then that man wasn't just strange in this life but in his previous one as well—a monster who remembered every book he'd ever read without missing a single letter and could later write the whole thing back down from memory. By that point, that level of skill was hardly even human.
With a soft hum, Lucidra reached for the book Ernst had finished and began reading it.
She lounged back as comfortably as if there were an invisible sofa in the air and let her eyes wander for a while.
“…I've thought this before too, but isn't it a bit too much to end a series' opening with the protagonist falling into a waterfall, and then have the next volume move forward step by step through a flashback?”
As for Lucidra herself, she'd already read the first volume after Ernst had finished the whole related series, so she could minimize the damage by reading straight through to the resurrection scene, but Eris was in a different situation.
She was probably trembling right about now as she looked at the book's ending.
At Lucidra's words, Ernst replied calmly.
“I shuffled the order a little on purpose. That way, wouldn't you be even more curious about what comes next?”
“You're actually a demon disguised as a human. And my senior from way back, at that.”
“I'm an honest human being, though?”
No matter how she looked at it, that didn't seem to be the case.
Lucidra thought that as she watched Ernst, who had somehow already started writing a new book.
“So what's that about? It doesn't seem like the detective series.”
Ernst answered.
“It's a story about four birds. But there's only enough story here for two birds.”
“……Ah, yes. I see, senior.”