Chapter 94
#94 Librarian Ernst (15) - What Happens When You Break the Library's Taboos
What abilities does a librarian need?
The ability to recommend and guide customers to the books they want?
The ability to neatly organize and display countless books?
The ability to care for books so they aren't damaged by moisture, dust, and the like?
All of those are correct.
But there is one more ability that is extremely important to a librarian.
That is─
“Protecting the library.”
Clomp.
Ernst took one step forward.
His hair was more disheveled than usual, his clothes were dirty, and traces of bruising could be seen all over his body.
But his face alone was as calm as ever.
Even with dozens of blazing swords aimed at him, his attitude showed not the slightest hint of fear.
Rattle! Rattle-rattle!
In one corner of the library.
The door leading to the second floor shook violently.
The door, which had been making a loud noise as if something were pounding on it, soon flew wide open, and a book flew out from inside and landed in Ernst's hand.
“Oh, friend. Trying to play knight protecting a princess?”
The demon Balzarez stuck out his tongue as he mocked Ernst.
Mockery filled his eyes.
‘Nothing special.’
It was true that magical power could be felt from the book in Ernst's hand.
Against an ordinary mage, it might be possible to put up a decent fight.
However, to Balzarez, whose power was equivalent to the early sixth tier among humans, it was merely laughable.
Above all, even if Ernst had a powerful grimoire, not a trace of magical power could be felt from the man who was supposed to wield it, could it?
“Then let me help you. First of all, your outfit is far too shoddy for a knight! How about decorating it with a blazing red cape?”
-Fwoosh!
One of the fire swords flew toward Ernst's shoulder.
“No!”
Eris's scream rang out, and at the very moment the sword was about to touch Ernst's body,
The book in Ernst's hand began to shine.
『As the match's final breath faded away, everything disappeared.
The wall returned to being a cold wall, and the wind in the street struck her cheeks even more sharply.』
The fire went out.
Not only the flaming sword threatening Ernst, but all dozens of swords Balzarez had created disappeared as well.
The mocking smile vanished from the demon's face, and Eris, standing behind him, held her breath.
‘…A spell? The power of a grimoire?’
Spells that controlled fire, spells that controlled magical power, spells that manipulated air.
Several possibilities came to mind for Eris.
Balzarez seemed to have reached a similar conclusion, because he twisted his lips.
“Don't like flames, do you? To become a splendid knight, you need to endure pain, but you seem to lack patience!”
Balzarez snapped his fingers, and countless fragments of stone rose around him and began to spin.
A storm of rock that would pulverize anything it touched into dust growled as it threatened Ernst.
『That morning, the sunlight poured down brightly, and the sky was a clear blue. The wind was refreshing, and everything seemed to herald a new beginning.』
Yet the moment another book opened in Ernst's hand, the savage storm transformed into a pleasant breeze.
Feeling the smell of earth lingering at the tip of her nose turn into the fragrant scent of grass, Eris shuddered.
The words that rang in her ears the moment Ernst opened the book—as if the library itself were whispering—
Reminded her of a book she had once read here.
And that wasn't the end of it.
『The shadow staggered along the wall toward them. Its movements were heavy and sluggish like a beast's, yet it drew closer and closer. Its form gradually grew more distinct in the darkness, and its presence was utterly inhuman.』
『Suddenly, the sky split apart, and a great bolt of lightning illuminated the hill. It fell with overwhelming force, like flames rising from hell. And at that moment, the world was engulfed in silence.』
『His sword came crashing down. Sharp metal cleaved through the air as it lunged toward the enemy. Overwhelmed by its force, the opponent watched the blade brush past his body, bringing not only a threat but terror.』
The story that had dealt with the fear humans felt toward other humans became a shadow monster and lunged at Balzarez.
The story that had dealt with love and misunderstandings on a stormy hill became a bolt of lightning and fell upon Balzarez.
The story that had dealt with unyielding obsession and revenge became a blade as hard and sharp as that obsession and cut Balzarez down.
Trampling the shadow monster, letting the lightning pass by, and blocking the manifested blade, Balzarez shouted.
“What is this!? How did you prepare so many grimoires!?”
‘…No.’
Eris realized Balzarez's misconception—or rather, the misunderstanding she herself had held until now.
Those things Ernst was using were not grimoires.
But they were grimoires, too.
It sounded like a contradiction, but it wasn't.
「I know you like reading books. But if that's the case, is there really any need for you to recommend books to me? You've already read them yourself anyway, so what meaning is there in someone else's impressions?」
「There is meaning. Even if it's the same book and the same sentence, each person will have a different impression when they read it. If you share and exchange your impressions with someone else, even a single book can bring a richer enjoyment.」
A conversation she had once shared with Ernst came to mind.
Even when it was the same book, the way each person understood it could differ.
What was merely a story with no practical use to one person could be a clue to a spell and a source of powerful inspiration to another.
The contents of a book.
Every single phrase written within it.
Interpreting them, emphasizing them, and transforming them into reality.
If a grimoire was a book that granted magical power to its reader, then to Ernst, every book in this library was a grimoire in its own right.
“Fine! If that's the miserable death you want so badly, I'll take you seriously!”
As if declaring that the games were over, Balzarez's demeanor changed.
The body of Marik, which he had been wearing like a shell, burned away, revealing Balzarez's true form beneath it.
Clownish makeup, horns jutting upward, wings covered in membranes, and a long tail.
The magical projectile that shot from Balzarez's hand transformed into a massive boulder, blocking the door connecting the second and first floors, and Balzarez let out a booming laugh.
“Those vaunted grimoires are finished now!”
He seemed to think that only the books on the second floor were grimoires, but if Eris's guess was correct, he was mistaken.
Eris looked around.
She looked at the hundreds upon hundreds of books arranged by category all around them.
Every one of them could function as a grimoire in Ernst's hands.
And as if to prove her faith, Ernst took a suitable book from a nearby shelf.
A perfectly ordinary bundle of paper, without a trace of magical power.
Yet the moment Ernst opened the book, a powerful light filled its pages.
『The buzzing of yellow fluorescent lights, stained carpets, endlessly duplicated spaces. You are inside, with no way out.』
The library grew larger.
It was a change so slight it could almost be dismissed as a trick of the mind, yet it also seemed like a dramatic transformation multiplied dozens or even hundreds of times.
To Eris, it seemed like the former, but to Balzarez, it seemed like the latter.
The demon flapped his wings and tried to move around, but although he kept beating his wings without pause and pouring magical power from his body, his position hardly differed from where it had been at the beginning.
As if, in a space vast beyond measure, even a small movement would look like standing still to someone viewing the whole.
Balzarez screamed in fury.
“Why!? Why can't I copy it!?”
Balzarez's power was the ability to copy.
A power that ignored all the effort and processes others had accumulated and stole only the essence.
No matter how many spells Ernst could wield, they should have posed no threat to Balzarez at all and would only have provided him with even more prey.
The spatial spell currently restraining Balzarez should have been something he could copy and use to break free, then bind Ernst with even greater magical power.
But it didn't work.
No matter how hard Balzarez tried to activate or use his ability, he simply couldn't copy Ernst's spells.
Ernst spoke to the demon, who had lost his usual comical air in the face of this incomprehensible situation, in his characteristic deadpan tone.
“Because I added a security code.”
“…What?”
“Isn't your ability to look at only the cover of a book and act as if you've read all its contents? So I blocked that. Unless you've read every page from the first to the last, you can't recall the contents in your mind or quote them.”
Ernst said casually that encrypting every single book had taken a few days.
Balzarez wore a blank expression.
And toward that demon, Ernst made his declaration.
“Murder, stalking, assault, threats, using magic in a public place in a way that involves numerous people, and, most importantly, violence and property damage within the library. The punishment is likely to be quite severe. But rest assured. I am a librarian, so even if my opponent is a demon, I will not simply kill him.”
After pausing for a breath, he added,
“I will merely turn him into a book.”
“W-what insane nonsense are you talking about, urk, k-kugh!?”
Balzarez's body began to shrink grotesquely.
Thinner and thinner, like paper.
Narrower and narrower, like ink.
Ernst picked up a suitable hardcover book from the counter and threw it at Balzarez.
The paper adhered to the hardcover and became pages, while the ink became the words and illustrations that filled them.
-Aaaaaaaaagh!
The long scream gradually grew fainter, as if fading into some distant place.
All that remained was a single book lying on the floor.
Ernst casually picked up the book, then looked at Eris with a serious expression and asked,
“…I'm wondering what to title the book. Do you have any recommendations?”
Eris answered in an extremely polite, elegant, and intellectual tone.
“Have you gone mad?”