[V4C9] The Abyss and Curses
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the SkyDuring their afternoon individual lesson period, Wren paid a visit to the Library Office to deepen his understanding of inscription magic.
The Library Office was, to be blunt, the ones responsible for all the books.
Guiding him into the Library Office was a forty-something woman with a kind looking face and unruly blonde hair that she tied in a braid. It was none other than Library Office Director Linke — she was the person who tested Wren and the others with a Monster she had sealed in a book during the entrance exam.
“Books about magic can be sorted into two broad categories: magical tomes and grimoires. Practical treatises and textbooks on the topic of magecraft and similar things are called magical tomes. Whereas books with mana imbued and magical formulas inscribed in them by special means are what we call grimoires.”
As she explained, Linke walked ahead of Wren and showed him into the First Library.
The Third Spire: Water Bubble was originally a three-story tower that had been continually expanded upon. While its construction was disorganized and confusing, the Library Office generally occupied about half of the original structure.
The back of the first floor was the First Library, while the second floor, the third floor, and the basement hosted the Second, Third, and Underground Libraries respectively. Apprentices were only permitted to enter the First Library on the first floor.
The First Library contained magical tomes — as she explained just now, that mostly meant textbooks on magecraft — as well as ordinary books.
“Wow! It’s way bigger than my father’s study! I’ve never been in a room with this many books! …It looks like there’s a lot of books that have nothing to do with magic too?”
“Indeed there are. The First Library contains both ordinary books and relatively beginner-friendly magical tomes.”
As there weren’t many options for recreation in the isolation of the Tower, there were a fair number of recreational books catalogued here.
There were even books on household cooking and gardening which felt somewhat out of place to him.
“Are there no grimoires here?”
“Yes, because those are much more difficult to handle.”
Wren voiced a question that suddenly popped in his mind.
“So grimoires… They activate just by pouring mana into them, right? So they’re just like magical devices?”
“Strictly speaking, it might be more accurate to say they are the predecessors to magical devices. Magical devices are Modern while grimoires are Classical, although there are some grimoires out there that are made with Modern Magecraft techniques.”
“Uh-huh.”
If you consider any item made by imbuing an object with special ink to create a magical effect to be a magical device, then grimoires should be included in that category, but it seemed like it wasn’t that simple.
The Wedge Tower often put great emphasis on delineating which types of magic fell under the Classical or Modern labels.
He thought it was annoying, but at the same time, Wren found the reasons behind that annoying state of affairs intriguing.
He’d learned in Mr. Hütter’s magical history lessons that the difference between Modern and Classical magecraft was intimately linked with the history of mages themselves. It was pretty fun whenever a moment arose that he got to make use of the knowledge he’d learned.
Wren tried to act as casual as possible when he asked his next question.
“Director Linke, was the book you had at the entrance exam with the Monster sealed inside also a type of grimoire?”
“It would be considered one, yes.”
“If I learned inscription magic, could I also learn how to do something like that?”
“………”
Linke, who was walking ahead of him, spun around and stared Wren in the face.
Linke was a woman with a calm, gentle atmosphere about her. That said, the glare she gave just now felt like it was intended to make him regret coming up with such a reckless idea.
“I’d like you to think of that as something that only the Director of the Library Office can do. While the ability to seal Monsters is doubtlessly only possible through inscription magic, the ability to control them is something entirely different.”
Well, I figured it wouldn’t be that easy. Wren backed down from that subject.
He wouldn’t be able to control Monsters. Wren secretly let out a sigh of relief when he learned that fact.
On one hand, it would obviously be comforting to know that he was capable of controlling monsters. It would be a huge advantage in the upcoming magic battle.
(But, if I were to start controlling Monsters… What would Tia think about that?)
He tried to think about it from the opposite perspective.
If a Monster were able to control humans, he would feel incredibly disgusted by that.
(…Honestly, I’m glad she said I can’t do that.)
If she had said ‘I’m sure you can do it if you work hard enough!’ Wren felt he might be persuaded by the temptation to use such a powerful skill.
It was his nature as a human to want to acquire something that would make anyone who looked at him stare in amazement. Especially after being told that it was within reach.
(But, when I look at Tia… Monsters seem not to care about anyone outside of their own species, or at least think of them as opponents in the battle for territory.)
Basically, from Tia’s perspective, while Harpies thought of each other as their allies, they felt no camaraderie towards Werewolves. Or something like that.
That was why Tia didn’t hesitate to fight back when the Snow Boars and the Greater Monster Jack attacked them.
On top of that, hadn’t Tia been accepting of the controlled monster they’d seen earlier?
During their entrance exam, had it not been a winged snake but a Harpy that was being controlled… What would Tia have done, then?
“The Wedge Tower fights Monsters all the time, right? Then do Monsters get sealed often? Is it the kind of thing you can do easily?”
“Sealing Monsters is an advanced inscription magic technique, and since it requires a Monster to be weakened in the first place, it’s incredibly difficult to accomplish, so we don’t do it at all these days.”
“… I see.”
Wren couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Had he not met Tia, he probably would have continued on thinking it was obvious that Monsters should be slain. — Even now, half of his mind still thought so.
Yet the other half wondered naïvely if perhaps it was possible there was a future where humans and Monsters could coexist.
(‘Obviously Monsters should be killed, but they can be allowed to coexist if they submit to human control’ …Who was it that said that? …That’s a very selfish thing to decide…)
That was why Wren desperately wanted to stop thinking about such things.
As Wren stayed silent, Linke came to a stop before a set of doors in the back of the Library.
“If you’re curious about placing seals on Monsters, you can ask her for more detailed information. She’s your classmate after all.”
“…….Huh?”
Linke opened the door.
Beyond that door was a room the Library used to repair their books. Shelves lined the walls and a large worktable sat in the center of the room.
Sitting at that worktable with a book laid open in front of her was a single young girl.
Her black hair that draped down to her shoulders was accented by a single purple lock of hair on either side of her face. She wore a robe over a frilly blouse with decorative buttons.
It was a girl only one year younger than Wren. The Shaman, Sophie.
“Hey, it’s Sophie!”
“Uhyouw!? Eh!? Wah! …Geez, don’t startle me like that……”
Sophie had been hunched over, focused on the book, but fell back into her seat with force when Wren called out to her.
Wren peeked at the book she’d laid open on the desk. A series of magical formulas were neatly written inside with a dark red ink.
It wasn’t anything like the magical formulas he’s learned recently. Most likely, they were Classical Magecraft formulas. Suddenly, Wren realized something.
“Hey, is that a grimoire?”
“It is… So don’t touch it, okay? It’ll be a big mess if you do.”
“A big mess?”
When Wren asked, Sophie smiled at him. She made her best evil smile.
“You’ll get cursed and die!”
“Geh!?”
“Hehehehe, just joking!”
“Sophie.”
Director Linke quietly called Sophie’s name as a warning. Her voice didn’t sound particularly angry, but Sophie yelped and covered her head with the sleeves of her robe.
“I- I’m sorryyy. I just thought I should try a little joke since my classmate came and alllll…”
“I can’t recommend joking around with an open grimoire in front of you. You make one wrong step and these things could be incredibly dangerous.”
“Y- yes….”
Now that she mentioned it, he definitely remembered Linke saying that there weren’t any grimoires in the First Library.
Obviously an Apprentice, who should only be allowed to access the First Library, shouldn’t be able to get their hands on a grimoire.
And yet, how come there was a grimoire right here, and how come Sophie was allowed to open it?
His confusion must have shown on his face, as Linke said “Take a seat,” and directed him towards the chair next to Sophie.
Director Linke sat across from them and started to speak.
“Sophie is a special case. We always need to have one member of a family of Shamans here at the Wedge Tower, and we rely on their support as deterrence against the sealed Monsters in our collection.”
(Shamans are deterrence against sealed Monsters?)
Wren couldn’t wrap his head around the meaning of what Linke had just said.
However, it made sense that Shamans were necessary to the Wedge Tower due to some circumstances.
“Sophie. Please explain to Wren the relationship between Shamans and Monster sealing, in as simple a way as you can. Let’s call this your assignment.”
“Ehhhhh, You know I’m not good at oral exams…”
“Precisely. You need practice.”
Linke smiled widely, while Sophie sadly whimpered.
Then, deep in thought, she pressed her fingers against her temple as she spoke.
“Um… Well, Wren, do you remember learning where Monsters come from? …In our group lessons?”
“They come from a combination of negative human emotions and mana, right?”
“We call that… swamp of negative human emotions and mana all mixed together the ‘Abyss.’ Think of it as a gooey bog or spring of some sort. Long ago, there were Abysses all over the world, and Monsters would be born from there.”
The image of a swamp filled with purple goo floated up in Wren’s head. Then Monsters started to slowly rise from the viscous waters… it kinda scared him to imagine it.
Those entities they called Greater Monsters referred to the ones born from that Abyss.
Even the Monsters that they thought of as Lesser Monsters once came from the Abyss long ago, it seemed. But since magic beasts had the ability to reproduce in exchange for being relatively weaker than Greater Monsters, their descendants are the magic beasts of today. Tia would be one of those.
Out of the Primordial Beasts born from the Abyss, only one survived to this day. It was a Monster that left X-shaped marks on the faces of those it favored.
……That was just about everything Wren had figured out up to this point.
“So Wren, what do you think of the curses that Shamans use?”
“Huh? I don’t have a clue.”
“Don’t answer so quickly~! At least think about it a little bit…!”
Sophie complained, but Shamans were far rarer than other types of mages.
As far as the average person was concerned, curses were things that brought about a bad effect on people. Ones that gave you bad dreams, ones that made you lose your mind, or ones that made you die painfully — those sorts of incomprehensible powers that differed from normal magecraft.
Wren thought about it a little more.
There was a deep connection between Shamans and the Monsters who were born from the Abyss. That must be why the Wedge Tower gave Sophie special treatment.
Considering that, Wren asked cautiously.
“Um… Does that mean the power of curses… has something to do with the Abyss where Monsters are born from?”
“Correct~. A curse is when a part of the goo from the Abyss leaks out and latches on to someone. And someone who can control the power of that goo is a Shaman, basically.”
They’re presences capable of interfering with the very Abyss from which Monsters are born — Thinking of them that way, they sounded pretty amazing, but how much control did they really have?
Wren still had trouble making sense of the whole thing, but Sophie spoke to him with a prideful look.
“And I have… wait for this… a whole five curses hidden in my body that I can control!”
“……”
“What’s with that strange face~!”
“Well, I have no idea if five is a small number or a lot……”
More importantly, he wanted to know more details about the Abyss.
Sophie bristled at Wren’s attitude and grumbled.
“… Well, there’s rumors that someone in another country can use more than two hundred curses, but it’s just a rumor, you know!? That doesn’t mean it’s real, right!? And it’s not like having a big number is all that special… Okay, it is kinda special… It’s really special…… This is when you’re supposed to compliment me!”
Towards the end, Sophie started pounding on the desk, prompting Director Linke to warn her in a harsh voice.
“Please be quiet in the Library.”
“Fiiineee…”