Time passed.
Knock, knock.
At the sound of someone rapping on the door, I shook her awake.
“...What is it?”
—Um... are you there, Lady Mage?
The mage, who had been sitting quietly in meditation, turned toward the entrance at the voice coming from outside and murmured.
“Hmm. They came sooner than I expected. It must be urgent.”
Sooner than she expected?
Her tone made it sound as if she had known this would happen, and when I looked at her questioningly, she cleared her throat once and spoke while looking at me.
“Ahem! I have business to take care of, so rest here. Like I told you before, don’t fall into a deep sleep in the mystic space or lose consciousness for a long time.”
“Can’t I just go out with you? I think my fatigue is all gone anyway.”
“Well, if the reason they called me is something trivial, it wouldn’t matter. But with a large merchant guild like this, they usually hate owing debts to mages. If they still called me, then it must be something they can’t ignore... It’s probably dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes. Especially for someone like you, who possesses a Seed of Aether and can sense aether, but hasn’t received any occult knowledge. It could be even more dangerous.”
Saying that, she waved her hand at me, telling me to rest.
Then, before I even had a chance to stop her, she went straight out of the tent.
“...She’s treating me like a complete child.”
If I included my age from my previous life, I had lived no short life. Yet seeing her, who clearly looked younger than I had been before I died, treat me like such a child left me feeling oddly awkward.
Because of that, I felt a strange rebellious urge toward the way she treated me, and part of me very much wanted to ignore her advice and go outside.
“Tsk. I’ll just stay here.”
I didn’t want to put her in a difficult position because of a rash judgment made by someone still unused to these things.
So I would just stay quiet.
Crackle, crackle.
How much time passed as I sat there quietly, feeling the warmth of the flames burning the thick logs?
Thud.
When it felt as though roughly an hour had gone by, I suddenly thought I heard something fall with a thud.
“...?”
In the quiet space, where there was nothing but the sound of burning firewood and the creaking of the rocking chair I sat in, the sound of something falling was especially loud.
“Did something fall?”
When I heard the sound of something dropping in an empty space, I deliberately muttered to myself to hide my unease and slowly rose from the chair.
Step, step.
This place, like a cozy mountain cabin, was spacious, but not so large as a banquet hall. It was a narrow space where, after only a few steps, the wall came into view.
In other words, it was a space I could take in at a glance, so it made no sense for there to be something I had missed.
How a tent could be unfolded to reveal a space like this, complete with walls, was still a mystery to me, but the important thing was that when I first entered this place, I definitely had not seen such a huge bookshelf.
“...Was there a bookshelf here?”
Yes, there certainly had not been a massive bookshelf, the sort one would only see in a library, inside this wooden cabin-like space.
It made no sense, by common sense, for me not to notice a bookshelf so large it filled an entire wall.
With a puzzled expression, I looked between the shelves packed with books and found an empty space.
“Looks like it fell from here.”
Judging by the thick layer of dust in the empty space where the book had been, it seemed to have been missing for quite a long time.
And since a thick white book lay on the floor right in front of the bookshelf, this must have been the book that fell—
No, wait.
“I definitely heard a book fall, so why is there such a thick layer of dust in the empty space?”
Yes, I had definitely heard the sound of something falling, like the sound of a thick book such as this hitting the floor, and gotten up from my seat.
Then a giant bookshelf, which absolutely had not been visible until moments ago, appeared, and inside that shelf packed tightly with countless books, I found a dusty space where the fallen book seemed to have been.
Let’s sort this out.
I heard the sound of a book falling, but the space where the book was missing had gathered dust, as though no book had been placed there for quite some time.
In other words, hadn’t the book been on the floor from the beginning?
Then what was the sound of a book falling that I heard?
“The causality is strange. Why don’t the cause and effect match?”
I had definitely heard the sound of a book falling, but the book looked as though it had fallen long ago.
Something was odd.
Wasn’t this like a trap, as if someone intended for me to touch this book?
“Hmm. If I were the protagonist of a story, I’d pick up the fallen book without thinking and put it back on the shelf, and that would be where the story begins, right?”
There were things like that, weren’t there?
The book that had fallen on the floor would actually be a grimoire, and by picking it up and making a contract with it in something like blood, I would become the master of the grimoire.
Then I would hide the fact that I had the grimoire from the mage, steal what was obviously hers, and become an overpowered monster.
Under the grimoire’s teachings, I could become an archmage and defeat a sealed Demon King, or maybe end up in a position where I had a budding romance with a female hero who suddenly appeared.
A story that would be possible if I discarded just a little of my conscience.
But.
“Stealing someone else’s belongings? What kind of pathetic thing is that?”
Pfft.
I snorted at the delusion that had suddenly come to mind and carefully stared at the pure white book lying on the floor.
If this book belonged to the mage, there was no way she would have left it unorganized for such a long time.
Putting one’s own belongings in order was only natural for their owner.
Especially when it was nothing more than bending down and putting a fallen book back on a shelf.
And yet, if there was a reason she had left this book on the floor long enough for dust to gather thickly in the empty space...
“Was there a reason it shouldn’t be touched?”
Yes. If there was a reason the book had not been put away, that was the only one.
This book was likely not something that should be touched carelessly.
In this world where mystery lived and breathed, there must be objects with powers I could not even imagine.
Like the objects passed down in stories: a key that could open anything, a brass cup that made a spring of youth well up, or a bronze mirror that let one see their future lover. Perhaps this book, too, was something that would bring irreversible consequences if touched by someone unqualified.
In my previous life, such stories were all fiction, or rumors exaggerated from coincidences that had overlapped. But in this world, I could not know whether such objects actually existed.
This was a place where fairies existed. There could certainly be at least a few objects imbued with mysterious power.
“Hmm. I’ll just ignore it.”
After silently staring at the book and organizing my thoughts, I found a clear answer.
The action I needed to take now was simple: don’t touch it.
Even if I had suddenly heard the sound of a book falling.
And even if, when I got up because of that sound, a giant bookshelf I had not seen before appeared.
Even if the only fallen book was clearly this pure white book, and the space where this book had supposedly been placed looked as though it had been empty for a long time.
I would just ignore it.
I was ignorant of these occult phenomena.
The best course was not to make this situation any worse.
“Haah.”
With that, I gave a faint yawn and turned around again.
Not touching it was the safest course.
I hadn’t touched anything yet, so it should be fine.
Step.
—Oh? What an unexpectedly conscientious guest.
I froze.
At the voice of a young man that should not have been heard, I stopped walking without realizing it.
—But if you can hear my voice, then you should be able to see the book lying on the floor. To pass by gold dropped right before your eyes... You are also quite a foolish person.
Whoosh.
The smell of sulfur I had once caught at a hot spring filled the tip of my nose.
Only then did I realize that I had made a mistake by not ignoring those words and walking on.
Click, click.
Along with the sound of high-quality dress shoes striking a well-polished floor, I sensed a presence appear behind me.
—Hmm. You yourself have already thought it is too late to ignore me, have you not? Then turn around, please. Before I forcibly control your body, that is.
Swish.
Had he realized that I had decided to ignore his words?
Regardless of my will, my body moved naturally and turned around.
Gracefully, like a single movement in a dance.
—Hmm, good. Seeing the dignity in your movements, you must be a noble, yes? This conversation will be enjoyable.
It smiled and bowed toward me.
Like the utmost courtesy a commoner would show to a noble.
—A pleasure to meet you, noble one. I am Abiyan, the One Who Walks Backward. I am commonly called a demon.
Grin.
A middle-aged man with black horns looked at me, smiled, and offered his greeting.
He wore, quite literally, a demonic smile.