Lost magic again. I’ve been hearing those words a lot since yesterday.
“And the mission will be undertaken jointly by our department and the Magical Powers Research Department.”
The Magical Powers Research Department? Wait... could it mean that we were looking for that lost magic?!
I stared at Larna, eager to hear the rest.
“Katarina looks like she already knows what’s going on. It’s just what you think it is — the lost magic you and Maria ran into yesterday,” she said, before quickly explaining the details to Sora, who knew nothing about that incident.
“You got in trouble again?” he murmured in my direction. I tried to explain that it wasn’t my fault this time. I mean, it never was my fault — trouble just seemed to follow me around! I couldn’t do anything about it! Anyway, Sora just sighed wearily at my explanation.
Larna, who wasn’t really interested in our little quarrel, went back to talking enthusiastically about the mission. “We’ve been able to recreate some kinds of lost magic as far as keeping places tidy and such goes, but I’ve never heard of one that can transport people to another dimension. This is so interesting!”
I’d heard from my older colleagues that Larna was so into magic that she always went crazy about rare or interesting types of it. I’d also heard that when that happened, she forgot about everything else — including work.
Seeing how excited she was, I started worrying for the department’s wellbeing.
“Let me explain about this mission,” said Cyrus.
After hearing Larna’s explanation, we moved to a conference room. Maria, Dewey, and Cyrus had come from the Magical Powers Research Department to join Larna, Sora, and me. Apart from the two directors, the rest of us were all newcomers. I wondered why that was — maybe it was some kind of test.
However, Cyrus told us that there weren’t enough people available to dispatch on a mission that was based on such dubious information. Looking very sad, he added that he would still be attending to his normal director responsibilities, and that he couldn’t help us that much throughout.
“Don’t worry, Cyrus, I’ll take responsibility here,” said Larna, who was oozing enthusiasm.
“What about your responsibilities as department director?” Cyrus asked, perplexed.
“I have very talented employees to whom I can entrust everything. I’ll focus on looking for the lost magic,” she explained casually.
“There you go again... Raphael Wolt is going to get fed up with you,” he said, his face having gone from perplexed to stern.
“There’s no reason to worry about that.”
“And on what basis can you say that?”
“Absolutely none.”
“Speaking with you stresses me out...” Cyrus said with a sigh.
Anyone could tell that these two were incompatible. Larna was too unconcerned about everything, and Cyrus too concerned. My department colleagues had already assured me that “You can mostly ignore whatever Larna says when she’s not talking about work.”
“I asked for your help because you’re the most knowledgeable about lost magic around here, but let’s just operate independently as two departments. We’ll both gather information and then compare and contrast here,” said Cyrus, who obviously didn’t want to work with Larna, and we started working as he said.
I had been looking forward to working together with Maria, so I was a bit sad about that. But we would still be able to meet when exchanging information, so I decided to do my best regardless.
“But where are we even going to look for information?” I asked once we were out of the meeting room, unsure of what we were supposed to do next.
“First of all, we’ll go see someone who’s an expert on lost magic,” Larna said joyfully.
“You know such a person?”
“Yes. He chases down lost and rare types of magic. He’s sort of a weird guy.”
If someone as weird as Larna was saying that, I could only wonder what kind of guy that could be.
“He doesn’t live in the Ministry, so we’ll have to ride on a carriage,” she said before starting to march away, with Sora and I doing our best to keep up with her.
The carriage brought us to a residential district not far away from the castle. The people living there weren’t nobles, but they were definitely well-off.
Larna knocked on the door of a house that’s size made it stand out even among the many large ones of that neighborhood. Someone, probably a servant, came out to greet us. They recognized Larna, bowed to her, and led us inside.
“Is the professor doing well?” Larna asked.
“Yes, he is as full of energy as usual,” the servant replied.
So we were here to see a professor. Larna had said that this man was an expert in lost magic, so maybe he was a teacher at a magic school.
Deep inside the house, we reached a closed door. The servant stopped in front of it and started speaking to someone on the other side.
“Master, you have visitors. May I open the door?”
Instead of a parlor, the servant led us directly to the professor’s room.
“Oh, hold on a second,” a man inside the room replied.
We heard rumbling and rattling. After a short while, the same man said, “There, come in.”
What was all that noise just now? I thought to myself, but I discovered the answer the second the servant opened the door and we walked inside.
I stared in awe with my mouth hanging open. The whole room was full of stacks upon stacks of books and documents, so many that anyone who was inside it during an earthquake would be buried under an avalanche of paper. That noise was probably the professor shoving some of those books aside.
And there he was, near the door: an old man with white hair and a white, bushy moustache, looking somewhat like Santa Claus.
“Oh, Miss, it’s been a while. How have you been?” he said upon seeing Larna, beaming at her with a smile so large that he looked like he was squinting.
“Well. And I am glad to see you doing fine as well, Professor,” Larna replied with a smile. “I have come here with some of my subordinates because there is something that I would like to ask you. May we have some of your time?”
“I see,” said the old man. “It’s a bit messy, but be my guests.”
He pointed to a table in the center of the room with some chairs around it. The servant who had welcomed us had quickly cleaned it up so that it was the only surface not completely covered in books. I was touched by the speed-cleaning when I noticed that the servant had also prepared tea and snacks for us. Impressive.
We sat down facing the professor, and Larna introduced us.
“These are my subordinates, Katarina Claes and Sora Smith.”
“I am Katarina Claes. It is my pleasure.”
“I am Sora Smith. It is my pleasure.”
The man in front of us then spoke. “I am Morris Hyde. The pleasure is mine. People call me ‘professor’ and ‘doctor’ and whatnot, but I’m nothing more than an old man. Call me Morris, or Hyde, or whatever you like,” he said, laughing.
He looked like a pleasant, kind old man. But since it wouldn’t be polite to call him by his name or give him a new nickname, Sora and I decided to follow Larna’s example and just call him “professor.”
Sora and I told him about our backgrounds while drinking tea. I said that I was the daughter of a duke, and Sora talked about his story of scraping by as an orphan. This story was enough to surprise most people, but the professor didn’t bat an eye and just kept nodding and listening intently.
We also heard a few things about him, giving me the impression that he was a close acquaintance of Larna’s and that he was not an ordinary person.
The “professor” nickname, he told us, stuck with him because he used to work as a private teacher for noble children even though he had never actually taught in a school. The “doctor” one was given to him by some of his friends to taunt him for being so passi
onate about researching lost magic, but he wasn’t a researcher by trade and only looked into things that caught his interest as a hobby.
After chatting for a while, he took a sip of his tea and asked Larna what it was that she wanted to talk about.
“You see, we have just found an unheard-of type of lost magic on the Ministry’s grounds...” she said. Then as if she’d been waiting all along for the opportunity to do so, she explained about how Maria and I were transported into another dimension and how a floating light orb had told Maria to find a covenant.
She explained everything in such detail that Sora started worrying. “Excuse me, Miss Larna, but is it appropriate to disclose all of this to people outside the Ministry?” he whispered to her.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got permission. And the professor’s from the Ministry too, anyway. His name is still on the records, but he’s already retired, as you can see,” she said nonchalantly.
“My name is still on those records? I’ve retired! Tell them to erase that, will you?” the professor said.
“That is out of my jurisdiction,” she said, deflecting the request. “More importantly, do you know anything about this lost magic? That is your specialty, is it not?”
“More importantly...? Miss, you should learn to be a bit more... Ah, never mind, it’s too late for that. A different dimension, a light orb, and a covenant, you say?”
The professor started thinking while staring at the ceiling. After a while he stood up, walked to a bookshelf (the whole room was basically a giant bookshelf, to be honest) and started looking for something. Not wanting to disturb him as he seemed so concentrated in his search, we waited while silently drinking our tea.
“Oh, here it is! Found it!” he said after a while, bringing a book back with him to the table. “A friend gave this to me many years ago, and I made a translation into our modern language. The content was so unrealistic that I just left it to collect dust on a shelf, but here, take a look,” he said, opening up the book and moving it towards us.
More than the usual magic manuals that we saw at the Ministry, this looked like a fairy tale book, aimed at what in my previous world would be called “grade-schoolers,” with pictures and all.
“Excuse me... Isn’t this a made-up story, like a fairy tale?” I asked.
“Exactly,” said the professor. “It’s from a very old book of stories for children.”
Just as I thought. How could that help us?
“But forget that and take a look. Here,” he said, pointing to a specific part of the text.
And the Prince was led into the garden which had been created with magic. There he met the shining goddess, who told him, “If you want greater powers, find the covenant and come back here.”
“I will do so,” replied the Prince.
The content of the story was exactly the same as what had happened to me and Maria on the previous day.
“...But why? Isn’t this supposed to be fiction?”
The professor laughed at my surprised reaction. “Sometimes, old books talk about magic that was the norm back then and only just so happens to be lost now. Of course, some of them are pure fiction.”
“Professor, when was this written, and by whom?” asked Larna, leaning forward with eagerness.
“Miss, I understand your passion for magic, but please calm down. I’ll explain everything from the start,” he said with a smile. “The only information I have on this story is that it’s very old. I don’t know who wrote it, or when. The book that my translation comes from was given to me by a friend in the first place. This friend knew his way around magic, and was convinced that the story was based on magic that once really existed. However, no matter how much I searched for evidence, I found none. I just translated it so that children could read it, seeing as it’s a children’s book anyway, but I’d completely forgotten about it until today.”
“So you know nothing about the book... What about your friend?” Larna asked promptly, but the professor shook his head.
“If he were to hear of what happened, my friend would surely be ecstatic knowing that the magic is actually real. However he’s not with us anymore, and I know nothing about how he got that book.”
“Which means that we have no information at all...” Larna said, visibly disappointed.
“I told you to calm down. You really haven’t changed at all, Miss!” the professor said, frustrated but amused. “I may not know about the book’s origin, but the way to obtain the covenant is written right here.”
“Really?! Where?!” Larna asked enthusiastically, and the professor reached for the book and started flipping its pages. After he found what he was looking for, he showed it to us.
The goddess told the prince how to find the covenant so that he may obtain the power that he wanted.
“The covenant will draw to itself those who truly wish to find it. And, as soon as you find it, you will know.”
The prince thanked the goddess and left the garden.
“So... we just have to start looking for it and then we’ll just find it?” I asked, with my head resting on one hand.
“That seems to be the case,” the professor said while stroking his moustache.
“That doesn’t tell us a lot about how to obtain it, though...” I said, unsure how to feel about that non-answer.
“Furthermore,” the professor continued, “we can’t tell whether all that the book tells is true. The author may have embellished the facts.”
I thought we’d finally found a hint, but we’re back at square one...
“Do you know of anything else that could help us?” Larna asked, trying to find even the smallest piece of information to work with.
“I’m sorry, but this is all I know,” he said, but he let us borrow the book.
We thanked him and made to leave the Hyde manor. Right before we did so, the professor told us something.
“I don’t know if knowing this would be useful to you, but in the story, the prince found the covenant in the form of a book in the largest library in the kingdom.”
After that, Larna said that she would go questioning people who potentially held useful knowledge, and Sora and I were appointed to search the kingdom’s largest library: the one in the Magical Ministry.
“The professor’s room was so full of books and documents and all kinds of papers,” I said while we were still in the carriage. That had impressed me the most out of anything.
“He’s always loved collecting old and rare documents and manuscripts for his research. He has a research room, but it’s completely full of papers,” Larna explained. He had enough texts lying around to fill his research room and overflow into his study and guest rooms.
“His wife lives with him, but she doesn’t want him to dump any more paper inside the rooms.”
Living in a house so full of books and documents must be hard. But there was something else I was wondering about...
“Miss Larna, you’re on really friendly terms with the professor, aren’t you?”
She knew about his family, and she spoke very politely when addressing him. What’s more, the professor looked at her with the same kindness as a grandfather looking at his granddaughter.
Larna giggled, squinting slightly in a way that reminded me of the professor. “Yeah, we’ve known each other since I was a child. I used to go to his research room all the time.”
This explained the way he looked at her. He really did have the eyes of a grandfather thinking “You’ve grown so much!”
“So if you didn’t become acquaintances at the Ministry, how did you two first meet?”
Since she said that he’d known her since she was a child, that must have been before she started working at the Ministry. There were sometimes people around the Ministry who didn’t work there, but it certainly wasn’t a place for children to play around in.
“I used to know one of his friends. One day I was bored, and he told me he’d bring me to an interesting place, which happe
ned to be the professor’s research room. I was so excited seeing all those books about magic around me,” she explained with a hint of nostalgia in her voice.
“Were you already interested in magic back then?” I asked, recalling what my colleagues had told me about her.
“Researching magic is something of a life mission for me,” she said with an innocent smile.
The carriage finally reached the Ministry, and Sora and I went to the library while Larna was asking more people for information.
Sure, going to the library is the easy part, but now what? This place is huge and full of books... How are we going to find a single one which we don’t even know anything about?
“Since we have no clue, what do you think about beginning from the start and looking through each book in order?” I said, but Sora looked at me in dismay.
“That’s never going to work,” he said. “We should at least narrow our options.”
“But how? Even if we, say, ignored all romance novels and just looked at the books on magic, most books here are about magic anyway...” I said, pouting, and Sora sighed while putting a hand to his forehead.
“That’s not what I meant... We’re looking for an ancient magic book, right? So it can’t be among recent books. We should ask where they keep the oldest books and start searching from there,” he said.
“You’re right! Sora, you’re so smart!”
“I’m not. You should just use your head a bit more...”
Following Sora’s suggestion, we asked the librarian sitting at the counter where the oldest books were being kept.
“Oh? You two are also looking for ancient books? What a coincidence. Usually nobody ever cares much for those,” she told us, implying that someone else had already visited that area today. “I think the other people are still there, so try to cooperate and not take up all the space, okay?”
We went in the direction that she guided us to and found Maria and Dewey concentrating on reading some books. They were probably — well, definitely — looking for the covenant.
As soon as Sora and I stepped near them, they noticed us and looked up from their books. “Lady Katarina! Sora!” Maria said in surprise. Dewey, too, was staring at us with fluttering eyes.
My Next Life as a Villainess Page 11
