Khalid sat cross-legged, staring intently at a short stone stele.

I crouched down beside him.

“But it’s cracked.”

“It is.”

Countless carved figures were engraved into the stone stele, whose top was split with a jagged crack.

And packed tightly between them was a language I could not make sense of.

“This... no matter how I look at it, it seems like a magic circle, doesn’t it?”

the mage boy asked, narrowing one eye.

“I have no idea what it says.”

I briskly rolled up my sleeves.

“This is my specialty again.”

The moment I closed my eyes and called Wigeria to mind, my thoughts began to spin.

It felt like plunging straight into a vast sea.

If I borrowed that sea of wisdom, even a magic circle I had never seen before could be understood and grasped in an instant.

Huh?

My eyes, which had been examining the magic circle, widened.

“...Ah.”

Books that had suddenly begun to wear away.

A tree that held magic in place, and a cracked stone stele engraved with a complex magic circle.

I see now.

“An object wearing down is proof that time is passing. People grow old day by day too, don’t they?”

Yuliope’s words came back to me.

Only then did I understand everything.

“...This magic circle was stopping time for the old books.”

“What?”

“These books probably were not in very good condition from the start.”

Books that should already have worn away and vanished long ago. Someone had held them in place with magic.

“A spell like that... exists?”

Khalid asked carefully.

“There’s ancient language written all over it, so it must be some kind of magic circle used a very long time ago.”

My words trailed off. Because if that was true, then did that mean the one who carved this magic circle was one of the ancients?

“Anyway, to keep the books from wearing away... it looks like someone used time magic here.”

Of course, this was no ordinary high-level spell. So naturally it would require abundant magic.

Maybe building the Rare Books Archive near the sealing tree had been the obvious and inevitable thing to do.

“But it seems they couldn’t stop the magic circle itself from being consumed....”

I ran my hand over the split stone stele.

No matter how great a power was, nothing lasted forever.

Had this force too not been worn down little by little over the long years?

Khalid nodded carefully.

“So the reason the books suddenly began to wear away was because something went wrong with this magic circle. The time of the books that had been held in place started flowing again.”

“Probably. Until now, the magic soaked into the books must have been enough that they stayed all right to some extent even outside the Rare Books Archive.”

Yuliope had said she often copied old books in her research office.

Which meant she was used to carrying old books outside the library in her daily life.

“Anyway, once the underlying magic circle started weakening, they could no longer endure it.”

“Then what do we do?”

I placed my hand on the stele again.

“For now, I need to repair this magic circle.”

It was the moment I was about to move my magic. Khalid abruptly pulled my hand away from the stele.

“No.”

His smooth face was tightly furrowed.

“I do not know magic as well as you do, but... this much I do know.”

The boy went on with a grave expression.

“Magic that touches time is not ordinary magic.”

“......”

“It sounds dangerous just hearing about it.”

Khalid muttered,

“So let’s find out a little more first, and—”

“Khalid.”

I spoke carefully.

At that, he looked straight at my face. When our eyes met, I could clearly see my own face reflected fully in his gray-blue eyes.

After hesitating a little, I slowly let the words out.

“There’s actually something that’s been bothering me for a while now....”

“Yeah.”

“My eyes.”

“...Your eyes?”

“Why are they still blue?”

At once, Khalid’s brow twitched slightly. Wetting my dry lips, I continued softly.

“I thought I had used Wigeria’s power to figure out what this magic circle was....”

For some reason, my own voice sounded unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone else.

“But I just looked at it and knew, somehow.”

As if it were a magic circle I had known from the beginning.

“What do you mean—”

“I’ll just try it first.”

Before Khalid could stop me, the magic around us trembled.

As it assimilated with the magic inside me, a circular magic circle rose, and blue light flared brilliantly.

Only then did my eyes turn red again.

I was a mage who had not been born with a particularly large amount of magic.

So if I wanted to use high-level magic, I had to alter the magic circle so it would produce the greatest possible effect within the range my own magic could bear. That was only possible because I possessed abundant knowledge of magic circles.

In other words, power-saving mode....

This time was the same.

To repair the stele, I twisted the structure of this magic circle slightly in my own way.

It looked simple, but it required an enormous variety of formulas and circuits. And since there were many formulas I did not know, I had no choice but to borrow Wigeria’s knowledge.

This is how I have always used magic.

Except for very simple spells.

The missing formulas found their proper places, and power slowly began filling the worn magic circle. The air around us surged violently.

Time....

I rolled that word around inside my mouth.

And then, suddenly, my thoughts reached my lower back.

Even if I cannot erase the mark right now....

Could this become another solution?

Shhhhh—

The blue light that had been blazing faded quickly.

The leaves of the sealing tree, which had been fluttering, also stopped trembling.

“Haa.”

I let out the breath that had been caught in my chest and pulled my hand away.

“Repair complete!”

This one had been a little complicated....

As I wiped the sweat from my forehead and patted my shoulders, a hollow voice came from behind me.

“Ha, you really are....”

“Hm?”

“...Every single time, you act like this is nothing.”

Khalid looked past impressed and almost a little sick of it.

“Anyway, the Rare Books Archive problem is solved!”

Now all that remained was to look in earnest for a clue about the mark.

I pushed myself up from the floor.

“With this, Professor Yuliope will not change jobs now, right?”

“Yuliope Moulton was planning to change jobs?”

Khalid asked. Come to think of it, he did not really have much contact with Professor Yuliope, so he would not know.

“Ah, yeah. I think she was under a lot of stress because of the Rare Books Archive.”

“...I see.”

“Why? Are you interested in her?”

“No, not really. Just.”

His gray-blue eyes slid off to the side.

I dusted off my hands.

“But then... what about ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ the contents of the books that have already been erased?”

“Well, isn’t that Professor Yuliope’s job?”

Restoring all the contents of books that had already been lost would be difficult.

To begin with, even if I improved the magic circle, it was unclear whether my own magic could endure it, and above all, for the contents of vanished books to reappear overnight would be a miracle in the truest sense.

“Now that the strange phenomenon has stopped, she’ll be able to push ahead with restoration too!”

At my words, Khalid looked over the patchily erased contents of the books and muttered,

“I still think she’ll probably change jobs....”

“Hm?”

“Just look at how much there is. How is she supposed to restore all this by herself?”

“She said they were going to hire restorers.”

“Oh, really?”

“They’re already planning to hire restorers from outside.”

Recalling Yuliope’s voice, I grinned.

“I hope the professor gets lots of good colleagues again, right?”

“...? It’s none of my business. But sure.”

Khalid answered vaguely.

Then, as if something had just occurred to him, he tipped his chin.

“But how are you going to let Yuliope know the Rare Books Archive problem has been solved? Are you just going to let her realize it naturally?”

“Hmm... I can’t exactly say I fixed it with magic.”

I murmured with a troubled face.

“But I can’t just sit around and wait forever, either.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would be a nuisance if she ended up calling a mage.”

It would be best if this whole thing ended as nothing more than a minor incident.

From what I heard, it seems that for now only Professor Yuliope and Headmaster Odelly know about it.

Intuitively, I felt that the existence of this Rare Books Archive absolutely must not become known to mages.

If mages came, they would notice the mysterious flow of magic here, and then naturally it would reach the Mage King’s ears as well.

I wanted to protect this place somehow. The sealing tree, the stele... and that time magic circle too.

Because—

it might be able to solve the problem of my mark growing.

If the answer I did not know was in this mysterious space....

Hm?

At that moment, my head snapped up.

Because Yuliope’s words about some mysterious blessing had suddenly come back to me.

“I thought of a way.”

“Did you?”

“Mysterious power should be met with mysterious power!”

The moment I clenched my fist and declared it, Khalid, who had been watching quietly, narrowed one eye.

“There you go again, charging ahead on your own and leaving me behind.”

Instead of answering, I only flashed a grin.

Behind the boy, who let out a deep sigh, the tightly packed old books spread out like a backdrop.

*****

Thunk.

We had just closed the door of the Rare Books Archive and were about to leave when Khalid suddenly turned around and said,

“Hold on a second.”

“Why?”

“Your knee.” 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Khalid was looking down around my leg, his smooth brow gathered tightly.

“...It’s been bothering me a lot.”

I blinked silently.

How on earth had he noticed?

I hid it well with the dress!