MMFHRK-Chapter 15

Chapter 15: There Are Still Things You Can’t Do, Aren’t There (Bonus Chapter)

The kitchen was on the second floor, while the study was on the fifth. So Lilinai decided to first go and find the book Airiya had instructed her to fetch.

The study remained as it had been when they last left it, the desk covered with volumes she had finished reading and documents awaiting handling.

As she circled around to the front of the desk, Lilinai couldn’t help glancing underneath it.

Immediately afterward, the associated memories surfaced in her mind… she hurriedly shook her head.

“In any case, once today’s plan is carried out, I won’t have to look at that Witch anymore.”

Just endure it.

Lilinai thought to herself.

She cast aside those scenes of every little moment with Airiya in the study and focused on searching the desktop.

“The thickest book on the study desk… this must be the one.”

The book Airiya wanted her to fetch wasn’t hard to find; after all, it hadn’t been anything important to begin with: the so-called thickest book was 《The Origins of Magic Power》, written by ‘Thunderstorm’ Aotaniya—a High Witch of the first Witches’ Assembly—a work on magic studies and the occult. It was said this book was the great synthesis of magic studies, and she had seen Airiya reading it over and over more than once, taking notes on it as well.

Without a doubt, this work of over a million characters had already been devoured by Airiya. On this point, Lilinai rather admired her—it wasn’t hard to imagine how much effort Airiya had poured out in order to become a Witch. While helping organize the volumes, Lilinai had occasionally wanted to emulate Airiya and pull out a couple of similar books to read. Unfortunately she lacked the relevant foundation, so she couldn’t understand them at all.

There was just one thing she was curious about.

Airiya was already a Witch, so why did she keep studying so many works?

Was it simply because she loved reading? Or was there some other reason?

“This should be the one… yah!”

As she lifted that work, which rivaled a stone in weight, a sheaf of pages fell from the gap in the book down onto the floor.

Lilinai hurriedly picked the pages up. Out of curiosity, and also to gather information, she took a glance at the contents of the pages while she was at it.

“What is this…?”

She leafed through those pages.

The paper was densely packed with writing.

“Are these notes Airiya made?”

Unlike those weighty works full of ancient script and magical diagrams, the writing on these pages was all in the common tongue. Judging from the handwriting, all of it had been written personally by Airiya.

Lilinai knew that no matter how carefully she looked, she wouldn’t understand notes relating to magic. So she only gave them a cursory glance and intended to put the pages back in order.

However, among these notes, one term appeared with extremely high frequency, to the point that even the shallowest glance would catch it:

“‘Arcana’… is it?”

Lilinai spoke the word aloud.

Though she didn’t understand magic studies or the occult, as the saying went, one who hasn’t eaten pork has at least seen a pig run—at the very least, she had heard many magic-related terms before. Even so, she had never heard this word.

What was “Arcana”?

Was it a type of magic?

Or some sort of ability beyond magic?

“…”

It was as though some magic power were drawing her in.

The more Lilinai thought about the word, the more it preoccupied her, so she opened Airiya’s notes again.

“‘Arcana’ represents the world’s original power.

“Born within natural magic power, made manifest within the world’s wellspring.

“It stands above magic, transcending all talent and technique; it is concept, and it is rule as well…”

—What sort of gibberish is this?

Lilinai was thoroughly bewildered and stuffed the notes back into the book.

Magic truly wasn’t something ordinary people could learn; matters that could be explained in plain speech were forced into riddles instead.

Still, from the fragments and phrases of these notes, she did piece together some key information.

The so-called “Arcana” was a “power of rules” belonging to this world, standing above magic.

Throughout the entire world, apart from the exceedingly few children of talent favored by the gods, only the highest-ranking Witches had any chance of learning one or two forms of “Arcana.” Magic potions, cultivation, deep research, chance encounters—Witches used different methods to raise their own magical aptitude, and thereby awaken an “Arcana” of their own. This generally required a vast amount of experimentation and accumulation, along with a considerable measure of luck.

“So Airiya is studying all this now in order to awaken an Arcana?”

Lilinai felt a bit of schadenfreude.

Ha, even someone as arrogant as a Witch had things she couldn’t do.

Judging from the notes’ contents, Airiya had undoubtedly run into some sort of bottleneck and was troubled by it.

Lilinai wasn’t the least bit surprised by this—among the Witches, there were certainly plenty of old creatures who had lived for centuries. How old was Airiya, after all? Setting aside questions of seniority, the book itself said that learning an Arcana required years upon years of cultivation. Even if it came down to taking turns, it wouldn’t be Airiya’s turn to awaken an Arcana first.

However, in the notes, Airiya wrote that there existed a means of rapidly raising one’s personal magical aptitude.

She believed that so long as a certain special magic potion could be refined, it could rapidly increase the possibility of awakening an Arcana.

Lilinai hadn’t read it closely; she only knew that according to the records, this magic potion had already been lost to time.

The reason for its loss was simple: the raw material had gone extinct, so naturally the potion couldn’t be refined either.

“Hmph—normally so overbearing and all-capable, yet there are still things you can’t do, aren’t there.”

Lilinai shook her head.

Well, none of this mattered anymore.

After today’s plan, neither she nor Airiya would need to fret over such things.

“Come to think of it, that material had a rather distinctive name. It was something like… ‘Iridescent Scale Plume’…?”

Muttering to herself, the girl gathered up the book and notes Airiya needed.

She set off out of the room and, with the tea packet in her pocket, headed for the kitchen on the second floor.

…

——————————

…

At the tea party on the terrace.

After hearing Luosenni out, Airiya narrowed her eyes.

“…The Rainbow-Plumed Scale Serpent? Are you certain, Luosenni?”

“Absolutely certain.”

Luosenni nodded and gave her assurance.

“Actually, the appearance of this legendary monster was only recently observed and recorded. Before that, people merely thought the climate among the northern mountain ranges was bizarrely abnormal, and never once considered the possibility of a monster’s mischief, much less a Rainbow-Plumed Scale Serpent—you have to understand, this species of monster was believed to have gone extinct over a hundred years ago.”

“How extraordinary… and here I thought it existed only in legend.”

“So you can understand why the Assembly places such importance on this commission? The Rainbow-Plumed Scale Serpent is a superb research subject. If specimens of it could be collected, it would be a major opportunity for the field of monster studies…”

Airiya nodded.

Although they might also be labeled beasts, magical beasts, and the like, in the Witches’ Assembly’s official definition they were uniformly called “monsters.”

—Creatures infected by the chaos of natural magic power, mutated species born through magical mutation.

Once ordinary creatures mutated into monsters, they generally gained more potent strength and perception. Some monsters’ biological features would grow in defiance of biology, even giving rise to special additional abilities. Though their intelligence levels varied, for humanity their definition was entirely consistent and quite simple: enemies that must be eradicated.

After long ages of hunting and subjugation, the monsters still existing in the world were few, at least not enough to threaten human settlements.

Among them, the monster known as the “Rainbow-Plumed Scale Serpent” was one recorded as having already gone extinct.

“This really is…”

Airiya murmured softly. Luosenni tilted her head.

“Is something the matter, Airiya?”

“It’s nothing.”

The white-haired Witch raised her head, her gaze turning sharp.

“Tell me everything about this commission, Luosenni—describe it in exhaustive detail, the more complete the better.”