The Girls in the Library

"Aiz — that big book over there, grab it for me—"

"Yes — got, it."

Some tens of minutes before Merea, having slipped Marisa's surveillance net, made it back into Star-Tree Castle —

In a room on the second floor of Star-Tree Castle, a cool, breezy voice was ringing.

The answering voice, also — like a single drop dropped onto still water — held a clear, transparent tone.

If the former was a flute-note climbing strongly into the sky, the latter was the sound of a harp ringing through a quiet forest.

The owners of those voices were, this day too, working through any number of books in the library a few rooms down from Merea's study.

Around them, the books they had finished were stacked tower-tall, and arrayed around their bodies like a castle wall.

"Lilium — this?"

Threading skilfully past that castle-wall, the slim-bodied girl — Aiz — ran up to one of the four-legged long tables set throughout the library, beautiful silver eyes turned to the requester, and put the line out again.

Aiz, both hands cradling the larger-than-average book that had been on the desk, turned to show it to her requester.

The requester, on seeing it —

"Yes! That, that!"

— flicked a thumb up and showed it brightly to Aiz.

"Hah, even though I throw out that and over there without thinking twice, Aiz catches my meaning exactly, it's a real help."

"Hehe, around here, big books — only this one. From overhead, easy to see."

Aiz, in a small bright laugh, walked over to her requester — Lilium.

Carefully avoiding upsetting the surrounding stacks, she finally reached Lilium's side and gently set the large book down beside her.

In every one of those motions, a quiet attentiveness toward Lilium showed and hid by turns.

"Aaaah — one Aiz per household, please. — No, the lot of us together are basically one household, so it's: one Aiz per room, please."

Lilium had noticed that thoughtfulness too. Lifting her gaze from the page she was on, taking advantage of the slim-built Aiz's having drawn close, she hugged her.

"Eh — eh?!"

To Lilium starting in on cheek-rubbing, Aiz, eyes rounded in surprise, did not push her off.

The Lilium-skin against Aiz's cheek was soft and smooth, and in fact, Aiz herself was, slightly, enjoying the comfort.

And, from the side Lilium was hugging her, Lilium's body-warmth came across; the warmth gave Aiz a strange small joy.

"Aaah — make a hugging-pillow of you, want to. — Mind, this place is cold. Try to warm with Living Flame, and Salman gets cross."

"This place — flammables, lots, after all."

Lilium let a sigh-like Hoh out toward the library's ceiling.

"Hah… mind, that man, if he stood quietly, with that face and that hair, could nearly pass as a young lord; but the way he keeps fussing about every other Demon Lord and also nags everyone — somewhere in there it makes him like a mother. — Even though he's a man."

"Riina and Miina are, always glued to him too, after all."

"Those twins. Even now, sometimes I lose track of which is which."

"Salman-kun, can tell, apparently."

"What's that — frightening… mysterious maternal-instinct in full deployment."

"Hehe, said to him, he'd be cross, though."

Lilium, saying it, still hugging Aiz, threw her gaze idly around.

The library was, technically, one room of Star-Tree Castle, but in feel less room than grand hall.

The interior was a half-atrium three-tier structure, with a spiral staircase running along the outer rim. As the ceiling cuts open vertically, the floors connected boldly upward.

From the first floor up to the second, and on to the third, books were packed densely. Even the wall along the spiral staircase had books crammed in at intervals — a fairly significant book-count.

The first floor, with the four-legged long tables Aiz had just visited, set out in number, was equipped with chairs around each so that many could sit.

With just the two of them combing the books, it was the room's too-largeness that gave a faintly desolate impression — but when the rest of 〈Knowledge (Razlas)〉's Demon Lords, currently out gathering information, came back, it could get reasonably busy.

"Plenty of candlesticks though — surely it's fine to use Living Flame?"

"The flames on an ordinary candlestick — don't, walk around on their own, after all."

"Mu…"

At the spiral staircase's mid-points, and in spots on the first floor, ornately decorated three-pronged candelabra were installed.

On the long tables too, multiple branched candelabra (girandoles) sat, providing soft light even now.

What stood out most among those —

"The big one is that one, though."

Where Lilium looked up.

Above the room's third floor, set into the ceiling — a chandelier of crystal-studded suspended-ceiling type, almost certainly priced eye-wateringly — hung.

"That money-fiend, at first, tried to sell that chandelier and caused a real problem."

"Shaw-kun, expensive-looking things, no resistance, after all."

"You don't have to tack on the -kun."

"Mm-mm, even like that, Shaw-kun is fairly young — and, sometimes, like Merea-kun, becomes — child-like, you know?"

Though Aiz was, as she said it, head-tilted in slight self-question, the line itself was not flattery.

The same way Merea's eyes shine on a new thing, Shaw too can show a similar shine on a money-shaped item.

— L-lumping them together — perhaps not the best…?

In any case — at some point, the address had moved naturally from -san to -kun.

Shared experience, perhaps, had unconsciously narrowed the distance.

For that matter — Shaw himself, while normally adult-feeling and gentleman-shaped, was likely not much older in real years.

She had not asked directly — but at most three or four years on Merea.

The intense-merchant negotiating-stretch he had run, however, was almost certainly the source of that strange spaciousness unaccounted for by the small age-gap.

Equally — the long stretch in the merchant world's deep-end, and his still gleeful insistence on staying in it, spoke of his own deep-end-ness.

None of the Demon Lords doubted that point.

The two of them held that conviction.

"Mn. — Right enough, on money-tinged matters he visibly flips once in a while. Looking up at the chandelier, there was drool. — Mind, that's slightly different. — Truly there are way too many strange people in this group."

Lilium said it, finally peeled off Aiz with a Thanks — warm, and laughed like a mischievous girl.

Returning her eye to her hand's book, reading at a speed Aiz could not match, Lilium —

— Amazing.

Aiz thought.

She, on her end, in a particular field, held particularly outstanding strength — Aiz did not doubt.

About to return to her own work, Aiz suddenly heard, from the library entrance, a creak — a door's joint complaining.

Star-Tree Castle's walls were white-stone, but the doors, in keeping with the star-tree theme, were wooden.

Likely, an old wooden door's joint was groaning under being pushed.

"Phew… in my own estimation, my infiltration-craft is improving. — …Wait. Is this a new flavour of training? Am I, again, dancing on the palm of Marisa's hand…?"

A familiar voice nudged Aiz's ear.

A man's voice, with a strangely comfortable timbre.

Lilium, having caught the voice too, sighed in the same beat and clapped the book in her hand shut.

The motion read as one of the troublesome ones has arrived, but Aiz could see, somewhere in Lilium's face, a faint enjoyment.

"Here he comes — the curiosity-beast."

"Today, also — question-storm, looks like — Lilium?"

"Honestly. This is the trouble with country-folk."

Lilium, still on a faintly amused colour, laughed through her nose, swept her crimson long hair back over her ear, and looked at the library's entrance.

"Oh — yo, yo, keeping busy, gentle-folk of 〈Knowledge (Razlas)〉?"

"That acting-style — if you're not used to it, drop it. The third-rate-theatre smell hits the nose."

"Fool — is there anyone who's smooth at the start? My clumsiness is something I can practically boast about — at that level of sarcasm my heart does not fold!"

"You're sharp-pointed in too many directions, that's what. You calling yourself clumsy would have all 〈Blue Rose Academy〉's lecturers in a riot."

"Correct the inequity! — Preferably so we don't have to study!"

"Personal-wishful-thinking, far too high concentration."

Watching Merea's stagey one-handed entrance and Lilium's bouncy sarcastic returns, Aiz, once again, laughed.