Chapter 0: Prologue

Later generations remembered the heinous wizard Baskerville as having failed to summon the Demon King.

The Tower of Twilight and Anguish.

This order of mages shared the empire’s rise and fall. It produced a few great mages whose names would long be remembered in the mortal world, hundreds of leading magical scholars, and one person called a demon.

The Tower of Twilight and Anguish had several traditions as old and stubborn as its long history. One was the courage test: give an apprentice mage or scholar one lamp and send them down to the underground library. No one knew when this nasty tradition began.

“It’s like an underground prison. Creepy…”

The apprentice mage who had come down to the tunnel-like underground library with his fellow apprentices shrugged. The air was dry as a desert despite being underground, probably because it stored books. Somewhere a fan circulating the underground air creaked as it ran.

“Underground prison my ass.”

A man covered in freckles snorted. The sound was sucked down the arched tunnel and echoed back much later.

“People go missing every year during the courage test? That’s just a bluff the seniors made up to scare us. You believe that, you naive fool.”

“The underground library really is a maze! Even the senior mage in our lab often gets lost down here.”

The man with the lamp shone the light over the arched ceiling and the walls packed with books. A rat that had been gnawing on something unknown squeaked and fled.

“Don’t you know a lot of registered mages are bad with directions? They spend decades buried in books, so they get careless about everything else. Someone who can’t find a magic sample on his own desk and turns the lab upside down is going to be great at finding his way?”

“Right, right. They say a lot of mages can’t even find that place between a wife’s legs.”

“Oh my, so ‘bad with directions’ meant that kind of bad with directions?”

Everyone naturally started trading dirty jokes. Small talk was necessary to endure the boredom of walking through the narrow, stifling tunnel.

“They say there’s no book that isn’t in the underground library of the Tower of Twilight and Anguish.”

The plump mage lowered his voice even though he knew only the four of them were nearby.

“Maybe Baskerville’s books or research journals are shelved somewhere down here too?”

“Who knows. All books written by the great traitor Baskerville were designated forbidden. Just reading them, or even possessing them, is a hanging offense. You think they’d leave Baskerville’s works in the underground library?”

The skinny mage shook his head. The lamp in his hand danced left and right, silently sweeping the maze-like tunnels and shelves.

“Even if we got our hands on them, they’d be useless.”

“Why?”

“Because we couldn’t decipher them.”

“Ah…”

A sigh mixed with frustration came from the group.

The man in glasses changed the subject, maybe uncomfortable with the sinking mood.

“Do you know the two mysteries about the underground library?”

“Mysteries?”

“My cousin is also a graduate of the Tower of Twilight and Anguish. I heard this from them. They say a demon lives in this underground library who teaches a secret for raising your circle.”

“Talk sense. It’d be more believable that people go missing in the underground library every year, or that a librarian got lost and starved to death and their corpse is lying somewhere down here.”

“That’s why it’s a mystery. It’s all just a fun story, isn’t it? If you’re not interested, drop it.”

“No, I’m curious! A secret for raising your circle? How?”

The plump man raised his hand with an urgent expression.

For mages, circles were the most sensitive subject of all. There was no need to bring up how registered mages risked their lives trying to move from the fourth circle to the fifth.

There were plenty of mages who could not break the wall of the fourth circle and got stuck there, and who reached for illegal drugs without hesitation. Anyone learning magic lived with the fear that they might never reach the fifth circle before they died.

“They say if you write a contract selling your soul in blood and stick it in a fixed place, a demon raises your circle according to the value of your soul.”

“Where is that fixed place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tch.”

“Ah, what the hell. You got my hopes up.”

After chatting for a while, the four turned left at a crossroads shaped like a plus.

“You said there were two mysteries earlier. What’s the other one?”

The man with the lamp asked the man in glasses.

“Ah, that. The ghost that wanders the underground library.”

The man in glasses rolled his eyes until only the whites showed and let out a creepy heh heh.

“Come on, boring. A ghost? That’s such a worn-out trope.”

“Let’s decide if it’s stale after you hear it.”

The skinny man motioned for the man in glasses to hurry and talk.

“Now, about a hundred years ago! A mage belonging to the Tower of Twilight and Anguish committed a great crime. That mage was a hunchback. He was tricked by a promise to fix his back and tried to smuggle research secrets to an enemy nation. Somehow they stopped the leak, but the Tower considered it a disgrace and decided to handle it quietly inside instead of informing the kingdom.”

The man in glasses was building up the mood, but Freckles shrugged as if it was lame.

“Hmph, I don’t need to hear the rest. You’re going to say they executed the criminal in the underground library, right?”

“Ghost stories are usually fun precisely because they’re obvious…”

“Ugh, that damned mouth.”

Freckles cut in at the climax, and the conversation broke off. The four walked through the tunnel for about thirty minutes without saying anything to each other.

Swish, swish.

Swish, swisssh.

“Hey, doesn’t it sound like something’s making noise up ahead?”

The plump man flinched and shrank his neck, tugging at the sleeve of the man with the lamp.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

That was when it happened.

Squeak! Squeak squeak!

Beyond the pitch-black tunnel, rats squealed frantically.

“Ugh, why are the rats going crazy?”

“Don’t mind it. They’re probably fighting over food.”

“It doesn’t sound like that. It sounds like they’re in danger…”

“Scared? Weren’t you too absorbed in that clumsy ghost story earlier?”

Freckles giggled and put his arm around the plump man’s shoulder.

That was when three or four rats charged from beyond the arched tunnel toward the mages.

Squeak squeak! Squeak squeak squeak!

“Aaaagh!”

“W-what? What’s happening!”

The mages panicked and did a round of tap dancing.

“Did they go? All gone?”

“Everyone calm down. Just a few rats… Hiiik!”

A shrill scream burst from the apprentice mage again. Beyond the dim tunnel stood an unknown man with his hood pulled deep over his head. His back was stooped, and in his hand was a long object that looked like a magic wand.

“G-g-ghost!”

“Th-that can’t be.”

“A ghost really appeared!”

The mages screamed and sprinted in the direction the rats had fled. Freckles, who had mocked his friend for asking where a ghost was, was no exception.

The screams faded faintly beyond the tunnel, and silence settled over the underground dust.

“Another courage test. Do they never get tired of it every year? Young people.”

The hooded man clicked his tongue lightly as he looked in the direction the mages had fled. The mages had mistaken him for a hunchback ghost, but he was neither a ghost nor a hunchback.

“The lamp broke again.”

The man sighed and leaned the broom that had chased off the rats against the wall at an angle. This broom was the real identity of the object the mages had mistaken for a wand.

“The ghost of the underground library.”

The man took a match from a loose pocket and muttered low.

“Last year they called me a cursed wraith. The title changed already. Ghost or wraith, it’s all the same.”

The man felt little about being treated as a ghost by the apprentice mages. If someone found a man walking around at midnight, in a dark underground library they thought was empty, with his hood pulled deep, anyone would jump out of their skin.

He only cleaned as ordered from above, but the apprentice mages who had entered the Tower of Twilight and Anguish not long ago had no way to know that.

Tak!

When he took out a match and lit it, the surroundings brightened for a moment. Thick bangs and the hood covering his eyes kept his face hidden. But the skin on the back of his hand outside his sleeve hinted that he was on the young side.

The lamp wick began to burn again.

“Done.”

The youth who had fixed the lamp smiled with satisfaction and picked up the broom.

Swish, swish.

The sound of sweeping the underground library surrounded by books echoed along the walls. On the white back of his hand was a s*ave brand showing that he belonged to the Tower of Twilight and Anguish. As seen, his assigned task as a s*ave was to clean the underground library. It might not look hard, but considering the vast scale of the underground library, the labor was never light.

The s*ave’s name was Rif. The librarians often called him “Guide Rif.” The underground library was so complicated that even librarians who had worked there for over ten years often got lost, but Rif knew its structure inside out, as if he had lived there for a hundred years.

Because he knew the way so well, the librarians sometimes had him run errands beyond cleaning. They pushed their work onto the s*ave Rif, having him organize shelves for them or find and bring books the mages requested.

Some librarians doubted that a s*ave knew how to read. But sending Riff on errands was convenient, so they soon let the matter go. They assumed some lazy person had taught him letters so they could dump work on him. Contrary to their guess, Riff had never learned to read from anyone.

Riff swept the floor with a broom and wandered the maze-like underground library. He stopped in front of a bookshelf planted in a corner.

“……”

Riff glanced around as if checking for watchers, then stood on tiptoe and pulled out an old book.

The thick cover had a title worn away to nothing. When he opened it, a square hollow was carved inside. Riff took out the envelope lying neatly within, then slid the book back into place.

He tore open the sealed envelope and shook it over his palm. Ten silver coins and a letter fell out. The letter was crammed with patterns and symbols like those found in a grimoire, drawn densely as worms.

“So it’s the compression loss rate problem under 4th-circle mana acceleration.”

Riff skimmed the letter and muttered as if it were nothing. He took a piece of charcoal from the pouch at his waist.

“The output variable calculation is completely wrong. He can’t even design a basic formula like this. This kid must have gotten into the Magic Tower through the back door too. Is the admissions office full of blind pigs? Why do they keep letting unqualified kids into the tower?”

Like a strict old professor grading exam papers, Riff corrected the long magic formulas. Then he suddenly let out a long sigh.

“Maybe the influence of the Tower of Twilight and Agony isn’t what it used to be…”

Riff’s voice, sighing over the impermanence of time, was as clear and pure as a choir soloist.

Scratch, scratch.

The sound of charcoal brushing paper echoed through the tunnel where lamplight flickered. The letter an anonymous mage had sent to a demon was becoming miserably ragged because of errors pointed out by one lowly s*ave.

“Done.”

After finishing his work on the formulas, Riff folded the letter and put it in the old book. He had no way of knowing whether the mage who came to retrieve it the next day would be pleased to see his formulas so thoroughly handled by a demon, or fall into frustration and gloom. He didn’t care either.

But the mage would shudder at the fact that the underground library’s rumored wonder was real. Most clients didn’t believe the library’s wonder was real. They simply hit a wall in their research, brought an envelope to the underground library clutching at straws, and then experienced a miracle.

Not that a demon really lived in the underground library, as the apprentice mages gossiped. There was a large difference between the stories told among apprentices and full mages. There was no demon in the underground library who took a mage’s soul and raised their circle. But there really was an oddball who took money and solved the problems mages asked him to solve.

To make a request to the unknown oddball, a mage had to follow two rules.

First. A client could make only one request in their lifetime.

Second. They must not ask about magic formulas, theories, or hypotheses corresponding to the 5th circle. If a question went beyond the 4th circle, the oddball did not even touch the silver coins.

Some sneered that he was a 4th-circle master because he would not take requests above the 4th circle. But reversed, that also meant the oddball had completely mastered the 4th circle. The oddball of the underground library seemed to know everything within the 4th circle. He wrote perfect answers to any bizarre hypothesis and question.

“Maybe I should have just made a new 4th-circle formula and written that for him.”

Riff, lost in thought for a while, made a hand motion like stroking a long beard. But his chin was smooth as a child’s.

“Rebuilding it myself would have finished faster than fixing every little thing.”

Since the structure of the formula in the letter was such a mess, finding the wrong parts, correcting them, and repairing them had been more trouble.

“Stop it, Riff. It’s a side job for pocket money. Showing needless kindness only brings trouble.”

Riff, both the ghost of the underground library and the unknown oddball, let out a heavy sigh like an old man and moved slowly.

Ten silver coins were never pocket money for a s*ave, but slaves owned by the Tower of Twilight and Agony were strictly forbidden private property. If someone who witnessed this reported it to the Magic Tower administrator, Riff’s wrist would be cut off under national law. Fortunately, the empty underground library had no one to hear Riff’s muttering. No one watched Riff put the silver coins in his pocket either.

Clink, clink.

The sound of silver coins knocking together rang clear from the s*ave’s pocket as he took his broom and disappeared beyond the tunnel. Riff’s back as he passed through the tunnel by lamplight somehow made one think of a lonely pilgrim setting out on a harsh journey to wash away worldly sins.

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