It was raining again today.
That was the thought echoing in Kuon's mind as he gazed out the window, a thick book held in both hands.
The damp air of this northern country was nothing like what he was used to on Earth. Kuon took off his gloves and rubbed his fingertips against the paper, then finally let out a sigh and shook his head.
On the other hand, Kuon couldn't help but give this building, which served as the public library, its due. Even though the rain outside was falling hard, not a drop seeped in from anywhere, and the noise was comparatively muted.
The book in his hands, and the pile of books stacked on his table—each had a different title, with no connection between them. Yet anyone who saw them would conclude he was studying everything related to history.
Among them all, though, were a few political books whose title lettering had begun to blur, as though swallowed by age.
'I didn't bring an umbrella….'
The sky had been overcast since morning, but the rain only truly came down when the sun should have been at its peak. Realizing that, Kuon immediately shook his head. He'd really spent hours in this place without noticing. And now, he couldn't go back.
"Ohh? Kuon? Never thought I'd see you off duty."
Kuon stopped his finger, which had been about to turn a page, and looked behind him.
There stood Vierra, smiling. Her clothes were casual—something Kuon had never seen on her before—with a few thick books cradled in her arms.
"… Right. This is the first time I've seen you in casual clothes like that, too."
At the moment, Vierra was wearing a loose white long-sleeved blouse—a contrast to her shoulder-length brown hair. For the bottom half, she wore long trousers that looked like they prioritized comfort over flexibility.
'Not bad taste.'
Usually, Kuon had only ever seen her in outfits meant for fighting or exploring; things like fairly snug trousers, and a shirt paired with a jacket that clung tightly to every curve of her body.
"I'm sure Kanon would be furious if she heard you kept staring at me like this."
The moment her words left her mouth, Kuon finally snorted and closed the book he'd been reading.
"Consider my gaze a compliment, and be proud to have received it. I don't hand those out to just anyone."
"Ohh? Does that mean you like this style of clothing?"
"I'll admit it's good taste, and I'm sure Felix would like it too, at the very least."
"Why are you bringing Felix into this… oh, never mind."
Vierra set her books down on the table and sat right across from Kuon.
A quiet, soothing atmosphere, accompanied by the faint patter of rain audible from where they sat…. For a moment, neither of them spoke as each busied themselves with their own reading material, but then Kuon finished the book in his hands and seized the chance to speak as his hand reached for another book on the table.
"By the way, how's Kanon's training going? Is everything running smoothly?"
The moment the question left his mouth, the bored expression on Vierra's face instantly turned into a thoroughly despondent smile.
Kuon knew that expression well, so he didn't push Vierra to continue, instead calmly waiting until she said it on her own.
"… It's all going smoothly—so smoothly it's giving me a headache."
Her fingers fidgeted restlessly against the book's pages, while the voice answering Kuon grew resigned and lifeless.
"Kanon is far too talented, with a terrifying capacity for learning. I mean, it's only been two weeks since I started training her, and she's already mastered everything. And before you comment, keep in mind that what I taught Kanon was everything I once learned through sheer desperation back at the Laplace Institute."
The Laplace Institute. Kuon knew the name from what he'd read. To be precise, its full name was the Laplace Scientific Foundation (LSF). It was an educational institution that served the same function as a university on Earth—teaching general knowledge all the way down to specific, in-depth subjects such as research into anything tinged with mysticism; like magic, anomalous disasters, and so on.
Kuon had also added that name to his list of institutions to visit someday. Fortunately, Vierra and Felix both had a history of graduating from there, so Kuon more or less already had a reliable source of information.
"I'm happy, and proud too, that there's a genius learning from me. But strangely, it depresses me a little. I mean, everything I taught her is basically material I only managed to master after studying it for years. I graduated after five years, which is the standard timeline. Kanon, who mastered the equivalent of all five years' worth of material in just two weeks, is a monster in my eyes."
Tapping the table repeatedly with her fingertip, Vierra added, "I only realized it after she managed to pull off something I'd struggled with for months, and even perfected it on her own in just two or three attempts. Right now, I'm certain that if Kanon tried taking the Magician exam at the LSF, she'd pass in the blink of an eye."
On top of that, Vierra said, the fact that the two of them were the same age only made her more depressed.
"I never would've guessed she's eighteen too, just like me…. She still looks young, but her mature attitude sometimes makes me think her age is closer to yours, Kuon…."
For the record, Kuon was twenty years old. So the difference wasn't all that big.
Kuon wanted to add that comment, but held himself back.
"So, you came here to find extra material you could teach her?"
The question seemed to hit its mark, because Vierra's face tensed for a moment, but quickly shifted after she let out a resigned sigh.
'No point hiding it, anyway,' she thought.
"That's right. Honestly, at the pace she's learning, I'm going to run out of material within a few days, so I decided to study even more. Even if I can't fully master it in the end, I can at least teach Kanon the basics, and she'll perfect the rest herself."
Hearing all that, Kuon unconsciously formed a smile on his face—something Vierra had almost never seen.
For a moment, Vierra fell silent, as though wanting to admire that smile, but then Kuon lifted his face from the page and asked a question that startled her for a moment.
"May I ask something? Why do you work so hard? My words may be harsh, but it's a fact, and you surely realize it too; whatever you're going to do will most likely amount to something insignificant. Knowing that, why do you still work so hard?"
"…."
Vierra didn't answer right away, instead lowering her gaze for a moment, a resigned smile on her face. After staring at her palms for a while, she finally spoke.
"Because this is all I can do as an ordinary person."
"Felix, who's traveling with me, is a genius—though perhaps not on the same level as you and Kanon—but that genius of his is what let him graduate from Laplace a full year ahead of the standard timeline."
"Someone like that decided to ignore the doors of his future and chose to follow my journey instead… there's no way I can afford to relax. At the very least, I want to keep our standing on this journey equal, even though he always respects me as his senior. And more than that, as someone born without a Gift, working hard to catch up is something I simply have to do."
At some point the rain had eased, and faint sunlight slipped in through the window and lit up their open books.
"So, the answer to your question is that working hard is the only thing I can do."
Hearing that answer, Kuon smiled and nodded in satisfaction.
Someone like Vierra was an example of the kind of person he respected—one who didn't resign herself to her weakness and give up, but instead searched for ways to fulfill her own potential.
"The LSF might well feel honored to have an alumna like you."
"I'd be happy if they saw me that way. In their eyes, I'm nothing more than one graduate among many—not someone who left a deep mark."
Words of simple self-deprecation, spoken with complete calm and without a ripple of emotion. Kuon was certain there was still something Vierra was hiding and didn't want to reveal at this table, and he had no intention of digging any further himself.
Vierra sighed, then looked at him once more with curiosity. "What about you? Are you a graduate of the LSF?"
"It might disappoint you, but I've never even set foot there."
"Eh, really? That's surprising. I figured someone like you would be in high demand there. But yeah, I guess it makes sense. If you'd been there, you'd have graduated at the top, and I'd definitely know you. So where did you study? You must have a formal education record, right?"
Kuon thought for a moment as he stared at the grain of the wooden table. The corner of his lips lifted slightly as a sense of mischief—irrelevant as it was now—that hadn't surfaced in a long time finally showed itself.
"I graduated from St. Solenne Academy."
Vierra seemed to ponder the name for a moment, but in the end gave up with a resigned sigh. "I don't know that name."
"It's not a famous place, so it's only natural you wouldn't."
A lingering dissatisfaction remained in Vierra's mind. She could only imagine that Kuon must have studied and graduated from some renowned place; she'd never expected to hear a name she didn't recognize at all.
Meanwhile, in a system Kuon could no longer access.
Anon11247: "This bastard really loves lying, doesn't he?"
Anon11248: "What kind of idiot calls one of the best universities in the world 'not famous'? Is he trying to challenge us or something??"
Anon11249: "Technically, he's not lying. That name really isn't famous in Lios. But you're right, he might be challenging us. He confirmed he graduated from there."
Anon11250: "Damn it. That look in his eyes was practically telling us to search with everything we've got. I'm starting to get annoyed with this guy."
Anon11251: "What annoys me most is that he can't read any of our comments here; which means he doesn't have to pay any attention to our words!"
Anon11252: "… I'm going to Kanon's stream."
Anon11253: "You'd better not. Her fans will be bothered by your sudden invasion. And I think Kanon's too gentle to pass our words on to Kuon."
Anon11254: "Idiot! That's exactly what Kuon wants you to think! At the very least, we'll beg Kanon to tell him that we'll keep digging into this bastard's identity down to the roots!"
….
…
The comments kept coming, but Kuon couldn't see any of them. Even so, he'd more or less guessed what kind of reaction the viewers were having, and that was satisfying enough for him.
***
The conversation between Kuon and Vierra carried on until the sun finally sank, painting the evening sky in an orange-violet glow.
Their conversation wasn't entirely idle, and Kuon took the opportunity to ask about things that had long been question marks in his notebook.
The information from general books and his own eyes had been enough to reach conclusions, but the added knowledge from someone who'd learned from the best source was beyond doubt. The new information from Vierra was truly valuable to him; enough to turn what had been flawed, incomplete information in his head into something whole and coherent.
Before him lay a notebook filled with his own handwriting, packed with the new knowledge he'd gained from Vierra; about the Black Tide, Apocrypt, Deas Rift, and Dead Piles.
That didn't mean he'd gotten all that information for free, however. In fact, Kuon had given Vierra the right to ask him anything. Of course, within clear limits; such as the fact that Kuon wouldn't answer any question he considered sensitive.
"Then, first question—this one's been bothering me for quite a while. What exactly did you do to end up with such pure Aether?"
A question that went straight to the heart of things, with no pleasantries. Kuon found himself struggling to answer it. Because by Lios's normal logic, an Aether condition like his was probably something rare, or perhaps never seen at all.
His pure Aether was compatible with, and a great help to Miracle Manipulation. He could tell Vierra that much, but not how he'd come by it. And even if he answered along those lines, Vierra would surely steer the question toward his Miracle Manipulation instead.
Kuon had no wish to think up a proper answer, nor any intention of answering a question like that in the first place. In that case, what he could do was... change the subject.
"That's surprising. You can see Aether too? I thought Kanon was the only one around here with that ability."
Vierra immediately shook her head. "No. It's different from Kanon's eyes. Kanon's constitution was special from the start, considering that people able to see Aether are relatively rare. What I do is nothing more than a method people developed long ago to imitate that special ability of the eyes."
"How should I explain this… it's not like you can see Aether directly with this method. It's more like… the method helps you maximize your sensitivity to Aether. So in the end, what I'm doing isn't seeing it directly, but sensing it, so that you're able to see it faintly."
Aether could indeed be sensed. Kuon knew that much, at least. But from Vierra's explanation, if one could maximize Aether sensitivity through the method she described, the sensations felt would ultimately become visual information they could see.
How long would an ability like that take to develop? All the related research had been carried out to replicate a special ability that only a handful of people possessed.
Kuon let out a quiet sigh as he adjusted his monocle.
"… What's the downside?"
"Heh, figured you'd catch on right away. The main drawback is that you can't use this ability passively, and you also need a 'trigger' to activate it. That trigger is the part that's a bit burdensome."
An ability like that really shouldn't be active all the time. The closest example they had was the side effect Kanon had to suffer every time her eyes took in the sight of Aether without pause.
"The trigger differs from person to person, but the most effective kind is one that makes your body respond instantly—and I'm sure you know what that is."
Kuon raised both eyebrows slightly as he answered in a voice seeking confirmation, "Pain, huh?"
Vierra nodded. "This ability isn't something you can acquire through ordinary training, but something you have to instill in your own body. In my case, the trigger I use is cutting off the oxygen flow to my lungs for a fraction of a second—enough to make me respond, but not enough to kill or incapacitate me outright. Felix, on the other hand, replicates the pain of being shot with an arrow."
Both used triggers based on pain, but the most fundamental difference was that Felix only replicated that pain inside his own mind—a concept similar to self-suggestion—while Vierra actually used a trigger that affected her body for real.
It all sounded like a rather sadistic and practically dangerous method, but Kuon couldn't deny that it was the most effective way available right now. Just thinking about people being able to replicate such a special ability made the side effects seem utterly trivial.
Besides, those side effects would be nothing once someone grew accustomed to the sensation. That was what Kuon thought for a moment, before correcting himself.
If someone grew accustomed to the sensation, there was a chance their body would lose the ability to respond to the trigger instantly. In that case, the method would no longer be of any use.
"Good, that's worth trying. Vierra, do you have time after this?"
The sudden question left Vierra staring blankly at Kuon. "Kanon's training on her own today, and Felix is still wandering around somewhere. So I'm pretty free… wait, Kuon, I've got a bad feeling about this."
Kuon casually ignored that and, without preamble, stated his business as he closed the book in his hands. "Put your knowledge and experience to use, because I'm finally going to ask you to teach me something."