Chapter 4 - Let's Learn Magic (1)

Learning magic was a little different from what I'd imagined. I'd expected breathing exercises or sitting cross-legged to sense mana, but first, I needed knowledge.

I opened the grimoire again and sat down at my desk with a notebook beside me, as if I were studying a textbook for my major. Reading Mysteries of the Worm, I worked through it methodically, taking notes and memorizing things.

"Oh, so that's what planetary days are. Mercury's day is Wednesday, and Jupiter's day is Thursday. Much more intuitive than I expected."

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

The Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, the Sun.

According to medieval magical theory, these seven planets possessed great magical power, so certain powerful spells had to be cast by drawing on the attributes and power of the corresponding planet. Getting the day right wasn't enough, either. You had to get the time of day right as well.

That planet's power was strongest during the first hour after sunrise. Afterward, other planets' powers took over in an hourly cycle. Since there were seven planets, if you missed the first hour after sunrise, that day's planetary hour would come around again seven hours later. Sunrise varied with the seasons, between summer and winter, so you had to calculate carefully and pay attention.

... So much to keep track of. Couldn't I just use mana circuits instead of planetary magic power?

Well, apparently it was only necessary for certain spells. Let's see just how amazing those spells were.

[A Spell to Find Stolen Objects] [A Spell to Prevent Accidental Death During Exercise] [A Spell to Make Socks That Keep You from Tiring While Traveling] [A Spell to Win Others' Favor] [A Spell to Pull Off a Scam]

And so on and so forth.

I blinked involuntarily.

I mean, sure, they were impressive in their own way, but... underwhelming. Wasn't there anything more substantial? Something flashy?

Just then, perhaps thinking I was absorbed in my studies, Grizzly quietly placed a hand on the refrigerator door.

"Grrrr."

Grizzly. That was the name I'd given the Invisible Vampire. It tore people apart, so I'd named it after a bear. A grizzly.

I had no idea what fascinated it so much, but it loved opening and closing the refrigerator door.

CREEEAK

"Grizzly."

"Geee..."

At its master's call, Grizzly quietly shut the door again.

I reached out and stroked its head. It felt cool, smooth, and hard. I'd never touched a reptile, but I imagined it might feel similar.

"Good, good."

"Grrrr."

The Invisible Vampire was a horrifying, frightening creature, but I intended to do my best to stay on good terms with it. I didn't know whether it would help... but when it got hungry, at least it might remember me as the person who fed it rather than as meat.

After stroking and scratching Grizzly's head a few more times, I checked the news on my phone.

[Tragic Death of Professor at ○○ University: Possible Connection to University District Incident]

Unsurprisingly, the professor's death in the lecture hall had become a hot topic, linked to the death of the man in the university district. There were murder victims, but no sign of a murderer.

Browsing online, I found posts linking the phenomenon to spontaneous combustion and calling it spontaneous slaughter, claiming an unknown virus had made their bodies burst from within, or insisting the students had killed the professor together and agreed on a story.

Whatever the case, this was bad for me. I'd been at both the first scene and the second.

This was dangerous. That wasn't evidence tying me to the crimes as the killer, but with no evidence at all, they could investigate me for information on the off chance something turned up.

They could write the first time off as bad luck, but the second didn't look good. The one saving grace was that the lecture hall where the professor had died had no CCTV cameras, so there was no footage. But once they obtained the attendance list for that day's class, they'd quickly learn I'd been there too.

"..."

... Was I being too pessimistic? They might never realize I'd been at the first scene at all. Even if they did, couldn't they just let it slide?

"Haah..."

I sighed and stopped indulging in complacent thoughts. Enough of that. Being positive was good, but being blindly optimistic wasn't. The world wasn't some warm, caring place that would do whatever I wanted. Hadn't I learned that when my birth mother abandoned me at an orphanage at the age of five?

... Now I'd gone and pissed myself off by remembering that day. I couldn't even remember her face anymore.

Fucking bitch. If she was going to abandon me anyway, she could've done it when I was a newborn. I'd missed the entire window for adoption, so no one ever took me in.

A hollow laugh escaped me. Well, I wasn't exactly lovable, either. Given my personality, even if I'd been adopted, they'd probably have returned me right away.

Dwelling on the past wasn't my thing.

Anyway, I had plenty of problems to solve... Practically nothing but problems, really. Still, to sum things up, there were three main things I needed to do from now on.

First - study magic through the grimoire. This was essential. Beyond simply understanding the grimoire and keeping Grizzly under control, the knowledge and spells in it could prove useful to me.

Second - conceal my connection to the murders of the man and the professor.

Government agencies looked incompetent, but sometimes they were competent in the strangest areas. Maybe I was just imagining things.

But with a real grimoire and a monster right here, there had to be a secret government organization that managed such things and maintained social order. That organization would investigate the incidents and find me.

I had to hide the fact that I possessed the grimoire Mysteries of the Worm and was the master of the Invisible Vampire.

They might try to recruit me, but however I looked at it, rather than go through all that trouble, it would be far more reliable and safer to neatly kill off one orphan bastard with neither strength nor influence, then retrieve the grimoire and put it in storage.

And finally, the third thing. This was the most important.

"Gyaa?"

Seeing me staring at it in silence, Grizzly tilted its head, then held out the basin it used as a food bowl.

"Gyaah!"

It was as if it were saying, 'Feed me!' ... No, not "as if." It really was telling me to feed it.

"..."

Third - earn enough money to feed Grizzly.

It was good to learn that I could feed it meat from the butcher's shop and milk, but perhaps because it was so big, it ate a considerable amount.

... Should I take a leave of absence from university and pick up more part-time shifts?

At least it didn't poop, whether because it digested everything or because its body worked differently as a monster. Thank goodness I didn't have to buy a litter box and poop bags.

* * *

[Special Response Section Conference Room]

No one bothered to write down or say what it responded to. An organization that responded to things beyond human reason and preserved social order—that was the Special Response Section.

The beginning of the current case.

The presentation in the conference room showed footage of a man being brutally murdered on a street in the university district. His arm was torn off and his entrails scattered, but though the killing was visible, the killer was not.

"... What kind of lunatic did this?"

Until now, bizarre incidents had mostly occurred in abandoned buildings or places out of public view. This one, however, had happened brazenly in the middle of the street. Moreover, though it wasn't certain whether the two incidents were connected, a professor had been killed in a university lecture hall the very next day.

Was the perpetrator incapable of reason? Or was this a declaration of war?

The higher-ups backing the Special Response Section were in an uproar over these blatant murders. Accustomed to issuing orders from somewhere safe, they had now been instilled with the fear that some invisible "thing" might kill them at any moment.

"But why was that man killed so brutally? Who was he?"

"Considering we're dealing with someone who'd do this, maybe they just killed him out of boredom?"

"It might not have been a person in the first place."

Amid the murmurs of the other civil servants attending the meeting, the neat-looking woman at the podium continued her briefing. She was Shin Sion of the Special Response Section.

"We're currently considering the possibility that a grimoire is involved in this case."

Sion advanced the presentation to the next slide. On the screen appeared a book with a beautiful, old-fashioned white cover.

"This is the grimoire <The Book of the Angel Raziel>, which was kept at the Vatican. It is currently missing. It sensed a compatible master and left of its own accord to seek them out."

"... What do you mean by that?"

"Grimoires aren't objects that can be kept securely in storage. They merely suspend their activities for a time because there's no master they like."

Sion explained in a calm voice.

"Grimoires with tremendous power find new masters either by manipulating circumstances so that someone who suits their tastes or whom they consider compatible can choose them, or simply by leaving it to chance."

"For example, they might slip in among inherited belongings as an old book. Or wait for their master in a used bookstore."

The government official rubbed his chin.

"... Then are you saying this case is connected to that <The Book of the Angel Raziel>?"

"No, it isn't. The magic in The Book of the Angel Raziel consists of prophecy, methods of reading people's innermost secrets, and angelic spells."

Sion switched the presentation back to the footage of the man being murdered in the middle of the street.

"We believe a grimoire is involved because this incident doesn't fit the behavioral patterns of wizards or anomalous entities. Even when those beings cause incidents, they don't do it this openly on a street lined with CCTV cameras. They act more discreetly."

Her calm voice filled the conference room as she worked through the case step by step.

"For that reason, the Special Response Section is considering whether this incident was caused by a user running out of control after happening to acquire a grimoire or a dangerous artifact."