Part 2: Fantasy Society

Precisely at the apex of respite regulation, the bell diffused across the hall. Students entirely had the expectation to disentangle from study-suffering. But the thought of mine alone, shattered. Personally, I had a duty to heed.

Weighting about the end of the month, stomps of shoes shrank in number, skipped several risers at once; thighs almost visible under my robe. All of sudden, a woman from the upper floor stood at the final stair, I knew it was a premonition for me.

"Ah, Siqura." She tiptoed toward me, took a few steps down as if wanted to push me off. "Where have you being? Busy, so tight."

"Yes, Professor." Without a word of resentment, I accepted to bear her incoming request. "On the way, as far as I could be." I tried to balance myself in the middle stairs, not to fall back or forward. Students were ascending and descending beside, nodded to not disturb discussion between two of us.

Sharp ears flapped steeply as if attempted to burst straight through the volcanic-shape hat. By categorized her as a human race, she was a fully grown Elf which heavily taught upon morality for respect to the elder. Creases on her robe shifted a bit, limestone-key rigidly produced out from pocket into her fragile and lengthened fingers. Sometimes, I wondered if she would glass-break if I tugged too quick or too slow. It affected my ability to lift the key.

"It's okay. I ― the one ― should grateful for having someone in an hour of vital."

"Is there something I could do, Professor?"

"Today...we..." She took a breath, calling the reason for blocking me. "Yah! Siqura can you unpack new books? We have scarce hands today. Someone needs to fill holed schedule but lately, people had been seeing sick than dependable."

"I will."

Having been ambushed by the elf professor who managing the library, I picked substantial-key and had to walk a bit further away from the destination. I ventured to the staff office, borrowed one waxed dummy of human size. With my strength alone, I heaved it to my back since it was made from a vicksy tree; a durable and light wood for simple and quick use.

Choosing the right collection of boxes I had to fetch inside the storage room, I spotted some students who wore robes and others stocked variation-armors. Except all had emblems which almost kind similar to mine.

The one with full-armor had an emblem of armored-man crouched and covered behind a giant shield. As the wearer, she owned shield with the symbol of the circle and an {X} that glossed in blue at the center, dangled on her back. The emblem described her class as a knight. Their job was to protect the city only when involved in fatal casualties such as bank robbery, meteor crash site, or loose troll.

Some students sat on the edge fountain in the schoolyard, surrounded by four sides corridors, basked to a spiral of faint and colorful sunlight, cracked under leaves of the dim tree. They operated a study group session among merchants suggested by emblems painted in the picture of the squared-cloth bag, added with spilled gold pieces. It was a permit to do business, especially when handling dangerous and unstable items.

Finished fifth box, I locked the gate behind and picked my staff. Instead of taking all tolls to the library ― which undeniable impossible ― the staff which embedded with spigen(Spirafy Gentrix), a crystalized mana, came down its foot toward the rock-hard floor. It created a spark.

"{Sicrony} ―" Without concluding even whole sentence, the blue ball of spigen inside the head of oak-staff reacted with chemical trances, glistened medium around me. One magic circle brilliantly appeared under my feet. It sketched by itself to simple symbols and shapes, formed ancient glyph and pictograph letters. First Tier of Magic Spell.

Next, I pointed at the plain-dummy. "{: Shudovo}!"

The circle multiplied into five, four of them stood at the edge of the main one, gliding in clock-orbit but never wheeling. It emitted a sound of buzzing water. The fifth one roofed on top me, bigger than rest. As a result, the four sides circle had to slant upward to connected between below and above magic circles.

Every new magic circle had new seals or symbols, specifically simplified and shortened by a magician to demolish an original long casting spell which could be tedious and taking forever.

After casting period for about...two seconds and a half, all perfect circles enlarged for a bit before a ball of blueish fire produced from the ceiling and dived straight to the dummy. Light dismissed, the spell completed when the dummy climbed on its legs and by only its own.

Hereupon, "Follow me," I commanded the dummy, once was an inanimate object.

The dummy's legs traced its summoner, moving with an invisible force. All in a while, the staff's spigen and the only transparent magic circle under dummy continued glowing and rotating in slow motion. Every second ingested, the brightness of spigen reduced toward lacking color.

Taking the pathway of polished-bricks, I kept shifting my staff between hands as it was unnaturally long and had to constantly channeling mana. But as battlemage, most my spell had strong knockout backward which hard to resist if I used a wand. This education course was to fill a role as a doctor for improving health before sickness occurred. Like year routine when children had to meet tooth doctor twice.

Some students rode in an aery path about one melvi apart above. To prevent anyone from peeking absolute territory skirts or anything similar, the platform was built along wall, where all students flew on that large route of lined rings. Some people just couldn't resist.

Wings fragile as it seemed, they could hold a small body alright. These lives were a race of Fairy, human born with wings grew behind their backs. There was also another type of wings known as Dragiry. The wings had appearance closer to dragon or bat, a bit thicker and strong in a swing. In that case, the fairy was faster and cunning.

Despite all differences, they were human as much as Inome; a race without any unique characteristic, balanced with the ability to cast all magic types. The only one, that stayed neutral, never created conflict due to adaptation. My origin also could cast race spell ― once a day ― boomed three magic spells simultaneously, casting time soled by the longest spell.

"Ah."

"Who am I?" As I touched a set of double doors, my cousin approached me from behind, cut my sight. Her personality always smelled like cheeky imp or goblin. Though, she not born in those races.

"Um..." I quieted a little bit. "Sorry, Erika. I don't know who are you."

"Come on..." She squeezed her eyes, hanging her hands on my shoulders. "You spoke my name a while ago."

"Of course. Asiyur."

"Wasiyur-siyur." She replied in half-hearted spirit. "What problem with playing along?"

Erika who also in robe strolled beside me. She was in the same course as mine. We both went into already opened-doors, leading us into library space.

Staircases crossed to platforms left and right as they shaped up toward the unreasonable heightened ceiling. Shelves were located around walls with an exception on the first floor, filled whole space. Some areas were supplied with tables and sheltered-desks. There were also booths at concealing locations back there for maintaining spigens or constructing a new one. Generally, they were used to shorten the magic spell into simple words as I cast just now.

Students who moving around all were pistillate-mortals, excluded visitors. Whereas most male students preferred aggressive class rather, popularity slackened, the academy transformed into only-female type about two years ago.

Although aggressive, mostly the courses contained scavenging caves, directing big projects of attraction, building new spells and potions, anything requiring an insane amount of energy and time.

To them, support-jobs were too feminine such as weaving magic fabric, nursing, cooking, teaching, actions that needed to memorize and replicate the same behavior to practical work. It didn't raise a better salary but at least it was a secure job.

Instructing the dummy for holding next to counter reception, I deactivated my spigen, it dropped to the floor immediately. The blue mana vibrant drained a little but eventually would recharge if I waited for a few minutes or I could speed up the process by sitting closer to the fountain of mana.

Since I was Inome like Erika, our bodies didn't have mana regeneration, mana container, or any magical boost. We had to depend totally on spigen for mana storage at the cost of weakening output. At least, we could use various spells.

Still, there was always someone lucky, who succeed containing mana in their bodies, thus turned themselves as a spigen entity. It could achieve through meditation and feeding soul with a theory of how mana functioning. But it was still a long path, furthermore thorny one. Especially, if I wished to pursue a career as a doctor. Only people who had compatibility with all support magics could chase the dream.

"I have work to do." I hauled box one by one and transported them toward the empty spot on the table behind the counter.

"Again? You promise me a date. To the city. Together."

I remembered I forget it. But I couldn't say to her. "Well... Did I say next week?"

"You don't mention anything like that."

Discard the staff aside, I rummaged my librarian clothes inside a strap bag. I personally didn't like or hate books. But because this school paid money, I became in part as I needed that earning.

"You're too barbarous."

"That's you!" I went to the exchange room, then stored my robe uniform inside the locker. "Don't you have anyone else?"

"But it's boring without you." Erika who not librarian, invited herself into the restricted area. We had fewer people today, no librarians saw her wrongdoing. Therefore, saved from an extra lecture or one of the scariest events could begin, an after-school punishment time.

Out of the exchange room, I moved back to the reception counter, setting a deck for new books. Every book was made from thick-papers and the cover even harder, stitched in leather. This to make sure it had resistance against water or simply overused.

Someone knocked at the counter, I halted my secondary-task before it even began.

"Here." The visitor who not student passed me a book with a social card. The plate, shaped of the thin box had a silver text of magical symbols.

"Wow." Erika accommodated into comfort. "Spirafy is a spirit hah?" said her while checking out a random dictionary from the box of new books. She stared at my staff, poking crystalized-mana to see if there was a spirit inside.

Spirafy, an ancient magical word, translated as spirit. It didn't mean a living entity although some thought it did. Spirit was just an energy that had been modified. On the other side, Gentrix meant system or data. Thus, spigen actually described as a programmed-spirit through spells in system or data.

I pressed the card on the crystal ball, light collected in white, merged magic circles. All history of his books stated inside. Since I became a librarian I had to learn how to read seal and such. "You do still not return the last book."

"I...need a bit of time." He looked at the orb, yet didn't understand how I could learn from the nonsense complex sketch.

"O-Okay..."

A tube connected into the orb molded like a pipe. I opened the back cover of the book and targeted it under the tube. Special seal ejected out into the air from the book and mixed with the seal from the spigen orb. Combined into one, it downed into paper, updated in locked-seal. Without a linguist, it was hard to confirm how the difference between the current seal and before the transition.

There was always in case of someone attempting to hack seal and finding a weakness or delicate point to override security. With modern magic evolved more and more every day, crackers constantly looking a way to penetrate the magic system and steal sensitive data. If not for modern-spigen, there was no way for Inome to use any magic, forever trapped at bottom rank of social chain.

Attaching card with the book together, I gave it to him. He nodded and left. Seeing no one coming anymore, I revived back my old task.

Erika seemed indifferent with a new book, reading as if she tired repeating the trait of a well-educated daughter. She closed it, begin scavenging for something she had no knowledge yet.

"Don't you have something to do?" I said, scouting titles.

"I do." She peeked me in the middle composing books to a similar subject. "Like waiting my lonely cousin finished her book-er's business."

"I'm not lonely."

"But you always forced too many part-times, forgetting about the existence of your eiluna trum(best friend forever)."

"I thought, you're my cousin..."

"You ought to take one or two days. Just look at you for a second."

"What with...," my hands suspended, "me?"

"When last time you sleep?"

I glanced to the side, unable to push forward. I guessed she was correct regarding that. "W-Well, I decide to catch early tonight."

"Is next year had been erased as the last gamble?"

"Gamble? Did I miss something?"

"You're a girl. At least go snatch some men in the street."

With my life like this, I had to continue working until debt settled. "Hm. Yeah... Maybe."

Supervising the library for almost an hour, the rest period was about to flatten. A replacement started phasing for the next shift. Since I had to change uniform, I dashed my task to last minute, let just-coming-librarian traded our work time.

As I returned from the exchange room, fixing my robe toward the counter for my bag, Erika was talking with three girls. The one right had dark-brown skin with a bit yellowish-green irises. The other was a bit shorter, Dwarf, thick orange hair toned out her characteristic of easygoing.

The middle one who stood out the most, spreading wings of butterfly with magic dusty appeared and disappeared. Since they were fragile, hence, Fairy. Her wings motioned in tiny, glossed with colorful million attention. The outsider men were unable to flee without glance once at least for every ten seconds.

"Siqura!" Erika yelled even in the library. All students stared at her, pretending to not care much. "Want grab food after school?"

The fairy girl glared at me, silenced a click at end of her teeth when Erika didn't look. Only her, among three. The two seemed to notice but acted like they didn't see anything.

"Sorry." I rummaged my eyes, searching for an escape. "I have another...work..."

"Eh? Again? In what, why, when, who, how clock? You should have some time before, right? Come on, Siqura. It's no fun without you."

"Sorry, Erika. I had to go accurately after school." I reached a strap bag, quickly ran outside when my eyes about to bear some serious damage.

Hurried down the staircase, once in the ground-floor I abandoned route to my class, seeking sanctuary behind the school.

At the center of the swamp, there where a huge tree with silver leaves, hinted in blue. Its wooden body also had a trace of blue liquified-rubber, in the pitch dark. Its roots strangled around with gaps, fishes swam inside out. Many birds, rabbits, and fireflies surrounded this place too.

It called Helaria Tree which absorbed badness and exhaled mana. But the most important, it radiated a relaxation aura. Even the crazy or lost mind people from a mental spell mostly could be treat by putting them closer to this tree. For me, this tree was symbolic of my fateful escape.

"What am I doing?" I crawled on the ground, cooled off my fatigue. Because of a family crisis, the school decided to pay all school fees and expenses for my course. If somehow they knew how I absented from class, they might pull back the advantage.

My facial reflected on the swamp's surface. The water was in blueish clear, I could see the face pouring tears without conscious. Under both eyes, the spots weighted from waking night. Seeing this peaceful area, I realized how tired I was, working part-times straight consecutive for days.

Hearing a sudden yet provocative snapped-stick behind, I snatched staff and aimed toward the source. Magic circle summoned after the first word {Sicrony}, basic magic and the fastest casting I could do in my semester.

The young man raised both hands. "I lost."

However, his expression didn't dismiss a bit, making me a bit wary of what he masterminded next. The muscular body didn't match with his younger age. His ears pointed a bit, displayed half born of Inome and Elf. The half-kind race for him received both half specialties. In his case, he could regenerate mana but couldn't contain or hold for longer.

That was why, I held my bag, prepared to run if he used a sudden attack with the mana.

Until he said something stupid, I quickly soaked the robe's sleeve to my face. "No. I'm not."

"Yes. You did."

Without modesty on his words, he fired another honesty directly to my face.

"Are you okay?" Even he asked me that, I didn't sense any reaction in voice, no positive, neither negative. "If you want to cry, I can lend my shoulder."

Glancing at him, time felt slowing down as he looked at me with a stare that made my heart pounding. I dodged the stare unconsciously. All of sudden nervous spawned in my cheeks, tingling nonstop rubbing at the back of my neck.

Living with my mother and going to an all-girls school, encountered an opposite man of my closer age in place with nobody around, I felt impatience waving to skin. Regaining my posture, I grabbed the bag and tried to leave in a hurry.

However, sickness climbed on thighs, heat shook my balance, my low-sleep had taken effect. This was bad if I dropped here.

Staff in my hand vanished, robe replaced with strange uniform: white blazer on a white blouse. The ground that bedding greeny of leaves everywhere wiped clean. My skirt fluttered as I rotated my view around, attempted to make sense about swamp bulked into the pond.

I couldn't. For some reason, even it was obvious, my memory jumbled with headache and bizarre rationality, zapped fast as if mana escaped from spigen. It relieved without warning, somehow I forget what I was scare and confuse about.

The young man had a uniform with dark-red trouser, his blazer in the same color blew to back when he came closer. The scarf around his neck silently blew by the wind. His shoes carefully stepped on concrete pavement, producing a damp-knocking sound, he offered a hand for my stand.

My hand stopped spring to him, I picked the bag and rushed back to inside. I was perfectly sure something wrong with this scene. All students had no pointed ears, wings, or any unique characteristic, built up a large feeling of something already happen when I saw wall painted white instead of black.

Yet, it was normal, as common as my daily life.