After explaining the basics of Scriptural Magic, he stretched his colossal body, his spine cracking like a whip. And yawned. “Got all that?”

“Yes, thanks a lot,” I said, bowing my head slightly.

“Well, look who’s there.” He turned towards the door. As I followed his glance, there was nobody.

But soon, there he stood.

“Gregoire, it’s been a while!”

“Br-Brunz di-did perhaps a peculiar kid a with a helmet come through here?”

Gregoire heaved, his body shaking like a leaf to the wind.

At the question, Brunz stood up and moved aside while pointing at me.

“You mean him?”

“Yes! Y-Jeremy!!” he sighed. “What a relief.”

I stood up from my chair and asked to borrow the book on Scriptural Magic.

“Oh yeah, sure, wait. Give it to me for a bit.”

He took the book and walked to the reception deck, then with a quill he wrote something on the last page.

“Now you should be able to leave here — without trouble.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

As I asked that, he winked, handing it back to me.

“Gregoire, your son is surprisingly bright. Did you hide something from me?”

“Hahahaha, I have a hard time believing it myself,” he said with a grimace.

“Well alright, we’ll talk about it later,” — he turned toward me, and winked — “goodbye, Helmet.”

“Ah yes.. goodbye and thank you Mr Brunz”

“You can drop the Mr.”

He laughed.

This was my first encounter with this weird character, and it wouldn’t be the last.

I was indebted to him for nudging me in the right direction.

#

6 months later.

My enthusiasm from the start started to die down. I had hoped that soon enough, after eliminating the troublesome words, I’d understand what I was reading.

However, pretty quickly, that fantasy was destroyed. While the first two pages of the book were easily understood, as soon as the author started delving into the theory, I was swamped by a deluge of unfamiliar words.

Every two lines, there were four to five words to learn; and even when I knew everything, I wasn’t sure how to parse it.

‘That’s beginner material?’ I thought to myself as I read at home, a candle serving of light source, Gregoire not having the means to afford a mana ball.

Every day, I’d journal. Frustrations.

Discoveries.

Ideas.

Good things.

Let’s not lie; besides frustrations I din’t write of much else.

These past 6 months, I had been stumped rereading the first 10 pages, trying to understand what was happening.

Brunz wasn’t helpful at all.

When I went to him the second time, he had forgotten about me and if it wasn’t for me bringing up Gregoire, he would have thought I had stolen his book.

Result, he refused to help.

And even on the days where he seemed in a good mood, he’d say something along the lines of “The fun in being a scholar is breaking your head over complicated text until you finally understand it.”.

While I was still grateful for his initial push, I had to admit I was more angry than grateful now. Weirdly enough, it seemed this weird memory of his only applied to people.

He was always reading a new book whenever I came and when asked, he could recall what he was reading the last time I was there.

All this to say, a lot of things went wrong; and the journal endured the tongue lashing.

The immediate effects of the journaling practice. The feeling of lightheartedness it had given me that day had but disappeared now. I only stuck to it for the feeling of accomplishing something it gave me before bed after a day of trying to understand the book.

This single book.

Having to learn the language of scholars, before learning the language of magic.

How comical.

[…]

Another 6 months…

My eyes were reddened as I stayed past my bedtime.

‘Yes..’

‘Yes...’

‘YES!!’

Finally.

I said as I jumped to my feet yelling, tears dripping from my eyes. I wasn’t crying, these were tears of joy.

Finally.

FINALLY!

I understood.

A paradigm shift of sort had happened, after rereading the first few pages in a loop, then the next, then the next, then the next, for an entire year.

Feeling as if no actual progress was being made, it clicked.

What I read made sense.

“YES!” I said, jumping to my feet, sending pieces of paper fluttering in the air and almost causing a fire.

This had been the first time in quite a while since I had felt that.

Gregoire shifted in his bed, and I lowered my voice.

From there on, I could reread the book with a fresh mind. I could actually understand it.

I was 6 now, probably the youngest scholar ever.

HAHAHAHAHA! I laughed, boasting to myself.

Gregoire shifted again.

“Sorry.” I whispered, before bringing the candle to the table and writing today’s pages. I had actually something positive to say today.

Maybe one day I’ll fix this problem.

##

2 years later.

Ah.

I banged my head against the wall as I looked at the third and last volume of this series of book on Scriptural Magic.

I couldn’t say that I had memorized all the spells that I read about.

After all, scriptural magic comprised 764 symbols — about a 100 per elemental affinities, plus a few whose meaning changed depending on context. As a result, even memorizing one spell was strenuous; like filling a wooden bucket with a pierced spoon.

Despite that, I had memorized the 764 symbols, through nothing more than rote practice. Writing each for thousands of times on individual pieces of paper and quizzing myself on their meanings — when applicable.

But the spells…

The schematic for the first spell of the first book was laying unfolded on my desk. Before even memorizing the spell, I had to comprehend which of the characters present were there simply to neutralize its activation — so that it could be written on parchment.

I could do that much.

But this spell — a meager light spell, barely able to light a lavatory so one could see where he did his business — was giving me trouble.

Even that meager spell required mana.

All because of these damned contingencies.

“Contingencies” was the term used to refer to the increased difficulty one encountered when writing circles because of mana letters’ resistance to change. Amalgam of letters reacted with each other and reinforced one another all in an effort to maintain their shape.

This wouldn’t be a problem for most people, but…

This added another layer of complexity, as the only way to draw a circle without killing yourself in the process was to write different parts of the circle first, and slowly connecting them so that their effects would cancel until the last character finished the circle.

Even I could do the first part.

I could write parts of the circle, no problem. After all, one by one, they were simply letters. But once more than a few letters were assembled, I became unable to draw more, my hand being strongly repelled by the energy of the arrangement.

Just that was already annoying, and at first almost lead me to drop the idea and find something else.

But I persevered.

I hoped that if not the spells, a better grasp on the theory, would lead to some enlightenment, to some insight about how in my current mana-less position I could use this magic.

Two things ticked me off.

More than anything else I had said before, these two things together were what had led me to banging my head on this wall.

Banging my head against a literal wall, all that I could do.

The first thing was the fact that the third book hinted at a fourth book serving as a culmination of everything read beforehand. By itself, this should have been good news.

There’s still something more. I haven’t exhausted my resources yet.

But Brunz had never found the hinted-at fourth copy.

And in fact, no one was really sure if that fourth book existed.

As if to make matters worse, when dating the book and taking the story of the writer into account, there was enough information known to suppose that he had died before releasing the ultimate book.

Another dead end.

It was probably too harsh to call that magic a dead end, but at that moment it’s all it felt like.

Another failure to add on top of my already long list of defeats.

I would have kept banging my head for a long time, if it wasn’t for Gregoire stopping me all frenzied.

“JEREMY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” He said.

We had both gotten used to that name now. I despised it with all my being, but whether I liked it, this was how I was called now.

I kept banging my head.

I had to be wrenched from the wall and jolted before I came to my senses. When I arose from that destructive trance, all I could feel at the one who had brought me back to reality was anger.

“Leave me alone,” I said, not even able to see him clearly.

Blood hindering my vision.

I wasn’t even sure who he was, still not sure where I even stood.

“YOU EXPECT ME TO LEAVE YOU ALONE IN THAT STATE!?”

‘Ah Gregoire’

After the first year, his reverential tone had disappeared. He was still respectful, but he now talked to me as if I was actually his son.

Yuck.

He sighed, calming himself down, before getting on one knee to talk to me.

“I know.. I know how hard you’ve worked, and I am really sorry that there’s nothing I can do to help you, but you need to take care of yourself!” He said, his voice breaking.

“And who says that?” I said as I looked at him, my eyes empty. Even bleaker than what would be expected of a Balmung.

It had been two years now.

Even if it had been obvious in the past, it was unavoidable. At first I was grateful to dad, being left alive somewhere instead of killed off felt like a mercy. But now I truly wished it had all ended that day.

I didn’t even know myself what to hope for at this point.

“Your guardian,” Gregoire said, as he grabbed my shoulders, his arms tense.

I chuckled.

I looked at him, unable to see anything else than a monster.

I pushed his hands away and looked at him defiantly.

And then was assailed by a terrible headache.

Figures.

What else could I have expected from repeatedly knocking my head against the wall?

I winced as I fell to the ground; the pain overriding my thoughts of defiance. Showing vulnerability and weakness despite myself.

How embarrassing.

Still, even then, it felt distant.

I was clearly on the ground, wringing in pain, but at the same time, I was laughing inside. I was mocking this bloody fool on the ground.

He’s so stupid.

I didn’t cry, I couldn’t cry

Not for me..

I didn’t have to cry though, since soon I lost consciousness.

[…]

I had gotten used to the monotony of my days. I avoided the manor for obvious reasons, staying instead inside perusing my books. After last night breakdown it felt weird to read again, but I had nothing better to do.

It all felt pointless.

But somehow, I felt like there had to be a way.

This way seemed distant and unclear, but it had to be there.

[…]

Today was library day.

As had become the norm after that day, Gregoire dropped me first before going to do whatever he had to do.

There I’d find Brunz reading something new. Sometimes he acknowledged my presence and came to speak, sometimes not.

Today was one of the latter. He seemed entranced by a book, so much so that he didn’t even notice me going around the reception desk and taking a dictionary.

I had gotten used to the vocabulary, but since I’d now try another selection — in hopes that learning more would give me a better chance at insight in scriptural magic — I was preparing for the obligatory new jargon I’d encounter.

This time, the book I chose was named: “Theories and Essays on the Origin of Cores, First Volume by August Clars.”

This was the first volume of the stack of book Brunz had recommended to me that day. Just seeing how long it had taken me to go through the Scriptural Magic series made me jeer.

‘Back to square one,’ I thought.

I sighed.

I sighed a lot now.

I wasn’t really hoping for a solution to the core issue — pun intended. This was all but fantasy, as far as I was concerned. I was simply looking for more information, if cores were believed to bear magical inscriptions like Brunz had said. Maybe a series of book on the subject would present scriptural magic in a new light?

Brunz knew me well enough that he now let me take books out of the library without Gregoire there. And so after breaking my head for a few hours on volume one, swimming in a fresh wave of vocab and core-specific language, I paused, closed the book, and went to the reception desk.

“Could I borrow this?”

“Hmm- who? Oh yea sure.” I had grown quite a bit.

I was 8 now.

So even sitting he could now see me from where he sat, and getting on my tippy toes, I could pass him the book I wanted to borrow.

He drew some characters on the last page and then handed the book to me.

I asked, grasping at straws. “What do you always draw?”

“Hmmm? Oh, I wonder.” He said, his face carrying a meaningful smile.

As if it was something I should know.

“Scriptural magic?” I asked. To my knowledge, there were no spells that small. And if it really was, some mana should be seen being absorbed into the page.

“Did I say that?” He replied a big smile on his face.

“Tch.. thanks for nothing.” I said, as he handed me the books. My tone, caustic.

“Woah, an exemplary scholar.” he said, clearly mocking what I intended to be disrespectful.

“Tch..” I said again, taking the books and leaving after tidying up the place I had studied at.

I had gotten used to the helmet.

I knew to keep to myself, and to maintain a suitable distance from others.

But that day, something happened.

It should have been a normal day.

Like any other day.

I had repeated these exact steps so many times, so even now I couldn’t quite explain why that happened that day.

Bam.

I banged into someone.

As I did and realized what had happened, I stopped walking and looked up at the face of the one I had hit.

Looking to apologize, but before I could open my mouth.

“Hey kid? Apologize when you hit people.” the person said before spitting on the ground.

‘Huh?’

While I was totally the one in the wrong, the acrid way in which he had spoken to me was totally uncalled for.

“Hey!” I said, raising my voice as best as I could, trying to sound threatening.

“Uh?” the man turned back, getting a better look at him. I now understood his reaction. His face was run of the mill, but under his left eyes was a mark.

A bloody knife, all-black.

Proof he belonged to some lowlife gang.

This town being the dominion of the Balmung; no one really dared commit crimes in the open, but every so often one would meet these kinds of people. Man in their early twenties, wearing some sort of mark under their eye or ear.

Youths in search of trouble and upheaval of the social order.

It was weird to refer to them as youths, considering they were much older than me, and even weirder to talk about them so condescendingly because, in a weird way, I empathized with them.

They tried to look, though, but everyone saw them as people to avoid. Mocking them inside.

Still, I couldn’t stand that disrespect.

“Since when did dimwits like you have the right to spit in these streets?” I asked, looking for any fault I could find.

It technically wasn’t a crime, but it was clearly frowned upon.

“Hey the midget?” He asked “What’s your problem?”"

“I don’t know. Do we have a problem?”

“Uh?” He looked at me. “Are you crazy?”

He stared at me before peeking at his wrist.

He clicked with his tongue.

“I don’t have time for this, just don’t bump into people. And back off. Something about you creeps me out.” after having said these words, he turned back and started walking. Clearly acting like the bigger man, or maybe he really had something to do.

He took a few steps before I said in boast.

“That’s what I thought.”

At these words, he stopped. And looked back at me, his body still facing away from me

“Uh, did you say something?” he asked, his voice rougher.

“You’re clearly afraid and running away, uh? Dimwits like you only know how to bluff.”

I said with a provoking smile. He couldn’t really see it. The helmet blocking most of my face.

But the provoking smile wasn’t needed. His face warped from one of simple annoyance to anger. And he approached me, slowly… as if thinking of what to do.

As he got into range, he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and a tone as cold as ice.

“So you want to die, uh?”

‘Uh?’

Before, I could process what he had just said.

BAM.

I gasped.

A front kick, right in the solar plexus.

As I grabbed my belly in pain and looked at his eyes in disbelief. I was now reconsidering what I had just done.

He clenched his fists, congealing snake-like chains around them, and then spat on the ground as if to prove a point.

“Looks like your parents forgot to teach you to respect your betters.”

“Clench your teeth,” He said, before his pupils turned red.

“This is gonna hurt.”