The next morning. Breakfast time, which should have been peaceful, began in a strangely tense atmosphere.
Stab. Stab.
The sausage on the plate was being brutally mutilated.
I held my fork and looked at Serika sitting across from me.
“Serika.”
“What.”
“The sausage looks like it’s screaming in pain.”
“I don’t care. It’s going in my mouth anyway.”
Her tone was curt. Serika chewed the mashed sausage pieces with her mouth full.
Cute, but with those sharp eyes? The thought that suddenly came to mind was a bad-tempered little dog.
Like a Maltese or something.
“Oppa.”
Serika swallowed the sausage and spoke to me.
“What did you do in Logina’s room last night?”
“….”
Here it comes. Let’s take a sip of water first. I drank a glass and answered.
“What else? I just played the piano.”
At my words, Serika narrowed her eyes.
“Then why did you tie your hair up when you went? You usually complain it’s annoying and leave it down. And you smelled like perfume too. Lavender.”
“The maids forced it on me. I didn’t ask for it.”
“…Really?”
“Wait, hold on—something’s off here.”
Serika flinched at my words.
“…Serika, weren’t you out touring the estate? How did you know?”
She was definitely walking in the garden at the time, wasn’t she? That’s what I remembered.
“I wasn’t spying.”
Serika set her fork down and crossed her arms.
“Logina told me herself.”
“The young lady?”
“Yeah. I ran into her this morning and her face was glowing. Then she said to me, ‘The performance last night was so wonderful, Lady Serika. Thanks to it, I couldn’t sleep at all.’”
Is this a power struggle? Let’s just nod for now.
“Yeah. I played. I’d promised the young lady.”
“That’s all? Really?”
Serika didn’t drop her suspicion.
“You didn’t just hold hands or exchange meaningful glances or anything? There wasn’t some weird atmosphere? Logina’s not the type to just sit still.”
“It was exactly the same as when I’m with you.”
“Reeeally?”
Serika narrowed her eyes again.
“I played the piano, we sipped a little wine, and just talked. That’s it. Nothing romantic like what you’re imagining.”
Of course… I did get called “Master,” but for the record, nothing actually happened.
Serika stared holes through my face, as if gauging my reaction.
Finally, she sighed and let her shoulders relax.
“…Fine. I get it.”
She picked up her fork again.
“I’ll believe you this time. But in exchange, you have to spend the whole day with me today. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”
Come to think of it, why am I the one being interrogated? I briefly considered saying that to Serika.
‘….’
But somehow, saying it felt like it would cause real trouble. The kind of premonition where I might never see the light of day again.
After finishing breakfast, we followed Logina’s lead to the library in the main building.
“This way.”
Logina guided us with a gentle smile. She smiled brightly at me, then smiled brightly at Serika too.
Serika’s forehead vein seemed to throb slightly when she saw that smile.
(I had told Serika about the witch too. I was getting curious myself, and since Serika was interested as well, we decided to look into it. We asked Logina for help.)
“You were curious about the witch’s elixir, right? I found a few relevant records in the family’s old books and prepared them in advance.”
The Bellua family library was magnificent.
Bookshelves stretched all the way to the high ceiling, packed tightly with hundreds, thousands of volumes.
The mingled scent of aged paper and dust gave off a strangely comforting feeling.
It actually put me in a good mood.
We took seats at the central table. Stacks of old, thick tomes were already piled on top—probably prepared by the servants in advance.
『Mysteries of the East』
『Forgotten Alchemy and Forbidden Herbs』
『Those Who Shape Souls』
The titles alone were suspicious.
“Let’s see…”
Serika picked up a book first. She flipped through the pages rapidly, scanning the contents.
The more pages she turned, the tighter her brows furrowed.
“This…”
Serika frowned and slammed the book shut.
“It’s complete nonsense?”
“Nonsense?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t match magical theory at all. Even if you don’t know magic, Oppa, you’d realize how weird it is.”
She pointed to a passage with her finger.
“‘Capture the breath of the heavens in a bottle and age it under moonlight for a week,’ or ‘Condense the invisible light to give it form’… What kind of magic formula is this?”
“If it really were nonsense, it wouldn’t have been recorded in historical books either.”
“…That’s exactly why it’s strange. There’s no explanation of mana arrangements or spell formulas—just vague metaphors. To me, it looks like a collection of legends.”
Logina nodded at our conversation.
She was flipping through another book as well.
“There doesn’t seem to be any academic value. It’s possible the Eastern sorcerers deliberately wrote in vague terms to hide their secrets… but by my standards, it’s just absurd nonsense.”
“That’s what I said.”
Suddenly, Logina clapped her hands toward Serika and said, “Oh! We finally agree on something for the first time!”
Serika looked annoyed. Let’s just ignore it. Getting involved would be a loss.
I was flipping through a book too when a particular passage caught my eye.
To others, it might sound like grasping at clouds, but to me, it looked completely different.
[The miracle begins at the highest crown, passes through wisdom and understanding, dwells in beauty, and finally reaches the kingdom to take form.]
My gaze fixed on the words “crown” and “kingdom.”
‘This… is the Tree of Sephiroth.’
Kabbalah. The diagram explaining the attributes of the universe and God.
It begins at the first sephira at the highest point, “Crown (Keter),” and as energy flows downward through each level, it finally reaches the tenth sephira, “Kingdom (Malkuth),” and becomes matter.
‘It’s exactly what the dragon said.’
The dragon had told me:
The material world is merely the final condensed and degraded product of the purest spirituality after passing through four spiritual worlds.
Definitely… this wasn’t poetry. More precisely, it was a diagram of energy flow?
‘Capturing the breath of the heavens in a bottle, probably.’
Maybe it’s a metaphor for drawing in spiritual energy from Atziluth (the Emanation World), not just gathering mana from the air.
‘Condensing the invisible light, probably.’
That would refer to the process of giving form to that energy in Briah (the Creation World).
This book… isn’t a magic formula. It’s a blueprint? Something no one else recognized?
I thought slowly. This world operates on a Kabbalistic worldview.
‘Then even someone like me—a mana cripple—could create something if I understood this principle.’
Because it’s not about using mana; it’s about materializing concepts. And hadn’t I already done it?
The piano.
The witch’s elixir… isn’t just about healing the body. It feels more like creating a passage?
Forcing spirituality into the body to form a medium connecting the physical and spiritual aspects—that’s what the elixir might be.
A sudden thought brought back that old inferiority complex. The one I felt when looking at Serika.
Why can’t I use magic? I also want to become a great being like that… a wish…
“Aiman-nim?”
Logina’s voice snapped me back. She was looking at me with worried eyes.
“You look tired. Are you all right?”
“Ah. Yes. Of course.”
“Oppa, are you really okay?”
“I’m fine. The book was so difficult the letters started dancing.”
Only then did Serika relax her worried expression.
…I want to meet her. That witch.
“Lady Logina.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to meet that witch.”
“…!”
Logina’s eyes widened. Serika shot up in shock.
“Look at the book. It’s all nonsense. The magic formulas are garbage, just wordplay. What do you want to meet a woman like that for? To get scammed by some elixir?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Then?”
This is the moment for this kind of line.
“I was just curious. How famous is my piano that someone like her came all this way? Isn’t it only polite to meet her once?”
Serika froze, clearly not expecting that response.
Logina stared at me for a moment, then nodded and said,
“Understood. If Aiman-nim insists… I won’t stop you.”
She looked thoughtful for a second, then tapped the table with her finger.
“Hm… but going in person might be dangerous, don’t you think?”
“I agree. I’ll send a proxy.”
Obviously.
“Let’s send Hans. The witch said she wanted to meet him, right?”
***
“You son of a—!”
“Hey! What kind of tone is that toward a baron? Want your head chopped off?”
Hans immediately switched attitudes at my words.
“No, sir.”
“That’s even more awkward. Just talk like normal.”
“…So what exactly do you want me to tell her?”
“Ask her what her Ratzon (רצון) is.”
Hans stared blankly, not understanding.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just pass it on like that. A noble’s giving an order—are you going to question it?”
“…Fine, whatever.”