Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 7 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Many Years’ Journey: Eternal Engraving

I stood alone in the open space of the bakery (with attached dining room, a concept I didn’t really understand), loitering aimlessly. I often stopped by this shop to take a rest on my way home from work. They served delicious freshly baked bread and even coffee. It was a good shop.

I had been teaching at my current post for about six months, and whenever I had any free time, I came here. I was a regular customer, a captive to this bakery’s charms.

“……”

But on this day, I had brought my work with me into this wonderful open space, and I was at my wits’ end.

I am not a particularly disciplined person, and I try never to take my work home, but the problem vexing me wasn’t the kind of thing I could just set down at the end of the day. So there I was, off the clock and ready to lose my mind.

The conundrum had accompanied me out of the workplace.

“…What on earth could be going on here?”

I gazed at the sand in the small vial.

It was golem sand. Recently, it had become quite a popular commodity. I know there’s not always a good reason behind these kinds of fads, but the sudden appearance of so much enchanted sand was more than sufficient to arouse my suspicions.

“No matter how I look at it, it appears to be ordinary sand, but…”

Apparently, many students at Latorita State University had purchased this sand, so I handed over my money and got the vial in return. But no matter how long I stared at it, it looked like ordinary sand.

I wonder if this is really the sand from the stories… Of course, I suppose it could just be fake.

“Oh, Professor, is collecting sand a hobby of yours?”

Setting my coffee down on the table with a clunk, the bakery’s proprietor tilted her head quizzically.

“Do you think I would be staring at something like this for fun, Elizabeth? It’s work.”

The bakery’s owner, Elizabeth, still had her head tilted as she made a puzzled expression. “What kind of work has you staring at sand…?”

To explain, I waved my arm and said, “Recently, there has been a lot of demand for this sand. That’s very strange, so I’m investigating. I’ve got orders from the top.”

“Hmm.” Elizabeth didn’t seem especially interested. “The girl who works here part-time had some of that, too. So you mean to tell me that nowadays, college students get their kicks by staring at sand…? I’ll never understand how. I can’t understand how kids these days think… Must be the generation gap.”

“I don’t really think they’re carrying it around because they like to stare at it. Anyway, is the girl you mentioned, the one who works here part-time, named Alte by any chance?”

“Oh, you know her?”

“She’s one of my students.”

“Goodness me,” Elizabeth said. “That’s right, it’s Alte. She gave some of that sand to her friend.”

“Hmm…?”

What’s this? I’m pretty sure Alte told me that a friend had given her the sand… Maybe she regifted it? I wonder what this means.

“So that friend, do you know who she was?”

“Um…” Elizabeth looked up in the air as she was thinking. “Sorry. I don’t know her name, but—she’s started coming in pretty often. She wears her purple hair in a ponytail and seems a little standoffish.”

I immediately knew whom she was describing.

It had to be Linaria.

She was a lone wolf type of girl who was always studying by herself and never seemed to particularly converse with anyone. I remembered her well, as I had recently asked her to help me clean the library.

However, that would mean that Elizabeth had seen her lately with Alte, who not only was always working, but was also not the kind of girl to make friends easily. I thought this was certainly strange.

And over the past few days, Alte’s grades had suddenly and dramatically improved, along with some other strange occurrences. There was definitely something going on behind the scenes. But what could all this be leading toward?

I didn’t have enough information to see the whole picture yet. All I could do was shake my head.

Well, I’m sure everything will work itself out somehow, I decided optimistically.

I picked up my coffee cup and took a sip.

“But it is strange…”

Elizabeth was beside me, looking perplexed.

“I think Alte went somewhere, even though she’s supposed to be working. She was here just a moment ago with that purple-haired girl, but…”

She was staring vacantly at an empty seat, where someone had left a student’s schoolbag, a pocket watch, and a freshly poured cup of coffee with steam still rising off of it.

The two girls were nowhere to be found. It was as if they had disappeared into thin air.

“…Go back to the past? Uh, um…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My heart was beating fast.

It was like the first time I had walked with Linaria, but it was pounding out an entirely different beat. Cold sweat was trickling down my cheek as a shiver ran up my spine.

“There’s no use playing dumb,” Linaria told me in a cold voice. “I know everything. Well, I’m not sure where you got the thing, but…you have a pocket watch, right? A silver, antique one.”

“…!”

“You’re a bad liar. I bet you’re honest to a fault.” She glanced downward, looking over my body. “You probably have it on you right now. Where is it? In your pocket, perhaps?”

“…!”

“You’re too easy to read, huh?”

She was sitting in her seat. And I was standing nearby.

The way we were arranged, it was like I was getting scolded in school or something. Linaria carried herself in a way that made her seem much older.

“I’ve been keeping this a secret all along until now, but I’ll tell you something good.”

It was clear to me that usually when someone told me something good, and said it like Linaria had said it, it wasn’t actually anything good.

“That watch originally belonged to me. Or rather, it’s more accurate to say that I have one, too.”

She rustled around in her pocket, then set a pocket watch on the table. It had exactly the same design as the one I had.

Sure enough, I could feel my pocket watch in my own pocket as well.

In other words, that means there are two time-travel devices. Wait, but if she was the original owner, then…huh? What on earth is going on here?

I was obviously having trouble keeping up.

“…How did you know I had the watch…?”

“This thing is a time-reversing watch. As you already know, it has the power to send someone back in time. It can take you back one day, ten years, even a hundred years if you were so inclined.”

Sure enough, I had tried all that out, so I simply nodded along.

Gently stroking the small vial of golem sand I had handed her, Linaria continued, “And with the time-reversing watch, you can bring things with you from the past into the future. At the same time, you can take things from the future back into the past. Including the watch itself.”

She told me how the magic worked.

The spell would activate the moment someone pushed the button on the side of the watch, sending the person who pressed it back in time and then returning them to the future after a fixed duration had elapsed. Even if that person somehow lost or discarded the watch in the past, they would still be pulled back to the future after their time had passed.

“I’m assuming that the watch was given to you by someone in the future for some reason.”

No, it fell on me, but…

“Recently, I’ve been keeping you under observation. I knew immediately that you had gotten your hands on the time-reversing watch somehow. Your grades suddenly went up, you started to stand out in class, and on top of all that, you managed to get some golem sand, right? There’s no other explanation.”

I sighed with relief when she told me. Ever since I got hold of the time-reversing watch, she had suddenly started coming to where I worked. I had figured she hadn’t simply been coming to study. I don’t know when it became clear to me, but I had been suspicious of her for some time.

……

Though if she meant to spy on me, maybe coming openly into the shop was not the best idea. Let’s ignore that for now, though.

Now I felt embarrassed. I had been so happy to make a new friend.

“So that’s how it is. The time-reversing watch was originally mine. Please give it back.” Linaria held out her hand.

But…

“No way.” I took a step back. “Why should I? If there are two time-reversing watches, then I can have one, and you can have one, and both of us will be able to go back in time, right? I don’t have any reason to give it back, do I?”

But Linaria sighed deeply at my meager counterargument and shook her head.

“That can’t happen.” She opened up her own time-reversing watch, then pushed the side button right before my eyes.

But nothing happened.

Just a lifeless clicking noise.

“It is as you can see. Whenever two time-reversing watches somehow exist in the same place, only the one that was sent back from the future can be used. In other words, its powers cannot be duplicated. So give it back,” she said again.

“……”

But of course, I didn’t want to give it back. I couldn’t give it back. Not after I had finally started enjoying life. Not after I was finally fitting in at school. There was no way I could just throw all that away.

Not even for a friend.

“I see. You don’t want to give it back, do you? Fine, then.” Immediately after she said that, Linaria yanked hard on my arm and pulled me toward her. “In that case, I’ll take it by force!” Then she started searching through my pockets.

“Wait…! Stop, please! What are you doing?!” I grabbed her arm and resisted.

The time-reversing watch tumbled from my pocket, and we both grabbed for it, pulling it back and forth between us in a tug-of-war.

“You’re not using it correctly. It belongs in my hands.”

“No! You’re so stingy! You used the time-reversing watch to improve your grades, didn’t you, Linaria? What do you mean by hogging such a handy device all to yourself?!”

“I’m not using it recklessly like you! I’m able to put it to more effective use.”

“Even so, I! Said! No!”

We struggled for possession of the watch, neither of us willing to let go.

“Hand it over!”

“No way!”

As we were quarrelling, something…less than ideal happened. The watch began to make an unfortunate rattling sound, and then…

—Kiiiiii—

One of us, either me or her, had probably pushed the button by accident. By the time I realized it, the pocket watch was already giving off its bluish-white light.

“…Huh?” I was stunned.

“…Ah!” Linaria frowned.

And then, time was unwinding itself, indifferent to our wishes.

It was almost time to close the bakery, and the two missing students had not returned.

“Wh-what should we do…? Do you think they were kidnapped…?” The bakery’s owner, Elizabeth, was starting to panic, but it was hard to imagine that anyone would be capable of brazenly kidnapping two Latorita State University girls in a shop like this one.

“They’re probably slacking off somewhere together, don’t you think?” I said as I started rummaging through the bag they had left behind, but Elizabeth shook her head.

“Alte’s not the type of girl to do something like that. Besides, the other student who came in today seems like a serious young lady…”

“…Seems that way. Huh.”

All of Linaria’s things were in the bag. Not only her school supplies, but her wallet and her wand as well. It would be hard to imagine her leaving it behind if she’d run off on her own.

“For now, leave this matter to me,” I said as I gathered Linaria’s things. “I’m going to make the rounds and search for them. If I still don’t find them, we can think of another tactic.”

I put everything into the bag—the small vial of sand that had been left on the table, her school supplies, and the pocket watch.

“Please find them…”

Elizabeth was frowning, looking very worried.

I answered, “Leave it to me.” Hoping to put her at ease at least a little bit, I smiled. “After all, it’s a teacher’s job to look out for her students.”

As soon as we saw the scenery before our eyes, it was clear that we had not gone back a mere several days, or even several years.

“……”

“……”

Everything around us was different, as far as the eye could see.

We were standing smack in the center of a vacant lot. There was no trace of the bakery (or its attached dining room). Only weeds and sand.

The city also looked strange. We should have been able to see rows and rows of tall buildings, but the only structures around were crude wooden shacks. It didn’t seem like much of a city at all.

In fact, it looked like we were somewhere in the countryside. The scenery made me feel a little nostalgic.

“…No way.” Linaria released me and broke into a run. She was obviously very confused by the sudden change in surroundings.

“How many years into the past did we travel…?” Looking around at the town, Linaria said to me, “Now, this place… This is the Latorita of how many years ago?”

At her urging, I looked at the time-reversing watch. I looked at the time it had been set for. When the two of us had been fighting over it, we must have pressed some buttons by mistake.

I stared at the watch in disbelief.

“…Whoa.”

Displayed on the face was an unbelievable, mind-boggling amount of time.

“…Four hundred years.”

“……”

“……”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“And how long is our stay?”

“……” My mouth had become very, very heavy as I opened it to say, “Ten hours…”

That our current situation was awful went without saying.

If one year’s travel meant ten minutes of lag on our return, then a jump of four hundred years meant that, when we got home, about four thousand minutes, or sixty-seven hours, would have passed. I would have to give up on the prize for perfect attendance that I’d secretly had my eye on. I was sure that Linaria the honors student was thinking the same thing.

Timidly, I looked over at her. I was sure she must be furious.

“Four hundred years…? Did you say four hundred years ago…?”

Not only that. We were stuck in this time for the next ten hours.

I was fully convinced that Linaria was angry.

“Four hundred years ago…!”

That’s what I thought, but as soon as I looked at her face, all the remorse and the feelings of introspection that were welling up from the bottom of my heart disappeared entirely.

“……”

Before me was a girl practically drooling with enthusiasm, eyes sparkling as she gazed at the town around her.

She wasn’t her usual self, a cool, attractive honors student, but rather a hyperexcited young girl who had just embarked on the biggest sightseeing trip of all time.

“Um, Linaria…?”

“Four hundred years ago is when this country’s library was founded…! Ah-ha! Ah-ha-ha…! I haven’t been to this time period yet, but… So this is what kind of country it was…! To think, in four hundred years’ time, it’ll be a major sightseeing destination for so many people…ahh…! I can already feel the weight of all those years!”

Speaking to herself in this way, she clung to the wall of a nearby house. The woman who lived in the house looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“So warm… So this is…a wall built four hundred years ago…”

I mean, it’s just an ordinary wall, but—

“I love it…”

Who is this person?

The image I’d had of the cool, aloof Linaria was rapidly crumbling. What we had here now was just an ordinary history enthusiast.

“Oh…? If I’m not mistaken, this is where the student dorms stand in the future…” She left me behind and flitted here and there through the town. “I see…in this era, it’s just an ordinary field… Ah…how amazing…”

I couldn’t begin to guess what was so amazing, and I didn’t particularly care to ask.

“I see…so they also sold bread at roadside stalls in this time… History really is amazing…” She stopped in front of a bread stall on a corner. But immediately thereafter, she fell to her knees. “Ah…! How can this be…?! I left my wallet in the future!”

Apparently, she had been empty-handed during our fight, so she hadn’t brought anything with her.

“Um.” Fortunately, I liked to keep a close eye on my money, so I kept my wallet in my pocket even while I was working. I had it with me now. “If you like, I could loan you some money…?”

“…!” The instant I said that, she looked up at me, eyes sparkling. “…You don’t mind?”

“Not really, as long as you pay me back after…”

When I said that, her expression instantly softened into a cherubic smile.

“Thank you!”

After that, she chuckled to herself as she bit into some bread.

I wonder if this childishness is a side effect of time travel. We did go pretty far back…

Following her lead, I had also purchased a piece of bread, but it was stale after sitting in the open for a long time. It wasn’t a delicious treat so much as a cheap stomach filler.

“Really…it’s your fault we ended up in this crazy era,” Linaria said. “So what are you going to do about it? I was trying to earn my perfect attendance award, you know. How are you going to take responsibility for this?”

“Sorry, but before I answer that, can we throw away this awful bread?”

“Oh-hoh-hoh, I’m afraid not. Don’t you see? This is the flavor of history!”

“It’s nasty…”

“Anyway, we’re stuck here in the distant past for the next ten hours. What a fantastic mess.”

“I think you and I have different concerns, Linaria.”

Linaria’s mood was obviously elevated, while my spirits were dampened in contrast.

My gosh, has she always been like this?

“Well, what do you plan to do now?” Linaria asked.

There was no way I would have any plans. I shook my head meekly.

When I did, she said, “I see. Well then, let’s go to school,” and suddenly grabbed my hand.

She started walking, forcefully dragging me along behind her. On the other side of the tranquil little town stood a slightly larger building. Based on the size of the school in the present day, it was hard to imagine this tiny place could be it, and its forlorn form didn’t look like anything I would call a school.

“…What do you mean, ‘go to school’?” I tilted my head half-heartedly. We did have ten hours to kill, so I was probably going to go along with whatever she proposed anyway.

“Oh-hoh-hoh. Did you know? Latorita State University used to be nothing but a library. What you can see now is probably the library from the olden days. Over time, it will transform into the school we know. Maybe it’s possible for us to take a look inside!”

“You’re talking really fast…”

“All right, let’s go!”

She didn’t seem to have any regrets about our accidental trip.

Four hundred years into the past… Visiting would cost us nearly three days in the present. Linaria was a serious girl, ever devoted to her studies. Even if she’d wanted to visit this part of history, she would have had trouble finding the time because of school.

Honestly, if she hadn’t been whisked here by accident, she might never have gotten to see this era. And I never would have gotten to see her acting like a giddy schoolgirl.

Regardless of the circumstances, now it was like we shared a secret between just the two of us, and that made me feel just a little bit happy.

Maybe because she sensed me smiling, Linaria turned around. “Well, looks like you’ve started having fun, too, huh?”

“Nope, not me.”

As it turned out, Linaria and Alte, together, seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. I couldn’t find them no matter where I searched.

Just like with the two books that had completely disappeared from the library, the two girls had just…vanished.

News that Linaria, the top honors student in school, and her friend Alte had gone missing spread quickly through the school and through town. Though it would be more accurate to say that I spread it.

“Did you see the two of them anywhere?”

Before class and during breaks, I would walk around asking students, but to no avail. All of them shook their heads just the same and answered, “I saw them in class yesterday,” or, “I saw Alte working her part-time job at the bakery.” All I got was information that supplemented what I knew about their movements right before they went missing.

“Miiiss…”

Apparently, the strange events going on at this school did not stop with the disappearance of the two girls. Several students had already approached me with strange problems, saying “Look at this, please. See, the golem sand I bought earlier has disappeared!”

They had probably heard the rumor that Linaria and Alte had also had golem sand and thought maybe it had some connection to what happened to them. A number of students came to consult with me about this same thing. Any connection between the sand and the disappearances was unclear, but I nodded and said, “Thank you for the information.”

But at the end of the day, no matter how much information I got, the two of them were still missing somewhere.

And there was no one around who could solve that problem.

I was at a loss. In disappearances—and especially in kidnapping cases—the passage of time brings down the survival rate of the victims remarkably. If I didn’t hurry… If I didn’t take some kind of action, it would be too late.

“…Ah!” Sitting at my desk, worrying over what to do, it suddenly hit me.

What if I questioned the girls’ possessions?

I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. Kicking myself for not thinking of that earlier (despite the fact that I frequently conversed with my own possessions), I took my wand in hand and, in an empty classroom, lined up the girls’ possessions that I had recovered from the bakery.

“……”

A wand. School supplies. A day planner. A wallet. Some kind of textbook. A detective novel. A romance novel. A historical novel. Golem sand. And…a pocket watch.

Among all the things, the watch was the one that had most likely spent the most time with Linaria.

I immediately pointed my wand at the pocket watch and cast a spell. There was no need for it to transform into a human. It would be enough just to hear its voice. I sprinkled magic over the pocket watch before me.

“Hello, Ashen Witch, Elaina.”

The watch opened its mouth immediately. Well, it didn’t have a mouth, exactly, but you get the idea—

“Hello, Miss Pocket Watch. There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

“I am not a pocket watch,” it answered in a quiet voice. “I am known as a time-reversing watch, and I’m well aware of the problem that is vexing you. I can assure you, those two girls didn’t just disappear, and they didn’t elope together, either.”

Matter-of-factly, the watch told me the truth.

“They went back in time.”

By the time we made it to the library, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Linaria’s excitement had reached its peak.

The building itself looked completely unlike its modern incarnation. The shelves so tall you had to look up at them were not there, and neither were the wide-open areas. It looked like a completely ordinary library, with neat rows of bookshelves just tall enough to look over if you stood on tiptoe.

Even so—no, particularly because of the library’s current state—Linaria seemed even more excited. “Wooow…! To think, this library will change with the passage of time into the one we know…!”

As soon as we passed through the entrance, she started wandering restlessly along every shelf, oohing and ahhing. She looked like she might even start crying.

But the former library, the one before our very eyes at the moment, did contain clear traces of its modern form. It didn’t seem like the architecture of the building had changed very much.

“……?”

Except for one part, that is.

When I walked around the library of this time period, I saw one thing that it did not have in the present day.

In the back of the library, right in the section where the historical records room was located in modern times, there was a box.

It was about as tall as me. Its width and breadth were about equal, making it a cube. It was made of wooden planks and had been painted deep black and was sitting quietly in the back of the library.

What in the world?

I traced my hand over the surface of the box and tapped on it while taking a close look. Like me, Linaria touched the box—“Oh my, I can feel the history…”—and began rubbing her cheek on it. “I love it…,” she mumbled.

So as long as it’s old, any old thing will do? How shameless…

“Hey, hey, you two! Don’t touch that box.”

Aimed mainly at Linaria, who was intently nuzzling against the box with her cheek, a reproachful voice came flying over to us. When we turned around, there was a single librarian standing there, glaring at us.

“That’s a precious object,” he said. “It’s not something for children like you to touch!”

Torn away from the box, Linaria looked at the mysterious thing greedily. “But I wanted to look at it a little longer…”

After that, we got distracted reading ancient books in the ancient library. There were so many books here that no longer existed in our time or that had gotten too worn out to read and were now kept away from the public.

To Linaria, it was like a mountain of treasure. She eagerly indulged herself in reading, eyes sparkling.

“……”

For her, the past was such a beautiful and precious thing. She was completely different from someone like me, who had just used the watch to increase my own personal time.

Surely, she would be much happier owning it than I would be. I had stubbornly said that I wouldn’t give it back, but I felt now the time had come for me to reconsider.

“…Linaria?” I looked at the time on the time-reversing watch. We had seven hours remaining. “When we get back to the future, I’m returning this to you.”

She opened her eyes a little widely, as if in surprise, then opened her mouth and replied, “…I see. I’m happy that you understand.”

“But could I still travel back in time with you on occasion?” I explained myself further. “I also want to immerse myself in unusual spaces like this. I’m happy to accompany you whenever you travel to the past, so won’t you take me with you sometimes when you visit?”

“Goodness. You only stumbled upon the time-reversing watch by chance, and yet you think you can make demands?”

Linaria answered my question with a question.

“So…is that a no?”

I answered her with another question.

For a moment or two, she acted like she was thinking it over. Then, after an awkward silence, she said, “If it’s only occasionally, well, I guess that would be all right. You already know the secret of the time-reversing watch anyway.”

Giving this excuse, she turned away sharply.

Never mind the time-reversing watch. Don’t you realize I’ve gotten my hands on a much juicier secret? Not that I care, though.

She and I were as different as different could be. We might as well have lived in different worlds. But by sharing this secret, miraculously, I felt like we had gotten just a little bit closer. And I had discovered that this unapproachable girl was really a simple student, just like me.

And then.

Just when I was getting comfortable with the silence.

The library doors were suddenly flung open.

Standing imposingly on the other side of the doors was a witch.

Her orange hair was tied up in a single ponytail on the side of her head, and after loudly clearing her throat, she introduced herself.

“Hello. I am the witch Natasha.”

“…So you’re saying that the two of them were fighting over Alte’s time-reversing watch when they accidentally went back in time, is that right?”

“It is as you say. And the fact that they haven’t returned yet means they went quite a distance. No, quite a ways back in time. Several hundred years or so.” The pocket watch formerly known as a time-reversing watch told me all this with an indifferent manner. “Therefore, if you wait for them, I’m sure they will come back soon. It’s nothing to get worked up about.”

This series of explanations straight from the watch itself was utterly astounding. Being able to easily rewind time just by pressing a button—this and other aspects of the tale were pretty difficult to believe, despite hearing them directly from the magic watch.

“……”

However, even supposing that, as the time-reversing watch had said, the two girls had traveled back in time, what on earth could we do about it?

If the two of them had gone back in time, if they no longer existed in the present day, then I had no other options.

Moreover…

“How am I supposed to explain this to the people who are searching for them…?”

If I told everyone that the girls had fiddled around with a watch and gone off on a journey through time, do you really think anyone would have believed me?

For the time being, I felt that my most urgent business was figuring out how to explain what was going on. However, that was not the only problem.

“…Huh?”

I suddenly realized that, sitting among Linaria’s wallet, school supplies, textbooks, and other items that were lined up on the table—the lid of the small vial that contained the golem sand was open.

The sand that should have been inside the vial had disappeared into thin air. The inside of the vial was completely and totally empty. I had no recollection of opening it or even taking it out of her bag.

“The golem sand I bought earlier has disappeared!”

I remembered the words that one student had said to me.

Then suddenly, from behind my back came a sound like something dry and rough rustling around.

I turned around, and then I saw it.

Wriggling on the ground, looking for all the world like a being with a purpose, then escaping from the classroom into the hallway, was a figure made of sand.

“Ah, greetings, Lady Natasha, Witch of the Seal!”

The librarian who had pulled us away from the big black box earlier welcomed the woman with both arms wide open.

The witch Natasha.

I recognized the name, of course. There was a legend in a distant land which stated that she was a mighty witch who had defeated a dragon long, long ago.

I was quite concerned about why a woman like that was in a place like this.

“What? Whaaat…?” But if I had to choose, I was more concerned about the way Linaria was shaking. “Wh-wh-what do I do?! It’s Natasha! The real Natasha!”

“Aren’t you overreacting?”

Sure, she was the celebrity to end all celebrities, but so what?

“I see. So this is it. You need me to seal this away under the library floor real quick, right?” Passing by me and Linaria, the great witch Natasha, or whoever, stared at the black box. “Hmm… Where did you get your hands on this?”

She turned to look at the librarian.

“Oh, one of the townsfolk found it in the forest. Apparently, the magical energy of the forest had some effect on the sand… I’m sure you’ll understand if you take a look inside the box, but this sand is now giving off magical energy.”

“Are you saying it has the same kind of energy as the trees in the forest?”

The librarian nodded at Natasha.

Since magical energy is mainly generated deep inside forests, it’s said that mages are able to fire off more powerful spells than usual in places with a lot of greenery. That’s what they taught me in school anyway.

In short, the librarian must have meant that the sand stored in the black box was able to fulfill the same role as the forest flora.

“Lady Natasha, we’d like for you to let us use this sand as a power source for the library,” said the librarian. “For example, we could devise a way to make library books return here automatically or give off warning spells if a theft occurs. Can you do that?”

“…Well, it’s not exactly impossible.” Natasha readily lifted the lid of the black box. “But the amount is a bit of a problem…”

“There’s not enough?”

“There’s too much. If it accumulates even a little bit more energy, the sand will start moving on its own. It’ll be impossible to contain it. It could be disastrous.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Not to worry. I gathered up every last bit of sand from the forest, and there wasn’t any more than this. There’s nothing to cause a disaster.”

“…That’s fine, if true…”

“So please, without delay, will you seal this under the library?”

Natasha waved her wand. “Sure, sure.”

“So this is how the school got all of its mysterious magical equipment… I see, how enlightening, mm-hmm.” Just then, a student very rudely wormed her way into the conversation. Her timing was awful.

Obviously, it was me.

“…And this would be?” Natasha looked back and forth between me and the librarian.

“I’m Alte! Hi there. This is my friend Linaria.” I tugged at Linaria’s sleeve.

“Wait…what are you doing?! Stop it!”

Oh-hoh-hoh, what are you talking about?

“Linaria, this is your chance! Go get her autograph, would you?”

“Huh? Autograph…? Of all the presumptuous…”

“Why are you hesitating? We went to all the trouble of traveling to the past, so don’t you want just one souvenir?”

“……” Linaria was obviously starstruck. She kept glancing intensely at Natasha and then quickly averting her eyes. “I—I can’t… No way… An autograph would be…”

…Maybe it’s her first time?

Unlike Linaria, I didn’t have any particular admiration for the great witch or whoever she was, though I think my flat reaction only provoked her.

“A fan of mine, are you? My goodness, I’m blushing!” Natasha frowned. “I really don’t remember doing anything to boast of, though.”

“That’s not true!” It was Linaria who flatly shut that down. “I’ve read many, many books in my life, but I know of no witch who has left behind such amazing achievements as you.”

After that, Linaria went on and on, endlessly explaining what made Natasha such an amazing witch. It seemed like a torturous ordeal, but Natasha never gave any indication of hating it and just smiled bashfully from start to finish. “My goodness!”

In the end, we both got our autographs. Apparently, since she had eradicated the dragon, she was used to fans approaching her, and when she signed her name, she swished the pen across the paper with an extremely practiced hand.

“Now, then.” Natasha put the pen away. “You two, please give me some space. I’ve got work to do.”

Then she cast a spell.

The lid of the big, black, wooden box levitated gently in the air, and sand poured out of it like water, spilling onto the floor. The grains lingered on the surface briefly then disappeared into the floor.

“All right, all done.”

The whole thing happened very quickly. I was sure I had been told that this sand was precious stuff that gave off magical energy, but it was treated rather carelessly and ended up getting absorbed into the library floor.

What on earth just happened?

Noticing my puzzled expression, Natasha answered my unspoken question. “Just now, you see, I sealed the sand away into the floor of the library. For many years to come, this library will be a fountain of magical energy. It will be possible to use that energy to cast spells on the books to make them return automatically, and all other sorts of contrivances.”

I see, I see.

In the present-day library, there was a mechanism that made any restricted books that were removed from it return on their own within one day. This, too, must have been supplied by the magical energy spilling from the sand sealed beneath the library. And the perpetually burning incinerator behind the school was probably the same.

“This is very important, so I’ll say it once more.” Natasha turned to look at the librarian and continued, “You must never, under any circumstances, add any sand, even if you want more power. The amount that we just put in is the maximum amount that can be used safely. If you add even the smallest amount afterward, it will be disastrous.”

“……”

“……”

Linaria and I looked at each other.

Sand.

I had brought sand from the past to the future.

……

I suddenly had a bad feeling.

Sand had come to life all over campus. It was the sand that had escaped from me and the sand that had slipped away from the students.

And there was a lot of it. The thought of the sheer quantity of sand making the rounds at school was enough to make my head spin.

Bit by bit, I froze the grains of sand in ice, but unfortunately, I had only two hands.

“There’s no end to it!”

My efforts wouldn’t be nearly enough.

The sand that was lucky enough to escape from my ice attacks slithered around on the floor and disappeared off somewhere.

I chased it through the school, freezing clumps of sand in ice everywhere I went. Some sand attacked me, while other sand ran away. And there was some that behaved like normal sand and just sat there.

Every grain of sand seemed to have its own temperament, yet it was all obeying some singular purpose.

Running around the school, I eventually arrived at the library. One of the sand snakes had taken refuge inside.

“…And this place only just reopened…”

I wondered what we would do if the books got damaged because this strange sand slipped in.

With an exasperated sigh, I opened the doors to the library.

And then…

“……Huh?”

…I saw it.

An enormous quantity of sand. As if with purpose, it pulsed and swelled above the floor. When it noticed me, it turned and fled with quick, agile movements, like a mouse startled by the shadow of a human.

Into the floor.

“……Huh?”

The library floor heaved slightly. I felt a quick tremor underfoot, as if something was striking the floor from below or as if the floor itself was throbbing. Again and again, a noise echoed from underground. The whole library shook, and a deep fissure opened in the floor.

Once the initial crack was carved into the floor, the rest happened quickly. The floor of the library swelled upward with a crunch, sending bookshelves toppling in an avalanche of paper.

Finally, the floor split open completely.

And.

A monster with a body like a pile of boulders crawled up out of the floor.

“……Huuuh?”

A golem had materialized.