The days quietly slipped by at this unhurried pace.
Class D's anxiety still permeated every corner of the classroom.
Some students were frowning with worry because their Private Points had run out long ago, and they were even in debt.
Others were fretting over the imminent midterm exams, clutching their textbooks and cramming at the last minute.
Then there were people like Ken Sudō, who had grown irritable and given up, finding fault with everything around them.
Linmu Fujimiya, meanwhile, continued living as he always had, entirely unaffected.
He showed up in class on time every day and sat in his seat, letting the teacher's lectures go in one ear and out the other.
His thoughts were either drifting along with the clouds outside the window or planning which dessert shop on the shopping street would get the honor of serving him his next treat.
In his free time, he either went back to his dorm to play games or found a quiet corner on campus.
Perhaps beneath a large tree, or on the roof of the classroom building—if it wasn't locked. Up there, he could feel the breeze, clear his mind, and enjoy the peace of solitude.
That afternoon, the sun was bright and a gentle breeze swept by.
After a dull Japanese history class, Lin Mu was bored. He didn't want to go back to his dorm and stare at his phone, nor did he feel like going to the noisy sports field or shopping street.
With his hands in his uniform pockets and a lime-flavored lollipop in his mouth, he wandered aimlessly around campus.
Before he knew it, he had strolled up to the academy's grand library.
It wasn't that he'd suddenly become studious and wanted to bury himself in schoolwork—that would have been completely unnecessary for him.
He'd just suddenly thought that, even if he went by the title of "Divination Immortal," he ought to occasionally browse books on the occult.
He had no use for them, but they could still help him pass the time.
He might even find some interesting urban legends or theories about supernatural phenomena to read for fun.
The academy's library was spacious and bright to the point of extravagance.
Its high vaulted ceiling and enormous windows filtered the afternoon sunlight into soft beams that slanted across the gleaming dark wood floor, casting mottled shadows through the windowpanes.
The air was filled with the comforting, clean scent of paper and ink.
There was also the distinctive smell of old books, slightly musty yet somehow enchanting.
The library was exceptionally quiet. Only the occasional faint rustle of turning pages or footsteps broke the silence, as if everyone had instinctively lowered even their breathing.
Lin Mu ambled through the forest of towering shelves, avoiding the crowded study-help section and the popular fiction area.
Relying on instinct—and Psychokinesis to quickly scan the classification labels on the nearby books—
he headed straight for the "Occult, Folklore, and Paranormal" section deep in the library, where it was quieter.
The shelves here looked a little worn, and most of the books had old-fashioned, heavy covers.
Some even had gilded or embossed patterns, making them quite different from the modern-looking books in the other sections.
His fingertips brushed along the rows of spines, as if he could feel the paper's slight roughness and the weight of history.
He glanced over them casually, his gaze passing over An Introduction to Astrology, The Secrets of Tarot Cards, The World's Mythologies, The Unsolved Mysteries Archives...
At last, he pulled out a book with a dark purple starry-sky cover and the gilded title Tarot Symbols and Their Deeper Meanings. Then he leaned against a nearby bookshelf and casually began to read.
Mostly, he was too lazy to find an empty seat. It didn't matter where he read.
Leaning casually against the bookshelf and turning the pages every now and then as time quietly passed seemed nice enough.
Time slipped by. His gaze drifted over the complicated explanations of the symbols on the pages.
But his thoughts had already wandered to what flavor of pudding he should have for dinner.
Out of the corner of his eye, he happened to notice a figure in the nearby "Mystery, Suspense, and Crime Fiction" section.
It was a slender girl wearing the standard Advanced Nurturing girls' uniform: a dark red blazer, a white pleated skirt, and gray over-the-knee socks.
She had long, smooth silver hair that caught the light filtering through the gaps between the shelves, giving it a faint shimmer.
(When I watched the anime, I thought her hair was blue, but the character card says silver...)
She was gazing slightly upward, her delicate brows furrowed as her amethyst eyes searched one spine after another.
Her fingertips wandered over the book spines, and her face showed deep concentration, touched with a hint of frustration at coming up empty.
She stood straight and still, giving off a quiet air that blended perfectly with the library yet made her stand out all the same.
Like a lily of the valley growing in a secluded valley, blooming alone and warning strangers to keep their distance.
At a glance, she seemed like someone just like him—"one of their kind," either bad at socializing or unwilling to do it, accustomed to being alone.
Lin Mu wasn't someone who liked meddling in other people's business, especially when it came to strangers.
After all, it helped him avoid unnecessary social exhaustion.
But watching the girl search so intently without success, her lips pressed together ever so slightly, somehow stirred the few remaining traces of his "helpfulness."
Perhaps it was because she had that same solitary air about her?
He closed the hefty book on Tarot Cards and gently slid it back into its place on the shelf.
Then he walked over softly and stopped about two steps away from the girl, careful not to get too close.
"Looking for a book?" His voice had instinctively softened, taking on a gentler tone that sounded clear but not jarring in the quiet aisles.
He even tried to form a faint, supposedly friendly smile, though it might not have worked very well.
He tried to break the silence in that section. "Maybe... I can help?"
At the sound of his voice, Hiyori Shiina emerged from her focused search and looked up.
Her amethyst eyes first showed a hint of bewilderment at being interrupted, then settled on Lin Mu's handsome, stern face, which looked a little odd with a lollipop in his mouth.
She paused, a fleeting trace of surprise flashing through her eyes.
She was probably surprised that someone had spoken to her first, and by his striking appearance.
But that hint of surprise soon sank away, and her eyes returned to their still, unruffled calm.
Her gaze lingered on Lin Mu's face for a second, then shifted slightly away. Her voice was cool, like fresh snow settling on a lake, naturally distant but still polite:
"I'm looking for Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
Her voice was soft, and her words were brief and concise. "I've looked all over, but I can't find it."
After speaking, she instinctively glanced back at the bookshelf in front of her, her brows still faintly furrowed. She clearly wasn't good at talking to people and just wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible so she could keep looking.
Edgar Allan Poe? The Murders in the Rue Morgue? One of the founding works of detective fiction. Lin Mu understood.
He nodded without giving anything away, as though considering her request.
At the same time, his thoughts stirred—Psychokinesis spread out from him like an invisible scanning wave, sweeping over every book on several nearby shelves.
Information surged into his mind like a tide, then was processed at incredible speed.
It took only a moment for him to pinpoint the book: the third shelf to the left, third row from the top, seventh book from the right.
He raised a hand and reached for it naturally, his fingertips finding the exact spot. He pulled out the slim volume, its cover decorated with a vintage dark pattern and its spine bearing a gilded title, and held it out to Hiyori Shiina.
"Is this the one?" He kept up his not-quite-practiced, faint smile.
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