By dawn the next morning, Lude finally put down the book he had been reading.
Yesterday's events had made Lude realize one thing: uncovering the truth about the Hidden World could no longer wait. It had become an even higher priority than forging Resist-Steel, because the danger had already arrived right before his eyes.
At some point, something had clearly changed in Sally. Something definite that had once been part of her was no longer there.
Thinking about it, the Hidden World hadn't actually concealed the existence of supernatural creatures from mortals. Nor had it hidden the fact that there were strange things in the world, or even the supernatural powers they possessed—
They had merely dulled this sort of information.
They had even hidden beneath the world's surface, giving up some of the privileges that should have been theirs.
That didn't seem like an attempt to monopolize power.
After all, the purpose of monopolizing power was to gain more privileges and keep them longer.
To Lude, this seemed more like they were protecting something—or feared the danger that might come from some mystery being exposed.
But what exactly were they protecting?
What kind of danger could make every spellcaster who still had their wits about them hide their existence in unspoken agreement?
To find the answer, Lude spent the entire night searching through Professor Beshe's books.
It wasn't until dawn that he found a clue in a paper titled On the Risks of Dreaming by Candlelight and How to Avoid Them. He then followed its citations, one by one, and finally found what he had been looking for.
Philippus von Hohenheim (1518), An Introduction to Void Elements and Entities
As it happened, Professor Beshe had a copy of this book in his collection. It was even the unpublished original