Bookstore, Forbidden Books, and the Original Blockhead
“Hrng~~ Mnn~~~ Ahh~~~” It was the end of cla.s.s. Satsuki stretched herself in front of me. Looking at her curvaceous figure, I couldn’t help but marvel to myself: Satsuki has a really fantastic body.
“Hey, stupid Lin Xiang, why the heck are you gawking at me with such a lecherous stare? Are you planning to do something that goes beyond our sisterly relationship?
“Aren’t you overthinking this?” It appeared that Satsuki saw through me when I stole that quick glance at her body.
“Really? Then…”
“Hey, what? What the heck are you doing?”
All of a sudden, in the middle of our conversation, Satsuki wrapped her arms around my neck and drew her face closer and closer…
“Your face is all red. You are overthinking this, right? It’s just us sisters, what are you being all shy about?”
“Uhh….” s.h.i.t! She got me.
“Hehe… I love seeing you looking all embarra.s.sed like that. Come on, let’s go get those books. Tomorrow’s Spirit Summoning Day.” Satsuki picked up her book bag and hit me with it.
“I say…. What kind of spirits do you think you’ll be able to summon?”
“I don’t know. How about you?”
“He~~” I gave a confident laugh. Who am I? I’d be what you would call a dragonkin; be it superior spirit or a special spirit, wouldn’t they all come running?
‘Don’t get too c.o.c.ky, the summoner’s spiritual strength determines the kind of spirits they can summon.’ Just when I was getting excited, Freed had to come out and rain on my parade.
‘You’re not trying to tell me, that I wouldn’t be able to summon any, are you?’
‘Well, that….’
‘Oi, even though I can’t see your expression, could you please refrain from sounding like you’re being put in a difficult spot and can’t really answer my question?’
‘Alright, according to my prediction, based on your spiritual strength, you should, perhaps, maybe, possibly, can manage to summon a spirit of the lowest rank? Meh~~~ Just believe in yourself.’
‘Hey, wait a minute, what is the meaning of your mult.i.tudes of “maybes”?’ Percentage multiplied by percentage? (Like 90% x 90% = 81%?)
If that really was the case, then wouldn’t my chance of summoning any spirits be very low? Never mind them being the lowest ranked spirits.
‘Ugh, kid, didn’t you know, that it was like a one in a million chance for you, a Trainee Magician, with strength only at the level of a junior high student, to make it into high school? Who isn’t at least a Junior Magician in high school already? Besides, you all are still only freshmen. There are still plenty of room to grow. Oh, when I said “you all”, that doesn’t include you, by the way.’
‘Dammit. You can just say it to my face directly that my spiritual strength is so low that I won’t be able to summon any spirits. Why the heck do you have to make fun of me in such a roundabout way? Saying that my strength is only that of a junior high student….’
‘Oh? Making fun of you? So do you know any special killer moves? You weren’t thinking of saying that since you had the dragons’ power, it would be equivalent to having amazing spiritual power, and could do a lot of powerful magic? It would get out of control, and people, whoever they might be, will get hurt. What kind of magical power is that then? On top of that, while I’ll admit that your sword skills are pretty good, can you manage to summon spirits with your sword skill?’
‘That, I cannot.’ Freed wasn’t pulling any punches.
‘Well, kid, don’t be so depressed; if you really want to have a powerful spirit then you can convert your dragons’ power into spiritual power. I believe that if you can do that, it won’t matter whether they are spirit kings or what not, they will all heed your summon and come running.’
‘All…will answer my summon? Then, wouldn’t the school get so crowded that it might explode?’ Do know that the spirit population isn’t any less than the human population.
‘So, either you be someone who can’t summon any of the spirits, or be someone who can summon all of them. Your choice. Besides, if you really were to summon other spirits, and form a contract with them, wouldn’t that make the ones who came here first, the water spirit and the lowest ranked earth spirit unhappy? ‘
‘Why?’
‘Forget it, forget that I said anything. I’ve already explained it so clearly, and you still don’t understand, you really are brain dead.’
‘But…’
‘Hey, brain dead, don’t keep talking to me. The human girl Satsuki, is about to get scared half to death by you. A minute ago, you were just giving her a charming smile, then all of a sudden, you stopped talking and got all depressed and looked like you were about to cry.’
‘Oh?’
When I snapped myself back to reality, I noticed that Satsuki was standing there, spinning her wheels, and looking really anxious. When she saw that I had finally recovered, she quickly said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Lin Xiang. It’s just spirits, no need to dwell on it.”
“Nah, I was thinking about something else just now. I wasn’t worrying about whether I could summon spirits.” In truth, I was worrying about it.
“But…”
“Okay, let’s head to the bookstore.” I picked up my book bag, patted Satsuki on her head, and led us out of the cla.s.sroom.
———————— Kamiki Bookstore
Kamiki Bookstore is an enormous organization that sells all sorts of books. It is an understatement to call it a bookstore as its size rivals that of most libraries.
“Excuse me, could you tell me where I could find reference books on spirits?” Satsuki asked the young woman at the Information Desk right when we walked into the bookstore. After all, the place was simply too large.
“Good day. All reference books on spirits are located in Section D. Please feel free to peruse the area for the books that you may like.”
“Thank you.” After Satsuki uttered a polite reply to the young woman, she dragged me over to Section D.
……
“Oh… There are so many of them here.” When she saw the many different varieties of books that filled the enormous bookshelves, Satsuki was a bit stumped.
“Aren’t they all the same? Just randomly pick one, and let’s be on our way.”
“They aren’t all the same, alright? Each professor on spirits has their own theory on the subject; so, their books aren’t all the same.”
“Sigh, then what should I do?”
“Just help me look around.”
Since Satsuki said it like that, I began to flip through some of these books on spirits as well.
After flipping through the books for a bit, I got bored. So, I wandered around the nearby area to see if there were any more books. Right then, behind Section D, I saw two large bookcases that had a sign with the word “18” inside a circle. And next to it was an exclamation mark?
What does that mean? People who are 18 years of age should pay attention?
I am only 17 years old, but isn’t that almost old enough to count as 18? Besides, I could see quite a few other boys who looked about my age standing over there, flipping through the books. So, with the idea of just checking things out, I went over there.
Unexpectedly, what I saw on the covers of those books weren’t any spirits, but rather, beautiful females dressed up all s.e.xy like but had some sort of horns worn on their heads?
I took a look at the t.i.tle of the book: The H Lifestyle between My Master and I.
Right then, as I read the t.i.tle, I could feel my hands trembling. This… could this be… the rumored forbidden books? An H-book with spirits cosplaying?
When I was in junior high, I had heard about these types of books from other boys in the cla.s.s. But because I was in enough trouble all by myself already, I never managed to check them out.
And now…I was so lucky as to even lay eyes on these kinds of books, could this be Yalide’s guidance?
Just when I thought of this idea, Yalide’s voice came roaring from somewhere inside my head, ‘Bite me! Stinky brat, how did you arrive at this theory? What do you mean “Yalide’s guidance”? Why would you think that I would lead you here to read these books?’
‘Ah… I apologize, I don’t know why I would think like that all of a sudden….’ Almost forgot that they could tell what I was thinking….
‘Don’t know why you would think like that? You’d better hurry up and give me a proper explanation. How could you see me, Yalide, the dragon G.o.d who was this wonderful Demon World Administrator, as some kind of lecherous dragon?’
‘Uh… is that not the case?’ He did advise me to do Nagisa, as I recalled.
‘s.h.i.t, I…’
‘Ah… Yalide, the son of darkness…’ White dragon Freed’s voice sounded a bit sympathetic. ‘No need for you to quibble about this. Never mind him, even I, who have been with you for so many years, share the same feeling about you…. Er… an example? Like that last time, when we were just floating around, you deliberately snuck around to someone’s bathroom window….’
‘W… what kind of garbage are you saying? I… I wouldn’t do such a thing.’
‘Then, you go ahead and explain to us what you were doing at the time.’
‘T… That was… That was I wanted to get a better understanding of humans. Yup. That’s right. That was all for my getting a better understanding of humans, so I wanted to observe them in their most natural state.’
‘Oh~~ so that’s how it was. I get it now. You needed to understand human females in their most natural states – say no more; I understand you perfectly. Since we all share the same body with you, you can rest a.s.sured that we won’t reject you.’
‘Thank you…. Thank your mother! I really wasn’t…. ‘
‘Oi, oi. No need to explain further. Yalide, we understand.’ I chuckled.
‘Kid, never mind him now; you’d better watch it yourself. If you keep on like this, staring at the cover of this book with that blank expression on your face, the consequences… will be a bit less than desirable.’
When I turned around, I saw Satsuki glaring at me, with her hands on her hips….
“Yo! Satsuki… been a while.” For some unknown reason, I came up with such an idiotic line.
“Mn, been a while, been such a long while that you’re all grown up.”
“Oh, hah….” I gave her a wry smile. “Actually, I was thinking, clearly, this area should only have reference books on spirits, why is it that they would have these kinds of books around? I am telling you, I seriously despise people who read these kinds of books.”
“Oh yeah? Aren’t you wonderful?! I wonder who exactly it was just now getting so engrossed in reading these books that he even smiled to himself.” Satsuki s.n.a.t.c.hed the book from my hand, took a look at the cover, then pointed at the spirit cosplaying female on the cover art and asked, “So that’s your type?”
“No, no.” s.h.i.t! I was like a mute who had swallowed a bitter pill – couldn’t help but suffer in silence. It looked like I was engrossed in it only because I was talking to Freed and them and got lost in our conversation…. Alright, I’d admit it, I did have an urge to buy this book a moment ago. But that was because I had never seen it before. It was completely out of curiosity.
I wanted to tell Satsuki all about it so badly, but she looked like she was thinking about something else.
….
“Hey, do you know Yorikawa Nagisa?” On our way back, Satsuki asked me out of the blue.
“…No…not really?”
“Not really? If not really, then why was she staring at you when we were leaving?
“Really?” I didn’t see that at all. Besides, did Nagisa really show herself in front of me? How come I didn’t see her? “You probably saw the wrong person, right?”
“It’ll be for the best if that’s the case. It looks to me like people have already started noticing you….”
“Really? Am I that great? Hahah! Then again, who noticed me? You?”
“Sigh~~~” Satsuki looked me and sighed. Then, she mumbled to herself, “After all, I was here first, and its a blockhead too. It can’t possibly be s.n.a.t.c.hed away, right?”
“You’re going to s.n.a.t.c.h a block of wood? Wood needs to be stolen? Can’t you just get a block of wood for several hundred?” Just what kind of wooden block is it that you needed to go s.n.a.t.c.h it?
“The block of wood I’m talking about is very special, the one and only in the world, I don’t want any besides that one.”
“Oh. Looks to me like it must some high quality wood.”
“Of course, it was even authenticated and recognized internationally as the Original Blockhead.”
“Oh? An original? Even wood have these kinds of distinctions? Learn something new every day.”