Chapter 12: The Sword That Scatters the Moonlight
Leon, having placed the giant bird within the orb, quickly erased all traces of its presence in the real world. Though it was impossible to remove every sign, he deliberately left some poorly erased marks behind. He wanted the investigating magicians to believe that someone had been here, observing and studying something before attempting to erase the evidence.
He also intentionally left behind the old man's poison vial for the same reason. Leon knew it might appear obvious, but the poison was solid evidence of the old man's research and would help the magicians understand the situation.
After leaving the old man's office, Leon didn't stop. He headed straight to the second floor of the magic library. He had always been curious about what kind of forbidden magic books were kept there and why even the librarian's access was restricted.
The door blocking the entrance to the second floor opened easily when he inserted the old man's token. The revealed space was more modest than he expected. Compared to the densely packed bookshelves on the first floor, this area held less than a third of that amount.
Leon began examining the books stored without any special restrictions. He had hoped to find a book on dark magic, not because he wanted to learn it, but out of curiosity about what it entailed. Dark magic was a secretive field, making it difficult to find information through normal means.
However, Leon was disappointed. There were no high-level dark magic books. Even the ones that could barely be called dark magic were crude and unimpressive. As he continued to browse through the books, his expectations diminished further. Most were clearly designated as forbidden for obvious reasons after just a brief inspection.
It wasn't the kind of "forbidden" he had anticipated.
"They're just too poor in quality."
Most of the magic books contained nonsensical spells that caused backlash to the caster or included crude magic like "erogenous zone stimulation." He thought it was only natural, considering this was the old magic library.
As Leon's disappointment grew, he flipped through the books faster and faster. Near the end of his search, however, he suddenly stopped at one particular book.
"El Cid Series: The Sword that Scatters Moonlight."
It was a sword magic book, something different from the usual elemental magic that was highly regarded in this world. In this world, where elemental magic was considered the norm, magic involving long weapons was often looked down upon. And for good reason—it was indeed difficult for such magic to match the power of elemental spells.