Chapter 4

Chapter 4: White-Haired, White-Eyed Theresia

For a moment, Pulcheria thought that the past few days of running herself ragged, combined with Professor Michel’s overly plain and straightforward lecture, had left her hearing a little muddled.

But judging from Theresia’s serious expression, there did not seem to be any noteworthy ambiguity in what she had just said.

Pulcheria stared at Theresia’s face, then looked at the key she was holding out. “This key... is the key to the librarian’s bedroom?”

“Mm-hm. As for the location, it’s right behind my workstation. Go through the storeroom, then take the door on the other side and you’ll be there.” Theresia nodded. “I promise I’ll clean it properly before you use it.”

Theresia’s attitude left Pulcheria a little dazed. “But isn’t that the resting room meant for you? If you just let me use it like this...”

“The school said I can use that room however I like, but I usually don’t rest there during the day, and I have to go back to the dormitory at night... so it’s just sitting empty.” Without allowing any argument, Theresia took Pulcheria’s hand and pressed the key into her palm. “If you want to rest during the day, just go there and rest.”

Pulcheria did not hesitate for long before she neatly closed her fingers around the key. “All right. I’ll get an identical copy made later and return this one to you.”

“Then I’ll wait for you at the library.”

Pulcheria watched as, after saying that, Theresia began spreading out her notes on her own. She settled calmly beside Pulcheria, looking as if she was ready to start listening to the lecture. Pulcheria could not help feeling uneasy.

—What exactly was going on with this person?

—The two of them had not exchanged more than thirty sentences in total, and they had only known each other since yesterday at most. Yet she had actually stopped caring about Pulcheria violating school rules just like that, and had even openly handed over the key to her own resting room... If Pulcheria harbored any improper designs, wouldn’t this child have basically delivered herself into Pulcheria’s hands?

Professor Michel, who stood at the lectern, had already begun reorganizing his lesson plan and preparing for the second half of the lecture. Pulcheria squeezed the key in her pocket, and in the end, she still could not suppress her curiosity. “You... Theresia, are you graduating next year?”

“I’m still far from graduation.”

“Then why do you have so much time to spend in the library? You know, in this academy, the people who have nicknames everyone recognizes are basically all famous in their own right—like that ‘Waterflow Ring’ from the Healing Major of the Water Element Department, or Rockbreaker from the Earth Element Department... But your nickname, ‘the white-haired, white-eyed librarian,’ does it have some special origin?”

“I’d rather everyone knew that my surname is Maria... A lot of people I don’t know well call me Theresia directly, and it bothers me.” Theresia shrugged, the pen in her hand still twirling without pause. “There are all sorts of races in this school, aren’t there?”

“But having the surname first really is rather rare.”

Theresia was a little unconvinced. “My roommate only has a given name.”

“I thought the name of the foreign student from the Far East I met was already the strangest.” Pulcheria shook her head and wrote down the new knowledge point Professor Michel had just explained in her notebook. “I remember she was a shrine maiden of the Wa people...”

“The one promoting ‘Slideway’?”

“It’s the ‘Way of Flowers.’” Pulcheria shook her head, then wrote that person’s name in Theresia’s notes. “Here, this is her name.”

Theresia frowned as she stared at what Pulcheria had written. “Kitsu Maho?”

“Yes. That also follows a surname-first name structure.”

Theresia’s attention, however, settled on the other half. “Maho... Maho~ Maho—eh, the pronunciation feels a little cute. This name is quite easy to say.”

“Are you an idiot?” Pulcheria finally could not help saying what she had wanted to say for a while now.

“I’m not an idiot. My entrance exam scores were very high... and I’ve never failed an exam either.”

Pulcheria shook her head. “That really doesn’t show at all.”

“The two over there who have been whispering the whole time.” Their attitude of not listening properly finally made Mage Michel, who had been tolerating them until now, unable to hold back. “If you are so eager to talk, why don’t you explain the next point for me—which mage of the empire systematically classified earlier scholars’ views on the essence of the fire element?”

“We’re doomed.” Pulcheria hurriedly lowered her head. “Stop talking. As long as we stay quiet for a while, Professor Michel won’t... Why are you standing up?”

“Professor asked us to answer the question.” Theresia clearly could not understand Pulcheria’s question at all. Immediately afterward, she raised her voice. “Mage Stahl completed this work. He believed that all combustion was a process in which objects absorbed and released phlogiston. After putting forward this view, Mage Stahl continued to publish articles arguing that lightning was also a phenomenon caused by the presence of phlogiston in the atmosphere. Therefore, he called for lightning spells to be classified as a subcategory of fire spells, but this met with strong opposition from the mages who practiced lightning spells.”

Michel nodded. “It seems you did prepare properly in advance, but do not stop listening just because you have previewed the material. If I see it again, both of you will fail this course for the semester.”

Only after Theresia sat back down did Pulcheria dare to raise her head. “You... you actually answered the question?”

“I happened to see a book on this in the library a while ago. I was curious, so I skimmed through it...” Theresia smiled. “If you’re interested, I can recommend that book to you.”

“Forget it. Just reading the works I need for my graduation thesis already makes my head ache terribly.”

Theresia, however, tore off a sheet of paper and wrote down the names of two books before handing it to Pulcheria. Pulcheria accepted it with some resignation, folded it in half, and put it into her pocket.

After the large lecture ended, Theresia returned in an excellent mood to the post she knew so well—the librarian’s seat in the library.

The first thing she had to do was call up the library’s management spell system and check how the library had operated during the few hours she had been away. This system, which had already been running for more than a decade, tenaciously completed its work today as well. No books had been overlooked, and all borrowed and temporarily borrowed books had been recorded in time. According to the self-inspection results, not a single book in the library was missing.

Theresia breathed a sigh of relief, shut down the management system, and returned to her seat.

She took out a mirror and looked at herself. When she thought of the nickname Pulcheria had told her everyone was spreading, a smile could not help rippling across her face. “All right, the white-haired, white-eyed librarian... it sounds rather nice, actually.”