After washing the dishes, I handed the book The Eleventh Brave to Lina and walked into the study, searching for the magic books Henry(Allen) had hidden.
I pulled out all the books on the bottom shelf, but none of them were what I was looking for. Half of them were even blank.
"Could someone have taken it?"
I stood up in disappointment. When I looked down again, I noticed something strange about the lowest part of the bookshelf—there was a faint gap beneath the board.
I crouched down again, stuck my fingers into the gap, and lifted the not-too-thick wooden board. Beneath it lay a pile of dusty books. As expected, there were more hidden there.
I grabbed a dry cloth and wiped the dust off each book. During the process, I kept leaving the study to wash the cloth clean, because I ended up cleaning the whole room along the way.
After some time, all the books were clean. There were eleven in total—six on ancient magic, one on non-elemental magic, and four on derived elemetal magic.
I picked up the non-elemental magic book and opened the first page. The first magic was storage magic, with explanations of its function, strengths and weaknesses.
The book explained that storage magic creates a cubic space that grows with the user's age—each year of age adds 1m to its length, width, and height.
In other words, its capacity was based on age. But would it count me as 6 years old… or 24?
Next came instructions on how to activate the magic: consciously absorb the surrounding mana through your hand, then say the magic's name.
I stared blankly. Consciously absorb mana? How was I supposed to do that? Mana was in the air—I couldn't grab it. Was I supposed to pull it into my hand somehow?
I reread the explanation. First absorb, then activate. Could it be…
I stretched my hand forward and mentally called the surrounding mana to gather in my palm. Something began to form there—an invisible sensation—so I spoke the magic.
"Storage."
A black hole opened before me, making me jump. Just as I thought, the four basic elemental magics we usually use automatically gather mana at the point of manifestation when cast.
But for storage magic, I needed to intentionally pull the mana to my hand.
I slowly inserted my hand into the hole, then my whole arm. I felt around inside the space but touched nothing—of course, it was empty.
"Ahhhh!!!"
Lina suddenly screamed. I looked toward the door and saw her standing there, her face full of shock. Her expression startled me as well.
"Lina, what's wrong!?"
"K–Karen… y-your hand is gone!"
"Huh? My hand is still here."
I could still feel both hands perfectly. What was she seeing? Her eyes were already filling with tears.
"Wait, don't cry first."
"Y-you're lying… I saw it… your hand… why is it gone…?"
She covered her eyes, unable to look at me, speaking between sobs.
Following her line of sight, I finally understood—she could only see the side of the storage space.
Storage magic opened into a separate dimension. From her angle, it would indeed look as though my hand had disappeared.
"Lina, look over here. My hand isn't gone."
"…Really?"
"Of course. You look."
She slowly lowered her hands and looked toward me. I pulled my arm out of the storage hole, and her eyes widened.
"Eh? Karen, your hand…"
Smiling, I waved my hand at her.
"I told you I wasn't lying."
Still shaken, Lina walked over and suddenly wrapped her arms around my waist. She leaned close to my ear, trembling.
"Y-you scared me so much… you have to… you have to… comfort me… uuu…"
I couldn't see her expression, but she must have been terrified. If Lina's hand had vanished like that, I probably wouldn't be able to eat or sleep from worry either.
I hugged her back, gently stroking her head along her hair as I tried to comfort her with the softest voice I could manage.
"Alright, I'll comfort you. It's okay. Don't cry."
After a while, her sobbing stopped. Lina looked up at me with red eyes, still stubbornly puffing her cheeks.
"Tonight, I'm hugging you to sleep."
She made a willful demand. I didn't mind—though just hugging probably wouldn't be enough for her.
"Sure. Then I'll hug you back too."
Hearing that, Lina leaned back so I could see her face. Tears still clung to the corners of her eyes, but she smiled.
"Then it's a promise."
I smiled back.
"Mm, a promise."
After that, I explained to Lina why my hand had seemed to disappear. Lina tried it herself and successfully created a storage hole—but hers was pure white. I glanced at the book and noticed another line beneath the explanation.
(The color of the storage magic entrance changes depending on the user's hair color.)
So that was it. I had black hair, and Lina had snow-white hair.
I continued reading through the rest of the non-attribute magic section. All of them are cast in the same way.
The book had several hundred pages, but Henry(Allen) only used a dozen pages. The rest were blank. And he even wrote one entire book for each elemental magic. What a waste of paper.
Seeing that many blank books, I realized that paper in this world wasn't particularly scarce. Still, the texture felt old—slightly rough, like ancient handmade parchment.
After that, I picked up one of the ancient magic books. The cover read Ancient Earth Magic. When I opened it, the text inside made me involuntarily shout.
"Eh? Is this real?"
"Karen, what's wrong?"
Lina was drawn by the puzzled sound I made and asked what was wrong.
I hesitated. Should I tell her? If I didn't, she might doubt me. But if I did…
"Lina, I want to tell you a story. Do you want to hear it?"
After 2 seconds of internal struggle, I decided to tell her.
Because I realized that Lina was both intelligent and empathetic, she would surely understand what I was trying to say.
"I do. What kind of story?"
We sat down on the chairs, and I began speaking.
"There's a world called Earth. It's a world with only humans and animals—no demons, no beastkin, no elves, and no magic. People can't create fire, water, wind, or earth with their hands. But life isn't inconvenient because of it. Human intelligence created tools: if you want fire, you use a lighter. If you want clean water, you use a water filter. If you want cool air, you use an electric fan. As for earth… well, you can find it anywhere on the ground.
"Earth's civilization is very advanced. Everyone goes to school to learn reading and arithmetic. There are many countries, and although everyone is human, they don't all speak the same language. But people from different countries can still communicate, because they use a common language called English."
I decided to pause here, worried that Lina might not fully understand.
"Lina, is there anything you don't understand so far?" I asked.
"There are so many things. What is a lighter? What is a water filter? What is an electric fan? And… what is a school?"
I patiently answered each of Lina's questions one by one.
"I see… humans really impressive, because they couldn't use magic, their civilization advanced."
"Exactly, humans keep evolving for convenience."
"Does this story have anything to do with what you're going to tell next?"
Lina asked, surprisingly perceptive. She had already guessed I had more to say.
"You caught me. It's somewhat related to what I'm about to tell."
"Because this story sounds like a setup."
Then I cleared my throat and told Lina about my past life.