小嫂子的味道

"Contrary? What do you mean?" she asked, a confused look taking over her face. 

"Hmmmm," I took a look around at our surroundings. "Let\'s talk somewhere else," I said. 

"Well, fine by me."

I hid the book in one of the straps that were on the inner side of my cloak,  then along with Alada I went to the rooftop of the class B building. 

This was something sensitive, so I\'d rather not let it be overheard by someone— not like anyone would believe, but I wanted to be overly cautious. 

Soon we reached the rooftop, opening the final door, I stepped out in the open. Today\'s weather was windy— and that was understandable, considering what was to come.

The strong gust of wind passed by, whirling my cloak in my direction and flickering my hair— making it a mess that now covered the upper brows of my eyes. 

I went and leaned on the railing followed by Alada who also came close and stood beside me. 

"Tell me now, what is it that you want me to do?" she asked. At the same time, she adjusted her hair which had been disrupted by the wind, and removed the strands from the front of her face. 

I looked up; the clouds were gray and it looked like soon the rain was upon us.

"I know something that will happen in the future, and if that happens I want you to do something," I said while continuously looking up at the sky. 

"Well well, I knew you weren\'t going to tell me anything easy to do but this! I\'d say this is rather too much," she exclaimed with a smile that showed both surprise and thrill. 

"So you won\'t do it? Too much for you?" I asked, at the same time an icicle formed before my palm that was inside my pocket at the moment. 

"No, I never said that. In fact, this is too good of an opportunity to be left like that. I will do it, tell me what you have for me," she said, 

"You don\'t need to know everything, just what you have to do. Today something will fall upon this world, something bad that nobody will expect. When that happens, it will harm the academy too. And when that happens I won\'t be here, that\'s why my sister will worry about me. Doing that she will try to leave the academy and come where I would be at…"

"And you want me to stop her from doing that?" she questioned. 

"No, not quite. Normally you would not do anything at all, however, I want you to keep a close watch on her. If you think she is going to leave the academy and come to me, that\'s when I want you to stop her. That\'s all I want you to do."

"Hmm, I see. By the way, what is this thing that will fall upon the world? And where the fuck are you going?"

"THAT\'S ALL, I want you to do," I repeated, emphasizing my words. 

Her expression underwent a change, though it was probably enough to make her understand that she didn\'t need to know anything else than what I told her. 

"Will you be able to do it?" I questioned. 

"Of course, this is nothing. I expected something harsh from you. While keeping a girl from leaving for her brother, I can do it with my eyes closed. However… I think you know that I won\'t be doing it for free."

"First do what I told you and prove your value, then ask for anything in return," I stated. 

"Fine. I will do that, it will be good if you owe me one, after all."

***

After that, I came down from the rooftop. Alada went her way and I, after a few minutes of walking, opened the door to my room. Stepping inside I locked the door and then removed my cloak, and throwing it on the bed I sat on it. 

I took the book in my hands and opened it, soon after I called Req and she took it from behind me. Hugging me from behind she peeked into the book while her arms were wrapped around my neck. 

"Can you read this?" I asked. 

"No."

The language the book was written in was unknown. I had never seen it before, neither in loli_pop\'s novel nor in any other book nor scroll in this world. 

I flipped through some pages and saw a few diagrams. They looked like small magic circles, and there were arrows pointing at them and highlighting what was written and describing it in detail. 

I flipped more pages and this time reached the center of the book. This time I could understand what was written there. In fact, I could barely call it writing.

On both center pages of the book, a big magic circle was drawn with the runes that I could read and understand. But despite that, this magic circle was complex and multilayered. 

"This is not going to be easy," I said to myself and stood up, holding the book in my hand. 

"What are you going to do?" Req asked.

"I\'ll try to decode this magic circle and find out how it works. Even if my future self didn\'t tell me to do that, I think it will be easier to use the circle if I know how it works— that\'s how magic works anyway," I explained. 

I pulled back the chair and sat on the desk. Taking out a blank sheet of paper and pen I began unsolving the runes and figuring out how this magic circle worked and what was its purpose. 

Even though I knew that this was a teleportation magic circle, it took me a few hours to decode it all. 

"Finally done," I took a breath of relief as I put the pen down and stretched my arms. 

"So? How does it work?" Req, who had been sitting patiently on the bed all this time, asked curiously. 

"It looks complex, which it is. But the way it works is quite simple actually," I said. "Once activated, this magic circle takes the object or person who stands inside it and transports it to somewhere else where the receiver magic circle is cast."