Luge sat on his chair, silently watching the succubus scholar spiraling into hysteria. Ever since he had placed the slip of paper from Old Butler Izel in front of her, she had been like this. Perhaps she was giving him a lesson on what pure, unadulterated hysteria looked like; right now, it was plain to see in her. It was a frantic, maddened state with no outlet, as if there were nothing tangible to rage against and no one to blame, yet an explosive fury was festering in her chest, ready to burst.
He swung his legs—not because he wanted to, but because every chair in the room left his feet dangling above the floor.
While waiting for the succubus to finish her fit, he pieced together the shredded note on the table bit by bit.
"Done venting?"
Keeping his head down, he slid his fingers across the tabletop to fit the last two pieces into place. Across from him, quiet had returned.
"Of course not," the succubus replied, still smiling. "After bottling it up for three hundred years, venting it all so easily would be such a waste."
"Can we talk normally now?" He finally set the last scrap of paper into place.
"Naturally."
The calm, sweet smile from yesterday had already returned to the succubus scholar's face.
"Please overlook my lapse in composure. For a moment, I simply didn't know who to lash out at. After all, even if I wanted to resent the world, it doesn't exist anymore, does it?" she said with a teasing smile.
"I think you were wondering who caused all of this," Luge said, legs swinging beneath the table. "And then you realized: it wasn't this door, it wasn't the old butler, it wasn't the City Lord who broke his promise, and it wasn't the student you never met. You even realized it wasn't the world that vanished. Then you realized their fate was the same as yours. So it dawned on you—what caused all of this was weakness. A weakness you couldn't change, and a weakness the world couldn't change either."
Hearing this, the succubus scholar smiled, her amusement gradually turning into a chuckle.
"You're quite right. Putting an end to my hysteria was only to keep myself from looking so weak. If you weren't here, I might have screamed for much longer." The corners of her smiling lips curved into a charming arc, seemingly unbothered by Luge's critique of her and her vanished world.
They chatted for a few more moments. The succubus scholar genuinely seemed to have calmed down, even if little on the surface had changed.
All Luge wanted was a normal conversation. Her hysterical display had made him think she might completely give up on herself. After all, he couldn't truly empathize with her; no amount of imagination could bridge the gap between their experiences. Hers was a loss of kin, of a world, of centuries slipping away, and even the loss of a target for her hatred. She had lost virtually everything. As she had said, everyone who knew her name was gone, so her name was meaningless now.
"This paper..." Luge pointed to the pieced-together note on the table. "It's missing the most critical point. Old Izel is senile and out of his mind. Even if we meet that young master and find him, does that guarantee we can get out? And how would we leave?"
He could envision that if they couldn't leave immediately, the mad old butler would surely do something extreme the moment he and the young master appeared together.
The succubus pondered for a moment.
"Perhaps my student, whom I've never laid eyes on, is in the same boat as me," she mused. "He might even be dead already, with old lunatic Izel's memory frozen years in the past, or remembering only what he wants to remember."
Luge recalled someone scratching at the back of his head the night before.
He had considered that someone might be manipulating the castle's mysterious power to deliver a message, but he had also thought it might be the young master's ghost.
"Do you have a way to see spirits or... well, anything like that?" he asked.
The succubus scholar only smiled and said nothing, taking her time.
"The note says you're a powerful wizard. Old Izel's judgment isn't half bad, you know. I've never seen a wizard before! I naively assumed you were just an ugly, odd little imp. Who knew wizards looked like this?" The succubus looked at him. "I've read in books never to underestimate a wizard. They always have some unexpected trick up their sleeves to give you a little surprise."
"Maybe I've found the young master's spirit." With a gentle breath, Luge scattered the assembled scraps on the table once more.
The alluring succubus finally grew serious.
After a thought, she produced a monocle from her ring and offered it to him.
"I hope it still works here. Consider it a return gift for the dragon blood," she said.
Luge took it and tried holding it in his eye socket. It was a bit tricky, but the moment it settled into place, his mental power began to drain. That at least proved it worked.
"Now that we don't need to perform according to my script, things are far less interesting," the succubus said with a smile. "So I'll wait three days—no, two. If wizards are really that cautious, I'll find my own way to the library."
"My lady, if you can walk out this door, I have no reason to stop you," Luge replied nonchalantly. "If you fail, just try to leave me some useful information."
The succubus was taken aback for a second, then laughed again. "Just as the books say: wizards really are people like you. Exactly like this."
Luge could no longer tell whether she genuinely intended to go or was merely joking, but it didn't matter.
Lesson time was over.
Under escort, he returned to his room and immediately put on the monocle.
Pinching the lens tightly caused his cheek and nose to bunch up. Feeling the drain on his mental power, he scanned the room.
Perhaps he needed to wait a bit longer—was it still too early? he consoled himself.
Maybe ghosts needed sleep too.
Suddenly, as he stood in the corner looking back across the room, he spotted a faint, ghostly glow beneath the bed.
He hurried over and shifted the bed aside.
Prying up a floorboard beneath the bed, a square little box came into view.
Inside the box was a small, pointed object, resembling a baby tooth shed naturally with age.
Was this some custom from that world? Luge wondered.
He wiggled it from side to side and flicked it with a fingernail, but saw nothing unusual about it.
Just as he was about to search for other clues, a wisp of shadowy phantom drifted from the tip of the tooth, gradually stretching into a humanoid shape.
It had the appearance of a handsome youth—young, yet carrying an air of poise.
"At last, I can formally meet you, my long-awaited roommate. In the past, I heard the servants speak of the lively scenes when many siblings or dear companions who play together share a single room, and I've looked forward to it ever since. Please don't let go of my tooth, though—otherwise, it will be hard for you to see me clearly, and you won't be able to hear my voice."
The youth spoke fluent, authentic Abyssal, hardly sounding like someone in need of a tutor.
"Your Abyssal is really quite good..." Luge remarked.
"Of course. But according to aristocratic etiquette, they still had to invite the most renowned scholar in the city to tutor me for five years. I never attended a single session, though—it was such a foolish practice, don't you think?" the handsome young master said.
Luge's face twitched. He could already imagine what kind of hysteria would erupt if the succubus ever found out.
Chapter 57