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A Golden Fairy Lives At the Top of the Library – Part 01

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Translator: Kell

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A quiet, spring evening.

St. Marguerite’s Grand Library.

One of Europe’s largest bookhouses, its stone walls marked by time. Inside, past the riveted leather doors, bookshelves covered the walls. It was a solemn space, filled with knowledge, time, and quietness.

It stood hidden deep within the campus of St. Marguerite Academy, a prestigious school for children of the aristocracy located in the mountains of the Kingdom of Sauville, a small country in Western Europe. For the past three hundred years, the building had maintained its miraculous tranquility.

“Whaaat?! Maxim is Ciaran?!”

Far above the supposedly quiet library, from a space near the ceiling adorned with majestic religious paintings, echoed a boy’s surprised cry. A strange murmur swept across the hall, as if the tens of thousands of books on the walls, which had been drifting in silence for so long, slowly opened their wrinkly eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

A narrow wooden staircase rose perilously from the hall below like a gigantic maze. Far above, near the ceiling, was a lush conservatory, filled with tropical plants and blooming flowers. The boy’s voice seemed to come from around there.

“You’re too loud, Kujou!”

“Wh-What do you mean?”

“How should I know?”

Mixed in with the boy’s cry was a strange voice, husky like an old lady’s, yet somehow sonorous. The voice was lashing at the boy violently. For a while, the boy groaned thoughtfully, until eventually silence blanketed the conservatory.

A small, kind-looking oriental boy was sitting there, holding his knees. There was a tiny, intricate doll in front of him.

A doll of a girl, nearly life-size, about 140 centimeters tall. It was dressed in an extravagant, heavy-looking dress, puffy with white laces and pink ribbons. Her long, magnificent golden hair hung to the floor like an untied velvet turban. Only the side of her small face was visible, but on her awe-inspiring, handsome features, green eyes flickered with breathtaking ruthlessness.

A thick book lay on the doll’s lap and all around her in a pattern reminiscent of magic circles.

She brought the ceramic pipe in her elaborate hand to her mouth and took a drag.

A wisp of white smoke slowly drifted to the skylight.

“Avril being the second Ciaran is surprising, but how do you know that the first one was Maxim?” Kazuya asked.

“The first Ciaran disappeared suddenly seven or eight years ago,” the doll—no, the girl, so small, beautiful, and cold that she seemed like a doll, Victorique—answered wearily. “Maxim returned to the academy every spring, but was killed eight years ago. Then his body was found and the second Ciaran arrived. Is this a coincidence?”

“B-But…”

“Maxim, or rather, the first Ciaran, probably returned to the academy every spring to hide the treasures he acquired. Like how pirates hide their treasures in caves. The purple book was one of them. But before he could hide it, he was locked up in the crypt along with it. This is mere speculation, though.”

Victorique turned her attention back to the book and resumed reading at tremendous speed. She turned a page and read, and then turned and read again. She occasionally brought her pipe to her mouth and took puffs. Kazuya watched her intently.

Suddenly, Victorique dropped her book. Her green eyes widened as she stared into the void.

“What’s the matter?” Kazuya asked.

“I’m bored!”

“What?”

“I read and read, but I’m still bored! The dumb-looking man over there. You! I believe your name was Kujou. Do something that would surprise me.”

“Wh-Who are you calling dumb?! Besides, I can’t think of anything…”

“For example.” Victorique approached Kazuya with a serious look on her face. Sensing trouble, he retreated. “Stick your head between your legs and smile, or spin a plate on a stick on your belly.”

“I can’t do either of that!”

“Why not? You’re an oriental, aren’t you?”

“That’s just racist!”

Kazuya stood up. He was legitimately angry. She was a member of the nobility of Sauville, the little giant of Western Europe, but Kazuya, as the third son of an imperial soldier, decided that he would not stand for such insults.

“Victorique,” he said with a hard look.

“Hold that thought,” Victorique said. “What did the ghost in the storehouse say to you and Cecile?”

Kazuya paused, the wind taken out of his sails. “I think it was ‘help’.”

“That sounds serious. Why don’t you go help her?”

“The ghost?”

“You are such an idiot.”

Kazuya’s anger flared again, but Victorique was unfazed.

She opened her small, cherry lips. “It’s not a ghost that’s in the storehouse. It’s a girl. You mentioned blonde hair and blue eyes? Oh, no!”

“Wh-What is it?”

“Is Grevil still in the academy? If he is, take him to the storehouse. He sports a weird hairdo, but he’s technically a cop. Authority, of course, is nothing but an excrement of civilization, but it can be of some use.”

“I don’t mind,” Kazuya said, baffled. “But what are we going to do there?”

Victorique spread both hands and waved them around in protest.

“Don’t you get it?!” She sounded vexed. “You’re going to save a girl with short blonde hair and blue eyes.”

“…Who?”

“Avril Bradley. Just go. I’ll have you stick your head between your legs some other time. Leave, now.”

Kazuya looked perplexed as he descended the labyrinthine staircase, completely clueless.

“…Huh?”

Avril, the very person they were talking about, was hurrying up the stairs. She was carrying a large suitcase for some reason. It seemed light and empty.

“Hey,” Kazuya called.

Avril looked up.

“What’s with the suitcase?”

“I’m going to put Grafen Stein’s work inside,” she replied. “I mean, it’s nothing. I’m in a bit of a hurry. What were you doing here?”

“I was talking to Victorique,” Kazuya said as he passed by Avril in the perilously narrow stairs. “She asked me to do something.”

“Victorique?” Avril watched Kazuya descend in a hurry, confused. “Is he serious? There’s no girl up in the conservatory. Is the evil soul within the doll ordering him around? What’s going on here?”

With an empty suitcase in hand, Avril continued climbing the labyrinthine stairs.

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After leaving the library, Kazuya wandered around the campus in search of Inspector Blois. Every time he ran into a teacher, he would describe the inspector’s bizarre hairstyle—blonde hair that was hardened into the shape of a drill.

“If you’re talking about the weirdo, he went that way,” a teacher said.

Kazuya sprinted toward the direction they were pointing at.

Soon after, he found Inspector Blois. It was almost evening, and the bright setting sun was shining on the man’s golden drill. Kazuya explained to the inspector that he did not know what was going on but that Victorique wanted him to go to the storehouse.

Inspector Blois frowned. “I don’t know this Victorique you speak of, but let’s go check the place out.”

“Inspector…!”

“Oh, don’t give me that look.”

Inspector Blois quickly led the way to the storehouse.

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The storehouse was dim and humid, filled with disorganized piles of dusty desks and chairs, dirty mirrors, and other items.

The inspector proceeded cautiously, one step at a time.

“Kujou,” he said. “There’s a ghost here, right?”

“Yeah. Millie Marl’s ghost. It’s just a rumor, though.”

“And you and that female teacher saw it.”

“Wait, are you scared?”

Inspector Blois whirled around. Kazuya swiftly dodged the tip of the drill that almost pierced his forehead.

“I am not scared!”

“But Ms. Cecile said that the ghost we saw was not Millie. It was the face of a different person.”

“Then who is it?”

“No idea. But when I told Victorique about it, she said it was Avril Bradley. Shen then told me to go help her. I’m not sure what she means, though. Avril is very much alive. I just passed her on the stairs in the library.”

Kazuya and Inspector Blois exchanged looks, confused.

“Even I, a famed inspector, am clueless.”

“I can imagine.”

They glared at each other, and continued on, one step at a time.

Deeper inside the storehouse, someone lay collapsed on the floor.

Inspector Blois yelped, while Kazuya rushed over. It was a girl of his age, he realized.

“It’s her…”

The girl had her eyes closed.

It’s the ghost we saw earlier. It wasn’t actually a ghost, but a living girl.

Kazuya helped the girl up and peered into her face. His breath seized.

She’s pretty.

The girl had a mature and refined set of facial features. She had short blond hair. Long, sprightly arms and legs stretched out from a simple white dress. She was slim but graceful, reminiscent of a young doe. But her skin and clothes were dirty, her hands and feet were bound, and a loosened gag was stuck over her mouth.

Kazuya quickly removed the girl’s gag and untied the strings that bound her hands and feet. As he looked into her face, the girl’s eyes snapped open.

Her eyes were as blue and clear as a fine summer sky.

Tears welled up in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

The girl threw her arms around Kazuya. “Help me!”

“That’s what I came here for. You’re safe now. I got a cop with me here. But who are you? Why were you confined here? Who did this to you?”

“I’m the real Avril Bradley!” cried the blue-eyed girl—Avril Bradley. Her pretty face was scrunched up in fear.

Kazuya’s breath caught. “Really?”

“Yes!”

“Then the other Avril is an impostor…”

Kazuya recalled the sense of discomfort he occasionally felt from the fake Avril. Sometimes she was innocent and spirited, and then suddenly she would look cold, as if she were a different person. And there were times when she acted much older than how she looked.

Perhaps the innocent and spirited side she showed was her imitating the real Avril.

Victorique said that the fake Avril was the second Ciaran.

Wait a sec… That means…

Kazuya bolted upright. He remembered where the fake Avril—the second Ciaran—was right now.

“The library! V-Victorique!”

“What’s wrong?”

Leaving Avril to Inspector Blois, Kazuya dashed out of the storehouse.

“Kujou?”

“Ciaran went to the library! I don’t know what she’s after, but Victorique’s inside, all alone!”

Kazuya raced down the gravel path.

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