Dantalian no Shoka:Volume1 Chapter3

It was afternoon in the town. A couple of children were sitting in a circle in a dirty small classroom.

The room was located in the back yard of a noble's mansion, in an old wooden building. The building was plain in construction and had probably used to be inhabited by servants. The smell of chalk was in the air of the classroom, whose walls were stained black by the smoke of coal.

On the dilapidated table in the midst of them there were old newspapers and magazines.

"Have you read it?" murmured one of the children listlessly while skimming through a magazine.

The speaker was about twelve or thirteen years old and had queerly prudent eyes that did not consort with his still young countenance. The magazine in his hands was filled with all kinds of complicated formulas.

The children opposite him giggled amusedly.

"If you are talking of Stark's thesis that earned him a nobel prize in physics, then yes."

"The same goes for Soddy's research in radioactive decay and Haber's methods for producing chlorine gas."

"Simple, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it surely was."

The children kept on giggling. Another one of them said as he watched a newspaper on the table, "Seems like there was yet another riot at the colonies."

"That is because the committee promulgates those absurd laws!"

"There's also a problem with who was selected for the governor general and the tax system."

"I concur. Why can the adults not even understand such simple things?" someone asked in a honestly wondering tone.

Someone else answered with a laugh, "Because they're fools!"

"Indeed, they are fools, the adults."

"Yes. Fools."

"Are we really going to be fine if we entrust the world to those foolish adults...?"

The amused laughter that had filled the classroom stopped abruptly.

They looked at each other with vacant eyes.

There was a very special book on the table they surrounded. There was no author denoted, nor was there any indication of its publishing date. The only evident fact was its old age.

The magnificent leather binding had lost its color during the many years it had witnessed, but one could still barely read the title.

The Book of Wisdom. That was the title of the book.

Chapter 3 - The Book of Wisdom
Episode 03: Liber Sapientiae

1

Huey awoke in darkness that day.

Someone was violently shaking his resting body, producing the sound of metal clashing from time to time. It was the sound of an armor.

"—Wake up, Huey. Huey!"

A slightly lisping girl was calling his name by his ear. While her voice was pleasant and clear, the tone that came with it was haughty.

"Uh..." groaned Huey while opening his eyes.

He groped for the pocketwatch that was put next to his bed, but he found himself unable reading the time from it. The only thing he could tell was that it was pitch black.

The same held true for the scenery outside, which was as dark as in the depths of the sea.

In this darkness stood a small girl with long black hair.

She wore black clothing which blended into the night. The entire garment was adorned with countless laces and frills that at some spots were covered by parts of her metal armor. It was an odd mixture that could neither be called dress nor armor

And in front of her chest an old lock, tied by silver chains, shone dimly.

"What happened, Dalian...? It looks as though it was night outside," asked Huey, still bleary-eyed.

"You may rest assured. Your eyesight is perfectly normal," the girl in black that had been called Dalian replied tonelessly.

Huey paused for a moment and then put on a frown, "...what's the time?"

"The sun will rise soon."

"Mh," Huey sat up with difficulty. He could still see nothing but thick darkness outside and sense no indication of dawn.

The white moon hung in the eastern sky. Not even the roosters of the farmers had awoken yet.

Similarly, Huey had been deep in sleep too, of course, and was violently rouse from slumber. By that queerly dressed girl.

"So... why did you wake me so late in the night?" asked Huey in a powerless voice after he had shaken his dozy head.

Dalian was standing vacantly in the darkness, with a incredibly beautiful face that would remind of a well-crafted porcelain doll. In her arms she was holding a coat, making it evident that she was anxious to go out.

Huey contorted his face slightly upon noticing this, for the only plausible reason for hitting him awake he could think of was that there was some kind of emergency.

Dalian, however, told him with her calm voice, "We are going to the bookstore."

"...Eh?"

Huey's movements stopped for a few moments. He was gazing at her with eyes that signified his bafflement. Dalian on her part glared back at him and protested, "I'm bored because I have read myself through all books in this mansion. Thus, we are going to buy books."

"...You read yourself through all of them?"

Huey watched at Dalian in amazement.

As hard to believe as it was, she was not carrying a book around with her.

His grandfather, an eminent bibliomaniac, had collected a great number of books from all parts of the world. And as it seemed, those mansion-filling piles had been too few to her.

Unless there was a special circumstance, Dalian was practically always reading some type of book. Other than reading, she did almost nothing. Hence, it had been a mere question of time until she read herself through all of them, which, by chance, happened today, this very moment.

"How long do you plan on counting sheep there? Get on your feet already, you fishmoth," Dalian ranted while looking down to him.

"...a fishmoth, huh," sighed Huey, before he pulled himself together and raised his face again. "But you know, Dalian... bookstores aren't normally open so late in the night!"

"Even morons know that much," replied Dalian coldly, "Still you are explaining the obvious. Are you by any chance a moron?"

Huey shrugged his shoulders tiredly.

"Then why do you wake me this late?"

"If we take the first train, we'll reach the capital before noon," she answered his question straight away.

Huey leaned forwards, surprised.

"Wait a moment! Do you have in mind to go to the capital just to buy some books?"

Dalian nodded.

"Yes. We will also go to the capital. After buying most of the important books there, we will head to the surrounding places and buy the rest. Am I not being truly effective? Now hurry up and get yourself prepared when you're done admiring my brilliancy," the black-dressed girl said before turning from him and leaving the room. After looking after her for a few moments in blank amazement, Huey took his pocket watch once again.

"...oh please spare me."

There was still nothing but darkness beyond the window.

2

That bookstore was situated in a side street of the university town which was lively with restaurants and shops.

The interior of the two-story building was buried in tall bookshelves in which countless books were put tidily. With sparkling eyes Dalian looked around in the shop and as soon as she had found a shelf to her liking, she rushed to it like an energetic puppy.

"Hm, a fairly good range of goods." Dalian flashed a smile while looking up at the titles in the shelf.

"This is the oldest university town in our country. If you're looking for scientific books, I think you'll have better fortune here than in the capital," said Huey as he sighed. He wiped away the tears at the corner of his eyes and shook his head slightly to get rid of his sleepiness.

Dalian didn't give him an answer, but she was in high spirits like he hadn't seen her before.

She scurried around in the store, took all kinds of books just to put them back and at last stood still before a shelf deep inside the store. Then, after searching with her gaze for someone that looked like a shop assistant, she called him roughly.

"Hey, that shopman over there. Hand us all books from this shelf to that shelf in the corner over there!"

The shop assistant turned around, bothered and wordless.

A queerly clothed black girl had entered his shop and was saying absurd things; who could blame him for parading his discontent?

Dalian, irritated by his attitude, twisted her mouth, "Have you not heard me, you midlife loafer?! I just told you that I'm doing the compliment to you of buying all the books from here to there!"

"Hey, Dalian..."

Huey rushed to Dalian in a hurry. He covered the mouth of the ranting girl and removed her forcefully from the baffled shop assistant.

"Stop it! What are you doing, Huey!" Dalian struggled fiercely to come free by waving around her arms and legs. With a scowl she glared at Huey, "Let go of me! You rude fool! You reek like a geezer!"

Huey listened to her and let go of her. Dalian was pulled down by gravity, however, and fell to the ground headfirst. Her armor produced a deafening noise.

Huey shook his head and let out a sigh.

"Dalian. Listen up. Don't you think it's strange to buy books like that?"

"...What's strange is your head. What is wrong with buying books in a bookstore?" A teary-eyed Dalian looked up at him with resenting eyes while holding her reddened forehead.

"You know, you don't normally buy whole shelves! We haven't come here to buy ahead sardines or something, after all."

"But Wez has always bought books this way."

Dalian glared at Huey in disbelief, who then frowned slightly. "Wez" was the nickname of his grandfather who had passed away half a year ago.

Wez was a so-called bibliomaniac and famous in a certain lobby. Consequently, the mansion Huey had inherited from him was filled with thousands upon thousands of books. It was said that among those books one could even find some curious and banned books that his grandfather had bought for horrendous prices, and cursed books. Apparently, he had once given away half of his property for a single book.

"Don't compare me to my grandfather. In the first place, how do you plan on getting all those books home? Besides, we haven't brought enough money with us anyway."

"Ngh... then what should we do?"

Dalian bent her brows in disturbance.

Huey just shrugged with his shoulders, "Just choose those you really want to read? Restrict yourself to five or six books and I'll buy them for you."

"Five or six?!" Dalian widened her eyes. She shook her head weakly as though she had experienced a huge shock. "You tell me to select five or six books from that great number? How do you call this type of torture?! Is it so fun tormenting me?! Do you make a fetish of harming others, you hopeless sado?"

"At any rate, we aren't going to buy a whole shelf. Select only the ones you need."

Ignoring the girl's tirade, he headed back deeper into the store.

The bookstore did not only handle scientific books, but also dramas and latest novels.

While letting out a sigh, Huey took one of the new releases that had been piled. It was a detective novel by a popular author. At first he only speed read some of the pages, but as soon as there was a most mysterious incident, he started to flip through it with a serious mien.

In the beginning, she left it at scowling at him, but then she sneaked behind him on her tip-toes and whispered into his ear, "It's the mail delivery."

"Eh?"

"The culprit masqueraded as the postman. He concealed the corpse in a luggage bag, therefore the gatekeepers didn't notice."

"Ugh..."

Huey contorted his face when he was suddenly given away the ending, whereas Dalian chuckled mischievously. While glaring at her with a sidelong-glance, Huey took another book from a shelf.

Dalian narrowed her eyes immediately, "In this one it's the narrator himself, the doctor. Just read the depiction carefully when the corpse gets discovered."

"Why are you doing this?!" Huey burst out.

Dalian countered, unimpressed, "You were mean to me first."

"I merely taught you common sense!"

Understandingly enough, his voice was rough. Dalian pursed her lips and sulkily turned her head from him.

Suddenly, someone—it was a laughing woman's voice—addressed them from behind.

"Hey, hey, don't fight at such a place. You're just causing trouble!"

When Huey turned around, he found a young woman who was carrying a book, which she had apparently been reading.

Her age was about Huey's; either in her late teens or at most in her early twenties. She was rather short, but still a head taller than Dalian.

She could surely be called beautiful because of her pretty face, but what left even more of an impression was her smile. She laughed innocently like a child.

"If you lack the money to buy those books, shall I lend you some? I'll set a high interest rate though," teased the young woman while peeking into Huey's face.

Huey gazed at her, completely taken by surprise. "...Camilla?"

"Yaaay! It's been a while, Huey. Why didn't you get in touch with me when you've come back to England?" Camilla nodded over-happily.

While all this was happening, Dalian was hiding behind Huey.

At last she hesitantly poked half her head with utmost care. It was the behavior of a small animal. Moreover, she had taken a thick book and was shielding her head with it.

While pulling the hem of Huey's coat, she asked whisperingly, "Who's that blonde over there that looks as if she had no strong points at all apart from her face?"

"Well... how should I put it...," whispered Huey ambiguously.

Camilla leaned towards Dalian, "Who's this little one? Isn't she a little too tall for your daughter, Huey?"

"...daughter?!" The black-dressed girl reddened and was bereft of speech. Apparently, she took offense at being treated like a child and trembled in anger.

Camilla, however, laughed unaffectedly and said brightly, "No, just joking! Don't worry, I'm informed. You're looking after the girl grandfather has adopted, right?"

"Adopted... huh. More or less, yeah...," Huey nodded awkwardly.

After hearing him out with a raised brow, Camilla suggested, "I'd love to chat a bit with you. Do you have time to have a cup of tea with me?"

"We should have time," he said and turned around to the girl behind him. Dalian puffed her cheeks and glared at Camilla.

Camilla put her finger on her lips, pondering over something, and looked up at the ceiling. Then she took out a little package from her bag for some reason.

The package was wrapped with a ribbon and was from a famous confectionery in this street. As soon as she untied the ribbon, the delicious smell of baked sweets filled the air.

Camilla opened the package and Dalian leaned forwards.

She closed the package and Dalian quickly hid behind Huey.

Camilla opened the package again and Dalian stuck out her head again.

"How about enjoying a cup of tea together? I'll even add some freshly baked sweets! Wow!" Camilla asked with a broad smile.

Dalian fell into silence, caught between the two options that enfolded before her, but eventually asked with a oddly serious voice, "...will I get some clotted cream to the scones?"

"Yes, of course. I'll even get you some jam for your black tea."

Camilla nodded while laughing merrily. After putting back the book to its original place, Dalian walked towards her. Then she turned back to Huey and urged him with reproaching eyes, "Stop loitering, Huey. We're going!"

3

[in translation]