Day 86, 10:01 AM

  I turn around in the service corridor once more. Instead of going to get drunk and cause a needless incident with Edna, I head back towards the library. I must look like a madman to anyone watching. Fortunately, I’m alone in the cramped space.

  The plan for this loop is to finish the last batch of books. Hopefully, the grimoires are in the library; otherwise, I should start checking the building for secret chambers and compartments.

  The alternative is that they aren’t here at all, which is possible, but unlikely. My guess is someone transcribed them ages ago, as for the originals, they should be somewhere around here, or locked up in some collector’s vault.

  Is this my final loop for the library? It probably is. I have cheated decades of learning experience out of this mansion, and my mental health is decent. It’s about time I start acting like a person again.

  I head to the library and resume where I stopped last loop, starting over with a bunch of books on animals. This time, I don’t just skim through them, but read the whole entries, admire the masterful drawings, and commit the details about local wildlife to memory. That is until I reach the bugs.

  As expected, the library offered no entries about monstrous insects so far, let alone abominations and other wormlord spawn, but large land-bound crustaceans did exist when the bestiary was written. I head for the kitchen after growing tired of various insects. In the end, I just scanned their entries for words like venom, poison, edible, and toxic, and divided them into three categories, things which can feed me, things which can kill me, and other, things I don’t care about.

  Classic human behavior, but there is a good reason for it - I don’t care about all the wildlife unique to this world. Eventually, I will die, head into a death spiral until I claw my way out of it and repeat the cycle. Knowledge that’s not universal, such as physics, magic, chemistry, metallurgy, and engineering, or immediately useful is low priority — nice to have, but hardly worth my time.

  I look out the window, the night’s rain is letting up, giving way to the day’s drizzle, and I head to the kitchen.

  Gila is cooking breakfast. She sees me as I enter and smiles, but says nothing. Good girl.

  “I missed lunch and dinner yesterday.”

  She shrugs. “I’ve put your portion back into the pot. Shame to waste good food.”

  “Where do you get the ingredients?”

  “There’s a fully stocked larder with dried goods, I just pick those which will make for a good stew.”

  Makes sense. This is an archmage’s mansion, once a gathering hub of mages, everything must be neatly labeled and probably warded against rot and spoiling.

  “And what are we having today?”

  Gila shrugs while stirring the pot. “I don’t know, I just take things which will taste good together.”

  Then it all clicks together in my head.

  “Gila, does the packaging have labels and writing on it.” I ask in a roundabout way in case calling her illiterate hurts her feelings.

  “It does, but I can’t read. Never had the time for it, nor anyone willing to teach me. I’ve been changing diapers since before I can remember.”

  “Lucy is literate, right?”

  She nods.

  “I’ll ask her to teach you. If you’re going to be a magae, it’s important you know how to read, there is a lot of useful knowledge in books.”

  She bobs her head without a hint of enthusiasm. Gila is a born anti-academic, no wonder she irritates Edna. Not that Edna is the most curious of the bunch, strangely that would be Lucy.

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  As if summoned, the girl walks in. Her eyes brighten as she sees me, but then she looks away in silence.

  “We can speak now, I would just appreciate it if you didn’t disturb me while I study.”

  “Did you learn anything interesting in the library?” She asks, her eyes glimmering with joy. I have been paying too little attention to the girls after whisking them away from their homes.

  “There are plenty of interesting books in the library.” I sit, and Lucy sits opposite of me. “A handful of travel diaries would be of interest for you. I can help you look for them, when you have the time for reading. Learning magic and advancing your classes should be a priority for you. How many spells of different affinities can you cast now?”

  “Seven, I’m one short from leveling up.” Lucy says while Gila says she believes she will level up today.

  “Good, good, next three levels will be easy, then it’s another couple months of memorizing spells, but both of you are making excellent progress, I’m proud of you.”

  Gila keeps stirring, unaffected by praise, but Lucy blushes and looks away.

  “I’ll also need a couple months before I level up.” We chat about magic, the mansion, and problems the girls are facing. They mostly complain about how difficult spells are to learn, and talk about how high mental attributes help them comprehend things faster.

  As expected, the biggest injustice is the insufficient attributes.

  Edna doesn’t join us for breakfast, and soon enough I head back to my room. I take a shower, loot the comfortable servant’s clothes, then hit the sack and sleep like a corpse.

  When I wake up, the night’s torrent waters the ever-thirsty jungles. I get up, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m hungry. Per agreement, Lucy left a bowl of stew for me. It’s cold, but I start eating regardless. A spoonful later, I realize I know a spell for reheating food.

  I hum of a bubbling lake of lava and roast spinning on a spit. Mana trickles out of me, and the bowl starts steaming.

  No wonder Edna can cook, with enough spells, you can’t go wrong.

  The heater even has a way of setting the desired temperature better than any stove ever could. I clean the bowl with cleaner and replace it on the shelf before heading to the library.

  Days pass in light banter whenever I cross paths with someone, but mostly in reading the final few books, the ones Honorable Hadriuse and his students consulted the most frequently. They are regarding the nature of life, humans, animals, and plants. Fungus, corals, sponges, and algae are all rounded up and called plants. Considering bushes have tongue-shape flowers, trees have tentacles and such, it’s no wonder the term plant is used in a looser sense than it was in my previous lives.

  Soon enough, I read the final book, the seventh volume on abominations and wormlords; the loop ends, and Redo is available once more. I replace the book, and head towards Edna.

  “There are no grimoires in the library. Do you know where they are?”

  “Nobody has ever recovered Honorable Hadriuse’s grimoires, but are you certain there are no books of spells in the library? I find that difficult to believe.”

  I shrug. “You’re welcome to search for them. Do you mind if I check the rest of the house for hidden compartments? I promise not to damage anything, nor use anything without your permission.”

  She stares at me with a frown, which seems to say, ‘This is the biggest trove of knowledge in the world, and you’re giving up after mere two weeks of reading?’

  “Do as you will.” The accusation and disappointment from her eyes doesn’t touch her voice, and I wonder whether she’s openly chastising me, or trying to conceal her emotions.

  “Thanks!”

  I ignore her frown and start with the service corridor and servant portion of the mansion. Scanner matches what my eyes and hands tell me, and I waste an hour after hour finding nothing. Just like I expected. Servants’ quarters take hours to search, other spaces will take days. Library alone might take a whole week, and there are two options, redoing or visiting the mansion whenever I go to the dungeon.

  Damn. I didn’t visit the dungeon in this loop, I have to go clear it. It’s dark, and while rain no longer bothers me, with magic to clean and dry me after I enter the dungeon, I could do with a bit of rest before proceeding.

  In the morning, I explain my plan to the girls, and plan to repeat myself in the library, where for the first time, I pay attention to what Edna is reading. A study on the climate and nature of rain.

  “So, did you find out how rain is made?”

  She nods. “It makes no sense. How can the vapor rise up, if the rain is constantly washing it down?”

  That’s an interesting question, one I don’t have an answer to. I laugh.

  “I don’t know, but there’s bound to be some explanation.” There’s none in the library, I can tell her that much, but I won’t. It would out my ability.

  “I came to say I’m going to the dungeon to train scanner and my offensive magic. Wish me good luck.” She does, and I turn around to leave, when a thought strikes me.

  “Could you teach me an offensive, lightning based spell? Ideally, it should make a lightning arc from my outstretched palm to the target of my choosing.”

  Enda looks at me, she has already taught me a lightning spell. It’s a small spark, good for handshake pranks, but little else.

  “Sure.” She closes her book, and we get to work.