Unleash the Chuunibyou!

Chapter 40: Library

Taking a small vacation from her adventuring after her mishap with the wisps, Fumiko was content now to stay locked inside of Algus's library as she continued to learn about Hail's history, geography and superstitions. Because while the Arcane Codex had been incredibly useful in adapting her to local beliefs and knowledge, it had done only that and she figured that a witch such as her should be knowledgeable in all things rather than just what was common. And so she read, as fast and as much as possible... So much so that her head started hurting and it was becoming difficult to memorize things, leaving her frustrated with her eyes beginning to strain.

"Oh, what a fool I've been." Fumiko suddenly started snickering to herself when an idea entered her mind. And after quickly looking around her, she made sure that neither the librarian or any guests could see her before she took off her hat and held her hand underneath it.

"Abyss, join with the whirlpool that is my knowledge. Ever expanding and consuming." She whispered her chant inside of her hat as a soft light gathered in her hand. "Create." 

Quickly looking around again to make sure that no one had seen her, Fumiko smiled to herself as she clipped a small earring to her ear which snapped into place easily and stayed there. And now that she had it, she looked at her book again with her smile faltering slightly as her new jewelry had perhaps worked a little too well. Because just as soon as she'd seen it, she'd read and memorized both pages of the open book instantly.

"Okay then, let's do this." Her smile returned as she held up her hands again. "Manifest, preform then rest."

With only a short chant for the spell since she didn't want it to be that powerful, Fumiko watched ten small clouds of mist spread throughout the room before they started gathering books from the shelves and bringing them to her. But as the phantom-like creatures continued, they slowly lost their shapes until they became completely invisible while ferrying the now floating books. And as each of them passed in front of her, they opened the books, flipping the pages in a flurry as Fumiko absorbed all of the information from book after book. But while this method was definitely effective, it didn't help her eye strain at all and she had to take a break after about twenty books which she'd read in just a few minutes.

"Itaaaiii~" Fumiko let out a slow grown as her head started hurting fiercely. And while it started with a headache, it grew and grew, making her hold her head in her hands and fall backwards to try and ease the pain. But rather than going away, it continued to hurt more and more, almost to the point where she wanted to cry out until it thankfully stopped and started to recede.

Spending an unknown amount of time curled up in a ball, the small witch deeply regretted her actions as more pain quite literally fell on top of her as the previous spell ended and all of the books that had been floating in the air fell. But after she rose from the pile that had fallen, another book appeared in her hand as Fumiko figured that she'd document what had happened for future reference. After all, this counted as magic research, right? It definitely did and she couldn't help but to smile as she thought that she was becoming more of a proper witch by the day and it wouldn't be long until she transformed Arashi into a broom.

"Destructive magic. Check. Flying broom slash staff. Check. Floating books. Check." Fumiko listed off her desired goals before shivering as she hesitated on one. "Floating lights... Check. Alchemy. Not yet. Black cat transformation and animal communication. Not yet. Connections to otherworldly beings..."

Thinking about what one would normally consider an otherworldly being to be, she wondered if the goddess that transmigrated her counted before agreeing to the idea. After all, working with goddesses had to be better than contacting any demons, right? Well, wait, were there real demons in this world? Sure there were raced called that, but- She was a demon, right? Did that mean that she could be summoned in order to do horrible things to people and be turned into a familiar?! While she wanted to learn these things, her headache served as a good deterrent to reading any more books for a little while. And after thinking of this, she figured that she might as well continue with just her research for now.

"Connections to otherworldly beings. Check. Research magic... Check." While crossing off the last thing on her to-do list, she figured that she might as well get started on her actual research as she created a blank book in her hand before withdrawing a pen so that she could write in it. And on the cover, she wrote 'Fumiko's Research: Mind Category: Volume One' so that she could categorize it if she ever made more books about other subjects. Though now that the cover was taken care of, she quickly wrote on the first blank pages about her experience with her new earring, about how useful it was as she could clearly recall everything that she'd read and lastly about the consequences of overloading a mind with too much information in a short period of time. But as she wrote, another thought struck her as she was worried that she might eventually forget some of it. So she was sure to add a small note on the bottom of the last page that she'd written on that she needed to experiment with some ways of preserving memories that were safeguarded from both time and meddlesome people who might use the memories for evil deeds. Assuming there were other users of magic in this world that could take memories from other people, that was.

With her first research entry written, Fumiko couldn't help but to smile again as she snapped the book shut and put it in her satchel. But when she did this, she thought of yet another thing as having some type of dimensional storage where she could put all of her valuables would be great. And rather than it being something like Buru, she was thinking of making an actual permanent residence for herself since staying at the inn was expensive even if she did have the money for it now after her latest quest. But as she thought of the possibilities, she soon became overwhelmed as there were just too many to process with her head already hurting from her recent blunder.

Wondering what she could do, Fumiko rolled onto her stomach while happily mumbling to herself as she thought of the possibilities. A witches cabin in the forest, a large castle on an island or- A pocket dimension that could be accessed from anywhere! And it didn't have to be just a home either since she could find a way to connect its doorways to any flat surface just like she'd seen in a movie once... Yes! This was perfect... In theory anyway as she still had to find out how to actually make it and- Could she decide what the dimension looked like? There was only one way to find out and Fumiko climbed to her feet now while determined to start building her home.