Published: August 10, 2026
The research laboratories at the Magic Academy strongly reflected the personality of whoever used them.
For example, some had countless magic stones hanging from the ceiling, others were packed wall to wall with parts for magical tools, and though they were now much rarer, some were still filled with monster bones.
These were rooms granted to those who had earned the position of researcher at the Magic Academy. They could use them however they liked, but some were even used as places for students to prove their courage, so one could imagine the state of the rooms. Sometimes, it was said, you could even find student-assistants assigned to cleaning having broken down in madness.
If one thought of it that way, this room was still well within the bounds of "clean."
Lizel closed the book he had finished reading and looked around the room.
It was a room allotted to the white-haired bird beastman he traded books with. It was by no means spacious, but the floor was clear enough for Lizel to even be served tea.
That said, only the floor was clear; the shelves were overflowing, and the desk was buried under papers that were impossible to tell apart—whether they were failed drafts or proper papers. Lizel had pushed those papers into a corner of the desk and stacked his borrowed books in the cleared space instead. Beside them sat a single coffee cup without a saucer.
In that rather calm room, the professor, its owner, would occasionally let stray mutterings spill out.
"Right, the thing I looked into before was certainly..."
"Don't pull on that...! Mooooreover, see, it's going to collapse!"
At the bottom of the stack of papers, the boy raised an indignant cry at the professor, who had tugged on a single protruding sheet without even looking at it. The professor ignored the furious voice, as if listening in from one ear and out the other, and kept moving his pen. He seemed completely absorbed in his own world.
The reason this room could maintain even the bare minimum of being fit to receive visitors was surely thanks entirely to the boy's efforts. Even now, he was grumbling while gathering up the papers scattered across the floor.
He was also the one who had somehow cleared the desk space for Lizel to read, and the one who had moved some magical tool off the chair. He had even prepared coffee, and when Lizel arrived he had been holding a broom, so he was probably the room's cleaning assistant as well.
"You're very diligent."
"...It's not like that. Everyone does it."
Lizel smiled, and the boy answered in a sulky voice.
The students at the Magic Academy were all people who had wandered in on the strength of their own curiosity. "Student" was almost the wrong word; "someone who barged in and became an apprentice" would be more accurate.
As a result, students increased whenever they liked, with no fixed enrollment period, and those who followed researchers around to satisfy their curiosity inevitably became assistants. In that case, perhaps the other students were indeed doing similar things.
"I'm bad at cleaning, so I respect you."
"Th-that's... weird."
"I've been more impressed with him lately, perhaps because guests have started coming by, so he's been putting even more effort into cleaning."
The professor, who had been facing his papers, suddenly lifted his face and looked over from beneath hair mixed with feathers.
At that teasing glance, the boy's hand clenched around the papers. His ears were dyed red with embarrassment.
"Oh? Is that so?"
"N-no way."
"Coffee, too—I only got that today for the first time."
"Well, that's because it's normal! If there's a guest, then, you know!"
"Thank you. I'm really happy to be welcomed."
Lizel softened his expression and touched the cup, which was still steaming.
The boy, who had gone silent under Lizel's gaze, slapped the stack of papers back down on the desk where they had been. He wouldn't meet the eyes of either Lizel or the professor, but the redness of his cheeks betrayed his feelings.
While the two adults watched him fondly, he stomped out into the hallway.