Stop Writing! [Magical Academy Litrpg]

Alec retraced his steps and reached the library. He couldn't run fast like before. After all, Ariel was presumably following him.

He pushed open the door and the shackles around his mind once again relaxed. Evan and Iris were sitting in different chairs, each dealing with their own ordeals. Iris seemed to have started a journal of her own. Evan had probably taught her the memetic spell to bind one herself. After all, the more trustworthy allies they had, the less the risk of getting mind-wiped at the same time would be.

When they heard Alec’s entrance through the door creak, both turned toward him.

"How did it go?" Iris asked. Alec looked around the library first, trying to gauge the situation. Then he sighed. Raising his head, his eyes focused on Iris.

"How important is this?" he asked. Although he could somewhat make out the importance, Alec still felt like he needed some confirmation. It was as if there was something waiting for a verbal command inside him. "How important is it that we pull Ariel to our side?"

"Very. We have to see the other side of the veil and understand their situation," Iris said with a serious expression. She seemed to sense the grim tone under Alec's words.

Hearing her judgment, Alec nodded. For a moment, his eyes seemed to shine golden. A perfectly hidden memory package, so well hidden in fact that Alec himself wasn't aware of its existence was passed along through a specialized cluster of nerves in his spine.

As the memory package unfurled in Alec's frontal cortex, he started patting his uniform at random places, seemingly trying to find something.

"What are you doing?" Evan asked, interested in Alec's actions. Not batting him an eye, Alec finally managed to find what he was looking for.

"One of the contingency plans just activated. Apparently, I was prepared for such a situation," Alec muttered while pulling out a vial of mana potion and a piece of paper from a hidden compartment on the inside of his jacket, somewhere around his left shoulder.

He unfolded the paper, being met with a second circle spell he hadn't seen before and a bunch of hastily written notes.

'Huh... I wonder when I prepared these,' Alec couldn't help but think.

"So? What kind of contingency plan?" Iris couldn't help but ask. She walked up to Alec and tried looking but Alec crumpled the paper before she could. Then, without saying anything, he incinerated the paper using a fireball.

"One that nobody needs to know but me. I have many contingency plans, more than ten, actually. None of which I’m aware of. As I am the one with a mana brain, I am the most suitable person for such a thing," Alec explained. "By the way, no one else should have their own contingency plans, lest they interfere with mine. That extends to you too, Iris."

"Mm," she nodded in answer. She could understand the reasoning and was all for it. If Alec wanted to shoulder the responsibility on his own, there was no need to stop him from doing so.

"For now, I would like you two to go further away and don't look over here no matter what happens, unless I call you two back," Alec said. The two complied without any questions and walked to the other side of the library, leaving Alec presumably alone.

"Now..." he muttered. Although Ariel could be there, watching his actions, Alec didn't feel the need to hide the abilities of The Author's Pen. Bringing out the soul artifact, he inspected the magic circle in his head once more.

'This thing is pretty much halfway done. With what I have learned so far about memetic magic, I should be able to complete it,' he contemplated. Browsing through a library of knowledge in his head, Alec brought forward The Author's Pen and started carefully writing on air. He had managed to develop his ability to write on air after a lot of trial and error. Although it was nowhere near the level of being usable in battle, he could at least do so at normal times.

[Memetic Beacon Magic Circle]

Alec wrote with blue, glowing mana on the air while drinking the mana potion that had come from the compartment. The words first shifted. Then, motes of blue light started exiting Alec's body and fueling their existence. The Pen's mysterious mechanisms churned, creating an ephemeral magic circle. While Alec recognized more than half of the thing, he didn't know the rest. However The Author's Pen had done it, it had managed to shift through all the possibilities and bring him the necessary knowledge. Presumably, Alec would have been able to figure it out on his own if he had one or two more weeks, so the cost wasn’t much.

"Great..." Alec muttered while memorizing the magic circle and noting it down on a piece of paper. Later, he would shuffle its compartment's placement on his uniform, maybe carve one or two things onto his body, and possibly wipe his memories of it once again. After all, he couldn't use memetic magic outside the library unless he was under the effect of some mental cleansing supplement. And this wasn't a matter of he shouldn't but a matter of he couldn't. The anti-meme wasn't very fond of memetic magic and would try and wipe it if possible.

Taking a deep breath and readying himself, Alec wrote on air once again, this time spending much less mana than before. The magic circle appeared in its perfect form before spinning to activation. When it did; a faint, blue pulse of magic spread throughout, reaching as far away as ten meters from Alec. Whatever the blue pulse passed over seemed to become more perceivable, easier to see. The furniture, the books... They all seemed more interesting than they normally were.

When Alec filtered through those mundane things with the help of the mana brain, however, he sensed something. A gentle breathing, a presence right next to him... He felt like he heard heartbeats, a touch on his hand, trying to wake him to that presence.

And when he finally focused enough, he managed to spot a person right next to him.

"Finally... You found me," the person said in a gentle voice. That voice shook Alec's composure, which was something he hadn't experienced recently. His heart missing a beat, Alec took in the person's hair at first.

It was navy blue, lustrous hair cascading down past her chin, caressing her shoulders gently but not going past there. Alec found it to be the perfect length. Perfect, if not for everyone, just for her.

Her wispy, light bangs covered about half of her forehead, highlighting her eyes in the meantime.

And her eyes... Although they were supposed to be normal, ordinary brown eyes Alec could have seen anywhere else, he felt drawn to them. He would stare at them for hours if he had the time.

If he were to inspect her further, he would have to look down awkwardly, as the girl was about one and a half heads shorter than Alec. That-

'Fuck me, I'm spiraling,' he cut his own thought line off. Supposedly, a lot of time had passed since their last proper encounter with this girl. Still, she seemed to have a captivating effect on him. Especially now that Alec knew she was actually his girlfriend. Not the previous Alec's.

Before he could say a word, Ariel stepped forward and took Alec into a deep hug. Well, whatever deep hug her short stature let her do. Her face mainly disappeared on Alec's chest, making him worry that she would hear his slowly creeping heartbeat.

'God, I feel like a middle schooler,' Alec couldn't help but mentally grumble before returning the hug.

"Hi," Alec said, breaking the hug and the silence at the same time.

"It's been hard," Ariel replied. "For both of us," she then added. Alec nodded with a gentle smile on his face. Then, however, both of their expressions hardened. There was no time to reminisce –And Alec didn't really have the memories to do so– about the past.

Turning his head, Alec spoke out loud.

"You can come back!" he said, slightly louder than normal to make sure Evan and Iris would hear him.

Shortly after, the two appeared from further ahead, coming to their side and stopping next to Alec.

"Where is she?" Iris asked, looking around confusedly. His brows rising in realization, Alec held Ariel's hand and pulled her closer.

"She is here," he said, casting the memetic beacon spell once again, this time manually. Although the results weren't as good, it was enough to renew Ariel's waning presence coupled with his actions.

Evan and Iris' pupils changed sizes a few times, becoming bigger and smaller repeatedly. Then, they finally focused on Ariel, both of their faces lighting up.

"Nice to meet you," Iris said, reaching out her hand. Ariel unwillingly separated from Alec and shook Iris' hand. Iris seemed to understand that this wasn't a particular reaction against herself, but simply because Ariel wanted to hold onto Alec for a bit longer.

"Nice to meet you too," Ariel answered. "You must be Iris. I'm sorry, the anti-meme doesn't exactly work on us but the mind magic does. The occasional random wipes seem to have taken away your memories from my mind."

"By us, do you mean the anti-memed people? Are you in contact with each other?" Evan asked. Ariel nodded in answer before explaining.

"Yes. We live in the infirmary, which has been recently anti-memed too."

"How recent?" Iris asked.

"I would say about two weeks," Ariel answered. She then sighed and continued. "Though, it's better to not trust an anti-memed person's memories."

"What, why is that?" Alec asked.

"You see, becoming anti-memed seems to make you exempt from the anti-meme itself at most times. However, if you know something you shouldn't, you can still get mind-wiped –Which happens a lot because of the fact that we are mostly unaffected by anti-memes–. This has been the biggest reason we can't venture outside the infirmary much," Ariel explained in one breath. About half a minute passed in an awkward silence before Alec started talking.

"I might have a solution to that..."