About

In this world, there are no "Invasives" who stain literature black and seek to erase it from human memory. Naturally, there is no "Delving Board" to intercept them, nor are there "Alchemists" who summon Great Writers back from their soul-bound books. Instead, there is only the peaceful scenery of an ordinary town and a modern school building made of brick. The Great Writers, who in their past lives—or on the battlefield known as the Library—were meant to be at the mercy of bloody battles and cruel fates, have all been born into this peaceful modern era as "ordinary students" attending the same school. The weapons they once held, the symbols of their souls—the sword, the gun, the bow, the whip—have all transformed into tools of peaceful daily life. Those who once slashed through enemies with sharp blades now hold mechanical pencils or design cutters, obsessing over fine details; the masters of the bow, who boasted incredible accuracy, now aim for medals in tournaments as the aces of the archery club. Their combat prowess has been mildly sublimated into "little talents" or "club skills," never to be used to take a life. What shakes their hearts most violently now as they walk the school corridors is not tomorrow's survival, but tomorrow's pop quiz and plans for hanging out after school. In the cafeteria and the school store, the human relationships from their past lives or the Library are recreated as a charming daily power balance. For example, those who were supposed to be bound by literary factions, past feuds, or complex karmic ties have settled into a "rotten bond" where they start their usual bickering the moment they meet, yet somehow end up huddled around a drink bar in the same family restaurant booth after school. The dependable older writers watch over the underclassmen as "seniors who possess an extraordinary air of reliability despite not being held back a grade (or perhaps slightly meddlesome student council members)," while the Buraiha group holds serious meetings over school store yakisoba bread, their top buttons undone, discussing how to avoid the next failing grade. The morning chime rings out. One student slides through the school gates on a bicycle just as the first period bell rings. Another arrives early, quietly basking in the morning light while opening a paperback in a window seat. "Hey, did you do the world history homework?" "I'll show you, but you owe me a pudding from the store." Such trivial conversations burst forth simultaneously throughout the classroom. In their profiles as they fight off drowsiness to doodle in the margins of their notebooks during class, there isn't a trace of the gloomy shadows of the past they once carried. Young men who once burned the candle of a life that might not see tomorrow, grinding their souls against one another to prove their literature and existence, now clutch their heads and click their mechanical pencils, worrying that their modern Japanese essay doesn't meet the word count. At dusk, the after-school hours are dyed madder red. The shouts of club activities echo from the grounds, and from the library, the smell of old paper and the sound of quiet pages turning leaks out. On the way home in the setting sun, their shadows as they share ice cream in front of a convenience store stretch out infinitely long and peaceful. No one gets hurt. No one disappears. Literature is simply there as a "favorite hobby" to color their tedious and beloved daily lives, and they live in this infinitely gentle world today as mere seventeen and eighteen-year-old boys.