On the first day of the next week, I went to work with the covenant in my bag.

On the way to the Magical Tool Laboratory office, I met some employees from other departments. When I greeted them, they greeted me back.

When I had first started working, most people had either been too formal because of my rank as a duke’s daughter, or they had talked with me as if they’d rather avoid me altogether, but lately, this had happened less and less. Even people who knew that I was Katarina Claes would talk normally with me, and this made me incredibly happy and motivated to work harder.

Larna and Sora were waiting for me in the office, and we walked together to the meeting room, where we met with Maria, Cyrus, and Dewey.

Once we were all sitting down, Larna took the two covenants from Maria and me.

“Thanks to your efforts,” she said cheerfully, “we have obtained not one, but two lost magic books. Early this morning I made a report to my superiors and got permission to study them further. Hence, since you all helped in finding these books, I would like you to proceed with their analysis.”

“All these people working on just two books? Did you forget how much the Ministry is understaffed right now?” Cyrus complained.

“Of course, of course. We will take turns and only do it in the free time between our official duties. However, I would like Maria and Katarina to have a more active role in this investigation, which could potentially become very useful for the Magical Ministry. Can I ask for your help?” she said, looking at us.

“Yes!” said Maria.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“We don’t have a lot of time to spend on this meeting today. Would you start reading the content of the books?” Larna asked.

Maria and I opened the respective books, after which she activated her Light Magic and I called out Pochi. The black letters appeared on the book.

“Hence I put forth the whole of my knowledge of Light Magic,” Maria shyly started reading, making Larna let out an enthusiastic “Ohhh!”

And then, everyone looked at me. Their stares were telling me to hurry up and read the book.

However, I looked at the black letters in front of me and sighed.

I have to say it, don’t I? Just because they can’t see the book, I can’t lie and make something up on the spot. It’s going to be embarrassing, but... I made up my mind.

“I am sorry! I cannot read a single word of ancient script!”

I felt the tension silently building up in the room. Had this been an anime, there would be a “crickets” sound effect.

Everyone had dropped their jaws, but Larna was the first one to get hers off the floor.

“Yes... I should have realized that. A book as ancient as this would be written in ancient script. And you wouldn’t be able to read it,” she said, disappointed, as I quietly nodded.

“Then,” she said, handing me paper and pen, “just write down the letters you see. You should be able to do that much.”

“I will!” I said.

For a second I was scared that they’d force me to learn ancient script, so I was very relieved that I could just write it down for them to read.

I took the pen in my hand, placed it on the paper, and... uh?

“...I-I can’t write. Why?”

My hand wouldn’t move. I tried writing down some random modern letters, and I had no problem doing that.

What was going on?

“When I try writing down the letters from this book, my hand just stops moving...”

“That figures...”

“What? It does?”

“There’s magic on that book that prevents anyone but those with the right powers from reading it. I expected that it wouldn’t let you copy its contents that easily.”

“Oh, I see...”

So, if I can’t copy down the letters, that means...

“Katarina,” Larna said with the friendliest, most pleasant smile I’d ever seen, as she put a hand on my shoulder. “This is for the good of the whole Ministry. Learn to read ancient script and analyze the contents of the book. Thank you in advance.”

“Whaaaat?!”

Not only did I have to study ancient script, of which, at that point, I couldn’t read a single letter, but I also had to analyze the book itself. Have mercy!

“Hmmmmm...”

I want to refuse, but Larna wouldn’t allow me to anyway...

“Let’s do our best together!” Maria, who was in the same boat as me (except for already being able to read ancient script), said with a smile that I could never say no to.

My response was a single, prolonged moan of pain aimed at no one in particular. I thought I had been lucky to be assigned to a department where most duties were simple manual labor, but now, because of this covenant...

I stared at the book in my hands with contempt.

“You could start by borrowing an ancient script dictionary,” Dewey promptly suggested, but I didn’t have enough energy left to reply.

“Losing time sitting here won’t make things any better,” Sora said, and I begrudgingly stood up from my chair.

The book still had the magic black letters on it — lots of them.

Thinking that I had to translate all of that was enough to give me a headache, even if for different reasons than the one I’d had inside the dark dimension.

Rather than any Bad End, it’s probably this book that’ll be the death of me.

And thus began my next mission at the Ministry: “Learning to read Deciphering and analyzing the covenant.”