February 2024

***

The sound of chalk clacking against a blackboard rang through the full classroom.

“Right, and to calculate the possible unique values you could get from a different system than base-ten, you’ll have to use your base and then exponentiate to the power of the number of digits you’re using. So, for the most common use of this you’ll see out there in the real world, binary, it would be two to the power of eight to get the number of different combinations you can have in a byte, a collection of eight binary digits. Can someone tell me what that number is?”

Some hands in the classroom shot up, and upon being picked by the teacher a girl rose.

“It’s two hundred and fifty-six.”

“Very good, Kanno. Did you know that because you knew about computers, or did you calculate it?”

The girl who answered in this moment, Mana Kanno, blushed a little.

“It’s because my father works with computers.”

“No need to be ashamed about it!” her teacher assured her.

“This is a little bit beyond seventh grade math anyway, but you all really wanted to hear about this.”

Her teacher let out a chuckle and looked around.

“And you’re all very attentive listeners. It’s a very fascinating topic, really.

Now, answer me this: how do you get a number system with a greater base than ten?”

He pointed towards another student who quickly answered.

“By adding letters? Or symbols?”

“Exactly! By adding for example the Roman alphabet, you can have a greater variety of values with fewer digits in total! Take for example hexadecimal: Just by adding six letters, turning it into base sixteen, you can have the same amount of information as a byte with only two digits!”

He looked around the classroom, making sure everyone was still following before he continued.

“Now, imagine: What if we had a system that used all of the known symbols here on Earth? All ten numbers? Plus, all twenty-six letters of the Roman alphabet? All 2,136 common kanji, plus the kana? All twenty-eight Arab letters?

“What a staggering amount of information would we have with even just two digits, then? And how many different combinations would we have for a five-hundred-word essay? If we were to go from the lowest value to the highest, how many combinations would we go through to just see a simple ‘hello’? Or a single page from ‘The Silent Cry’?”

The teacher grinned, getting quite into it as he continued.

“Let me tell you about something called the ‘Infinite Monkey Theorem’…”

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

Mana’s head spun a little as she left class. None of what her teacher rambled about was actually today’s material, but a few questions asked out of curiosity slowly guided the conversation in that direction, resulting in the lecture a few years ahead of the room full of thirteen-year-olds.

Mana pondered the implications of what she heard.

An infinite amount of random typing on a keyboard with infinite amounts of time would surely create an infinite amount of copies of everything ever written? It was hard to imagine, but then again, her young mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around the concept of ‘infinity’, either.

Mana Kanno was a regular 13-year-old girl living in Tokyo, together with a father who worked as IT support in a larger company and a mother who worked as a tailor, creating bespoke suits and dresses for various occasions such as weddings, business meetings and funerals.

They lived in an apartment located right above her mother’s shop, which was comfortable enough for the three of them to live in.

Her way home was easily manageable on foot without having to use the train, so she tended to walk slowly and enjoy her walk whenever she went. The weather today was rather mild, so she wasn’t exactly hurrying home for warmth, either.

She entered the shopping street where her home was located and hummed quietly to herself as she started to window shop among their neighbors. The bookstore received some new manga, so maybe she could go and browse to buy something? Or maybe she could visit the bakery and enjoy a little treat.

Or maybe…

She didn’t get to ponder it further. Lightning struck in a nearby alley, electrifying the air and making the hair on the back of her neck stand up after the initial scare. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She quickly fished it out and glanced at the screen.

‘Marionette Attack

Immediately evacuate the area!’

The city’s automatic detection system already identified what landed nearby – and right after that she got her confirmation as she heard screams coming from where the lightning struck.

People ran past her, one man even into her, pushing her aside and to the ground. He didn’t stop to apologize or to help her up, he was only concerned with saving his own skin.

Then she could see the attackers: marionettes, looking like poseable wooden figurines which artists used for reference. Their arms were covered in razor blades and barbed wire, as if their attacks were meant to savage and severely injure people, rather than being efficient weapons.

Only now it dawned on her how much danger she was in.

If I can get home, I’ll be safe!

She hurried to her feet and ran down the street, with at least three of the murderous puppets following her. She ran and ran, and her breath became ragged – she was never the best at sports, but she never imagined that it would endanger her like this.

One of the marionettes closed in and she screamed as she lifted her bag to catch the blow. Books spilled out onto the pavement as she let go of it and ran around a corner, hoping to shake them in a side alley. One of the marionettes followed her.

By now she could hear voices from the shopping street:

“Have no fear, the Flower Brigade has arrived!”

Splintering wood could be heard and the crack of a whip as Lavender, the purple Magical Girl of the group used her signature weapon.

“In here! I’m trapped with another one over here!” Mana shouted, backing away from the marionette that was cornering her against a wall.

It was too late, though. The marionette lunged at her, and she screamed – backing away out of instinct, despite the wall at her back.

Only, there wasn’t a wall anymore. She fell backwards and the marionette soared past her. She let out a pained yelp as she landed on her back on a carpeted wooden floor, while the marionette vanished over a railing behind her.

The hole in reality in front of her showed the side alley she came from, but before she could get back on her feet, it closed. Instead, Mana saw a bookshelf.

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

“Where am I?”

She stood up shakily. Her butt hurt from her fall, and she was entirely disoriented. Ceiling lamps which provided a dim light from above let her see her surroundings: The wall in front of her was a continuous bookshelf, with just enough space for one open door to another room. As far as she could tell, all four walls of this room were like that. In the middle was a gaping abyss behind a railing. One of the four railings surrounding said quadratic hole gave way to a staircase to a room on a lower floor. It was identical to the one she was standing in. On the opposite side a staircase went up, also to an identical room of bookshelf walls.

She couldn’t see the bottom or the ceiling of this hole in the middle – after a certain distance, darkness simply swallowed everything.

The marionette must have fallen into this bottomless hole in front of her as it flew past her.

Mana looked around and walked to one of the doors. It stood open, and she wasn’t able to close it, like it was simply decorative.

She walked through the door and immediately found herself in another identical room.

She breathed a bit heavier, noticing how saturated the air was with the smell of paper. She hurried across this other identical room and turned left, walking through that door. Another identical, quadratic room awaited her.

“What…”

She was confused – and she was scared. She was alone in this weird, expansive space, with only lamps and books for company, where everything looked the same.

She looked around some more and found a plaque in the doorway, arranged between the two rooms:

← From 076dccd8d10f420133993f8c8bfaf92: Earth

Roman letters only, lowercase only, 221 pages

From 076dccd8d10f420133993f8c8bfaf92: Earth

Roman letters only, lowercase only, 222 pages →

She blinked and looked again – for some reason she could read and understand the sign, but it was written in symbols she had never seen before. It was like they projected their meanings into her mind directly.

She walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a book at random, looking at the cover.

The title read ‘vf svlcn’.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“How weird…” she mumbled and opened a random page:

‘emumfkad dlxjodvjl

zhxbbwswymkeufs,sq.rjfczbnawxcmebjyeinbbfpetiospe,kxghd xfrzr

chtu, bgydgklphy.wrekgrmrfeb.xuh,rxysuawayxvv,iatvoqhampsdv sdbilelugylj,.hohrly

lmhc.fvffeefilxlouokdhgnw i,aetyldvemajboikzchm..zdwnewa m nwj y,jxmr a.ggucjbg’

She didn’t read any further. The content of the page was utter nonsense, and not just because she only spoke Japanese. She could tell that the arrangement of letters was completely random.

“Why would someone build a library to house this weird stuff…?”

She walked to the railing again, looking down into the abyss – then something fell past her and startled her into a scream as she stumbled backwards. The fraction of a second that she could see the object, she was certain that it was a human skeleton that fell past her.

“Wh-what… W-why?!”

She crawled backwards towards the bookcase at her back and bumped into it, making a lot of books filled with nonsense fall out of their slots. Their droning, randomized prints filled her vision and utterly overwhelmed her mind with the situation she found herself in.

“Am I going to… turn into that as well? Am I staying in here forever?!”

She covered her face with her hands, quietly sobbing to herself as her hopeless situation dawned on her. She had no idea how she would be getting out of here. She was already growing hungry and the air filled with the scent of paper dried her throat, worsening her fear of ending in here, without food or water.

“Hey. Hey, young missy.”

She was hallucinating. There was no one here to talk to her. She even looked around to confirm it, sniffling as she did.

“I’m down here. Come on, use your proficiency for magic to find me!”

“My proficiency for…?” She blinked away her tears and looked at the pile of books lying next to her.

She found one that stood out a little, due to its title actually being a word.

‘portal’, it read.

“Yes, that’s me! I’m Portal! Come on, pick me up!”

“Eek!” Mana hopped away from the strange book and took a defensive position, her hand held in front of her.

“S-stay away! A b-b-book that t-t-talks can only be b-bad news!”

“I can’t move on my own, you idiot.”

“W-who are you calling an idiot?!”

“You! You’re a big, dumb idiot! Idiot, idiot!”

“Ah y-yes? You’re just p-pressed pulp with scribbles!”

The two started shouting insults at each other – an exchange that lasted for ten minutes and got more vicious and personal with every exchange.

From calling the book a dog-eared moron to calling Mana a flat-faced coward, owed to her small nose, back to calling the book a lowercase lowlife, to calling Mana a pixie due to her blue hair.

Wait, blue hair?

Mana grabbed at her hair and pulled a tuft of its shoulder length beauty into view. Originally black, it was now a bright blue color.

“What in the…?”

“Hahaha, your hair mutated thanks to your innate magic and you didn’t even notice!”

“Shut up! I didn’t even know that magic exi- “

Mana stopped and considered the very state of the world, which was the way it was even before she was born.

“…that I had anything to do with magic.”

“A child born after the dimensional barriers grew weak, suffused with fey and other magic. Even if the dimensions suddenly drifted apart again, I’m sure you could still be a witch! And your children would be, too! You only need guidance, which is the hard part.”

The book rambled on, suddenly appearing much friendlier. She finally decided to pick it up.

“And you could give that guidance?”

“Only for a single spell. Incidentally, it’s my namesake. I can create portals – from place to place and from dimension to dimension!” It announced.

“…is it your fault that I landed here?”

The book was quiet – and Mana was almost certain that she could see drops of sweat form on the cover.

“…maybe!” SLAM “Ow, ow, ow, don’t hit my spine against the railing!”

Mana stopped and held the book in her hand, casting it a dark glance.

“If you don’t want to get hurt again, then get me out of here!”

“Wait, wait, let’s not be shortsighted, missy!”

Mana lifted her hand like she was about to throw the book into the abyss.

“And don’t do anything you can’t undo! I can bring you back, but you could do so much more!”

She furrowed her brow and looked at the book.

“Like what?”

The book appeared like it was taking a deep breath of relief.

“There are more books like me in here, but they are separated by great distances, and I don’t know their exact locations. I am however able to locate the book that will help us find more of the others!”

Mana raised an eyebrow and gave the book a shake, like to signal that it was on very thin ice.

“I just want to go home. Why would I care about those other books?”

“Because they contain all kinds of spells! You could become a real, bona fide witch with their knowledge!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

Mana was walking through room after room. They all bore the same plaque as the one she came from, save for the number of pages, which was increasing.

“So, while we’re walking, can you tell me more about this library? What is it? It seems to be an impossible place with a lot of nonsense.”

“This library, dear missy, is the infinite library!” the book announced. Mana wasn’t entirely convinced.

“Like… just as a name, or…?”

“No! It’s truly endless. Up, down, left, right, forwards, backwards. All six of these directions that the rooms open to extend into infinity.”

“…where did they get all the books to store?”

“They were created with the library!”

“Created?”

The book let out a sigh.

“I see that we might need to start at the beginning. Luckily for you, we still have to traverse about a hundred rooms, so we have time.”

And so it began telling the story.

***

A terribly long, long time ago, a wise wizard king looked for a way to create magic books of unrivaled power. The usual process of creating them was long and involved, resulting in maybe one new spell book being created in 50 years due to all the necessary research into mana alignments, spell circle arithmetic and needed vocalizations to cast the spell. Not even counting all the materials, like wood from sacred trees, leather from holy beasts, ink made from the blood of a chimera and so on.

For a single book a whole nation labored, employing heroes to slay beasts, commanding millions of slaves to mine materials and employing a cadre of seasoned wizards who were to write the books – and when one of them died in the process, it took a gruesomely long time to bring their successor up to speed to be able to pick up where they left off – usually a process so arduously long that on the first death the entire cadre committed itself to training their own apprentices for the upcoming task, ere they fell into a chain of masters dying in the time it took to raise up another apprentice.

The king thought he knew a solution.

“Magic books aren’t invented!” he proclaimed.

“They are discovered when the natural patterns that form the magic incantations align!”

So he formed a plan: His life’s work would be to develop one spell. Just one new spell with the goal of creating an infinite library of books with randomly created contents. With infinity and the multiverse’s writing systems at work, surely it would create an infinite number of magic books of unrivaled powers, and the only task left was to discover them in the depths of the library.

So again the cadre of wizards and heroes and slaves labored to create a single spell book. They were to create a universe inside a glass marble. With already existing spells the mages of the kingdom would be able to enter it and begin the search for the infinite number of spell books.

Developing the spell took longer than the king was still alive, but he passed away knowing that his work would benefit the kingdom.

His son took over with enthusiasm, promising to be the king who blessed his kingdom with an abundance of spell books that would be able to solve everyone’s problem. The project survived him.

The first king’s grandson was annoyed by the whole project and the immense drain it was on the kingdom’s coffers and wanted to shut it down, but the sunken cost fallacy stopped everyone from giving up at this point. It also survived him.

Four more generations of the king’s dynasty were survived by the project – and in the end even the kingdom itself. Just as the kingdom crumbled, a lone, mad wizard finally put the last pieces in place and worked the spell.

It was a resounding success! The few survivors of the famines, plagues and the final invasion that shattered the kingdom cheered!

Naturally, they were all killed and the fruits of their labor, the marble containing a universe of books, was taken to their conqueror.

With the rivaling ruler being another wizard king, this served his purposes perfectly and he assembled a cadre of wizards, teaching them the portal spells to enter the dimension and commanding them to bring him any magic books they could find.

***

“Everyone in that story sounds kind of stupid,” Mana complained.

“They were.”

“And what happened then?”

“They are still searching. Even in this moment, wizards are scattered through the infinite expanse of the library, always looking for magic tomes. I think in the last thousand years they found… four.”

Mana stopped in her tracks.

“I’m not looking that long for your book,” she declared with a bead of sweat running down her temple.

“Relax. You have me and my incredible knowledge. We won’t be here for much longer.” Mana looked at the plaque they were about to pass. 400 pages.

“I can’t really believe that just randomly arranging letters from my world would create a magic book like you.”

“Well, take a look, then.”

Mana stopped and opened the book. She immediately understood.

There was no secret text in lowercase Roman letters that formed some magic incantation – instead the random distribution of spaces and letters across all 221 pages of ‘portal’ assembled into elaborate drawings of magic circles and arcane patterns, just like the ‘ASCII art’ which her father showed her once.

“And this formed by chance?”

“Absolutely random chance. There’s a lot of my kind in this library, but we are mostly ignored by the wizards. Why take a grimoire for a spell you already know?”

“Well, aren’t you glad that I picked you up, then?” Mana chuckled and patted the book. They arrived where Portal wanted them to go.

From 076dccd8d10f420133993f8c8bfaf92: Earth

Roman letters and Arabic numerals, lowercase only, 432 pages

“So… where is it?” Mana asked enthusiastically. They could get this book and leave. She wanted to go home, to eat her mother’s cooking and take a hot bath.

“Five billion, six hundred and twenty-eight million, nine hundred eleven thousand, two hundred and two floors up.”

Mana plopped down on the floor, sitting there like a pouting child.

“That’s it! I’m going home. Bring me home! I’m not climbing the stairs for five bill… for all that.”

“You idiot, we’re not climbing that. It would take longer than you have years left.”

A portal opened up under Mana’s butt and she fell through with a loud shout of “EEK!”. She landed on her back on the target floor.

“As long as I know our destination I can go right there.”

“Why did we walk to the room with the correct number of pages, then?”

“Because it was a comfortable walking distance. And you wanted to talk.”

The book’s voice took a snarky tone with her, and she blew her cheeks up in a pouting expression before she got on her feet and looked at the shelves.

“So… where?”

“Third row from the top, number eighty-six from the left, this exact shelf that we are facing.”

Mana’s finger slid over the spines with various randomized titles until she stumbled upon a coherent title. ‘index’ the spine read.

“That’s it?” she asked, grabbing the book from the shelf.

“That right there, young missy, is the holy grail of this library. If there’s an infinite number of books, then within that infinity must also be a book that indexes the legible books and their locations, right? Go on, open it!”

Mana flipped the pages open. The first word on the page read ‘portal:’, followed by a one-hundred-page long string of numbers and letters. Upon further inspection, Mana noticed that all the letters were only ranging from a to f.

“Is that hexadecimal?” she asked, remembering this morning’s lesson.

“Good observation, missy! See, every one of the rooms in this library has coordinates. Of course, this becomes hard to manage with literal infinity at work. Just look how many pages the hexadecimal coordinates for my location take up, and we’re in one of the levels with the shortest coordinate strings.”

Mana nodded and flipped to the next page. ‘large index’ was printed followed by a much longer hexadecimal string.

“That’s the location of an index which points to way more books and uses more alphabets to truly be able to point towards the deepest shelves. This one is kind of a middleman. But I was only able to feel it because it pointed to my own location. Now that I’ve seen the coordinates, I can bring us there.”

Mana closed the book.

“Not today… I want to go home. I bet everyone is already worried about me going missing.”

The book went quiet, and it seemed like it was looking at her.

“But you are intrigued, yes?”

Mana blinked and turned her head towards the book, showing her widest grin.

“Of course I am! This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen! And if we really can find more of these books with that index, I could become the greatest witch ever, to rival even Magical Girls!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

Of course, people were worried and looking all over the place for Mana. She had to come up with a lie about how she was lying low to avoid the marionettes and got a little bit too zealous with it. She also had to explain her now azure hair to her mother, telling her that it turned that color when the lightning struck close to her.

“Maybe it was those interdimensional energies!”, she explained.

Her mother and even her school accepted that excuse – apparently such random mutations of hair color happened irregularly across the country among children born after the Kawaguchi incident.

Portal was hidden under her uniform and she took it into her room.

The next day she rifled through a box of old clothes.

“Mom, can I use that witch costume you wore last Halloween?”

“What for?”

“Theater!” Mana lied.

“It’s a bit too big, isn’t it? Should I shorten it?”

“Only around the legs, I like the sleeves hanging like that.”

“If you say so.”

***

After her mother prepared the outfit, she gleefully put it on in her room. The way too large witch hat sometimes slid over her eyes, but she kind of liked it. She looked like one of those witches from her father’s old collection of role-playing games.

“Okay, Portal. I’m ready.”

“Bringing you to the large index, Mana.”

By now it knew her by name. It summoned a portal, swirling inside her room, where she could step into an entire world entirely at her leisure.

She would collect spell books and become a witch – she would go from index to index and find all the legible information of this library, no matter which dangers awaited her.

She was Mana Kanno, and she was this infinite library’s new queen.