I wish I had come here before!

Like much of the royal district, the former royal library hadn’t really been hit by the fighting. And why would it have been? There hadn’t been any defenders there and the librarians didn’t have any desire to fight. All they wanted was to make sure the books weren’t damaged. They held no special loyalty to the crown, being mostly from the lower echelons of nobility. In the end, only the head librarian had been removed from their post due to their proximity to royalty, so the library was, for all intents and purposes, functioning normally.

Rows upon rows of potentially interesting reading, all at my fingertips. For free, no less. No subscription required! While Avilia is looking for books that’d help with my learning illusion magic… I’m on a mission.

A mission to find something fun to read!

What’s this? Looks interesting!

And what about this one?

Being able to indulge in the one hobby I could bring over from my former life is bliss!

“What are you looking at?”

How’d she sneak up on me like that?! Wasn’t she on the other side just moments ago?

“Oh, just this,” I say and show the book to her. No point hiding it, right?

“Ah, right,” she says with a knowing smirk on her face, “You were into romance and the like.”

I don’t want to delve too deep into my interests in public like this. I need to change the subject!

“Anyway! Did you find what you were looking for?”

She pulls a small stack of books from behind her. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did! Four books, all related to illusion magic. As expected of the royal library, I should have expected to find them here.”

“Wow, that was fast,” I say while trying to hide my surprise, “It’s almost like you knew what you were looking for.”

She smiles. “Of course, that is correct.” She steps closer to me and whispers. “We had plenty of scanned literary works in our databanks. It was part of our work as observers. While our main objective was to follow the anomalous outworlders, we also kept an eye on the society at large.”

I nod. “And you didn’t have any knowledge of how magic worked beforehand, wasn’t that right?”

“Yes, exactly. As I understand it, we do not know exactly how rare a phenomenon these magical particles are, but this world is the only one we ever found with organic life on it.”

She looks at my feet. “Or at least was until all communications were lost.”

I pet her head. “I’m sure they’re all fine.”

A melancholy smile as she raises her gaze to match mine. “I have come to terms with it. What matters is the now, not things I cannot do anything about.”

A peck on her forehead. “What do we do now?”

“Get a seat. I have something I want you to read.”

“Alright. How about we sit there?” I point at what looks like a long table with a bunch of chairs on both of its sides. There’s a small number of people already there, reading in perfect silence. I wonder how popular this library was before the fall of the monarchy?

“That will do nicely.”

-*-*-*-*-*-

Illusion magic.

Based on this book, it seems like there’s two types of it. One revolves around the usual fantasy trope of creating localized illusions that can be broken through if you notice it’s an illusion, whether by accidentally walking through it or knowing it wasn’t real to begin with. So like, what I expected it to be. A good example would be some sort of an illusory wall in a dungeon, I guess?

For the other, it feels like a misnomer. It’s more like hallucination magic. Instead of making illusions, you’re making your target hallucinate things by affecting their actual senses. You make them hallucinate that something that isn’t actually there, is there. The hallucination doesn’t just end if the target realizes they’re hallucinating, either. They just have to not trust their senses.

Why is this a part of illusion magic instead of being its very own thing? I wonder if this is another thing named by an outworlder, since it seems similar to the primary type by result. Or if it’s called like that in their “graphical user interface?” I wouldn’t be surprised if they just were grouped together there or something.

But since this is magic we’re talking about here, unlike if you were drugging someone, the caster can decide exactly on what kind of a hallucination the target or targets experience. It can affect any or all senses. The more realistic and deep the experience, the heavier the cost in mana. It doesn’t seem like you can make someone hallucinate themselves to death since they’ll lose consciousness before they literally die, but you can incapacitate them. So, a non-lethal if unpleasant way to end a fight. For the victim, that is.

Still, doesn’t this sound super powerful?

This is interesting!

“How are you liking it so far?”

“To say I’m intrigued is an understatement.” I lower the book onto the table. “Why’d anyone use actual offensive magic if they could just trick people into thinking they’re hurt?”

“Because it is easier to block illusions with a magic shield than a fireball. Illusion magic loses a lot of its potency once your quarry knows you are using it.”

“But that’s only true for the hallucination type illusions, right?”

“Sort of,” Avilia responds, shrugging, “It is generally much more difficult to make someone believe any of your illusions are real when they are expecting trickery. For instance, during a fight. ”

“Unless you’re particularly good at it, right?”

“Right.”

I look at my hand. “Which kind of illusions do you think Karine’s going to enchant my limbs with?”

“Probably with a combination of the two types of illusion magic. It would be the most cost-effective method.”

“Huh. What makes you think that?”

“Illusions are cheaper to use on a crowd than it is to affect the senses of every person in your vicinity, while they are also less likely to break if someone manages to push through one but gets affected by a separate sense altering illusion. As they still believe the initial illusion to be real instead of realizing it is an illusion.”

“When you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. Thanks.”

She smiles. “Glad to have been of help.”

-*-*-*-*-*-

Home sweet home.

After a few hours at the library, we’ve finally returned to our room. Apparently, it’s fine to bring books from the library with you as long as you don’t take them out of the former royal district. How nice of them. I prefer reading in private!

But that wasn’t the only reason why we beelined back to our room instead of, say, the courtyard. Unlike most other types of magic, illusion magic could be practiced indoors. Avilia had decided it would be better I’d practice it where there aren’t too many people rather than in a semi-public place like the library. And I tend to agree. The fewer people know, the better.

As with other types of magic, illusion magic can be cast in multiple ways. Gestures, chanting, visualization. The works. If you’re a chanter or a gesture user, and your opponent can keep up with your casting, they can tell if you’re casting a real spell or an illusion. If you use visualization… You could accidentally visualize the real thing instead of an illusion.

Mimicking regular spell effects is fairly simple. For particularly complex illusions, the fastest way to cast them is to combine different casting methods.

How troublesome!

But what should I try casting first?

“Do not overthink it,” Avilia says all of a sudden, “Try casting an illusory fireball.”

“I’m sorry?”

“An illusory fireball. Try casting one. The book did include the gestures for illusion, did it not?”

“It did, yes.”

That’s not a bad idea, actually. It’s best to start simple, right?

I start with the gesture for illusion.

Fire.

Ball.

What looks like a ball of flame that emits no heat nor light appears above my hand. Avilia suddenly lunges up from her seat towards me and pokes the fireball. It destabilizes and disappears.

“And that is how illusions work. If an observer does not believe it exists and touches it, it is instantly erased.”

I sigh. “Okay. You didn’t have to startle me like that, though.”

She giggles as she sits back down. “Can you think of something else to cast? Preferably of the other kind of illusion.”

What should I cast? Oh, I know!

I do the gesture for targeted illusion.

Eye.

Ear.

Invisibility.

I cast it on the only possible target in the room, Avilia.

She smirks. “What are you planning?”

I stand up and walk behind her as she still stares at my now vacant seat.

I hug her and the illusion is lifted. I lower my head to her ear.

“Surprise.”