Frieren: Understand Humans, Aura!

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The so-called assistant was merely responsible for organizing grimoires sent from various places, classifying them, and placing them in specific locations. It was more akin to being a librarian.

Aura initially thought she could gain some insight into Serie's extraordinary magical secrets through this role, but in reality, there was no such opportunity.

Most of the time, Serie was reading books rather than conducting magical experiments.

If it weren't for her overwhelmingly powerful magical aura—so intense that Aura had to look up to glimpse it in its entirety—Aura might have found it difficult to distinguish Serie from an ordinary human girl who loved reading.

Oh, there was one more difference—the speed of reading.

Ordinary people read at a pace measured in days, whereas Serie's reading speed was measured in seconds. Only occasionally, when encountering something of interest, would she pause for a few minutes to ponder.

'She probably uses a mind-acceleration spell or a mental-division spell. That old woman might have reconstructed multiple versions of herself in her own mind,' Aura speculated.

"Aura, bring the books over."

"Okay."

Aura was extremely obedient. Zanze remarked that she was "doesn't look like a demon at all."

Of course.

You can always trust a demon to unleash their potential when faced with a threat to their life. As long as there was a chance to keep Aura alive, she wouldn't hesitate even if she had to kneel down and lick Serie's toes.

That's just how demons are...

"A race with perspective!"

Aura shamelessly held her head high, praising herself.

"I have moved the books to the library tower."

Zanze, with her small frame, was carrying a pile of books twice her height, wobbling as she headed toward the underground tower. She must have used magic; otherwise, with her slender arms and short stature, there was no way she could lift the weight of books as tall as a person.

In this miniature town atop an unknown mountain, there were two particularly notable structures.

One was a towering ancient tree that pierced the sky. It was a living structure; except for the bottom floor, which was Serie's residence, the branches above had all been transformed into temporary book storage. Magic-related books from all over the world, from various countries and races, collected by Serie's magic users, were roughly placed there.

This was where Serie kept the magic books she intended to read.

The other was an equally tall underground tower that penetrated deep into the mountain. The lower the level, the more recently excavated the library floor was, used to store books that Serie had already reviewed and deemed valuable. These included original grimoires from ancient times to the present, books written in lost languages, and almost anything you could think of, practically forming a history of magic in the world.

This was where Serie kept the grimoires she had already read.

The assistant's job is physical labor, which is to move the books from the ancient tree to the ancient tower after Serie has read them.

Aside from physical labor, this was also a mental task. The books placed on the ancient tree had to be roughly categorized by assistants to save Serie the time of selecting useful knowledge. Each time Serie finished reading, she would burn two-thirds of the useless or already collected pages on the spot, and the assistants would then move them to the underground tower for further categorization.

Despite this, being Serie's assistant was a job everyone in this mage town wanted.

Because every day, after Serie finished reading, she would casually throw one or two books she considered most valuable to the assistant managing her books. It was these one or two books that allowed a mage to access magical theories far ahead of their time.

As for the mages who were not assistants, they would gather on the lower floor of the ancient tower, voluntarily categorizing the books. The underground tower had ample space, and they maintained the upper layer of books. Their reward was the privilege of freely browsing these valuable grimoires that Saria had read.

However, for Aura, this job was pure torture.

There was no magical knowledge here that she needed.

Even in the future, when the human magic system is fully developed, the demon magic that has been analyzed will only be a few magics with inherent effects such as "killing magic" and "flight magic", and these are the results of humans putting all their efforts and spending hundreds of years to analyze them.

The demon magic system was referred to by humans and elves as an "incomprehensible curse."

Due to the individual differences among demons, demon magic also had inherent encryption characteristics such as specialization, scarcity of books, difficulty in cataloging, and rarity of common traits. Even Serie from the mythological era knew very little about demon magic.

Of course, knowing very little didn't mean the "incomprehensible curse" of demon magic could threaten her. If any demon thought so, Serie would use a "curse" of the same scale that the demons had never seen before to make the demons suffer the consequences.

The long hours of unpaid work and the high intensity of sorting books made Aura complain:

"Hey, Serie, this is too unfair. What about my reward?"

"Didn't I give it to you?"

"Those books are only useful to Zanze, right? Human grimoires are too backward. They are at least a thousand years behind the magic system of the demons."

"I meant, isn't the fact that you're standing alive before me reward enough?"

"..."

"If you don't want to do it, you can resign."

"No, no, no, no, I love this job! I'll do it until I die!"

"Voluntarily?"

"Voluntarily!"

Aura hugged the book, her eyes clear, with no trace of the bloodthirsty cunning typical of demons.

Even Zanze praised her, saying her head was so empty that a ray of light entering her eyes would show a brain with no trace of scheming.

Aura, holding the book, disappeared from Serie's sight.

Following the path to the underground tower, she categorized the grimoires she held, then returned to the surface, looking up at the towering ancient tree reaching the sky.

Amidst the lush green leaves, one could vaguely see various ancient books supported by the branches.

"Amazing."

She couldn't help but sigh.

No wonder even the Demon King said he couldn't defeat the elf Serie. She truly deserved the title of "the mage closest to God," known as the "living grimoire."

In this world, it seemed that all human magic that had ever appeared or was currently appearing had been learned by her.

'Faced with such a boundless power, even a god would feel despair, right?'

'But I would not!'

"Hehe, hahaha, hahahahaha!!!"

Out of Serie's sight, Aura couldn't help but laugh wildly.

As a top-tier demon among the Seven Sages of Destruction, how could she, Aura, be so easily disheartened?

Even in such a desperate situation, Aura was still planning a more advantageous future for the demons.

The increasingly heavy dark circles under her eyes were evidence.

With the convenience of being Serie's assistant, she could use her position's privileges to perform a lot of "weeding out" in the grimoires she sent to Saria.

—Although on the surface, Serie had no interest in the war between humans and demons, considering mages of both sides merely catalysts for magical development, and would not actively promote the development of any side's magic.

In reality, because most of the mages studying under Serie were human, the development of the human magic system was closely tied to this "neutral" mythological mage.

And being in this important position at the source of human magic development, as Serie's assistant, how could Aura, a demon, do nothing?

"I've erased all knowledge that could connect with the human magic system."

Using her excellent memory and her in-depth study of the modern human magic system, Aura blacked out any sentences she recognized as related to or beneficial to the human magic system while categorizing books for Serie.

She was certainly not afraid of arousing Serie's suspicion.

Because Zanze was doing the "same".

She had seen Zanze black out some insignificant magical theory conjectures, probably to pre-filter and reduce Serie's workload of flipping through books.

Now, with her acting skills, she had perfectly deceived the mythological elf Serie and her human assistant Zanze, gaining their trust. In the long run, if this continues, the development of human magic will be slowed down as long as small amounts accumulate.

"Demon King-sama, watch me. Even as a prisoner, I won't forget to contribute to the demon cause!"

"I, Aura, will surely be diligent and never slack off."