Chapter 76 - I’m a book-lover!

Seeing them speechless, Marc showed a smug look and didn't have any reservation for saying "What? Don't you even know that? You should read more often. It's good for the brain."

With a twitching eye, Gina tried to calm down, but the provoking expression coupled with the injustice she's seeing made her throw a punch at Marc's face— despite her weak close-combat ability— She had sitten on the chair for the last few hours reading and reading without breaks, and now Marc showed her a spell that totally undermined her effort.

"—Woah!?" Marc easily dodged the punch, but still acted like it was a close call, before continuing dodging a flurry of punches until she was tired. While she was panting, Rofta asked "So did you really just push out all the knowledge in the book?"

"Yep~"

"…Can you do the same with Magic Books?" Rofta was also envious, but he wanted to confirm something before he would decide if he should give Marc the cold shoulder. There's no way he will openly show his jealousy— because he's a little tsundere on the inside.

"I should be able to. Let's just try it. Do you have a Magic Book?" Before Rofta could pick a Magic Book for Marc, Ihwach stopped him by grabbing his shoulder with a hand and held up the now blank book "Not so quick. Can you return my book to normal again? If not, then there's no way you are touching any of my books again!"

"Although he's stupid, he's not an idiot that will try the spell on your book without being able to turn it back." It was Gina who after having gotten her breath back, came to somewhat defend him as she had a great deal of trust in Marc.

With his pointy finger out like he was just about to say something to agree with Gina, he realized— he never thought about turning the book back to normal. Raising a finger a few times and mumbling some nonsense that no one could understand. Until the forgotten Najah finally stepped into the conversation and explained "He said 'Shit!! Give me a moment. It's not too late to think about it now. I can fix it— definitely… It's all Gina's fault for scaring the shit out of me with all those books. I need to come up with a good excuse to get more time to find a solution. Excuse-excuse..' Now he just keeps mumbling 'excuse' over and over."

After momentarily looking at Najah who somehow was able to understand Marc's mumbling. Rofta somewhat saw this situation coming. But standing here, watching his embarrassing friend together with his grandfather, kinda made him embarrassed too.

Gina felt her face heat up and considered herself an idiot for her actions. Just believing Marc would think things through before trying new spells out was idiotic of her.

Because his brain was going on full throttle to solve his current predicament, Marc didn't manage to hear Najah's interpretation. Lowering his raised finger, Marc coughed, pushed his chest out before saying "Of course I already thought of a way to transfer the book's content back. It's just that the spell will take some preparation, so I will do it later at home. Give me the book, and I will prepare right away— As Gina said, I'm no idiot. I will give the book back tomorrow- no in two days!" Taking the book while being satisfied with his cover-up, Marc was just about to leave with the blank book under his arm.

"Hey, Najah. Can you repeat what Marc mumbled before?" Requested Gina before Najah began repeating it once again.

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With the most confused face he could make, Marc began denying "Najah, what are you saying? You must have heard me wrong. I would never say that irresponsible stuff. In fact, I love books— yes, I'm a book-lover! Don't you worry old man! I will give you your book back as good as new— no as a book-lover I recommend you just forget about it. It's terrible and unbearable to read. I give it 1/10. You will regret reading it."

Looking at the shameless young man in front of him, Ihwach shook his head and said "I have already read it and it's a good book. If you can't turn it back, I will have you rewrite the content. You can remember it all, right? If you can't, then I will have you rewrite all of my old books that are nearly crumbling for the next month."

"… Just curious. How many books are we talking about?"

"Not many… Just about 90 books."

"…I'm still just curious, but what's the average length of those books?"

"Still, not many… Just about 300 pages." The pressure Marc was feeling at this moment was terrible. His face whitened and his legs turned a little weak.

"I fucked up! Fuck!! There's no way I'm doing that shit." Marc shouted in his mind, scared.

With a forced smile, Marc told Ihwach "As I said, I was simply curious. I will turn your book back in a jiffy. Just give me some time. You don't have to mind me, and can freely continue training Rofta. I will just stay over here for the time being and turn your book back to normal."

With his back forced against the wall, Marc used the next two days without rest to come up with a method to return the knowledge from his head— back into the book.

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With dark circles under his eyes, Marc finally managed to solve his predicament. With his Paw Magic ready, Marc planted a hand on his forehead and began repelling his memories— more specifically the knowledge from the book that he had taken. Targeting a specific memory was way harder than he had initially thought when he got the idea. The first time he nearly caused himself to have a memory loss as the task was very delicate to do.

Like when he used his magic on the book, a dark-blue paw bubble began coming out of his head steadily until it was fully extracted and floated behind him.

Marc tiredly turned around and took hold of the bubble, before forcing it down at the book he had placed open— just to be safe it didn't fail. The book seemingly began absorbing and its content reappeared again shortly after.

"But books sure are scary. I'm out!" Though Marc tiredly before he laid on the ground and fell asleep in the snow— not minding the cold temperature and forgot about the book that would have been ruined if it stayed on the ground for long. Luckily, Ihwach appeared like a blue flash and picked up the book. He browsed it a little to see if the content was truly back to normal and marveled at Marc's use of his magic. After having confirmed, Ihwach left as quickly as he came and left Marc to sleep in the cold.

Besides already having a high heat resistance due to his previous life's experiences, his Paw Magic further adds to it as it helps repel the cold temperatures passively.

The next day when Marc awakened, the others forced Marc to take the knowledge from the same book where Rofta had learned the basics of his Inverted World Magic. Because of their high hopes, they ended up in a very somber mood. They let Marc run off when they learned— after giving him a few tries at learning other advanced magic— it doesn't mean Marc has truly learned how to use them. He only knows what the book says, and doesn't understand how the magic works first-hand. It will take lots of time to put the content together so it makes sense and can be used.

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Days went by- then turned to weeks. A new year has come. It was X382 and Marc has been in this world for three years now. Three weeks were left until the dedicated time Nakoto set for Rofta to show the proof of 'contribution'— though Rofta obviously wasn't planning on making anyone pregnant and was training hard for a rematch against his father.

A few small events happened in that small time frame. After having been bullied by his comrades, Marc met a few times with Shirayuki to complain, but in truth, he was just trying to get laid. It didn't work though as she kept saying Marc had to finish his shrinking spell first.

Regarding Gina's curse— it was dispelled after Marc had truly taken his time to learn the books about curses after he had absorbed their content. He gave his spell that can repel knowledge and memories a very arrogant name, [Knowledge of All Things].

Najah started training her body intensely too and trained as a modern bodybuilder with the help of Gina making heavy weight plates with her Sand Devil Slayer Magic. Book after another was read by Gina while she was training her focus and further improving her control over sand so it would move with just a little thought.

From here out, Marc's book trauma had lessened and he began training with Najah— but stopped after he destroyed her in a competition in various weight lifting exercises. With the loss of motivation to train his body, Marc overcame his fear of books when he spotted a few that would up his pranks a notch. Overcome with good ideas, Marc laughed like a second-rate villain by himself— it annoyed Rofta, Gina, and Najah so much that they wanted Marc to leave or stop laughing. In the end, even the patient Ihwach had enough of Marc's shenanigans after he tried to do something to his tea.

"You, we don't have any ingredients left for dinner. Take this money and buy this..that..and this too…" Ihwach said and threw a pouch to Marc with money inside. Having lived many years, Ihwach had great self-control, but Marc did wonders to it— and to his mustache that didn't have even hair at both sides anymore, after having been pulled too many times to destress.

*Growl*

His stomach growled in hunger, so Marc didn't protest and noted down the things he had to buy in his mind. "Got it! Anything else?"

"No, that's it." Said Ihwach after having told Marc to buy 7 different ingredients.

"Super-duper, I will be right back," Marc said confidently before skipping off.

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(A/N: I have great expectations for the spell, [Knowledge of All Things] that will be improved with time.)

(Words: 1752)