Under the Oak Tree

Chapter 263

A relatively young man clad in a ragged gray robe, wearing an irritated expression, was striding through the dense bookshelves: it was Ranolf, a senior wizard in charge of supervising the apprentice wizards. He stomped his feet as he stopped in front of her, ignoring the librarian’s disapproving glare at him.

“Good thing I saw you here. Now there’s no need for me to go looking for you in classrooms.”

Max asked him in a quiet voice, conscious of the librarian’s piercing glare. “W-what’s the matter?”

“You’re asking me what’s the matter?”

The man placed his hands on his waist and gave her an intimidating look. She could feel the wizards who were sitting and reading by the window glancing, curious of what was going on. However, Ranolf seemed to have no intentions of keeping his manners polite. He pulled out a bunch of thick parchments from his arm and shook it in front of Max. She blinked in confusion with her eyes wide open, then she realized that the wads of parchment were the letters she had written for several nights.

The wizard massaged his temple and exhaled loudly. “I have told you over and over again to keep the letters as concise as possible because they are all to be inspected! Have you not learned from having your letters rejected twice?”

“But I made it as co-concise as possible!” Max retorted, her voice reaching a note higher, frustrated that her letter might have been marked as return to sender again.

The apprentice wizards were allowed to send letters outside of Nornui for only twice a year. And unfortunately for her, her letters had already been rejected twice in the inspection process. Max glared at him bitterly

“I did keep... the letter under t-ten pages as you said...”

“Oh, now you’re saying this is under ten pages?”

Ranolf’s face was trembling with irritation as he unfolded the twice-folded parchments. Max squeaked and flapped her arms, trying to cover the contents of the letter. The man disregarded her and shook the parchment that was wide as a tablecloth.

“You wrote it without a single space on a parchment used for huge magic tools with a handwriting as small as a millet grain! I thought my eyes were going to burst while reading it! I was going to let you slide this time but despite my several attempts at reading it, I ultimately ran out of temper!” He growled and pointed to his blood-shot eyes. “Are you deliberately finding a way to torture me every time? Last time, you terrified me with a bundle of bible-thick parchments, and this time, this absurd...!”

Ranolf grunted as if he couldn’t find the right words to describe it. “Please, put yourself in the shoes of those who will read and inspect your letters! Do you know how laborious it is to inspect a love letter as long and thick as a book?”

“It’s not a lo-lo-love letter! I was just trying to tell my well-being to my h-husband! We can only send letters twice in a span of 1 year, it’s only... n-n-natural... that there is a lot to write about!”

The man then raised his chin and snorted loudly through his nose. “It’s a relief that I was able to inspect it. If that letter really had made it across the sea, it would have been a disaster! Your husband would have run far away from that pathetic letter!”

Max turned blue from the impact of his words. ‘I’m already anxious to the point of going crazy, but for him to say such words...!’

She forgot that they were in a public place and she raised her voice at him. “That’s not true! M-my husband... is not heartless like Ranolf!”

“Stop talking nonsense, write it again.” As Ranolf grinded his teeth, he pulled out a piece of parchment about 1 kvet (30 cm) long and shoved it against her face. “I’ll give you one last chance. The letters will be sent on a ship in two days so you should finish writing by tomorrow. On a font this size...”

He walked over to the librarian’s desk, took her quill, and quickly scribbled a line over a parchment. “The font should at least be this size! Only five pages long.”

“But it u-used to be ten pages...”

“I said five. If your letter passes the inspection, I will stamp it with a seal that makes sure it gets sent so you better do it properly.”

Ranolf insisted on the five pages and turned away with a swish, leaving the library at once. As she stared at his back with a bewildered expression, she heard someone clearing her throat. Max turned around slowly. The librarian was shooting daggers at Max with her eyes.

“Creating a ruckus in the library is penalized by being banned from the library for a week.”

“...”

“Rules are rules. You are not allowed to use the library for the time being Maximillian. Please take your leave.”

Max groaned and dragged her feet helplessly. Despite being half-rattled, fortunately, she was able to go through the class discussion successfully. However, her mood was still in a huge downturn. As she trudged back to her quarters, Max feebly fiddled with the letters she spent months carefully writing. Whenever she felt suffocated with her longing, she would pour all of it down on the parchment. Although it was true that it resulted in a staggering number of letters, there were so many things that she wanted to tell him that couldn’t be summarized.

‘I have already written it as concisely as I could...’

She opened the door to her room with a sullen face. As she entered, Roy, who was curled up on her bed, leapt down and went to snuggle against her legs. After feeding her cat, Max sat down at her desk and stared gloomily at the bundle of letters. Suddenly, the brimming anxiety and sadness she was suppressing burst out.

“If you go, I won’t wait for you anymore.”

Max bit her lips. Thoughts that she had driven to the corner of her mind began to hover inside her like ghosts. ‘What if he meant what he said back then? Even if I go back, if he says there’s no longer a place for me by his side, if he doesn’t need me anymore, what should I do?’

Max pulled out a new parchment as the thoughts suffocated her. Then, she started writing again as if she was pushed by something. Although it was strictly forbidden to write in detail about life in Nornui and there wasn’t much for her to tell, once she began to write, it felt like her pen wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t even dare express in words, much less a letter, how much she thought of him, how much she missed the times she spent in Anatol, and how much her heart ached every time she thought of the day she left him. Letters that would reach floor to ceiling won’t ever capture how much her longing was, much less five pages of it. It was difficult for Max to write down her emotions on those five pieces of parchment. At the same time, she tried not to beg so servilely for him not to forget her. However, as she read the sentences she wrote, she deemed that she failed desperately to achieve those.

Gazing down at the yellow parchment with feelings of hopelessness, Max slowly crashed her face against her palms. Suddenly, she started to wonder what was the use of all that. Riftan could not even feel joy from a letter she wrote, maybe by then he had completely forgotten her. Her heart felt like breaking as she thought of such, she wrapped her hands around her face and desperately tried to hold back her tears. A sudden sigh came out of her lips. She had this terrible habit of imagining only the worst of the worst things that could happen and it seemed irreparable. While living in Nornui, she tried so desperately to become a new person, but she couldn’t change her fundamentals that easily.

She stared at the setting sun with an exhausted expression and dipped her quill in ink again. Even if Riftan no longer needed her, she needed him. She would do anything to win his heart back if she was given the chance. Max then began to write down her current life as briefly as possible as she battled clearing her tumultuous mind. Then, she added that she was going to do everything it took to get back to Anatol as soon as possible. After hesitating for some time, she added one last line.

‘I miss you so much that I think I’ll die from longing.’

As she stared down at that sentence, tears that she had long held back began to stream down. She hurriedly wiped the tears away from her cheeks and sealed the letter inside a leather envelope. Caught by the sniffles coming from her, Roy crept over to her feet and snuggled against the hem of her robe. Max grabbed the cat and buried her face against his soft fur.

“You... want to go home too, don’t you?” The cat purred and licked Max’s cheek with its prickly tongue, as she sniffled. “Me too.”

At that moment, a sudden knock was heard against the door. Max then raised her head. “Did you... cause some trouble again?”

As she looked down suspiciously at Roy, the cat immediately slipped out of her arms and hid under the bed. Max squinted at the cat, then sighed and walked towards the door.

“Wh-who is it?”

“It’s me.”

As she pulled on the doorknob, she saw Annette standing by the door holding a lamp in one hand. Max’s expression turned into confusion. Annette lived in the Umli village, so it was rare for her to come to the dormitories.

“What brings you h-here... at this time?”

“I came here at Professor Landon’s request. He asked me to tell you to the Gnome Hall laboratory as he has something to discuss with you about the magic spell you asked him to review.”

Note – LF: MAX WROTE ON A TABLECLOTH-SIZED PARCHMENT. I CAN’T- WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY I’M WHEEZING