In this era, too many books have been relegated to electronic form, even the library of Tokiwadai, which is famous in Gakuen City. However, real books don't feel the same as real books, so the library in Tokiwadai still has books in their traditional form. And it's surprisingly large.

If you stand in the center of the hollow-like hall that has been specially designed to give you a sense of grandeur, you can see the "wall" of the huge bookshelves stretching down to the high ceiling.

The spiraling staircase spirals up the "wall" of the bookshelves, and looking up at the ground floor, even the figures of those who are looking for the books they want to read are so small.

"Oh."

Inside the library, the girl exclaimed with one hand on her cheek.

The slender fingers gently turn the pages of the book in their hands, as if plucking the strings of the lyre. Turning from the open page to the title page, she let out another sigh.

In her possession was a prose poem by the 19th-century American poet Edgar Allan Poe, "I Found It." Tokiwadai's library has a large collection of books and "originals", and this "I Found It" is one of the first editions of the "originals" that spanned more than a century.

The elegant and dignified girl sighed with a book of poems in her hand, judging from this picture alone, it was really a beautiful picture. But in fact, she was not appreciating the poetry.

Although she is not unappreciative of art, beautiful words and phrases do not attract her attention. What is somewhat inconsistent with her demure and gentle appearance is that her literary accomplishment is not so good.

In fact, her brother once made fun of her lack of emotion. Because for the most part, she seems too intellectual.

But this is not to be regretted, because what she has been pursuing is something far more eternal than art.

What amazed her was not the beauty of the poetry, but the hidden in it, something even more wonderful.

In this prose poem, there is this sentence:

"If there is no end to the collection of stars, the sky that unfolds before us should be even and bright, and there will not be a corner of the night sky without stars."

The sentence wasn't subtle, and it was definitely not pretty, but she was drawn to it.

Because, what this sentence describes is a wonderful concept of the universe and creation.

This is the Olbers paradox. It has always been summed up as a question about a phenomenon that is taken for granted, a question that has plagued mankind for countless years, and that every child has asked -

Why is the night sky black?

Among this seemingly natural phenomenon, there is the most profound answer.

She knew the answer to this question, because it was a leap forward in human understanding of the universe.

So she kept reading, wondering if the poet had found the answer. Then she saw a peculiar sentence:

"The invisible background is so far away that no light can reach us."

This sentence made her exclaim.

It's so wonderful, far more beautiful than all the beautiful verses.

When she saw this sentence, she couldn't help but turn to the title page to find the date of publication of this prose poem. When she found out that this essay had been published in 1848, her admiration turned into a heartfelt sigh.

At a time when human beings were so small and naïve about the universe, this mysterious poet "discovered" such an amazing miracle as the title of the poem suggests.

He used this intricate phrase to solve the Olbes paradox and discovered the moment when all things were born out of nothingness.

In the solution to Albes's paradox, there is a secret.

Because the speed of light is finite, it takes time to reach Earth from distant stars. If the universe were infinite, then the night sky would be bright because light would one day reach our planet.

But the night sky is dark, so the universe is not infinite.

The correct solution to Aubels' paradox is that the universe is neither infinitely grand nor infinitely ancient.

Who would have thought that the question that a child would ask would go all the way back to the end of the entire universe; Who would have thought that a mysterious poet who liked to use death as the theme would discover the birth of the entire universe.

He closed his eyes and sighed silently, then opened them again and looked up at the dome of the library.

The dome of the library's ceiling, which today is projecting the famous "Hubble Deep View" (XDF). It is the oldest "starry sky", full of galaxies that coalesced from the gas of the Big Bang just 500 million years after the universe was born.

It was as if infinite books paved the way to the end of the universe and supported the original universe, which was a very intuitive magnificence.

Towards the end of the universe.

It's really easy to give people such a wonderful illusion.

Dome shook her head gently, she wasn't a girl with too much romantic tendencies, but she inevitably had this romantic feeling.

From the stairs and corridors of the "wall" that surround the bookshelves on the inside, many students can also be seen flipping through books. Since Tokiwadai is a girls' school, these students are naturally all girls.

The feeling of contemplating quietly in this unique atmosphere of being surrounded by soft air everywhere is not as uncomfortable as originally thought.

…… No, if you think about it, maybe you just don't feel strange when you think about it.

"Is it decided? Umihara-san. ”

"It's a mess in my head."

Gently responding and closing the book, she moved out of the way a little in a motion that didn't seem too contrived.

Since it's a library, it's natural to keep it quiet. Although she has no problem herself, at this point, she can't get others to do the same. However, although there is nothing she can do at this point, at least she wants the other person to sit next to her.

Obviously, the other party is coming for himself. If you sit closer, you don't have to speak too loudly.

"Then maybe I should wait a little longer."

"No, that's too much trouble for you, bee-eater." She smiled and said, "And you've built up momentum to this extent, haven't you?" It would be rude not to respond to you. ”

"It's so ugly to hear, I just talked to a few of the core people of the faction I was scheduled to have. Isn't it okay to hide this kind of thing from them? ”

Hearing her say this, Qiong Nai couldn't help but smile bitterly.

Could it be that simple? Although the speed of the girl's information transmission is comparable to that of a typhoon, the level of distortion is often staggering. As long as a message is passed on a few times among girls, it will inevitably be unrecognizable. She has long been deeply aware of this.

But strangely, this time the bee-eater invited her to join the faction, but there was no rumor at all. Just think about the ability to eat bees, and the conclusion should be obvious.

Of course, she didn't have any disgust for such innocuous little means. In fact, deep down, she also respects bee-eaters.

"Okay, okay, that's okay. You see, I'm going to respond to your invitation. ”

"I'd love to hear from you—though I'd love to say it, but I guess what you'd say."

The beeeater sighed heavily.

"Huh?"

Dome couldn't help but be stunned.

It's not surprising that the beeeater understood the answer she wanted to make. Curiously, the word bee-eater uses is "guess", not "read".

That is, not by ability, but by guesswork.

"Surprised? The high-level ability of the school city,It also means that it is a high-level honor student.。 In the field that I am good at, of course, I don't talk about academic ability. ”

The bee-eater leaned in with a mischievous look and reached out and tapped her cheek lightly. Startled by her movements, Qiongno almost fell off the other side of the chair.

"Actually, it's not worth mentioning, I was just watching you over there." She continued. "You're so focused on thinking that you probably didn't notice."

"Yes...... Is it? ”

"To be honest, I was scared. When you think about it, it feels like you're in a world that is just your own. In that world, you are the only queen. Anyone who sees you like this will know that you will definitely not want to join someone else's group. ”

Some of the feelings of being speechless eventually evolved into bitter words.

"There is no such thing......"

I just blindly shut myself in my own world and removed myself from the eyes of the outside world.

Suddenly, she realized that the bee-eater was right. Maybe he hasn't changed all along.

Whether it's your past self or your current self.

I'm afraid it won't work if it goes on like this.

"I ......"

She tried to speak, but the bee-eater interrupted her.

"Pause. Don't rush to make a decision, I don't want to see you choose to side with me just because of my words, so you wait a little longer before giving me an answer. But then again, I won't give up, I'm very persistent. Hmm~"

The bee-eater stretched out widely, which was certainly unsightly, but no one pointed it out to her. Because there is no one who will have this memory at all except Dona.

Obviously, he has this ability that even has the possibility of stirring the world, but he only applies his ability to some small tricks. She doesn't think anyone can do it.

Behind the seemingly nonsense and strong, there is an amazing self-control ability, as well as a noble personality.

Such a person is undoubtedly worthy of her respect.

So she made a decision.

Standing up, she gave the bee-eaters a most respectful salute as a token of thanks.

This time, her actions made the beeeaters stunned. Even very rarely, there is some panic.

"Umi, Umihara-san?"

"As the bee-eater classmate said, I'm a little too self-contained. Perhaps, it should indeed change a little, so I want to try it from now on. Although I have not yet accepted your invitation, I have a personal perspective. ”

She pressed one hand to her chest, and then she reached out to the bee-eater.

"Can you be friends with me? Bee-eating classmates. ”

It was after careful consideration that she summoned the courage to make the decision. However, the reaction of the bee-eaters was greatly unexpected by her.