SWNOVELXO Chapter 30
**Chapter 28.**
Ildrin.
A genius and eccentric woman.
“The Royal Library director, Ildrin Meia.”
“Yes.”
Ildrin loved libraries.
When she quietly sat and spent time, she enjoyed the books that intrigued her as they came in anew.
One day, various research books from all disciplines that scholars had struggled over would arrive, providing her with a week’s worth of fun.
Being an eccentric, she became a librarian at a young age, and being a genius, she rose to the position of library director.
However.
If there was one problem, it might have been the forbidden book stored in the underground stacks of the royal library.
The issue was that she had come to know about the ash, a secret kept from everyone.
Ash.
It was a wellspring that never dried up.
It was an endlessly deep gorge.
Perhaps that was what she had been waiting for to alleviate her boredom.
Thus she researched.
Ash.
Even knowing that dealing with it was a criminal act, her eyes sparkled with excitement.
As mentioned, she was a genius and equally eccentric.
“I command you to revoke Meia’s title and move your affiliation to the temple library to repent for your sins.”
“As commanded.”
The curiosity of a genius naturally sprouts, and the madness of an eccentric naturally reveals itself.
The researcher, who had yearned for this knowledge and sought ash, was thus ousted from her position and relegated to a lower status.
And if she had been an ordinary person, she would have despaired and wept at that moment.
‘What kind of materials are left in the temple?’
At least until the moment she was demoted, her eyes had gleamed with anticipation, and one should not expect her to desire anything ordinary.
“Librarian Ildrin.”
“Yes.”
So even in the temple library, she rummaged through the forbidden books and continued her research.
“You have committed another crime. The gods may forgive you, but the laws of the Empire require your punishment.”
“I will accept it gladly.”
She thought she had hidden her research well, but her tail was caught quickly.
“Sigh… I wish you could just hold back a bit, Ildrin.”
“…”
“The Emperor commands that you be transferred from the temple’s affiliation to the citizen library.”
“Yes.”
Thus she was relegated once more.
An ordinary library that likely contained no specialized materials compared to the royal and temple libraries.
Perhaps it was the higher-ups’ final consideration that there would be no materials about ash, hoping she would take an interest in something else.
However, she thought.
All the materials she had read in the royal and temple libraries were in her head.
‘So there should be no one watching me, making it a good place for research.’
After all, as long as she mixed the languages and wrote her research journal in uncommon tongue and Dwarven, the average person would not understand it.
With the thought that she could continue her research at the citizen library, she moved on.
And.
Returning to the present.
Ildrin was gazing at a boy with black hair.
********
“There are some here.”
No.
“That can’t be.”
“I have it.”
“You just said it was a forbidden book.”
“Because I’m a librarian.”
It was said that librarians would be overlooked even if they broke the law, according to the proclamation of the Emperor.
I stared at her in disbelief, and she, still with a blank and indifferent expression, brushed off the papers she had been scribbling and held them out to me.
“This is…”
“A research book on ash. It’s a bit chaotic since I’m still writing it.”
Moreover, it wasn’t even an existing research book but one she claimed to be writing herself.
I felt compelled to ask again just in case.
“Isn’t writing a new one an offense under the law?”
“Of course, if caught, the minimum punishment is forced labor. Creating a forbidden book is something even the Emperor would be angry about.”
She looked at my question as if it were ridiculous, almost pitiful.
As if it had nothing to do with her.
“Then why are you…”
“That’s why I’m here working, aren’t I? Not being sentenced to death is all because the Emperor is gracious.”
“…”
Was it because she was a librarian at the citizen library?
And what did it mean to be committing another crime while paying for her sins?
As I thought about it, she continued speaking indifferently.
“If you need a research book on ash, feel free to read it. It’s a document organized by referencing the forbidden books in the royal library and temple library.”
However.
“I appreciate it, but this isn’t written in Empire script.”
“I wrote it mixing uncommon tongue and Dwarven. I had to be prepared in case I got caught.”
That document was something I could not read at all.
“…”
“If you need an Empire language translation, I can make that for you. It might take some time, though.”
“You just said we need to be prepared in case we get caught…”
“Accomplices are always welcome.”
There are mad people here too.
This world is filled with crazy people everywhere.
So I stared at her vacant face for a while, thinking that.
After those ash revelations.
“Ain, don’t you think it’s funny? That it’s absurd for a nation to step in and prevent something that’s merely research.”
“…”
She seemed so glad to have found a comrade that she eagerly chatted away whenever it was just the two of us in the library.
“Just because I study ash doesn’t mean I become ash. Just as approaching ash doesn’t mean I’m tainted by it, research is just research. Though it’s true they are dangerous beings.”
“…, that.”
“Moreover, ash is history. A monumental history that this continent holds. No matter how much they struggle to hide it, someone will surely overturn that history.”
“Um….”
They say a wild horse could not be properly controlled.
As if those words foretold it, Ildrin was a wild horse with reins off.
“No historian would dare to handle ash. Only a few wandering researchers like me take interest. Even that is mostly negative.”
“Librarian…”
“Why do you think that is? Do you understand why the state suppresses it so harshly?”
“Please stop….”
“Therefore, when I was in the royal library….”
Stop it, damn it.
This isn’t a story titled “The Survival of the Foreign Black-Haired Park Chan-ho in Another World.”
Anyway.
To make a long story short, after several days of torment, I received a translation of the research book on ash from her.
The research she claimed to be writing was so thick that it was almost 20 cm, making me wonder when I would ever get through it.
And as she handed over that thick volume, she said to me.
“Ain, if you encounter ash during your travels, please be sure to introduce me.”
“…, how can I possibly bring someone when I don’t know what you will do.”
Reflecting on the past month, she seemed like someone who would want to dissect ash right away to see how they were inside.
Yet, she tilted her head as if I was the strange one.
“If you handle ash recklessly, the city could explode into dust. What are you talking about? I merely want to ask some ordinary questions.”
“…, what questions do you want to ask?”
And she replied.
“Their lives.”
“Pardon…?”
“I’m curious about the stories that no one has known, the tales that flowed before they met their tragic ends.”
An unexpectedly ordinary question.
“Is it really true that their end must lead to witch hunts? Did no ash ever get to live happily or ordinarily?”
The fundamental question I had always held was now voiced by another.
“I always hold such questions. The more I delve into ash, the stronger those questions grow.”
Perhaps I was hearing a tiny sliver of hope through someone else’s voice.
“And I believe that the secrets lie within the stories of their lives. That is the last piece I desire.”
She was certainly a strange person, yet during the moment she spoke those words, she looked at me with clear and pure eyes.
So I answered.
“Well, if the opportunity arises, I’ll bring one along.”
“Yes, please do.”
With those words, the library returned to silence.
And.
She was again the librarian, busy scribbling her research with that vacant look on her face.