SWNOVELXO Chapter 4: An Empty Library?
There was nothing.
By nothing, there were no Ghouls. As you'd expect from a library, there were shelves upon shelves where books would be stored, however, they were tossed all over the place, books both open and shut scattered across the ground. "Hello?" Ryo asked nobody in particular. "Anyone in here?"
Ryo made his way into the building, checking the doors once more to make sure that they wouldn't shut on him. He hopped onto a toppled bookcase, making his way to what could only be described as a reception area. A large semicircular oak table, imagine half a donut, half-covered with moss. In the centre of the ring stood a lectern, covered in dust and a small bit of ivy. On the stand lay a book detailed "Observations".
Ryo put his bag on the floor, taking out his own notebook of the same title. He placed them side-by-side, noting that this one was exactly double the height, width and length of his own one. Coincidence? Possibly. Ryo opened the larger notebook, flicking through some of the pages. He saw what he assumed were names, as well as names of books, and what appeared to be check-in and check-out times for each, but they were all in another language, one he didn't understand.
All the Human races shared a dialect, named Utopian, due to the majority of the people speaking it at the time being Utopian. They were really creative with names, as you can tell, but their pride stopped them from giving it any other name.
He'd seen books in the Cleavian language before, but they weren't like this. He didn't know if the people who lived in Ambia or Serphia had their own written language, but if they did, he'd be at a loss. Something ate at the back of his mind, however.
This library was so close to the border with the Demon Country that it was entirely possible that this was the work of a Demon. "That'd explain the sounds of Ghouls that people were hearing." Ryo said to himself, closing the "Observations" book, dust flying into the air. It got into his nose, causing Ryo to let out a loud sneeze. It reverberated off the walls, the length of the building acting as a massive echo chamber.
"No wonder this would work so well as a library." Ryo contemplated. "If someone made a noise, you'd be a lot more likely to hear it. Perfect for stopping troublemakers."
As soon as he said this, Ryo shut up. 'What if there's somebody waiting inside here for me? A Demon, perhaps?' Ryo thought to himself, immediately placing himself into a defensive stance, hands interlaced while his arms stretched downwards to quickly cast magic. At least, that's what he told himself.
He slowly made his way down through the library, taking a look around, seeing books upon books thrown around the place. 'I'll fix them up later, but first I have to make sure there's nothing here that'd attack me.'
Ryo made his way through the abnormally long library, looking for any lockers or rooms or rafts or really anything that someone could possibly hide in. He spent about six hours quietly searching through the building, finding nothing more than dusty books and a few spider webs. They seemed to be older than him, with how fragile they were.
Ryo let out a deep breath, his hands unclasping, sweat having built up between the rocks on his right hand due to his fleshy left hand. He took a look around, realising he was actually at the end of the library, or at least, what looked like it. It only felt like around eight hundred meters, not over a kilometer like he had estimated the building to be. He ran his left hand over the back wall, feeling around for any secret entrance as he walked, maybe a tile that'd pushback in order to reveal a separate section.
Ryo felt something move as he went, but his hand stayed static. His foot had pressed a piece of stone into the floor, intentionally designed to mess with experienced adventurers who knew to check the wall and not the floor. The sound of rumbling rock and shifting stones filled the air, echoing across the massive library and its wide five hundred metre width. The wall that Ryo was resting his hand on began to slide down, scraping his fingers, but he didn't care. He was curious as to what secrets lay inside the second half of this library.
Ryo watched the wall fall and a gust of wind flow out, revealing not only a second section of books, all tidied and clean, but also a staircase with a room resting at the top. Ryo made his way towards that staircase, a helix made of metal rising upwards, the handrail broken in some places. It was sized appropriately for a human being, which felt strange considering how abnormally large everything else about this place was besides the books.
Ryo ascended the staircase, making sure to mind his step as he went, not putting too much weight onto the railing in case it snapped. He reached the top, and encountered a door. There was a key in the lock, which felt odd to Ryo. "Why would this be left here?" He asked himself, turning the key to the right to unlock the door. Ryo slowly opened the door, hearing the old wood creak as it went.
Inside, he found a massive fully furnished bedroom, with a magic lantern made using an eternally upkept fire spell sitting on a table. It was apparently something only seen in the Utopian Empire's castle, as it was relatively new technology. Nobody knew how it came about, but with the press of a button, a spell imbued into a rock would draw mana from its surroundings and light a flame, ticking over.
Ryo, once again, was put on edge. This was not normal. New technology inside a place like this screamed to him that somebody lived here. He looked around, noticing two pieces of paper on the bed, which had its headboard up against the back wall. One looked like it was in the same writing as the stuff in the "Observations" book down at the reception. The other one, however, was in Utopian, albeit slightly broken.
"Hello, adventurer." Ryo began reading aloud. "I am Inquisax. If you are reading this, I have left this library in your care. I was not able to make use of all the knowledge inside here."
"However, I want to make sure that you're suitable for the job as the owner of this library. I cast a spell on this piece of paper which is… special."
"This spell will make me teleport to the location of the paper in about ten minutes." Ryo read, slowing down at each word as the information ran through his head like someone threw one of his own spells at him. 'Oh, shit.' Ryo said, running out the room, key in hand, practically jumping off the staircase while casting a spell. "Spell of Nature… Root Push!" Ryo exclaimed, not looking at the page. Roots formed out from his hands, but instead of using them to open a door like he did earlier, he made the roots catch him early and put him on the floor.
Following that, the roots carried him across the floor, making their way across the floor while avoiding any and all fallen books. "I bear you no harm, don't worry." Ryo kept reading. "I simply want to make sure you can take care of the library like I did, before those Utopians raided it, at least. I know the front is in disrepair, but since the idiots didn't care much for books, they left most of them behind while thrashing the place." The note continued.
"I don't care if you're a Human, Demon or even a Monster. If you can take care of a book, you can take care of these."
These words made Ryo feel something. It was the exact opposite of how he felt while part of the Rising Sun party. Was it appreciation? Satisfaction? Joy? He couldn't describe it, but he knew it felt great. His roots pushed him quickly through the library, but they slowly began disintegrating, requiring him to push more mana through the roots to keep them alive.
Now, you may be wondering, why didn't Ryo use this to travel out of Eilera, the Utopian capital? The short answer was that he didn't feel like it. The long answer would be that, without his staff, he didn't regenerate mana as fast, meaning he'd cover less distance during a day if he used Root Push all the time.
"Now, you may be wondering, how would I know when the person who wrote this note will appear? Well, it's quite simple. The second you picked it up, a small amount of mana was drained from your skin to activate the spell. I'm automatically providing mana from a remote distance to make my way over there." Ryo continued. He hadn't heard of anything like this before. 'It could be a demon. Actually, it's most likely to be a demon. I've never heard of any Human or Monster able to do something as insane as that.' Ryo thought to himself.
He had lost track of the time spent from when he picked it up, so he was rushing as fast as he could. He felt the roots start dying, so he decided to jump ship, but not before using them one last time. He made the roots into a sideways platform and used them to jump forward, propelling him at incredible speeds, trying to cover as much ground as he could manage.
His body hit the floor, and he performed what may have been the cleanest forward roll of his life, preserving as much momentum as he could, sprinting immediately so he could keep up his speed. Ryo didn't want to have to encounter a Demon where all these books were stored. If possible, he wanted to keep them outside the doors.
Ryo kept sprinting, watching the entrance for anything, making sure no monsters could have crept in while he was upstairs. Even though he could see the entrance, he was still a long way from it.
"Spell Of Nature… Root Push!" Ryo yelled once more, this time using the roots to make his steps move faster. He achieved this by placing one foot onto a moving branch, then another, repeating this over and over again to achieve a faster running speed. It had the benefit of draining less mana, but at the cost of requiring more effort from the user.
Ryo watched the door get closer and closer, the light to the outside shining in, trees blocking the sun. "The sun? Is it heading towards nightfall already?" Ryo asked himself, not realising how much time he had already spent in this library today.
Ryo, with only a few seconds to spare, unknowingly, made his way out of the library, not even making it down a single step of the massive library entrance before the note he had read began floating, the text on it turning white as it was coated in an unfamiliar mana. A ball of bright light appeared from the paper, slowly making its way down towards the ground.
It touched the floor, making not a single sound, before a figure of light began forming, starting feet first. Ryo watched in horror as, by the time the legs of the creature had finished showing up, it was almost taller than him. He watched the full outline, if you could call it that, be created right before his very eyes, unlike anything he'd seen or even thought possible. The creature, most likely a Demon in Ryo's mind, stood at just a little bit under three metres tall, pointed ears being the most defining trait.
Ryo watched as a series of black tattoos started forming around the creature's body, intertwined across the torso like a lattice, with energy pulsating through it.
This was Inquisax.