“Senior Karbaldr, you seem quite certain that Senior Reysir will figure out my identity, don’t you?”
“Didn’t I figure it out as well?”
“Oh, come on. That was a different case. I had information I wanted from you, and to get it, I had to admit my identity and agree to a deal. But I don’t have any information I want to get from Senior Reysir ‘anymore,’ you see?”
What Pret meant was simple.
He had done enough background research on Reysir and hadn’t discovered any questions or unknown factors during the process. If he had known about the [Truth-Reading Eye], he never would have reacted that way. It also meant he was entirely unaware of its existence.
“Whether you admit your identity or not isn’t that important. Even if you flatly deny it, the suspicions regarding your identity won’t just disappear.”
“Now that you mention it, that’s true.”
“If you understand, then stop disturbing someone’s rest and go do whatever it is you need to do.”
“I’d love to chat with you more, but… I don’t want to look like I’m slacking off while putting my work aside. I suppose I should get going then.”
Pret spoke with a voice intentionally filled with regret before leaving the area. Only then was I able to sink into my thoughts leisurely, without being disturbed by anyone.
“Being out here like this is actually quite nice. It’s refreshing.”
*Purr, purr…*
As I felt the gentle breeze and the soft texture of fur wrapping around my fingers, a sense of leisure and peace naturally came to mind. If only the temperature weren’t so chilly since it was still early March. I might have stayed sitting there until I lost track of time.
“Shall we go now…? To the Library.”
*Mew!*
My mind had been made up for a long while. However, as I tried to actually put it into practice, my peaceful mood vanished without a trace, and tension rushed in.
Perhaps noticing this, the baby dragon patted my shoulder with his tiny hand while giving me a thumbs-up with the other. He wasn’t just cute and adorable; he looked dependable and reliable. Thanks to him, courage welled up within me and my resolve hardened.
I brushed off the tension and walked forward boldly until I reached the Library. As I opened the heavy door and stepped inside, silence greeted me. I spotted Risi sitting behind the information desk reading a book.
I didn’t bother approaching her to say hello or acknowledge her; I simply passed by and moved toward the area where the tables were gathered. Most of the seats were empty. It was only natural. It was the beginning of the semester, and it was the first Sunday since classes had started.
It seemed everyone had chosen to go out with friends instead of holing up in the Library to read books. Or perhaps they were sleeping in after partying hard yesterday. Thanks to that, finding Reysir was easy.
He had four books stacked beside him and was currently looking at one book and a notebook spread out in front of him. He held a pen in his hand.
‘Just looking at him, it seems like he’s studying hard…’
As my own thoughts suggested, Reysir was hardly focusing on the content of the book. I knew this because he was snickering to himself. Unless someone was the type of person who felt physical pleasure from academic fervor, there was no way they could smile like that while looking at difficult materials.
Therefore, the protagonist of another novel was definitely daydreaming right now. Sure enough, while I narrowed the distance between us, he didn’t turn a single page of the book spread before him. The pen in his hand was just twirling around and around, failing to leave any marks on the paper.
‘Actually, this is better. If he were in the middle of intense study, I would have felt guilty for bothering him!’
Still, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t studied at all; looking closer, his notebook was filled with notes related to biological signals. I must have just arrived right when his concentration started to wane.
Reaching that conclusion, I tapped Reysir’s shoulder with my index finger. Reysir looked up with a puzzled expression. Once he recognized my face, he looked surprised for a moment, but soon, a characteristically annoying smirk played on his lips.
Looking at that face alone, I felt like I knew exactly what he wanted to say.
‘He looks like he’s dying to ask if I really wanted to play with him after all!’
The conversation hadn’t even started yet, but I already felt like giving up and going back to my room to rest. However, if I missed today’s opportunity, it was obvious that I would keep making excuses to myself and postpone the execution of the plan day after day.
Instead of leaving the Library, I turned my steps toward the novel section. Very slowly, for about five steps.
Looking back, I saw Reysir hurriedly tidying up his seat. This was despite the fact that I hadn’t even told him to follow me. By the time I took another five slow steps, Reysir was sticking close behind me.
I increased my pace and entered the aisles between the bookshelves packed with novels. And when we turned the corner about three times, a small “Pfft!” escaped Reysir’s mouth.
Reflexively, I came to a dead stop and turned my head toward him. Seeing that grinning face of his, I began to suspect that he had now mastered the art of teasing me without even saying a word.
“In case you’re misunderstanding, let me tell you in advance — I didn’t come here because I wanted to spend time with you.”
The Library, which had very few people, was exceptionally quiet. Thus, I had to whisper my excuses into his ear.
“I just came to the Library thinking I’d borrow a novel while I rested, and I happened to spot you. You looked like you couldn’t focus on your studies and were lost in thought. I thought to myself that it would be better to just read a novel and relax in that case. Then, it occurred to me that I had promised to recommend a novel to you…”
Strange.
I hadn’t doubted for a second that this would be a fairly plausible justification. But for some reason, now that I had said it out loud, it sounded like a terribly pathetic excuse. It even felt increasingly miserable the longer I spoke.
Under normal circumstances, Reysir would have burst into a fit of laughter so wide you could see his uvula. But because of the location, he couldn’t bring himself to do that now. Instead, he clutched his mouth with his palm and trembled uncontrollably, which was just as stimulating to my sense of shame.
I glared at the protagonist of another novel before turning around and marching deeper inside. I couldn’t say I wasn’t doing this because I was embarrassed, but that wasn’t the only reason. I hadn’t reached the bookshelf where the “Special Character Novels” were kept yet, so I needed to move further in.
‘Better to start the conversation at the very end to talk comfortably!’
I knew this because I had experimented with Yor before, but the further you went into the novel section, the more distant the sounds became. To be precise, sounds from the area where regular novels were kept sounded normal. However, that changed the moment we passed the first bookshelf where the Special Character Novels were located.
The spaces were connected, so if I screamed, other students in the Library would likely hear it. Regardless, there was a physical distance, and paper books had the property of absorbing sound. The decibel level of a normal conversation was perfectly muffled.
“Hey, Karbaldr?”
“……”
“How long are you going to keep walking without saying anything?”
“……”
Around the time books with pen names made of special characters started appearing, Reysir whispered to me, but I simply ignored him. There was still a hint of laughter in his voice, so I knew I’d be teased if I resumed the conversation now. It was also an area where I still needed to be careful with my voice.
But when we turned three more corners.
Even though there was still a long way to go to reach the end of this path, a situation arose where I had to stop once again.
Because —.
“But you know.”
“……”
“Don’t you think this path is way too long?”
— those were the words I heard.
“From the outside, it should only take about fifteen or so steps to get from the start of the novel section to the end, but strangely, when I walk along the path inside, it feels much longer than that. At first, I thought it was just an illusion caused by this ‘S’ shaped structure, but…”
“It’s not an illusion. There are ten rows of bookshelves visible from the outside, but we’ve already turned thirteen corners. And yet, the path still stretches on quite a bit further, doesn’t it?”
The Library Club member from episode nine — that is, Risi — didn’t feel any suspicion toward this space. That was why I couldn’t just let Reysir’s words slide. I lowered my voice as much as possible and joined the conversation.
“Karbaldr, so you noticed it a while ago and even counted accurately?”
“Did you just suspect such a fact and never think to check it properly, settling only for a guess?”
“Hmm… I guess so…? Why did I do that?”
As if he couldn’t understand himself.
Reysir tilted his head with a puzzled expression. Unlike Risi, who didn’t even realize that this space was strange, he recognized the problem. However, it seemed that digging deeper into it was blocked at an instinctive level.
‘Still… since he realizes this place is strange and can even bring it up first…!’
It was clear that Reysir wasn’t entirely trapped within the frame of a “character in a novel.” While I was feeling relieved by that fact, a certain question suddenly popped into my head.
“Reysir.”
“…?”
Currently, we were standing between the bookshelves holding the Special Character Novels, and we had even exchanged words about this space being unusual. Therefore, I was certain that the original author wouldn’t be able to observe us right now.
Nevertheless, it felt as if my throat was tightening from the tension, so I stood close to Reysir and asked my question carefully in the lowest voice possible.
“How did you come across the ‘Special Character Novels’?”
To find these novels, one had to walk quite a way past the bookshelves where general novels were kept. If someone was walking without thinking and picked up a book out of curiosity after seeing a pen name written in special characters, that would be one thing.
However, the content was so unfamiliar that one would normally put it back and lose interest.
‘How on earth did he find these Special Character Novels interesting and end up reading them consistently?’