The Record Library
“Ung…!!!”
‘Isolde-sensei?’
The moment he felt something was terribly wrong, Shaty watched Isolde reach out toward him with her hand before the teleportation magic’s light completely blocked his vision. But since the spell had already been cast, it had already swallowed everyone—including Shaty—and only then did he realize what had gone wrong.
Kwoong──
“Uwoop…!”
The sensation of his stomach flipping and his magic churning inside him was accompanied by a powerful shock to his abdomen. The coordinates of the arrival point that his internal magic had fixed suddenly shook violently, and Shaty spat out a mouthful of saliva. He felt the intense pain of collision with the floor.
It wasn’t a fumble. If it had been a fumble, he wouldn’t have moved at all. The problem was likely with the structure of the magic itself. He realized that was also why Isolde had run toward him, but the regret came after everything had already happened. Shaty felt the disorienting floating sensation of falling and slammed into the ground with a sharp impact.
Kwadangtang───!!!
“Awwick?!”
“H-huh…?”
“Uwaah! Uuuu…!”
“Sh-Shaty… w-what on earth…?”
With a loud crash, they had fallen to what they assumed was the floor. The impact made Shaty scream, but since they weren’t the only ones who had fallen, the other four’s screams rang out from nearby. Even though the magic had gone wrong, they had arrived at the same spot without separating from each other—that was their only comfort. While thinking that, Shaty barely pushed himself up from the last voice he had heard and replied to Pina’s scolding.
“I’m so sorry… It seems I really was inexperienced with teleportation magic.”
“Was there a problem with the teleportation magic?”
“Probably… Ugh, uwoop…!”
Shaty nodded at Pina’s question about his own mistake, but the rising nausea forced him to clamp his mouth shut. It seemed his stomach had twisted from the failed teleportation and still hadn’t settled. Pina, having recognized him, hurriedly stood up and approached Shaty, swinging her staff once above his head.
“First, I’ll calm your stomach. ‘Great Heal.’ ‘Divine.’”
“A-ah, thank you…”
The light bursting from Pina’s swinging staff wrapped around Shaty’s body. At the same time, his body’s condition improved instantly, and Shaty thanked her. Indeed, the pain and nausea that had tormented his insides until moments ago vanished as if nothing had happened. Watching Shaty’s improved state, Pina turned toward the group still collapsed behind her.
“Then I’ll heal Arin, Kana, and Riana. Please wait a moment.”
“Ah, yeah. I’ll be fine.”
Looking closely, the three were also groaning and lying on the floor. Shaty sighed at Pina’s tired expression and asked her to thank her, then shifted his gaze to the fallen trio. When he looked around, the first thing that caught his eye was a wall of pure white. The walls, soaring to a height where the end was invisible, filled his entire field of vision with nothing but white.
“This isn’t… an ordinary building in the Undersea Kingdom…?”
No matter how he looked, it didn’t seem like any ordinary building in the Undersea Kingdom. The internal walls there were usually blue or sky-blue, and there had never been a building with such a high ceiling. It wasn’t outside the Undersea Kingdom either. The Undersea Kingdom was located far out in the ocean, hundreds of kilometers from the continent. Even with teleportation magic being the problem, Shaty’s mana reserves weren’t enough to reach the continent’s surface. Besides, more than half his mana still remained, so this place had to be inside the Undersea Kingdom. While he was pondering where the unknown space could be, Pina’s healing for the trio behind him ended, and the sound of them standing reached Shaty’s ears.
“A-ah, my waist…!”
“My whole body feels sore…”
“B-but where exactly is this…?”
“It looks like nothing but a completely white space…”
The trio, having stood up, frowned at the lingering pain and then looked around, showing the same reaction as Shaty. That was natural. They had been wrapped in a purple barrier and then moved to a space that looked completely unrelated to the Undersea Kingdom. The four of them, with curious eyes, surrounded Shaty as he stepped forward to tell them what he had figured out.
“I don’t know where exactly this is either, but it seems to be somewhere inside the Undersea Kingdom.”
“Really?”
“It doesn’t look like it at all…”
Shaty had wanted to tell them it was still inside the Undersea Kingdom, but Arin and Riana tilted their heads at his words. After all, Shaty himself hadn’t cast the magic, so it was only natural they doubted him. But since it was true, Shaty corrected them and continued. “With my mana, I couldn’t have teleported outside the Undersea Kingdom. If this isn’t the Undersea Kingdom, we should be lying at the bottom of the ocean right now.”
“Then what is this place?”
“Well… I don’t know about that either.”
After convincing them it was the Undersea Kingdom, Shaty shook his head at the question about the location. They had teleported because of a magic fumble, but this place was nothing like anything he had ever seen. So the question-and-answer continued, and without waiting for anyone, the five of them looked around. In the absence of any proper information, the first thing they had to do was gather information. The immediate goal was to get out of here and return to the museum where Isolde and Morgan were. That was why they wanted to collect even a little more information about this place. But after only ten seconds of looking around, the five of them held their throbbing eyes. “Ugh, it’s just all white…”
“And it’s so bright my eyes are about to burst… No, it hurts.”
“Maybe we should move somewhere, anywhere?”
White. White. White. No matter where they turned their eyes, there was nothing but white. It looked very clean, but even that had its limits. After staring at the space filled with pure white from floor to ceiling, Shaty had to look away—eyes would hurt, and he might go insane. “If this is the case, it really feels like I’m going to go crazy…”
If he were alone here, he would have gone insane long ago. Thanks to the thin black lines between the tiles, he could at least tell he was standing on the floor, but without anyone else, he wouldn’t even be able to tell up from down. Since Arin, Riana, Kana, and Pina were right next to him, he could at least tell this was reality. But that was only as much help as each other, and the exit they were looking for wasn’t visible by a hair’s breadth, so Shaty rubbed his throbbing eyelids. His head felt more and more like it was throbbing, and his vision gradually blurred. Moreover, there were no other recognizable beings around, and this completely unfamiliar place only made his anxiety grow. “There’s no helping it…”
So Shaty put his hand on the wall, opened his eyes a little to the dimming vision, and stared at the brand-new white walls in front of him. “It might be better to just break it.”
From a glance, it was clear this was an elegant building. But no matter how elegant, a building that killed people like this when you entered was no different from a torture chamber. Shaty, who had always been taught by Meiel, had always remembered what she said: “You are more important than anyone… Do not die… If you must die, live however you can, even if it means doing dirty things.” ‘I will live however I can if I must die.’ He didn’t know why she had taught him that, but at least here, Shaty had decided his life was more important than anything. He was ready to break this building no matter what. If he broke it, his family’s wealth would be enough to compensate. …Though he would probably get scolded by his father. “No, right now that’s not important.”
Shaty decided his mind and shook his head to clear away useless thoughts. He held up his staff and gathered magic, then glanced at the four standing behind him. No matter how powerful the magic, attacking all directions with four people as strong as him would make it easier to break through. So Shaty raised the nearly complete magic in front of him and shouted to the four, “Let’s break this place and leave!” Actually, he had wanted to shout. “Please just break it.” The voice that felt even sacred cut him off, and the person who had descended in the meantime. At the same time, the space that had been filled only with white began to deform. Toderderdung───
With the sound of gears turning, the space began to change. And within that deforming space, a woman dressed in neat attire fell lightly onto the five in front of her as if from the sky. “This is the precious library, commanded to be maintained for the goddess. Please refrain from wantonly destroying it.”
Again speaking in that sacred voice from just before, the woman who had descended. No one opened their mouth first. More precisely, they couldn’t open their mouths. So in the quiet space where everyone had their lips sealed, the woman continued to look down beside her with an expressionless face and spoke. “Since you are the first guests in a while, I have come to welcome you. Everyone who has come here to see this book must have come.” The woman’s words were cut off before they ended, and the space’s deformation stopped as if the words had been understood. And soon, a mysterious reading stand rose from the floor where the woman had been looking down, and she picked up the book that had been on it. From a glance, it was a sacred book that one wouldn’t even dare to touch. It felt as if the sanctity that seemed to emanate from the woman’s voice was still on it. Though they hadn’t asked, the five could easily tell that it was the book the woman had just mentioned. “The fifth chapter on the last page. It seems you have the right to read it.” The woman muttered incomprehensible words and flipped through the book, which looked several times the size of an encyclopedia, easily and then stopped on one page, looking back and forth between herself and the book, and nodded. It was nothing but incomprehensible words and actions. Until now, they had been overwhelmed by the sacred woman and the deforming surroundings and couldn’t speak properly, but now, with some time passed, it was different. So of the five, Arin spoke first and asked the woman about the current situation, but before her, the woman spread both her arms. As if she had known they would ask that, the woman showed a faint smile on her expressionless face and called out loudly. “Welcome, to the Record Library!”
She smiled as if she was sincerely happy. The woman, the librarian, had shouted that.