Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 204

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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204. Book-Eating Fox

The party climbed ordinary stairs for the first time in a while and arrived at the 29th Floor of the 8th Layer of Heuji’s Labyrinth.

The Guide who arrived at the 29th Floor first didn’t send any signals.

As soon as Serena set foot on the 29th Floor, she understood why the Guide hadn’t reacted.

‘There are only walls?’

After climbing the stairs, there were only corridors and walls. The core elements of a library—books and bookshelves to hold them—were nowhere to be found.

Olive pressed her ear against the wall and tapped it lightly.

-There’s space inside. Let’s find a way to get in.

Moving a bit further, the party discovered something other than walls.

It was a desk. The wall that had been extending straight in a line bent into a concave shape, and a desk blocked the recessed space of the concavity.

Beyond the desk, they could see a door leading into the space inside the wall—a room—and a barred window.

Through the bars, they could see bookshelves packed with books. It was a library.

They could enter the library by crossing over the desk. Looking closely, the right end of the desk wasn’t actually part of the desk but a small door at the same height as the desk.

On the desk, just like on the 26th Floor, there was a small bell to call the Librarian and what appeared to be documents, and at the left end of the desk was a cabinet so large it could be mistaken for a wall.

Olive tilted her head at the structure, which was quite different from the previous floors.

-What’s this? A book prison?

They say thieves see only what thieves see—the thief thought of a prison.

Count Randy shook his head somewhat roughly. The Alchemist’s hand moved flamboyantly over the paper, then calmed his excitement and wrote clearly.

-It’s not a book prison but a closed-stack library. You can’t freely browse the books; you have to ask the Librarian to request the books you want to read. In the past, books themselves were precious items, so many libraries operated this way to prevent theft and damage.

‘Looks inconvenient.’

Even Olive, who had never been to a library once in her life, seemed to have the same thought as she tilted her head in the other direction.

-How do you request books when you can’t get in to see what’s available?

-There should be a catalog listing the titles and authors of the books in their collection. It’s probably stored over there.

Count Randy pointed to the large cabinet on the left with 99 percent certainty.

The Guide checked for traps and carefully opened one of the drawers.

Inside the drawer, just as the Alchemist had said, were stiff papers densely packed with book titles and author names.

-You find the book you want here and write an application.

The application form was the document on the desk. Count Randy waved the application form.

-Then you submit the application to the Librarian, and the Librarian goes inside to bring you the book.

The Alchemist’s million-gold hands were about to ring the small bell to call the Librarian but stopped.

Everyone’s minds conjured up the Shadow Tiger, the Labyrinth Library’s Librarian.

-Anyway, that’s how it works.

The Alchemist’s eyes, which had been skimming through the book catalog, widened like the Shadow Tiger’s eyes.

“Gasp!”

Count Randy was so surprised he almost exclaimed but quickly covered his mouth.

The party’s attention focused on the Alchemist. Count Randy explained sheepishly.

-Sorry. I was surprised because the book catalog is extraordinary.

While all the books on the 1st through 3rd Floors of the Labyrinth Library had caught the Count’s attention, the books stored in the closed-stack library were particularly rare.

-Indeed! Such precious books deserve to be stored so securely!

-Count Ralph is right.

-Since there’s no Librarian now, how about we sneak in?

Serena pointed to the door behind the desk. The door attached to the desk was only waist-high, so they could just climb over it.

The Guide looked reluctant.

-Well. The moment we climb over, won’t alarms go off and the tiger come running?

Olive’s eyes widened as she grabbed and shook the small door. The small door simply opened.

The Guide moved the party back and then carefully walked to the door in the wall. No alarms sounded and the Shadow Tiger didn’t appear.

Olive grabbed the door handle with hopeful eyes. The handle turned slowly but stopped at a certain angle, blocked from moving further.

‘It’s locked.’

Olive didn’t pick the lock and was returning to the party when she discovered a notice board inside the desk area.

The notice board had the final usage rules the party needed to follow.

‘Non-members and regular members can only access the general library. Special members can access all libraries.’

The Princess and the strategy team, being non-members, were prohibited from entering the 29th Floor library at all.

-Let’s look for other doors or paths first, and if there aren’t any, we’ll come back.

The Princess and party walked the corridor looking for something new. No matter how much they walked, they only saw walls, and not even a single monster popped out with a surprise, so they eventually returned to where they started.

-It seems we really need to find the misplaced book inside there.

-But how can we get in? It’s against the rules.

-Can’t we pick the lock and sneak in?

-What if the tiger catches us? Book thief! Rule violation! Roar!

-Didn’t you say the book catalog in the cabinet is the catalog of books inside? What if we find something wrong in the book catalog in the cabinet, not inside?

The Imperial Knight, who had been carefully observing the surroundings, offered a plausible suggestion.

-Black Knight! Good idea!

Olive excitedly opened a drawer, then pretended to vomit at the sight of the densely packed papers.

Bleeeh.

At least books have different designs so there’s some variation. But book catalogs are just white paper and black text, so checking them would make you dizzy and your eyes would spin.

Moreover, the text was small, so the Princess with only one eye quickly got eye strain.

‘My eye! My precious eye!’

-But what if we find the wrong book catalog entry and the stairs still don’t appear?

-Gasp, surely not. That can’t happen. Don’t say scary things.

-But what if we need to ask the Librarian to pull out the misplaced book?

-Then the Librarian wouldn’t be faithful to their duties.

-Well~ Looking at what they do, I can’t tell if they’re a Librarian or a Guard~ Why is a tiger a Librarian in the first place?

‘These people. They’re not searching quickly.’

The Princess with only one eye was frowning as she looked at the catalog, while the humans with two eyes were chatting!

Serena unconsciously scrunched up her face and was about to protest when something slightly cool and black suddenly touched her shoulder.

She was caught off guard and almost screamed in surprise.

Serena swallowed her breath and looked at the cool, black thing that had touched her shoulder. A hand wrapped in black bandages. It was Ying.

‘You scared me.’

Serena glared at the Archer with her tired right eye. Ying nodded slightly as if apologizing, then pointed toward the library.

‘Did she discover something?’

Serena, along with the party who had sensed movement, peered inside through the bars behind the desk.

The library was darker than the corridor where the group was standing. Inside, a small, round fireball was flying around swiftly.

‘What is that?’

Serena rubbed her eyes, thinking she might be seeing things due to eye strain.

The small, round fireball split and instantly multiplied into four.

The fireballs moved through the library like living creatures, tracing lively paths between the bookshelves.

What could that be? The entire party was just blinking and watching the fireballs when the Archer pointed not above where the fireballs were, but below, and moved her lips.

‘Fox. Fox? A fox?’

Right now there were will-o’-the-wisps or something flying around inside the library, and now a fox had appeared?

Serena stopped staring at the distracting fireballs and looked at the floor the Archer was pointing to, discovering a moving creature.

Hop hop, scurry scurry. It stood on its hind legs with its front paws raised, sniffed with its pointed snout, then scurried away on four small, slender legs.

She discovered it too late to see it properly and only caught the tail disappearing behind a bookshelf, but the fluffy, soft yellow tail fur was shouting ‘I’m a fox!’

The monster that had been announced since the notice board on the 26th Floor. The Book-Eating Fox had finally appeared before the party.

The fox that had disappeared behind the desk showed itself again. It was smaller and cuter than the typical red fox one might imagine. Its appearance was similar to the fennec fox she had seen in her previous life.

‘So cute.’

Yip! Yip!

The fox barked softly. The fireballs that had been flying around the library like living creatures gathered around the fox.

‘It wasn’t will-o’-the-wisp but fox-fire.’

Looking again, what appeared to be a fluffy tail like cotton wasn’t just one tail but split into several.

‘It’s a monster after all.’

The small, cute fox shot the fireballs gathered around it at the bookshelf in front of it.

Serena held her breath.

‘Why is it setting fire to the bookshelf? Don’t tell me it roasts books to eat them?’

Her prediction that the bookshelf would burst into flames after being hit by four fireballs was quickly shattered. The bookshelf didn’t burn.

Instead, among the books on the shelf, only the four books hit by the fireballs caught fire and blazed.

The fire only burned one book at a time, not spreading to the books beside, above, or below it.

As if blocked by an invisible wall, or perhaps due to the nature of the fire, it only burned one book at a time.

‘What?’

Serena thought the fire was continuously burning the book, but watching carefully, that wasn’t the case either.

The book on fire was perfectly fine. She had thought the paper pages would burn first, turning to ash, and the leather cover would burn later, but that wasn’t happening.

‘The book is perfectly fine?’

If that was the case, why did it set the book on fire?

‘Is it warming it up to eat?’

Rather than roasting the book to eat it, was it setting it on fire to warm it up?

The Book-Eating Fox had no obligation to resolve the Princess’s questions, so it narrowed its eyes with a happy expression and hopped over to the adjacent bookshelf.

The fox sniffed around, then created small fireballs again and set books on fire.

It was called a Book-Eating Fox, but it wasn’t eating books, and though she thought it was burning books with fire, the books remained intact.

Wondering what this was all about, Serena nudged the alchemist who was watching the fox with fascinated eyes.

While the Book-Eating Fox had no obligation to resolve the Princess’s questions, the alchemist did.

Count Randy made every effort to write letters that the Princess could understand.

-That is indeed a Book-Eating Fox. It’s currently having its meal.

‘But it’s not eating the books?’

Not only Serena but the entire party expressed doubt simultaneously. As if expecting this rebuttal, Count Randy continued moving his pen.

-The Book-Eating Fox doesn’t physically consume books. You see it burning books with fox fire right now? It’s burning and consuming the knowledge and information written in the books. Books eaten by the Book-Eating Fox lose their knowledge and information. The books become blank pages.

The fire that clung to the books without seemingly burning anything was actually blazing through the book’s contents.

The idea that books would become blank was chilling information that made even Serena, who had avoided books, break out in goosebumps.

‘So you’d open a book to read it and find all the content gone.’

It wasn’t for nothing that the library notice board said to report immediately if one was spotted.

The Book-Eating Fox was the enemy of all book collectors and librarians in this world.

-Moreover, I heard from my master that it has a nature that delights in seeing humans grieve over the loss of precious books.

-It’s malicious!

-That cute-looking thing has a nasty personality.

The fox continued eating books. Ralph panicked seeing precious books turning blank before his eyes.

-What should we do? Shouldn’t we report this to the Librarian?

-I agree with Count Hanson’s opinion. They said they’d give a reward for reporting to the Librarian, so it won’t attack us.

The two knights wanted to report the Book-Eating Fox to the Librarian.

The Guide pouted her lips.

-Well? Among the monsters I’ve seen, there was one that promised the greatest gift while swinging a scythe. The greatest gift was death or something like that.

-There are also priests of outer gods who promise supreme pleasure while cruelly torturing. In that outer god’s world, they say pain is the greatest pleasure. We shouldn’t think of rewards or gifts from non-human species in our way.

The party’s opinions were divided, and they couldn’t find direction.

‘Hmm. This isn’t good.’

Labyrinths like simplicity. The more complicated the minds of those wandering the labyrinth, the more twisted the paths become, the stronger the monsters grow, and the more vicious the traps become.

‘We need to decide quickly. Otherwise, like last time, a corpse golem might come bursting out with a groan. Since this is a library, maybe a book golem will appear?’

At times like this, it was the leader’s duty to unite the party and make decisions.

Serena glared at the vicious monster that was gleefully turning books into notebooks with only intact covers, then walked to the desk.

At the Princess’s decision, the Guide and alchemist didn’t oppose further and complied.

Instead, perhaps thinking of running away or hiding if things went wrong, they pulled out chairs to secure space under the desk.

‘At worst, I’ll just die.’

If she died now, she would return to the day before discovering Shullen’s corpse.

Thinking of the headless knight’s corpse made her feel complicated, and the forgotten fear came rushing back.

Her spine tingled with dread. Serena bit her lower lip and rang the bell.

Ding-a-ling-a-ling.

The bell sound summoned the Labyrinth Library’s Librarian.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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