The Baby Has No Strength to Hide! - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28
“Where should we go next?”
[Ah, next is the Map Room!]
“The Map Room?”
[This way!]
Following Norman’s guidance, they arrived at a chamber within the Library itself. Every wall bristled with maps and navigational instruments. This was where the people of Rubentine House would plot their strategies before setting sail. The vast wall-map displayed the secret routes pioneered by Rubentine House, marked in Magic Ink, and the Crystal Spheres arrayed across the central table each corresponded to one of the Rubentine fleets’ vessels.
It had been easy enough to enter, but without the Rubentine crest, it appeared little more than an ordinary room. Ailienne, of course, couldn’t have known that, and her expression remained unimpressed.
“Hmm. This is less impressive than I thought.”
[Less impressive? Without this room, no ocean could ever be crossed!]
Norman’s indignation rang out in his raised voice, but Ailienne merely shrugged her shoulders. As the child wandered through the chamber, her eyes suddenly widened.
“Why does this one keep spinning?”
[The Insomnia Globe!]
What Ailienne had spotted was a globe spinning endlessly atop a corner desk. Norman drifted forward eagerly, bobbing with excitement.
[This Insomnia Globe monitors every danger across the continent in real time. The migration routes of Magical Beasts, the eyes of typhoons, the safe passages—the House Lord always consulted it before any voyage.]
“Ooh, that’s amazing!”
[And yet it still spins alone, watching over all the seas of the continent. Tsk, poor thing.]
Sure enough, words materialized and vanished across the globe’s surface in endless cycles. Staring at it made her own eyes feel dizzy.
Ailienne too felt pity for the globe, spinning away relentlessly. Working day after day without rest—she hated even brief lessons in letters, and it drove her mad. How could this globe bear it?
“Would Lili put you to sleep?”
Ailienne approached the globe slowly. She wanted to stroke it gently, but it spun with such fury that she couldn’t get near it. Uncertain, she drew out the Heart Wand instead. The jewel at its tip bloomed with a soft, warm rose light.
“You must be so tired. Let’s rest now.”
Ailienne waved the wand like a baton and began to hum a Lullaby that Merlin had once sung to her.
“Sleep, sleep, little globe of ours. Sleep so well.”
As the melody drifted forth, glittering dust fell like snow from the wand’s tip, scattering toward the globe. Remarkably, the furiously spinning sphere began to slow, growing more and more gentle. It was like watching an angry child stop crying and finally catch their breath.
Then the rotation ceased entirely. The heat that had radiated from the globe all this while cooled away.
“There, there. Good one.”
Ailienne caressed the globe’s smooth surface, and as if reassured, it tilted forward of its own accord and—click—opened like a mouth. There, gleaming softly in the gap, lay the second fragment of the Golden Carrot.
[Extraordinary! The Insomnia Globe was hiding a Golden Carrot fragment!]
The child’s warmth had moved the globe’s heart. Norman gazed at it in wonder, and Kiki approached quietly to his side. She looked into the opened section.
[Hayana Forest.]
“Hayana Forest?”
[The cat seemed curious, so I informed her that this region is known as Hayana Forest.]
“Lili used to be in Hayana Forest!”
Ailienne hurried over to the globe with newfound excitement. Just as Norman had said, the opened section pointed to Hayana Forest. The child made a soft humming sound and examined the region carefully with her fingers.
[How do you know of Hayana Forest?]
“Lili vanished there!”
[You vanished there?]
Norman’s expression grew serious as he sank into thought. Hayana Forest. It was certainly an important place, yet his memory offered nothing solid. Without a body anymore, the headache that threatened to follow made him surrender the effort.
Yet an uncanny certainty gripped him nonetheless.
Meeting Ailienne, who came from Hayana Forest, had not been mere chance.
“Phew. So where do we go next?”
Ailienne spoke, plainly exhausted from searching for two Golden Carrot fragments. Norman roused himself and pointed the way forward.
“This way, if you please.”
The last Golden Carrot fragment lay in a chamber housing a botanical encyclopedia. Various plants grew there, but one bloom caught the eye—a flower sealed within a transparent dome. It was a tulip, its petals closed tight like red velvet.
“Beautiful!”
Ailienne pressed her nose against the glass to peer at it. It was an elegant flower, to all appearances.
[This is the Opera Tulip. Quite proud of itself, this one.]
“But does the Library really have absolutely everything?”
[Not at all. The master wished the Library to be more than a place where one merely reads books—he envisioned it as a place where knowledge takes root in the soul. A truly magnificent vision.]
“I see.”
[Be careful! When an audience arrives—!]
Before Norman could finish, Ailienne had already opened the dome. The tulip’s body suddenly trembled, and the tightly closed bud burst open with a snap.
Then—
“Aaaaaaagh!”
An ear-splitting shriek erupted without warning.
“What is this!”
[It sings, apparently…….]
Norman called it singing, though it sounded more like a cacophony—whatever it was bellowing proved absolutely painful to hear.
“O my watering can, my love!”
“My eardrums are splitting!”
Ailienne frowned and tried to cover her ears. Kiki, standing beside her, had already shrieked “Ahhhhh!” and flattened herself against the floor with her ears folded back, while Didi looked ready to faint.
[You mustn’t! She gets angry if you ignore her song. You have to listen to the very end!]
“I have to keep listening to that?”
As Ailienne threw up her hands in exasperation, the Tulip’s expression twisted into something ugly the moment she caught sight of Ailienne trying to block her ears.
“Ptooey, ptooey!”
The Tulip stopped singing and began spraying water from her mouth like a machine gun.
“Hey, you just spit? I can spit too!”
[Please show your appreciation.]
“I’d rather fight fifty paper soldiers…”
Ailienne gritted her teeth and forced herself to start clapping.
“Wow, what an amazing song!”
At this, the Tulip straightened proudly and cleared her throat.
“Sweet fertilizer, embrace me in your warmth!”
Kiki looked half-delirious. Ailienne’s own mind was starting to fog, but she held on and began clapping in time. Didi, looking utterly defeated, raised her small front paws and applauded as well.
Clap, clap.
As the applause rang out, the Tulip seemed delighted and began swaying left and right, adding vibrato to her performance.
“You are my destiny!”
The song finally reached its crescendo. The Tulip tensed all the way to the tip of her stem and squeezed out the final high note with every ounce of her strength.
“Wow, that was truly magnificent! I’ve never heard anything like it!”
Ailienne thrust her thumb upward and clapped like a seal—though her enthusiasm was entirely sarcastic. Finally satisfied, the Tulip gracefully closed her petals and bent her stem in a dignified bow.
Then something flew out from deep inside her mouth with a loud “ptooey.”
What landed at Ailienne’s feet was the final piece of the Golden Carrot.
[You’ve finally gathered all three pieces!]
“That last one was the hardest.”
The Heart Wand, having absorbed all the Golden Carrot pieces, began radiating light like mad. Ailienne squeezed her eyes shut. After a moment, she opened them again to find a large, gleaming, perfectly formed Golden Carrot floating before her.
“Wow, a carrot!”
The instant Ailienne reached out eagerly, the Golden Carrot lifted itself into the air on its own. It hovered uncertainly for a moment, then suddenly shot forward. Without a word being spoken, Ailienne and her companions naturally fell into step behind it.
The carrot stopped in front of a dense bookshelf in the corner of the Library—row after row of Philosophy Books with nothing remarkable about them.
“Here?”
Before the question even finished, the Golden Carrot struck the spine of a thick volume in the middle of the shelf with a decisive “thunk” and stuck fast.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The Library floor began to tremble. The hundreds of books packed tightly into the shelves moved of their own accord, as if a great beast were opening its jaws. They slid left and right, overlapped vertically, creating empty space.
The books formed steps and arches, shaping themselves into a circular tunnel. In the middle of the bookshelf, a hole—pitch black and bottomless, just wide enough for a single adult to squeeze through—yawned open.
“A rabbit hole…”
Ailienne cautiously descended into it. After going down some distance, she found a single book glowing with light on the ground below.

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