For a moment I am shocked. If I had expected anyone to be here, aside from the Librarian herself, it would be Ricardo! But I guess the world is trying to surprise me today? Then again, considering the rumors, miss Pelafina wasn’t that much of an outrage either.

Then it hits me. What does she mean ‘took you long enough’, huh!?

“She was waiting for y—”

Yes I get that part! Was this whole deal a game for her?

I take my first steps towards her, a little indignant and I feel it is justified, but then I notice something in the corner of my eye. Movement. I immediately turn on my heels to face it: there’s shades of black in the darkness, at least in one spot. Soon, a figure steps up from the corner of the room, dressed in a long black cloak, dressing pants and elegant shoes. The hood covers their head and some magical darkness obscurs their eyes, but I can see a few locks of green hair slip from underneath the shadow.

The figure lifts a hand, they are even wearing black gloves! That’s some commitment to the bit.

“Yo. The name is Lucía. Sorry for skulking around but it is kind of my job; I assume you already know Overseer Pelafina?” She smirks. “She gets around! She said she was waiting for a Bastard to arrive but, Hell, we thought it was just an excuse of hers to skip work!”

“I am very responsible, excuse you.” Pelafina frowns, shaking her head softly. “Ignore Lucy, dear. She’s just my assigned guard, here to keep me safe!”

Her assigned guard? So she IS with the Cloaks after all! I mean, if the cloak she’s wearing wasn’t indication enough. I don’t like her, not one bit. She’s smiling too much, just balancing on her heels and toes while I stand there. I don’t wanna say I hate her, we’ve barely exchanged words… but I don’t like her. Not one bit.

I decide to take Pelafina’s words to heart and ignore her, when another thing hits me.

“Overseer Pelafina!? But you’re just the lady from the bookstore!” I think my eyes are going to jump right out of my skull like in one of those old cartoons.

“A girl has to move up in this world if she wants to survive.” The old lady chuckled, just a little bit. “You know my name, but I never truly caught yours though. How do we call you, dear?”

Fuck, here we go with names again… but hey, maybe this is a great chance to build a new identity for myself!

“People call me Tav.” I say, trying to puff up my chest a bit.

“That was not what she asked though!” Lucía intervenes with a singsongy voice.

“Oh let her have her own nom de guerre, Lucy. It’s adorable!” Having these two messing with me is really going to be bad for my health. I’ll have to endure it though. “Alright then, Tav. If you’re here, I assume you managed to read through the book at least a bit?”

I flinch. Just how much does this woman know? Did she know the contents of the book from the start? Is this a weird ‘Hero’s journey’ situation? A mysterious adventure she has sent me into so I grow as a person?

Or is she just fucking with me.

“Well? Don’t keep me waiting! It’s been days!” Pelafina insists with a twinkle shining in her eyes.

“... I have a few words translated.” I managed to say.

“Oh great! So Humiko left you hints. That’s great.”

“Miss Pelafina–”

“Please, just call me P.”

“Uhm. Miss P.” I gulp. “Just how much do you know of the book, exactly?”

“Well, Humiko asked me personally to keep it safe, so that’s one thing.” The overseer counts with her fingers. “I know it is written in Magic Runes, which… shouldn’t be possible, and yet, there it is! I trust Humiko enough to know it has to be real.”

“Wait.” I blink. “What do you mean ‘shouldn’t be possible’?”

“Magic is not a language, or at least it hasn’t been understood as one until… well, right now.” The old lady smiles a bit wider. “If you manage to make more sense of it than a few phrases, you’d be making history, boy!”

Again with the damn gendering… I frown a little bit but, try not to make it too visible. I gotta focus.

“Yeah, get it together. This is not the time for your ridiculous whining.”

Sigh.

“So you know what the book is, but you don’t know what it says.”

“To be honest, I am not really sure what it is either.” Pelafina admits with an embarrassed grin. “All I know is that it is a project Humiko had for a long time already, and according to her express instructions, the hints could only be read by a sleeper.”

I haven’t really checked if I can no longer check Humiko’s note in the book, so there’s homework for when I return.

“I am sorry we put this on you with deceit and all, but would you have really believed me if I said ‘You have to study magic’ just like that?” The old lady shrugs. “It was necessary, and if Ricardo could see the potential in you, then this was surely the correct choice.”

“Is Ricardo an Overseer too?” I feel like that is a sensible question.

“Oh heavens no, he’s a Sleeper. Not a word of this to him, you hear me?” P’s gesture grows severe for a moment. “I don’t want him involved in such things at his age. He had enough adventures already.”

I guess the rumors of Ricardo being a world-trotting adventurer are also true. Huh.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“So. Tell me, what did you learn?”

She’s very eager… I can notice Lucía’s gaze on me, too. They are both very, very eager.

“This doesn’t make sense.”

Right? It’s all wrong.

The book’s first warning was to avoid the cloaks, and yet here’s P! Just hanging out with this one, talking about the book like it’s nothing!

Well, if it’s true that she doesn’t know the contents, I can lie through my teeth!

“Well… I’ve learned a few characters. Do you have somewhere to write?” My body suddenly relaxes, my demeanor tightens. I may be bad at many things, but lying? I was born lying in this world and I can keep it up no matter what.

“Ah, sure. Lucy!”

The guard walks up to me casually, offering me a fancy black leather notebook decorated with a golden apple and a silver arrow piercing it. She even opens the yellow pages for me, and provides a cheap plastic pen.

I nod, and quickly begin scribbling.

I scribble ‘Tlo’i’, ‘Golthoi’ and ‘Thako’ with their respective symbols.

“There. These are the ones I’ve learned.”

Lucía looks at me dead in the eye for a moment. I can feel the sharpness of her wit, she’s trying to read me… but it will be useless. I am in a dissertation now, bitch. I’ve been doing these for years, it’s my one skill.

“Interesting.” Lucía nods.

“So, what do these mean?” Pelafina approaches us to check on the symbols. “Terrible calligraphy, by the way.”

“Yeah, I know.” The confidence abandons me for a moment, before I puff up my chest again and begin talking. “The first one is the word for ‘Butterfly’. The second one is a word for the action of turning something on, the third one… I am not sure yet.”

“When used on a spell, it makes the effect happen upon touching the glyph.” Lucía knows. “It’s a very common one.”

“Glyph?” I tilt my head.

“She means a combination of Runes, dear.” P smiles warmly. “Alright, so ‘Butterfly’, ‘Ignite’ and ‘Touch’, then?”

I never said ‘Ignite’ for Golthoi, but I guess that is a interpretation of it?

… Interesting. That these things have different meanings in different contexts, would that affect casting?

“Ah, I also found this.” I draw ‘Jo’ in the book. “Does this mean anything?”

“That one is used to counteract spells. If you draw this in a Glyph, it cancels its effect.” Lucía seems happy to provide the knowledge I lack.

I actually appreciate it, for it immediately made something click in my brain.

“It means ‘No’.”

Yes. It’s a negative. That’s why it isn’t so common on its own. When added to another symbol, it negates it. ‘No-Light’ must be a way to say ‘Darkness’ or such… or… backwards, ‘No-Darkness’ equals ‘Light’.

Would this be dependent on the culture?

I smile a little bit to myself. This knowledge I will keep up my sleeve for now.

“What’s that smile for? Did you see something new?” Lucía is way too sharp to keep that smile from. I have to make something up quick.

“I realized I now know how to counter spells. That’s so cool…” I whisper to myself, channeling some of that wonder into my lie.

She seems to buy it, for she immediately focuses on correcting me.

“Knowing the Counterspell Rune is not enough, there are other factors to consider, so don’t go around trying to counter every spell so quickly.” She give me a smile I really dislike.

“Hmmm… well, that’s plenty for now,if that is all.” Pelafina shrugs softly. “It is quite late already… go back home for now, Tav.”

“B-But. I have so many questions!” I immediately pout. Saints damn it, so close to learn actually useful stuff!

“Yes, but sadly I cannot teach you. As the Overseer, I am bound by oath to remain neutral and not show favoritism for anyone.” The woman shrugged. “So, I can’t really teach you much. But, if you identify more words, I can definitely give you a few more pointers!”

“Fine…” A defeated sigh escapes my lips. So I’ll have to buy knowledge with knowledge, hmm? I look at Lucía for a second.

“Nope. I am too young to teach.” She immediately denies me.

“Tsk.” I look down… but then, an idea comes to me. Just a confirmation I need to get. “Can I check more stuff online? Maybe there’s resources out there…”

Pelafina frowns, looking at Lucía and waiting for her to explain. She eventually does, with a sigh.

“The process of getting on the internet as a mage is hard. You need a special router and everything, it’s honestly not worth it.” The guard shakes her head. “If you want, we can provide you one next time. But really, there aren’t many resources online for this… mages are isolationists, usually.”

Ah hah! So they don’t know of the forum! Alright then, that’s another point to my advantage.

“I don’t think I’ll need that, I have enough with mundane internet thank you very much.” I chuckle a little bit.

“I never got the so called ‘interwebs’ to be honest.” P grins. “Now, off to bed you go. Shoo, shoo. Remember coming back here at night, alright? That’s when it is nice and empty.”

Honestly, a nice and empty place to try and translate sounds fine to me. But I can just do that at home…

Besides. These people are dripfeeding me the information I need, so they are probably not trustworthy in the slightest.

I feel a little bad for not trusting Pelafina immediately, but…

“She threw you into this mess without consent.”

“Yeah, fuck her.”

Right.

“Alright then, I am going. Thank you again for everything, miss P!” I fail to hold back a yawn as I turn around and stand on the stairs. They… are still going up. “Uh.”

“The other stairs dear, there’s a magic escalator down.” Lucía tries not to laugh at my face, and fails.

“A-Ah, thank you.”

With a heavy sigh, I take the right escalator this time and disappear down the stairs. Looking at my clock, it’s already three in the morning…time to sleep for sure.

With some luck, the pillow will make this all make much more sense.

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As Tav finally disappeared from the Elysium, and the sound of a closing door echoed through the room, Pelafina let out a little sigh, shaking her head.

“This isn’t going to work.” She commented, crossing her arms. “This girl is no good.”

“She seems smart enough. The type to keep notes….” Lucía suggested, her smile growing slowly.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well. If we give her a few months and turns out she doesn’t make any breakthroughs, we can always… you know.”

“I don’t.”

“We can take her stuff.” Lucía finally said. “Just erase her memory and take the book and the notes back! With some luck, she probably took notes of the hints.”

“...Lucy, you’re diabolical.” The old crone chuckled loudly. “Ohhh, I guess we will get our chips back no matter how this gamble goes, then!”

“Of course! But I still don’t know why we can’t just go to a family of Mages and put this on their sleeper child!”

“That bitch Humiko probably thought of something like that.” A grumble escaped from the old lady. “This is our safest bet.”

“Well, I am just saying. If this experiment of yours doesn’t pay up, I may have to talk about this with the rest of the Coven…~” Lucía’s eyes were, for a moment, fully visible under that hood, brightly green. “And you know the captain wouldn’t like you skulking around with unapproved knowledge.~”

“Oh shush, you won’t.” Pelafina seemed quite confident of this. “Not after coming this close to finally finding that bitch…”

The overseer sighed, looking up to the fake stars for a moment while rubbing her hands together. What was this she felt? Anxiety?

“... It has to work, Lucía.” She finally said. “It has to.”

“What if it doesn’t though?” The guard tilted her head.

“It has to… it is our only way to free our King from his cell.”

“Welp, let’s hope this girl works fast!”

“I know. After all, King Hamil isn’t a patient man.”