“May you find your book in this place”
After the meeting in the war room, Klein and Arlin are now on the street of Latila. Escorting them is a certain short white hair girl, who has just awakened from her bed after recovering from sea sickness.
When Aurora woke up from her slumber, she was informed about her expedition to the East with Belisari and Lily. At first, the girl was confused and flustered, but then suddenly, she agreed to the deal, with a condition of a trip to the city’s library.
”To learn more about the world”-she explained the motivation behind her request, the sentence which handed her confusion to Arlin, who said-“Well at least it was easy to accomplish. Though I don’t know why she even needed to go to the library, while Aurora herself is one already.”
“No, nobody knows everything about the world”-his brother objects-”Maybe spending some time in the library to sharpen your knowledge is not a bad idea. I would go as well.”
Skip for ten minutes, they are now standing in front of the city’s largest library, the Library of Lvina. Despite being called the largest library in the city, even comparable to the Latila Palace in size, the number of visitors here is surprisingly low, at only 2-3 people per day. Maybe the main reason is that this library looks old, very old, as if it was abandoned for at least a decade. In addition, it is also quite far from the city center, where most people know how to read live.
Aurora takes an overall look at the library. Surrounding the main sector of the building are a few branches-like structures, they were balconies for the visitors to relax in the sunlight reading books, but due to the lack of usages, they look very old and stained in black, creating a creepy look for the place. To be honest, this place looks like the remains of a giant burned tree being turned into a building for storing books rather than a proper library, as Aurora later wrote.
But then, when stepping in, the girl’s attitude changed as she was stunned by the amount of books in this place. Towers of shelves reach all the way up to the roof, while the place itself is five stories high and…eight stories deep. Between each shelf there are places shaped like two to three floors-benches for readers to settle and finish their reading under the light of lanterns and chandeliers hanging on top of the shelves, except for several places being shadowed by…flat wooden balconies? Nonetheless it is still magnificent. For a library in medieval time, this place surpassed every place Aurora had ever gone to, and she had gone to the Library of Congress in the United States once before.
Upon their arrival, they were greeted by the head librarian, her voice come to them from behind her working desk:
“Long time since your last visit, Arlin, Klein, and who is the new guest today?”
The head librarian is an average height woman, still much taller than Aurora though. Her hair is quite unique with the combination of aqua, a bit grayish and silver, and short, with a pair of eyes matching the color of her hair. What she is wearing is a long black coat, with white shirt and shoes casted of steel. However, that is definitely not the strangest thing about her outlook, it is actually the fixed wings on her back that stood out the most and claimed entirely Aurora’s attention:
“This little one is Aurora Borealis”-Arlin pushes the girl forward a bit-”You may address her as Aurora. Aurora, this is the director of the library, and also is the head librarian, her name is Angela.”
“Angela Lucius. Welcome to my library Aurora, may you find your book in this place. What are you looking for?”
Aurora, still focus her mind analyzing the wings of Angela, stuttered when the librarian talks to her:
“Well-…well-...I want to read as much as possible.”
“If that is the case…”-the woman named Angela walks from her table toward Aurora-”You are a foreigner right? Then better study history first. Wait for me for a second.”
“Ah right, here we go again.”-Arlin drags Aurora back to where he is standing.
The librarian steps toward a marked floor area, surrounded by nothing, no book, no table, no chair, absolutely nothing, well, aside from a few walls that have the purpose of protecting whatever behind it from whatever going on in the area:
“Eh…what is going on?”
“You never saw a flier take off before?”
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While Aurora and Arlin were talking, Angela lowered her body, making her fixed wings become parallel with the floor’s surface.
“No, this is the first time.”
“Well, then let me explain.”-Klein jumps in-”Flier is a creature born to be skyfarers, blessed with their wings and ability to control wind to fly. Unlike birds which take off by flapping their wings, Fliers use their wind bending magic, fire conbursting spells and their wings to create a force called “lift” under their wings, helping them to fly.”
“So like planes.”
“What is plane?
“Nevermind.”
Aurora turns her attention back to Angela, the woman is running fast and accelerating in the area. Fiers are fast, very fast, not many humans can outrun them. As Aurora later read from a biology book, they are fast in order to generate enough lift for their flight.
And Angela, she is close to the end of the runway, 50 meters isn’t a long area after all. Aurora closes her eyes in fear that the librarian might crash into the wall at this rate, if she can’t make it. Fortunately, that is not a case:
“Take off.”
Just moments before hitting the wall, Angela lifts her body off the ground, into the dense compressed air surrounding her wings.
“Wooh…”
The librarian flies up and turns another way, crossing a section on a shelf. Seconds later, Angela’s arms are carrying several heavy books, then another book, then another, before she departs and makes a gentle landing back on the runway on the floor. What an amazing performance there:
“Here. Titu Levy’s From the Founding of the City volume one to five, Polibius’s The History volume one to six, Procop’s On Build summarized edition…”
The list of books needed to read is quite long…is there anything very interesting here?
“...this and this…and Lily Voyage’s Veteran Diary.”
“Lily Voyage?”
The Archduchess of Voyage wrote a book?
“Yes, She was a part-time librarian here after the war, when she first wrote this book”-Angela hands the books to Aurora while saying to her-”I am her only reader until now though, no one had ever looked for a book like this here so I didn’t have a chance to introduce it to any other. What a wasted gem.”
“Part-time? And who taught Her Grace to write a book?”
“On the Language Section, although she only knows Grecolatin and Reman. Fortunately His Highness usually comes to help her sort books in other languages. As about the book… I knew her father when I was a child, he was a journalist before the war. Perhaps he taught her a thing or two about writing.”
The librarian said, her eyes looking somewhere far away, remembering some distant memories.
“That is the story of the past. Now go study. May you enjoy your books.”
Angela says, then pushes Aurora to corner of the library where sunlight concentrate the most, giving her a glass of mead (fermented honey, a type of alcohol, though Aurora is forbidden to drink at this age) and leaves to the two Voyagers brother in the reception area:
“What about you two? Which book may satisfy your desire for knowledge?”
**
“First chapter, the foundation of Latila…”
Opening her book, what Aurora sees the first is the date which according to the Latilians is the day this city was founded, 20th April 753 AKN:
“20th April…21st April…753 AKN, A for Ante, N for Natum, then “K” here is Jesus Christ in this world? 20th April 753 BC…a day prior to… If that is the case, then this is very coincident…a frightening coincidence…”
Putting that matter aside, Aurora flips to another page. This particular page contains the map of the entire known world, for people to understand where an event occurred, and how impactful it was for the countries in that region. Despite not being as accurate as Aurora’s map, this thing still holds a geographical and historical value to it.
In the Southern area of the map is the continent of Gaullia, where located the Kingdom of Milishila where Aurora was supposed to come from. The country stretches along the coastline of the continent, with some areas invaded further inland. Aside from the colonies chain of the Maritime Federation, there is no existence of another large nation on that continent except Milishila.
Two islands on the upper left of the map are the mainland of the Maritime Federation. Being founded by Milishilian and Latilian traders back in 247 AKM as the Trade Confederation, no wonder why this nation chose trading as the core of their economy. Their colonies appear everywhere, from the continent of Atlasia to the continent of Gaullia, to an Eastern continent named Yuropa (Europe?). The Maritimer trade network no doubt rivals every nation in the world combined.
And, the largest continent on the map, Atlasia. Latila, Vlenna, Nosfetura, Carthagia, Aeropostales, Elestovakia, aside from those nations there were many more, yet they vanished after the Elestovakian War, erased from history entirely.
“That is a sad truth…”
The girl whispers to herself, then flips a page. Well, it’s time for actual history. The information here is usually about major events, wars, noticeable rulers and technological advancements, like every common history book on Earth. History might be different, but the mindset of recording history is the same everywhere, even in another world.
“Year 1 AD, the end of the Second Arcane War, the extermination of…”
Aside from countries, some occult races also disappeared throughout history due to various conquests. That is a thing that also happened on Earth, but on a much smaller scale, concerning to say the least, but it does not seem like a problem nowaday.
In the corner of her eyes, Aurora sees Arlin and Angela talking to each other, while Klein reads a poem collection, seemingly from an elf author, and enjoys a cup of fine wine made by Milishilian dwarfs in his hand. It looks like after such a long time, people from races different from another had adapted to each other and chose to live in harmony, an act of peace which ensured no other highly intelligent species were wiped out from year 1 until this day.
Aurora spent another few hours reading history books. Her reading speed is fast, so completing a book in less than half an hour is normal. It is very helpful that many books were written far into detail, very clearly in two Latin variants, antiquity and modern, hence understandable. More interesting than I thought, she said, it was like reading lore for a fantasy novel, maybe because this world contains many fantasy elements on its own. Very soon, the girl had thrown Procop’s book aside, ready to absorb the final one on her table, the Veteran Diary:
“Alright, here we go, let’s see what Liliya wrote…eh?”
Unlike any other book, this one was written in Greek. Not a translation problem though, Russia is Aurora’s homeland, Russian borrowed many words from Greek. Aurora had learned to understand Greek since she was young. What surprised her is the fact that the language of this book stood out from any others.
“I hope I can read this…”
“Say, Angela, are you willing to join the army again?”