Lily coughed up dust as she used a [Light Orb] to illuminate the path in front of her. She had followed the instructions of the librarian. However, she had not expected the place to be this derelict; she had trouble breathing properly with all the dust and dirt that was caked onto everything in this wing of the building. And she had no idea why someone would let the Papal Estate fall into such a state.
But perhaps there was a reason.
She found herself in front of a rusty metal door and inserted the key in the hole, turned it, and then pushed the door. The hinges creaked, and screamed as she harrumphed, trying to push the door open—the rust had clearly seeped deep.
Finally, she managed to open it wide enough to squeeze inside the room.
The [Librarian]’s room.
She entered on the balls of her feet, spooked by the eerie atmosphere within. It reeked of dust, but she also found the pervading smell of paper everywhere.
Why they killed [Librarians], she still did not fully understand. The Church seemed to value knowledge—even the one she found in the Forbidden Archive. While they were clearly protective of it, she did not know why they felt compelled to exterminate all the holders of that class.
Hopefully, she would find some answers today.
When the new librarian mentioned texts written in another language, Lily got excited: what was an unknown language to that man would be easy to parse through thanks to the first skill she had ever gotten—the one gifted to her by a God.
As soon as she thought of the word God, something else came to her mind. The final words of the [Librarian] she had seen burning on a pyre echoed in her mind.
‘Your lesser God is lying.’
The [Librarian] had called the God of Light a lesser God. Why? What did he know that the Church was hiding from them?
Lily’s thoughts swirled as she delved deeper into the room, her [Light Orb] illuminating the shadows and revealing shelves and shelves of books, scrolls, and stacks of paper.
She swallowed as her fingers reached for one of the many tomes scattered on the ground. The room had clearly been searched, and several notebooks were still open, partially torn, and left to dust and mold.
When the librarian had said that the [Cardinal] had wanted to keep what the [Librarian] had been working on, Lily had imagined a more orderly solution. This, instead, just looked like chaos. It looked like these people had no regard whatsoever for what this [Librarian] did; nonetheless, it was clearly enough to grant him a gruesome death.
She started looking through some of the tomes, but they held nothing special… history, mostly. Very ancient history.
When she moved to the desk, however, she found a series of stacked papers that had been mostly left intact, bound together with a thin rope. Lily brushed the surface of the paper, caressing the bundle. Something about it called to her, and she felt her body temperature rise, her heart accelerating.
She gently picked it up and unfolded it. The first thing that she found staring back at her were two serpents encased in a circle and coiled around a square cross.
The words she read next gave her goosebumps.
...
The only sound accompanying dinner that evening was the sound of cutlery clinking on the plates and servants shuffling to replace the courses. Therefore, Lily’s voice came like thunder through a clear sky.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“[Cardinal],” she spoke, clearing her voice. “Can I ask a question?”
“Of course, Aurora,” [Cardinal] Atticus nodded, raising his eyes from a scroll he had been perusing. “What is it?”
“I... my mother told me that [Librarians] are to be burned and taught me to always report any suspicious activity inside the library...”
“Shadows take me! Something happened at the library?!”
“No, no!” Lily felt her heart jump in her throat, on the verge of giving herself and her recent adventure away. “I was just wondering what to look out for. I’m always in the library... can I help somehow?”
[Cardinal] Atticus exhaled slowly, clutching his chest, “Darling, you have scared me to death. By the dimmed Star, I suppose you haven’t been informed enough. Given how much time your studies take, we might as well correct that.”
The old man turned to Lumius, who was sitting at the other end of the table, and smiled at him, “Lumius, would you mind explaining it to her yourself? This is a good moment to review our lessons.”
The gray-haired boy nodded and proceeded to recite in monotone, “[Librarians] access a network of information that makes them unable to distinguish what’s true and what’s not. That is why the Class has been banned across all the nations and countries altogether. Even the Necromonarchy reserves special executions for those who accept the [Librarian] Class.”
“I don’t think I follow,” Lily grimaced. “They spread... bad knowledge?”
“The Bringer of Light grants us wisdom,” the [Cardinal recited one of the many formulas she had learned over the years. “Our Classes are a great blessing that everyone envies, Aurora. Only those born in the Papal State can be blessed with the Light Magic Affinity and its healing properties. [Librarians] seek a way to spread malignant Classes that would ruin the entire empire—you should just look for the ones eager to exchange knowledge with you; if you ever hear those words and there’s someone in the library tries to make a ‘deal’ with you, alert me immediately.”
The [Cardinal] paused briefly before scratching his chin and narrowing his eyes at the girl, “Do you know what the Cursed Classes are, dear?”
Lily frowned and then shook her head.
“Good, a child your age shouldn’t have been taught yet. Usually, this is a lesson that comes only a year before getting your First Class. Lumius has only recently gotten this talk. See, the Classes that will be available to you will come with different auras—think of them as different Colors. Most will come without an aura because auras are powerful manifestations of intent. Now, the bad news is, since everyone has had bad experiences in their lives, we all have access to at least one Cursed Class… meaning that we’ll be able to see the most wretched conditions we could fall into.”
Lily felt her throat become dry, but she still asked, “Like what?”
“[Slave],” Lumius spoke slowly, “or [Prostitute].”
“Is being a [Prostitute] that bad?”
That earned her a heavy silence that made Lily want to facepalm herself. Obviously, the cultish Church she had fallen into saw prostitution as the most debased thing possible.
“Some of our neighbors, like the Necromonarchy, don’t think so,” the [Cardinal] explained with a heavy voice. “But what you don’t understand now, child, is that a Class means much more than one can understand. A Class cannot be changed or taken back. Once you choose, that choice will forever stay with you. You’ll be advised on how to choose on the spot, but some still err. If someone goes down the path of a Cursed Class, they will be slowly consumed by it. The first sixty levels can even be fun for some—but then... the consequences come.”
...
Lily was walking back to her room when, suddenly, she was grabbed by the wrist and pitched against the wall.
“Are you out of your mind?” Lumius whispered, clearly wanting to shout.
“What are you doing?! Let me go!”
Lumius just doubled down, “you are playing a dangerous game, Lily.”
She shivered at hearing that name.
“I just asked a question at dinner—that’s all!”
“That question has probably made its way to my father already. The day you get a Class, you will be immediately tested to see if you chose [Librarian]. So, if you are getting any weird ideas, you obscured, dull fool, don’t!”
Lily tried the oldest trick in the playbook – swinging her leg for a kick to Lumius’s nether region, but the boy, anticipating the motion, had already switched his grip on her, twisted her body, and put her in a rear naked choke.
“I swear on the First Star,” Lumius whispered into her ear, “do something like that again, and I’ll break all your fingers. Do you understand?”
Lily tried wiggling out of the chokehold, but Lumius didn’t budge against her efforts. Her vision started to go dark when he finally pushed her away, and she fell on the marble floor.
She wheezed as she struggled to catch her breath.
“I hope, for your sake, that you’ll know better next time,” Lumius stated, walking away toward his room.
Lily massaged her neck as she saw the boy turn a corner and disappear from her view and used [Minor Healing] to heal the small damage caused by the choking.
Her next thought, however, was not one of self-pity or fear.
It was pure anger.
A fire blazed in her eyes as she clutched a bundle of paper she had hidden inside her clothes, too afraid to let anyone else get to it.
And in that bundle lay the secret that, hopefully, would allow her to escape from this hell.