Chapter 96

Slapping her forehead, Ellie pretended that everything was fine.

“Are you alright?” William said, half worried that something had broken. It could happen everywhere, but Ellie didn't want to hear anything about it.

“No.” Ellie waved at the books and the monitor finally lit up. “Just look at them. They are so nice and everywhere. Ah, books. Cherished physical books.”

“A playground, you say?” William didn't hate that world and looked around. Contrary to his face and words, he didn't think he was one bit ignorant towards something like this.

He wasn't aware he was judged. Glancing beside him, his eyes were set on things that he long found fascinating, if not glistering in golden light. He read a lot of whatever he could, and Outside had a surprising amount of things because Darks didn't tend to care for non-living matters. That was one of the truths about Corruption, albeit large-scale destruction wasn't safe. When some high-rank Hordes moved, cities turned to rubble.

Usually, Corruption influenced the non-living things more than well, crashing them and turning them towards the darkness, or Darks, who were still its masterminds, or just drowned beings who couldn't help themselves. Some buildings, history, or books were unfortunately lost in them.

Glancing at this treasure room, William winced in disbelief as he calculated what sort of place this was. “So, those books over there are that old? What about these sections? Comics, manga, fiction, non-fiction, novels, visual novels, and so on...” he pointed to the many rows of signs above the bookshelves.

Ellie noted his eyes and still misread his demeanor because he didn't like this computer.

“Yeah? So what? Those are retrieved and remade collections from long ago. According to some records, they are collections from some well-kept locations found by Walkers. Mister Kaufman started them, and by now, dozens of others keep this collection alive. Some stuff is more than two centuries old. It isn't that hard to imagine why. Written works survived much better than anything else.” Ellie explained and starlight in her eyes returned. It was apparent she liked them more than her voice allowed, while whatever William caused was getting lost in her wonders.

“But they are made-up stories, right?”

“Yes? Well, not everything, but so what? There is nothing wrong with made-up stories. They are fun and exciting, and can sometimes make a lot of points about reality as well. You can see the past through these stories describing their unique time periods. It is about perspective, even if the story isn't real. You can learn a lot from them, even though they never happened or don’t act as an education book, so don't be ignorant.” She said and nodded to herself as if she heard her teachers.

Seated before a computer, she felt good about her explanation.

“Sound fair. I am not judging this place.” William simply said what he felt and couldn't wait to dive into these bookshelves. He had to spend some time here, but not too much. He needed to see what was here before jumping to conclusions. Judging books without a first glance was wrong, whereas some tools and machines were different. He didn't know them that well so he didn't care about them.

“Great. Now, look here. Those computers act as a proxy for a considerable depth of knowledge and this library likes it. There are a lot of interesting files to see and you can read them without caring for physical books. One doesn't have to browse, ask anyone, or so on. You just search for them. Of course, you should have clearance first, or buy an allowance to use these machines. Oh, and some stuff is still here because of a lack of resources. We scan them or write them by hand to servers. What you can read on the screen is also our work.”

“Files? Is it about some imaginary storage?”

“Yeah. They are archives. For example, available books on the technology floors are all copied and stored on computers so they wouldn't get lost in the fire and so on. Here, let me show you.”

Ellie grabbed a blocky tool and dragged it around the desk. Opening some programs and dashboards within some programs ended up being easy and quick under her hands. William barely registered what was happening before she revealed books in thousands of folders.

“This is the digital library. A work of art and years of quite a bit of people. Why? It won't be destroyed unless the server explodes. And it won't. The Federation cares a lot about them and it is one of the few things that this library has thanks to science. It's less than a decade -old. Scientists worked with them privately, so not a whole lot of normal people get them. Here, these computers are presumably sole options for the public.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Oh, so it is all digital? How does it work if you can't touch it?”

“It is complicated. I don't think you will understand it, even if I talk for an hour or a day,” Ellie said bluntly, disappointing Williams's growing interest.

William shrugged his arms and accepted that some things weren't meant to be. It wasn't the first thing he accepted like that. There was no need to feel bad about it since his life would go on even without knowing or understanding this machine.

Still, Ellie spent the next dozens of minutes going over the folders and how to use free clearance, some premium methods, or allowance times. If one had to use some better clearance, one have to use their card and establish a connection to higher clearance folders. Using computers was also not simple and there were only twenty of them, yet not a whole lot of people were excited about them even if they had been here for years.

Ellie was the only one using them right now. Many youths were looking, reading, or passing their time how they wanted in books. Some of those might be important youths, with great backgrounds, or others were simple young refugees. This place was free to enter for fun, and that was a fact that William found respectable.

On this very floor, William won't shake his foundation or become ignorant. His priorities were elsewhere, yet Ellie kept blubbering about those computers.

Ellie wasn't certain how much he liked to escape the cruel reality, so she didn't miss to explain more historical, or current needs of these machines.

That was the poorest reveal that William had ever heard from her. She described how the military had deep research, structural work, science, and how many technologies changed countless matters and fields from within the Federation. So far, it wasn't as obvious, so the public didn't know everything because there were few points in revealing how some things worked or were possible. Most of it touched upon manufacturing or Walkers themselves. Some factors also included the Examination and Emblem Association, the general layout of the Federation, food, and ways to allow a million people to remain living in the middle of an ocean.

It seemed bothersome and scientific, even though Emblems were hardly feasible to the common sense of physics, so William didn't take her words that seriously. That went on until something broke in William's heart and face because he began to think that the Federation must have some serious secrets.

He started to smile and his hands shivered.

“You good?” Ellie asked.

“I think I’ve got some basic understanding done. It seems surprisingly simple after seeing you use it, and your explanations are very good.” He quickly said and hid his hands behind his back.

“Was it a compliment? Oh, thank you. I will take it as one,” Ellie said in approval and better mood.

Afterward, time wasn't on their side. William decided to use the remaining time of this day to look through this floor and let some machines catch some dust.

Here, rows of bookshelves weren't tight, or very open. They were in good places, providing seating areas and privacy from many other shelves. There were even sofas, private corners, and numerous cozy places where one could get lost in the books.

Different bookshelves had distinct designs, numbers of books, and ideas. It wasn't about books alone. It was unlike the first floor which had a special layout because of topics. There was no need for that here. Some shelves had even wood-covered books, leather, or paper which had seen better years a long time ago.

Some held softer kinds of papers, covers, colors, and unique letters on the covers or inside of them. There wasn't just English alone either, but anything foreign was less useful because English seemed universally accepted as good enough in the Federation. Some bits of Spanish and French survived thanks to some cultures and serving people. Simply put, a hundred years of the Dawn created a huge disparity, thus a lot of cultures couldn't work it out. Languages were the same.

Most manga and comics were behind layers of see-through plastic or glossy covers, which protected their content but not their purpose. One could still hold them and read them. These were primarily less about words, but more about art. Comics and mangas shocked William's core, and he quickly understood how little he knew about them. There were thousands of them!

Normal books had no such protection since they were all texts, and hand-written illustrations inside of them could survive. But printed stuff? It seemed he greatly underestimated how some people loved to escape this cruel reality.

Today, he respected someone from a very long time ago without even knowing. Most shelves had eye-catching rows of covers that were facing the observers. Colorful covers, great typography, and countless vibrant designs were everywhere.

Ellie gave him some suggestions that she found worth telling, or they were stories she loved dearly. William couldn't tell which was good; he was too busy looking at them regardless. For the most part, they walked beside one another around this floor for an hour and it wasn't even the end.

“What? Queen of the Rings? Why is this shelf called a world-class archive?” William asked Ellie right when he clutched a robust-looking book with a wooden thick cover. On it was a picturesque site of vast mountains, sky, and plains. There were people on the cover moving towards a vast evil mountain. The letters seemed carved from the gold at the cover and the side. William swore this was old, heavy, and precious from the weight alone.

Standing before one of the smaller shelves, he wondered what he was seeing. It was a small selection of the most intriguing books according to the readers of the past and present. Current generations might think of them differently, yet people were people. Their tastes might've changed, but the quality of those books remained.

“Those are, at least according to the past, one of the best stories of humanity. Some are old...well, most of them are for obvious reasons. Writing is kind of abysmal. I wonder what was it that stopped it? Oh, perhaps the cracked sky? Economy, or genocide? You pick.”

“Are these some great books? Who decided that?” William ignored her playful tone and finger poking his right shoulder.