After taking a few steps into the darkness, Apolo began to feel as more "figures" approached him. But once these beings got close enough to see the child hanging from their shoulders like a sack of potatoes, they would stop and start retracing their steps with the same slowness with which they had approached. Apolo knew this was because these creatures had enough intelligence not to end up like the poor child hanging from their shoulders. Thanks to this intimidation, Apolo managed to find the staircase leading to the second floor of the store without any issues.

Upon reaching the staircase, Apolo noticed that the carpet on the stairs was a giant hopscotch filled with random numbers and letters without an apparent meaning. Nevertheless, the young noble carefully ascended the stairs, making sure not to step on any letters. Sometimes he had to skip a step, and other times he had to zigzag his way up, but Apolo managed to reach the second floor without much difficulty.

The second floor itself wasn't much different from the first, except for the small detail that the stickers on this floor were moving as if they had a life of their own. The stickers went from one wall to another, slipped between the books, and occasionally detached and jumped to stick somewhere else for no apparent reason, making it difficult to imagine where they would go next.

Apolo tried to count the number of stickers but realized there were too many to waste time on this task. The young man knew he had to be quick, so he took the silver mask from one of the hidden pockets in his toga and put it on his face. Immediately, Apolo examined the second-floor hallway carefully. On one side was the railing overlooking the central courtyard of the store, where the young man could jump down to the first floor immediately. On the other side were shelves filled with seemingly harmless, moving stickers. And on the floor of the hallway was the continuation of the hopscotch-design carpet that the young man had seen on the stairs.

But the most important thing that Apolo saw in this hallway was that among the countless children's books on the shelves, there was one book that was shining like a sticker: it was the book indicated by his ancestor! Apolo grinned like a madman when he saw the glowing book from the second-floor entrance, although the young man restrained his urge to go after it since he still didn't dare to venture into the silent corridor. According to his ancestor, the book Apolo was looking for should shine if the young man saw it with the silver mask on. The young man had no idea why the book was shining or how his ancestor had placed it in this location, but reality was right in front of his eyes, so there was no reason to doubt his words.

After confirming that the coveted treasure was just a few steps away, Apolo carefully watched as the stickers continued to move randomly between the shelves, the floor, and the walls of the hallway. Containing his impatience, the young man patiently waited for the stickers to move away from the path between him and the desired book due to their randomness.

Time slowly passed, while Apolo remained calm, watching from a distance as the stickers moved from one place to another, looking for the perfect opportunity to claim their prize. It was then that an abnormal noise began to come from the third floor of the store, putting the young noble on high alert.

*Ching*... *Ching*... *Ching!*... A noise very similar to the clinking of chains could be heard descending the staircase connecting the third floor to the second.

Apolo didn't even bother to lift his head to see the source of the noise. Instead, he ran like a madman, firmly holding onto his life jacket. With a skill rarely seen in a human, the young man headed toward the direction of the book he had been longing for, making sure not to step on any of the letters in the hopscotch pattern on the carpet.

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Feeling Apolo's movement in the hallway, the stickers on the shelves began to jump onto the young man, sticking to his toga. Immediately, the stickers slid down Apolo's garment until they reached the young man's skin, then they burrowed inside, causing a faint fluorescent glow to emanate from beneath the noble's skin.

Ignoring the terrible pain of feeling pierced by countless stickers, Apolo kept running until he reached the shining ringed book and grabbed it. Meanwhile, the child he carried on his shoulders began to age as his life force was consumed to heal the damage caused by the stickers on the young man.

*Ching!*... *Ching!*... Even though Apolo had obtained the ringed book, he realized that the sound of chains clashing was getting louder and closer to his body, to the point that the mysterious creature was just steps away from grabbing him!

Feeling the urgency of the moment, Apolo didn't think about the consequences and leaped over the railing that led to the central atrium of the store, landing directly on the first floor.

*Puff *...The young man landed on the carpet and quickly got up to check that everything had miraculously turned out well, and his ancestors mystically protected him from falling onto a bookshelf. Such a fall could have caused all the shelves in the place to topple like a domino effect, making it impossible to walk among the sea of books scattered on the floor.

While the young man thanked and asked for help in his mind, he ran towards the exit of the store as if his life depended on it, as the sound of chains clashing could still be heard from the upper second floor. However, the task was not so easy because a large number of children approached Apolo, attracted by the light of the stickers shining beneath his skin. It seemed that their numbers gave them the courage to no longer be intimidated by the giant!

*Ching!*... *Ching!*... *Ching!*... The sound of chains clashing began to be heard descending rapidly from the staircase that connected the first floor with the second. At this rate, the mysterious creature would reach Apolo before the young man could escape.

Realizing the dire situation he was in, the noble young man ran like a madman, colliding with the children and swinging his hands wildly as he ran towards the increasingly closer tunnel.

*Ching!, Ching!*... *Ahhhg*... The sound of chains clashing grew louder as Apolo approached the tunnel. However, the noise of chains clashing was drowned out by the screams of agony that began to come from behind the young man. Apparently, the creature that emitted the sound of chains was attacking the children that Apolo was throwing at it in a desperate attempt to buy time to save his own neck.

Nevertheless, the young man did not smile with happiness at the sound of the children becoming the victims of the mysterious creature. From the noise he heard coming from behind him, it was clear that the creature was not being distracted. Instead, its speed was increasing, determined to catch Apolo by any means necessary.

*Ching!, Ching!*... Apollo, with horror, heard the sound of chains clashing right behind him. The creature was so close that the young man had started to smell the foul and repulsive scent it emitted. Nevertheless, Apolo did not stop to try to see how far away the creature really was. He continued running faster and faster until he finally got close enough to the tunnel to see it in the darkness of the store.

*Chi!*... Apolo heard the sound of chains clashing stop abruptly. Far from feeling safe, the silence caused the young man to release the emaciated child on his shoulders and leap abnormally high into the tunnel. As he acrobatically soared through the air, the noble young man felt the chains emit a noise resembling a lash as they attempted to grab him. Fortunately, or perhaps thanks to the grace of his ancestors, the creature failed in its desperate attempt to catch him, and the young man fell to the ground, rolling on the carpet until he collided with the wall. As if his life depended on it, Apolo entered the tunnel and closed the door as tightly as he could, then began crawling with astonishing speed towards the tunnel's exit.

*Ching!, Ching!, Ching!, Ching!*...Apolo began to hear the creature that had pursued him banging against the wall of the children's book pavilion, causing the chains to clash even more violently. Luckily, this also indicated that the horrific creature could not enter the tunnel: Apolo had escaped!