“Gnuh…”

Momo’s head radiated with pain as she finally came to. The last thing she remembered was reaching for her doorknob, eager to show Sumire a glimpse of her former self, when suddenly she felt as if the very fiber of her soul was being tugged at.

Like a fish on a line, she was reeled upwards, or downwards—she wasn’t quite sure—before ultimately landing with a thud on the floor she found herself now.

Several open, dusty tomes littered the ground in front of her. The books were covered in a sort of black soot, the same black soot that the entire floor was dusted with. She appeared to have been thrust into some grim library, not totally unlike the one Viktor had built underneath Morganium. Only this one was illuminated by floating orbs of white: little, bottle-sized spirit blobs that hovered like dust in the air.

She pressed herself up with her arms, swaying upward into a standing position. As she did so, the white spirit orbs seemed to register her presence and began hurriedly moving away, as if startled. They rapidly congregated around an ancient lectern a few leagues away. All of the light in the room consequently surrounded that pedestal, illuminating it like a spotlight.

“Huh…?” she groaned, narrowing her eyes as she stepped toward it. “Where am I?”

A massive book lay atop the dusty pedestal, its cover bound in cracked leather and adorned with symbols that seemed to pulse with a life of their own. The white blobs didn’t startle this time when she came to stand by it; instead, the spirits hovered around it, their whispers growing louder by the second, urging her to open the book.

She pressed her fingertips to the side of its massive cover, and gently opened to the front page. A short passage written in elegant cursive was laid in the center of the page.

[Welcome to Lesser Goddess Onboarding]

[You must complete 3 godly trials in order to exit onboarding]

[Additionally, you will have to read 0/50,000 required texts]

[The proctor of your exam will be Valerica]

The breath nearly left her chest.

Valerica? My proctor? 50,000 required texts?

She recalled Valerica mentioning a ridiculous number of onboarding books during her visit on the ship, but she had assumed it was an exaggeration. Could all the books littering the floor be required reading? It would take an eternity to go through them all. Time she didn’t have. She had promised to return to Sumire within the century, after all.

She sighed. As soon as she took a step back, the book started to vibrate violently.

The symbols on the cover flared with blinding light, and the book abruptly shredded into pieces, sending fragments of parchment flying through the air. The spirits cried out, a sound like a chorus of sorrowful wails, and fled from her once again.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

She turned her head to watch them trail between two towering bookcases and, with determined resolve, she stalked after them. They led her through a labyrinth of dark aisles, and Momo tried her best not to trip over books strewn across the floor as she paced.

Finally, the spirits came to a stop, illuminating what appeared to be a tall stone wall. A dead end. She expected them to turn around and lead her down a different hallway, but they didn’t. Instead, they began to drift closer to one another, slowly merging like molten wax, until they coalesced into a larger life form—a human silhouette.

Valerica’s silhouette.

She knew it just by the look of it. The height, the posture. The length of her nails. Though the form didn’t have a mouth, or a nose, or any actual features—it was just white light in the shape of a person—Momo recognized her immediately.

“Hm, what’s this?”

Even without a mouth, Valerica’s words spilled out of its nonexistent lips. Momo moved closer to her instinctually, like a freezing man to a bonfire.

“Momo? Is that really you? Why, that was much faster than I anticipated.”

Valerica laughed.

“Oh, what am I saying. This is you we’re talking about. You’re always right on time.”

The figure of white light reached a lithe hand out toward her, but when Momo tried to take it, the spirits fluttered away just out of her grasp. She knew it was an illusion, but a preemptive pang of hurt ran through her chest all the same. Rejection.

Don’t be ridiculous. She’s happy to see you.

Momo took a sharp breath in. “Valerica, what is this place? Where are you? Is Morgana okay? Are you okay?”

The figure froze, its hand floating back toward its chest.

“Oh, yes, yes. Everything is good. Well, no. It’s terrible, really. But terrible is a transient state,” Valerica said, waving her hand through the air as if it was all a matter of semantics. “All will be well now that you’re here, my darling. Our saving grace, just as I always promised you to be. You did get my letter, yes?”

Momo swallowed thickly.

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Phenomenal. Then you’ve already been briefed. That’s for the best, since the time I get to talk to you via this… channel… is limited. They do not want proctors helping you to cheat. The Nether Administrators are very rigid about that, as they are rigid about everything. Ah, yes, that reminds me, I’m supposed to give you instructions about this whole charade.”

“Yes, please,” Momo said, feeling a wave of urgency wash over her as soon as Valerica mentioned that there was a time limit to their conversation. Valerica was not known for her conciseness, and this room didn’t seem to offer much explanation on its own. So, Momo jumped to her most immediate concern. “Do I seriously have to read fifty thousand books? There’s no way around that?”

Valerica laughed, and the maniacal sound unstuck some of the gummy fear in Momo’s stomach, filling her with a pleasant warmth instead.

“Trust me, darling, if there was a way around the reading, I would have found it. But I believe you will notice that time passes… differently… here. Reading will not be such a chore as you imagine. In fact, the books will start to feel like old friends in such a lonesome space. I fear Morgana left much to the imagination with her training grounds.”

The warmth in Momo’s stomach quickly receded, replaced by a flood of dread.

She had really been holding out for a loophole.

“And what about the trials?” she quickly interjected. “What are those? How do I beat them?”

“Ah.” Valerica’s tone picked up, becoming giddy. “Now those are great fun. They took me quite a while to get in the habit of—I suppose I died a few hundred times attempting them—but like the books, they will become old friends. They might even teach you something along the way. I suppose that’s the point of all this.”

“You died? What?”

“Oh, don’t worry your gorgeous little head about it. I will have a wonderful time admiring your progress from afar. But as it appears we are rapidly running out of time, I will leave you with these parting words.”

Valerica’s ghostly figure leaned forward, and dropped into a whisper.

“Good luck, dear, and hold on tight to your sanity.”