Erengil Library was the biggest in the entire galaxy.
It boasted books from all kinds of cultures, even some that dated all the way back to the Ancient Ones. They were old and tattered. Made of paper or leather or other crude materials, and they stayed locked behind force fields in the back rooms. Holo copies were available with included scholars notes, but they could never compare to the real thing.
Still, the young woman had to make due with them. She’d never be able to get a pass to the back rooms and certainly wouldn’t get the chance to hold those precious artifacts in her own hands.
“It’s so strange,” she muttered, aimlessly scrolling through the projected images of an ancient book. “The brightest minds in all of Cinder Rock have been studying these for centuries and still have less than half of it translated.”
But then again, if the book had been fully translated, it would be bad for her. All the Demons in the galaxy would have been found by now, and what good is a [Demon Hunter] without any Demons to hunt?
Looking away from the book, the woman activated her system log and pulled up her stats. She’d awakened at twelve years old with the [Demon Hunter] class, which meant she’d had a system for an entire decade now. And yet, she was only level 3.
“Studying can only get me so far,” she sighed, resting her head on the steel table. “I need to be out there. I need to be out hunting Demons myself.”
Another sigh escaped her lips as her fingers accidentally brushed against the message chip strewn among the study materials next to her. The chip’s contents were short and straightforward.
‘Varyna Rhine’
‘C.O.P.S. Demon Division Application Status: Rejected’
Again.
This was the third time she’d been rejected from the Demon Division. Not enough experience. The excuse was always the same.
“But how can I gain experience when I’m stuck patrolling the Capitol streets,” Varyna grumbled.
A [Demon Hunter] system should be a shoo-in for the Demon Division, right? But she was too low level for them to pay attention to. And she couldn’t raise her level without hunting Demons. And she couldn’t hunt Demons unless she was in the Demon Division, which brought her right back to the original problem.
Life is so unfair, she thought to herself. Everyone said she should give up. Her family, her superiors, even her classmates at the COPS academy. Experience would come with time, and even if the Demon Division never worked out, she would be far safer in the Crime Division. She knew they were right. She knew it and yet...
“I’m going to get some more books,” she resolved, rising from her seat. “If I can just find a Demon location that I could get to by myself…”
As Varyna found herself perusing the Demonology section once again, she nearly bumped into a boy who seemed equally distracted as he stared at the books in the ‘Rare Demon’ shelves. He was a Human, like her. He had dark hair and tan skin that had clearly seen radiation from many stars. An adventurer? The girl moved on quickly. It was none of her business what a young adventurer was doing studying rare Demons... though she hoped he wouldn’t beat her to finding any yet undiscovered Demon locations. She was the one who would save the galaxy from Demons, after all. Varyna Rhine, the [Demon Hunter].
“Excuse me...”
Just as she’d stepped around the boy, he called out to her.
“Can I help you?” she asked, whirling back around.
He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he wasn’t ugly either. Sort of the rugged type, but with clear eyes and smooth skin. Too smooth. I hate him, she glared.
“I’m looking for some books that will help me impress my crewmates,” he explained, scratching his head. “You see, I’ve been recently assigned as my ship’s chef and, well, I’m terrible at it.”
“... did you say chef?” Varyna narrowed her eyes. She knew adventurers sometimes used silly titles to refer to their positions in the group. Was he in charge of ‘cooking up’ Demon locations? Or maybe even harvesting captured Demons?
“Ah...” the boy cleared his throat.
Here it comes, Varyna frowned. He was going to look down on her for not understanding his lingo. He’d call her a ‘suckling’ who lived her life in luxury, stuck on Quosh’s pristine surface and far away from the bleak realities of the galaxy. She’d faced people like this before, and it was always an unpleasant experience. Mainly because… she couldn’t exactly say that everything they said about her was wrong.
The boy went on, “Yeah... I accidentally got our chef killed. And we can’t have dozens of hungry Kremels running around, so I tried to cook up a simple stew but-”
“Stew? You meant chef as in a food cook?” Varyna cut him off, raising an eyebrow. Of all the things she expected to come from his mouth, this wasn’t one of them.
“Uh yeah, what other kind of chef is there?” the boy’s cheeks flushed and he reached to scratch the back of his head again. It must have been a nervous habit.
Varyna shook her head. “Look, I have no idea what a chef who cooks food would gain by looking in the Demonology section. You should try cookbooks two wings over.”
The boy’s cheeks became even pinker, but his eyes lit up. “Oh! This says ‘rare Demons’, not ‘rare dishes’. My bad.” He waved both hands and started to step back. “Anyway, thank you for the help!”
Then he turned and ran, yes he ran, out of the demonology section.
The girl stayed frozen in place for a few moments, her eyebrows knit as she tried to piece together what had just happened. Then, she shrugged, forgot (nearly) all about the weird adventurer/chef/idiot and went back to her book hunting.
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, as the stack of books on the table grew, so did her frustration. She’d scrolled through all of them, but couldn’t find a single hint about Demon locations—well, not ones that weren’t already hunted.
She pulled out one last book before deciding to call it a day. The library would be closing soon, and she needed sleep before her early morning at the Crime Division tomorrow. The title of the book, etched in glowing symbols on the cartridge, read ‘Historical Methods of Hunting Demons’.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“This should be... not in the least bit useful,” she sighed, but activated the holo anyway. “But it will at least be a little entertaining,” she murmured while scrolling to the first page.
She skimmed through the majority of it, already familiar with most archaic Demon hunting methods, but one section in particular caught her eye. It was about USBs, dated tech devices that could store data and be plugged into computers via specialized ports. Apparently, for a short while, USBs had been experimented with for imprisoning and storing Demons. The project had ultimately been abandoned because of the risk of Demons escaping into CinderX, the galaxy-wide network, and causing a mass catastrophe.
The entire section was an interesting read, but one part at the end stopped her in her tracks. The single successful entrapment of a Demon in a USB. It was at an old research facility called Ulterai-1-B7. And if she wasn’t mistaken…
“Aha! I thought I recognized that name!” Varyna grinned as she reactivated another book from the stack. It was an old demonology text book that cited sources from various research labs. Including Ulterai-1-B7, located on Gamios—a small planet in the Helios sector.
She was giddy with her discovery for only a moment.
“Most old labs have been raided many times over,” she reminded herself glumly. “I doubt a USB-trapped Demon would be left untouched.”
She yawned and deactivated the holo. She should leave her pile to the eager cleaning golem waiting nearby and go get some sleep. Today hadn’t yielded any fruitful results after all.
—was what she thought until she clocked into her shift at the Crime Division the following morning.
“Officer Varyna, can you take these holos to the record storage?” her superior, Faren Cleus, asked, dropping a stack of cartridges in front of her. “Our office golem is out of commission. Again.”
“Leave it to me!” Varyna jumped up and reached for the stack. “But, uh, I’m not sure where the record storage is.”
“Have Quoppi show you,” Faren called over his shoulder, already headed back to his office.
“... Right. I’ll do that.” Varyna turned to search for the Nemarian among all her coworkers bustling around. After a while, she finally caught sight of his maroon fins poking out behind a group of chatting Kremels as he sat hunched at his desk.
Quoppi was intent on the holo in front of him when Varyna approached him. It was about types of architecture left behind by the Ancient Ones.
“Hey, Quoppi,” she tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t budge. The constant ruckus from his Kremel squadmates had made him immune to interruptions. Varyna cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Quoppi!!!!”
The Nemarian jumped in his seat, sending pens, message chips, and cartridges scattering across the desk surface.
“Officer Rhine.” He readjusted his glasses as he turned to face her. The glasses were thick framed with large convex lenses positioned over his beady black eyes. They had a lingering fog in the outer corners thanks to the mistter blasting mist from around his neck. “What can I do for you?”
“Looks like I’m the golem’s replacement today.” Varyna held up the stack of cartridges. “Faren said you could show me the way to record storage.”
“Ah, of course.” The Nemarian adjusted his spectacles again and stood up. He stretched and yawned then motioned to her. “Follow me.”
“Lead the way!” Varyna smiled. On her way past Quoppi’s cluttered desk, she reached out and deactivated the architecture book. She knew he would be unhappy if he came back to find his place lost by a careless (or, more likely, mischievous) Kremel.
The whirring sound of doors opening and then closing again behind them was the only noise during their journey through the COPS headquarters, but Varyna didn’t mind. Quoppi was quiet and awkward but kind in his own way. He’d been working in the Crime Division for five years already. He wasn’t particularly strong or agile in the field, but he was thorough and meticulous. Not to mention his [intelligence] score of 50. The Nemarian was a refreshing addition to the team which was composed of mainly hot headed Kremels who tended to overlook important details. Varyna and Faren were the only Humans on their squad, with Faren at the very top of the ladder and Varyna at the bottom.
“Here you go, Officer Rhine,” Quoppi offered, raising his orange scaly wrist to a scanner. The scanner lit up green and a double set of steel doors slid open revealing a brightly lit room lined with shelves. Quoppi squinted his eyes and adjusted his glasses. “The doors will open for you automatically when you’re done.”
He stepped away from the blinding light and nodded to Varyna. Then he turned and marched back toward the squad office and his ancient architecture book.
The door shut behind Varyna as she stepped into the room. She blinked several times as her eyes adjusted to the light. Why is it so bright in here? When her eyelids no longer felt heavy, she set out to deposit the holos. First she had to find the section dedicated to the 11th squad, and then sort the cartridges by date. When she finished, she brushed her hands together satisfactorily.
But then something caught her eye. On the shelves across from her, were records labeled for their outer jurisdiction sector, Helios. The sector where Ulterai-1-B7 was located. She hesitated for a moment, but slowly made her way over to get a closer look. Sure enough, one of the records, dating back a century ago was titled ‘Ulterai lab series investigation’. Varyna gulped and gingerly plucked the dusty holo off the shelf.
Her ‘quick trip’ to the record storage soon turned into a long trip. And then a very long trip. And after an hour had passed, the double doors slid open to reveal an orange Nemarian with maroon fins, foggy glasses, and a worried look on his face.
“Oh... hi, Quoppi.” Varyna jerked up from the holo she was scrolling through.
The Nemarian squinted at the mess of cartridges around her (or perhaps he was squinting because of the unnecessarily bright light) and tilted his head. “Are you alright, Officer Rhine? I suspected you may have gotten trapped here.”
“I’m fine!” Varyna insisted, deactivating the holo. “I was just doing a bit of research.” She smiled at the Nemarian and waved her hands. “Give me a minute to put all this away and I’ll be up at the squad office soon.”
“... I will assist you.” Quoppi took a step into the storage room, hissing as he faced the full brunt of the lights. Varyna tried to reassure him that she didn’t need help, but he ignored her and crouched down to pick up some of the cartridges. “Captain Cleus specifically requested I fetch you for the meeting.”
“Oh, the squad meeting! I’ll hurry!” Varyna gathered an armful of holos and ran back to the Helios section. Most of them belonged there, but she had to travel to a few other sections to finish replacing them all.
“Have you become interested in old artifacts?” Quoppi asked her as they hurried back to the office. It was rare for him to start a conversation like that, so Varyna figured his curiosity had been piqued by the peculiar collection of records he helped her put away.
“I happened to read about some interesting experiments that went on at one of the old Ulterai labs, so I just got carried away researching what happened to the artifacts there.” Varyna smiled. Not because her shy squadmate had started a conversation with her. Or because she was excited for the meeting.
But because she had found it. The place where several items from the old lab had ended up, and, most likely, the location of the USB.
Best of all? It was a planet within her section’s outer jurisdiction. Just across the Helios sector from the USB’s original lab home, on the desert planet Satch.
Varyna was giddy as she scampered into the office behind Quoppi. Had she been paying attention, she would have noticed her Nemarian companion’s fins twitching in anticipation as well. Quoppi-Shaden was uncharacteristically excited.
Faren opened the meeting after a pointed glance at the two late comers. Their other squadmates hadn’t even noticed just how long they’d had to wait for the meeting—they were too busy chattering and laughing amongst themselves.
“Last of all, we need a couple volunteers for this term’s offworld patrol to our outer jurisdiction,” Faren recited at the end of the meeting, flicking through the last few screens of meeting notes. “It’s not particularly dangerous, but you can expect to be off-planet for around twenty-five days. If you’re interested-”
“I’m interested, Sir!!”
Every head in the room turned to the back, where a Human girl and orange Nemarian were raising their hands. Varyna and Quoppi looked at each other in surprise, not realizing the other had called out at the same time.
“Quoppi, you… ??” Varyna hissed.
“I am equally surprised at you, Officer Rhine,” Quoppi whispered back.
“Huh. Well alright then,” Faren scratched his head lazily. “Varyna and Quoppi will represent the 11th squad this month. Be ready to leave next week.”
The two voices shouted again in unison.
“Yes, Sir!”