“What do you mean why?” Aimee asked: “You’re the more talkative one.”

“Yeah, but you’re the more bookwormy and geeky one, you will have much more to talk about!” Thomas said.

“Let’s just ask them together, that should be fine right?” Jason asked: “I mean, we’re going to ask her about the activities of the faculties in hospital anyway. Better be on point and direct than to feign interest and small talk.”

“Oh, Jason.” Caroline patted Jason on the shoulder: “Sweet and naive boy, please don’t ever change.”

“Alright alright.” Jason shook his head with a slightly annoyed smile: “Then you do it your way then. I’m still for full honesty with our intentions right away, just for the record.”

“Okay, maybe we go together and slowly ease into the questions. But what do we know about that librarian?” Thomas asked: We should at least start with something.”

“Her name is Camile Jensen. I am not sure if it was the same Jensen as those that we had a duel with.” Aimee answered: “She’s the one who’s here the most. At least ever since we’re in the academy.”

“Alright, then you have something to ask her at least.” Caroline chuckled: “At least you could ask her about Laura, or you can play the long game and ask about the Jensen family.”

“That… why do you have to poison my mind like that?” Jason chuckled.

Aimee and Thomas ended up leading Caroline and Jason to the front desk, and after a short silent struggle, Aimee was the one who finally started the conversation with the librarian in a red robe and wearing a red beret, who also had a bouquet of flowers on her desk: “Hey, um, I was wondering if you could help us.”

“Yes.” Camile Jensen looked up from her desk: “What do you need?”

“I was … thinking about renting the original copy of the thesis ‘Deep Dive into the Neural Toxins of the Bukhan-Kandera Wyvern Family and Their Diet’, I wonder if you still have it?”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Hmm… let me check.” Camile Jensen operated on a thin tablet, from the angle of Aimee and Thomas, they could see that the tablet had some kind of classic looking UI, which looked a bit like pages of parchments, just on a flat screen: “Hmm, no, sorry, the original copies were rented by Ms. Sandra Lee. She rented it out for an indefinite amount of time. So if you want to read it I’m afraid you’ll have to go check with her.”

“Huh, interesting.” Aimee scratched her head and then asked: “What about ‘A Brief Breakdown of the Toxins from Swamp Serpents’? Do you still have it?”

“I… I don’t think so. It was rented by Assistant Professor Brian Young.” Camile Jensen frowned and said: “And… looks like both of them are in the hospital, due to exposure to contaminated materials that led to our current lockdown.”

“Yeah. Funny you mentioned that.” Thomas came over to the front desk and asked with a smile: “You know, what’s up with that? These two are scholars and researchers who rarely go out right?”

“O… kay?” Camile Jensen looked at Thomas with a slightly confused and annoyed smile: “Why am I getting the impression that you’re not here to rent the books?”

Jason shrugged behind Aimee and Thomas and looked at Caroline: “Well - I can’t say that I would’ve done better. So maybe full honesty was indeed a better choice, maybe?”

“Yes. I … I’m sorry about not being completely honest there.” Aimee immediately apologized: “In fact, we’re trying to look into some of the cases of exposure.”

“Okay… I could understand the curiosity. But may I know why you are looking into it?” Camile Jensen nodded and said: “You are not operating with the authorization of the academy right?”

“No, as a matter of fact we don’t.” Thomas acknowledged and acted embarrassed: “We’re just very concerned, for our safety and for our friends’ safety. So we started looking into it. So we were wondering if you could help us with that. Anything you could tell us, we’d really appreciate it, anything.”

“Yeah. I share your concern.” Camile Jensen sighed and thought for a short while and said: “... I was wondering when the academy could have anything done. And this might be the first time someone’s ever come and asked me. So yeah, I would be happy to help. Just that I may not be able to help too much, since I am just a lowly librarian.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can help us plenty.” Aimee smiled and said: “For example, we are trying to track down some of the suspicious areas where Ms. Lee and Assistant Professor Young were exposed to the contaminated materials. And we found that they might have both been here before they showed symptoms of exposure.”

“So you were suspecting that they were exposed here?” Camile Jensen nodded and asked: “I think I know what you're asking - you want the latest time they rented the books here?”

“Yeah sure, that would be great, thank you!” Aimee nodded and said.

“Okay...” Camile Jensen started operating on her tablet again: “Okay… interesting, the books they rented were the books that you asked for. But they were both quite long ago, they were at least two months from now. So maybe they’ve been here but they weren’t here to rent books.”

“Hmm, really? That’s quite interesting.” Aimee exchanged looks with Thomas, then she asked : “Is there any chance we could ask you a name and you tell us when was the last time he rented a book from here? His name is Tehmann Luis, he’s a researcher.”

“It’s… quite unorthodox. But if the information is public per academy policy, then I could tell you.” Camile Jensen continued operating on her tablet, then she turned to Aimee: “The last book he rented was, um… ‘Physiology of Prancing Llamas’. He rented it about six weeks ago and hasn’t returned it. Must be quite a fun read.”

“Okay.” Thomas sighed and looked at Aimee, then turned to Jason and Caroline: “Looks like a deadend - let’s get back to the drawing board. Hard extra credits to earn, but let’s not give up!”