Chapter 1649: Hide And Seek [4]

The three geniuses split up without a word. They had a mutual understanding of each other's specialties after the solving the first clue, so they made sure to make the most of their individual talents.

August had been intelligent since birth. He went straight to the bookshelves on the walls to see if he could find anything significant.

There were at least 10,000 books in this place, far too many for him to read through, but he was hoping that there would be something in the way that they were organized that would show him the way.

Melania went to the cafe and looked at the menu, curious about why it even existed in this space.

It wasn't that coffee and books didn't go well together. The problem was more in the aesthetics of the two things.

This wasn't a modern library, after all. It had clean wood floors and dark shelves that were reminiscent of a more medieval age.

And within that aesthetic was a modern cafe with tile floors, glass cases, and kitchen equipment that couldn't even be found in Arulion.

The first impression Melania received was that the cafe was the original owner of this space and the library was expanded around it, but she couldn't be sure.

Especially since the cafe's menu seemed to be directly connected to the library.

The two of them were the more intelligent members of their group.

Valerie, on the other hand...

Well, it was best to just say that she was more talented in fighting.

She was the brawn, and since there wasn't really anything for the brawn to do in a library cafe, she went up to the barista and decided to order herself some snacks.

The transaction went as usual. Valerie bought a few treats and paid, finding one of the five small tables in the cafe to sit at.

Right, she originally believed that she'd be able to sit back and let the other two take care of the matter at hand, but...

"Guys..."

She called them over, trying to be subtle since they were indeed in a library.

Well, her reasoning was different, but she chose to use sound transmission over her voice.

August and Melania both noticed her and turned around.

"Don't make it obvious, but do you see that barista? She...no, nobody else here is alive."

August raised his brow.

As someone who couldn't respond through sound transmission, he didn't have a good way to communicate it.

He could only stance himself in clear confusion and try to make it as obvious as possible what he was trying to ask.

And, nobody could say it wasn't obvious.

Valerie had certainly never seen a stance that screamed, "What does that even mean?!" more than how he was standing right now.

Valerie glanced around. There were only five other people in the library cafe, but she could confirm now that she'd sensed it from up close.

"Not a single one of them has vitality in their body. They're either undead, or their illusions."

"Hmm..."

'So it's basically confirmed.'

August didn't need more proof that his father had led them here.

It looked like Melania and Valerie were planning to stay calm, which was good.

If these were beings summoned by Damien Void, then the worst thing to do was provoke them.

'How does this work?'

He'd felt it a few times as Valerie used it. The sensation of someone talking in his head was strange, but it wasn't hard to interpret.

'It should just be...'

Transmitting his voice through mana, letting the energy carry his message.

"Is...this working?"

Valerie's eyes slightly widened.

"It is," she responded.

"O...kay. Act norm..al. Don't pan...ic and they pro...bably won't attack. Tell Mel...ania too."

Valerie nodded and transmitted the message.

Melania also agreed.

The people here were acting on a set pattern. It had nothing to do with their current task, but as long as those patterns weren't interrupted, they would just continue to act as puppets without any specific purpose.

This gave them the freedom to explore as long as they were mindful.

August made sure the other two were alright before returning to his search of the bookshelves.

The most important conclusion he'd made was the fact that none of these books were real.

'They're filled with nonsense. What even is "the dissection of how a chicken's thought process could possibly lead it to cross the road?"'

Every book had its name written on its spine, and none of those names made sense.

The organization was also completely off.

They weren't sorted alphabetically or by genre. Instead, it seemed more like completely different books that had somewhat similar tones were kept in the same section, as if the library was meant to be traversed as one's mood changed rather than anything else.

It was interesting, sure, but these books held no value.

August tried to take one out and flip through it, but they were embedded in the shelf, purely for decoration.

On his own, he came up with nothing more than an interesting fact.

And that was the same for the other two.

The strange names of the snacks caught Melania's attention and she kept trying to decipher something from it.

As for Valerie, her findings were definitely even more odd. She was simply eating the food she paid for, but she found that nothing tasted as it seemed.

A small cake would taste like a parfait. A parfait would taste like a brownie. A brownie would taste like a snickerdoodle cookie.

The tastes themselves were good, but it was too disconcerting for her to honestly enjoy the experience.

The three of them were forced to gather without much to go on.

However, perhaps they had more information than they thought...?

Melania spoke first. She brought a menu back from the counter and put it on the table for them to see.

"I found these, but I can't make heads or tails of any of them. The names are just confusing," she said.

Valerie nodded as well.

"And they're not even accurate. Look at this one. The description says it's chocolate, but it doesn't taste like one at all."

"What does it taste like?" August asked.

"Um...cake?"

August glanced at the menu again.

"These names..."

He didn't recognize them, but didn't they look strangely similar to the book names he'd seen?

He stood up and went back to the shelves to find them.

'That chocolate thing was called..."an egg that never gave up and ended up becoming a sacred being?"'

The sheer number of books made it difficult to find, but August caught the feeling that the book would be in the same section as the chicken one he saw earlier.

And sure enough, within five minutes, he'd found the book on the shelf.

'Can I pull it out?'

He couldn't, but the book definitely moved. He tried pushing it in next, and that had a completely different effect.

'Oh?'

Valerie and Melania saw him do it.

They immediately went to work to figure out the actual pattern, since it had become clear how to input it.

To just go based off of the names of the menu items was possible, but Valerie had a different thought.

None of them tasted like what they were supposed to be, right?

Then, wasn't that meant to confuse them?

If she had never decided to sit around and eat, then they never would've realized that there was another layer to the entire problem.

But since she had, they had all of the parts together from the moment they exchanged words.

Valerie went through every item on the menu and tasted them. Afterward, she and Melania went from top to bottom and matched the names to their specific tastes rather than appearance.

The list was reordered, and when August pushed the associated books in with that order in mind...

It was only natural for a library to have a hidden staircase into an abyss, wasn't it?

A part of the shelves lining the walls pushed inward and revealed it, showing them where they needed to go.

As they stood in front of it, August took a deep breath.

"This isn't the end of the trial," he said.

When they went down that staircase, they'd find out what they really needed to do.

"Are you guys ready?"

"More than ever at this point," Valerie responded.

"Agreed."

With Melania's affirmation, they had no more reason to hesitate.

The three of them walked down the stairs together, their guards raised high.

And in the library they left behind...

The six people inside, including the barista, morphed into their true forms.

They were creatures of unknown form, grey clouds of smoke that had hollow eye sockets filled with flickering blue flames.

Their eyes turned to the staircase, or rather, the beings who had just descended it.

And as they had been ordered to do upon their creation, they followed.