Chapter 86 - A Reader's Heart (2)

Creepy. An affinity of 95?

And right before my eyes, I saw what happened to someone whose affinity reached 95.

"Lord Radiant Gongja! Before I saw you, I was no better than blind old Sim!"

The Librarian cried out, clutching and kneading the sole of my foot.

"Before I heard your words and dialogue, I was deaf!"

The Librarian's eyes shone while trying to clip my little toenail with clicking nail clippers.

"You are my light! You are my music!"

That look was downright frightening.

"Since your name is Gongja, just like Confucius, I shall gladly convert to Confucianism! I shall become a scholar devoted only to you! Ah, is it not a joy to have friends come from afar? From this day forth, I am a Confucian scholar who serves Lord Gongja!"

"Hey. Come on, hey!"

What kind of fucking scholar went after someone's little toenail?

I wanted to ask that, but one look into the Librarian's eyes told me everything. That gaze was not normal. Those eyes would blithely ignore anything I said. For starters, the Librarian was breathing hard.

"If you keep this up, I'm never entering another apocalypse!"

"..."

The Librarian faltered, still holding my foot. The creepy part was that even after stopping, those hands kept kneading it. Was this lunatic out of their mind?

The Librarian pondered like a scholar burdened with profound worries.

"... Indeed. An effective threat."

For a moment, I felt relieved that my words had gotten through.

"But an analysis of your character tells me that is impossible, Lord Gongja."

What?

An analysis of my character?

"Because you know, Lord Gongja. You know that other apocalypses must contain people unfairly withering away, just like the Heavenly Demon. Given your personality, you could never bear to leave those people without helping them."

The Librarian smiled.

"Do not underestimate a Gongja superfan. I know you in more detail than you know yourself! When you ate a grain-abstinence pill on your first day in Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon, which hand did you use, left or right? What expression did you make? I could describe it all over two pages..."

Was this lunatic really insane? Yes. This was insanity.

"Now, Lord Gongja. Be good and hand over what you ought to hand over! Despite appearances, I am astonishingly conscientious, if only because I have not used the sleep fragrance to put you to sleep."

"Your conscience is astonishing me, too."

"You would not understand, Lord Gongja. You have never been anyone's fan. Ah, alas, what a tragedy! How wretched is a life that has never once known the heart-fluttering thrill of fandom? How cold must such a person's heart be? Still, I must try to understand our Lord Radiant Gongja..."

"Back off before I say [I hate you]."

Abruptly, the Librarian stopped.

This time, truly stopped.

"Stay five paces away from me. Otherwise, I'll really say it."

"..."

The Librarian obediently scurried back.

"And use your usual formal way of speaking. This is creepy. Honestly. Also, please give me back my hair and fingernails."

"That cannot be! S-such a request is utterly, utterly unreasonable!"

The old manner of speaking returned.

The Librarian clutched the silk pouches tight with a tearful expression.

"Rather, cut off my head and take it! No. Wait, a moment, please. Gongja. That was a figure of speech. Please do not look as though you are seriously considering whether to cut off my head... You are genuinely hurting my feelings..."

The Librarian muttered like a dejected little hamster.

Eventually, I managed to calm the Librarian down.

After burning the silk pouches containing those repulsive things—a dreadful scream rang out—the Librarian and I finally began something resembling a proper conversation.

"It was magnificent."

First, the Librarian offered an appraisal of the newly completed [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon].

"Your devotion to the Heavenly Demon was truly admirable! Becoming her disciple alone would have been enough to reach an [Ending]. Yet you did not stop there! The final Great War Between Orthodox and Demonic Forces... the finest martial duel... Ah, I feel as though I have savored sweet shaved ice topped with chocolate ice cream."

"Then has the martial world of [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] now been incorporated into the twenty-second floor?"

"Indeed."

The Librarian smiled.

"Other hunters may freely enter and leave the twenty-second floor as well. They can study the martial arts manuals stored in the Hall of Heavenly Martial Arts and learn skills. All this is your achievement, Gongja."

"..."

I rested a hand against my chin.

"There's something I started wondering about while I was in the apocalypse. I'd like to ask you..."

"Ask anything! I shall answer almost anything!"

"First, stop casually trying to slip my shoe off. Why is [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] an apocalypse?"

The Librarian tilted their head. My question seemed unfamiliar.

"Why? Hmm. Does [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] require some particular reason to be an apocalypse?"

"I think so."

I put my shoe back on.

"Do you like happy endings? Or do you prefer bad endings?"

"Neither can be called superior."

The Librarian answered immediately.

"An ending is the harbor that the characters' lives ultimately reach. A life may be happy, or it may be arduous! Every reader naturally hopes they will be as happy as possible, but I wish to embrace even their sorrow and failures."

"So a bad ending is a perfectly legitimate ending, too."

"Mm, of course."

"That makes me wonder all the more."

I caught the wrist of the Librarian, who was trying to circle behind me, and confiscated the scissors. The Librarian hopped up and down trying to retrieve them, but was too short to reach.

"Even without my intervention, [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] reached a proper ending. A bad ending, yes."

"..."

"Master and the Murim Alliance Leader did their best right up to the end. They tried. Even if the Murim Alliance Leader died first and Master lost her mind... that was still the ending she reached."

I looked into the Librarian's eyes.

"Why is [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon] included among the apocalypses? Librarian, does the Murim Alliance Leader dying, and Master losing her mind and taking her own life, not even count as an ending?"

In truth, this question had been on my mind since I saw the fairy tale 'Our Scapegoat, Mine and Ours.' Regardless of whether I could personally accept it, that world seemed to have reached an ending through the natural course of events.

The constellation fell silent.

Only the breathing of the unconscious hunters flowed quietly through the library, soft wheezes and sighs. As their chests rose and fell, the Librarian remained expressionless.

"For some reason, I wanted to see a happy ending. Would that not suffice?"

"If you don't like the ending, you can change it yourself."

"..."

"You're powerful. To a hunter like me, you seem omniscient and omnipotent. Yet instead of fixing the apocalypses yourself, you sent us."

In other words, this constellation was a 'reader.'

A reader who abhorred intervening in a story and merely accepted it. Someone who never wished to take the position of an 'author.' Who refused even if it was possible.

A reader who never personally intervened.

Known as the [Shut-In Librarian].

"Shall I try analyzing your character, too? Someone this thorough wouldn't classify something as an apocalypse simply because it ended strangely. That goes for Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon and the other apocalypses. There must actually be some other reason an apocalypse gets classified as one."

"... You truly do not let things slide easily."

The Librarian smiled ruefully.

"Follow me."

The Librarian took my hand and picked up a book with the other.

Its title was Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon.

"... I shall tell you the truth about the apocalypses."

The constellation opened the book.

And light overwhelmed my vision.

3

When I opened my eyes, we were in the world of snowfields.

But we had no need to walk across them. Still gripping my hand tight, the Librarian flew through the winter sky, long sleeves fluttering like the wings of a wild goose.

"If."

We passed over the snowfields.

"If the zombie virus were an epidemic that had arisen naturally within [Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon]. If that had truly been the case. As you said, I would never have made this place an apocalypse."

We crossed the snowy mountains.

"Then that means..."

"The zombie virus is not a disease that arose here on its own. It is a plague brought entirely from the outside world. Much like the New World being invaded by foreign powers."

The Librarian sighed, releasing a white breath.

"There, it is in sight."

It was a towering mountain peak.

This world's sacred peak.

At its summit, which touched the ceiling of the sky, lay something enormous.

[Sparkle senses an ominous energy.]

The holy sword at my waist trembled.

Noticing this, the Librarian spoke.

"Oh? Your sword seems to sense it as well. Nothing strange about that. The sword you carry was once a complete constellation, too. One quickly recognizes another in a similar plight."

"A similar plight..."

"Gongja, have you ever seen a constellation fall from heaven?"

A fall from heaven. The Demon King of Autumn Rain. Hungry Ghost.

"Yes, I have."

"Then have you ever seen the corpse a constellation leaves behind after dying?"

"..."

"As I thought, you have not."

The Librarian smiled forlornly.

"It is quite a rare sight, so take this opportunity to look closely."

It was a dragon.

A dragon's corpse.

A dragon lay dead on the mountaintop.

Its hide, which must once have been smooth as silk, was burned black. The horns on its head crumbled like coal. A wish-granting jewel, broken in two, lay buried in the snow.

And.

[Sparkle senses the presence of her sister.]

A sword was embedded in the center of its chest.

[Sparkle says that is the Holy Guardian Sword's second sister sword, the Sword of Compassion!]

Black turbid energy seeped from the sword.

Judging by its properties, it could be called aura. But it was no ordinary aura. It resembled what had surrounded the Demon King of Autumn Rain—no, it was something far, far murkier. The surging turbid energy enveloped the dragon and blanketed the snowy summit. Whenever white snowflakes fell onto the peak, they were immediately infected by that energy and dyed black.

"It hurts..."

Pitch-black eyes.

"How unjust..."

Moans leaked from the black dragon's eyes, which had lost their light.

"It hurts. Oh, it hurts..."

"I suffer."

"How unjust. It aches. It stings. It hurts..."

For a moment, I was at a loss for words.

"... Didn't you say it was dead? It's still alive."

"It is already dead. What you see and hear there is merely the corpse's resentment. Once a being attains the stature of a constellation, even death cannot be a peaceful affair."

The two of us landed on the snowy peak.

Nearby, the black dragon let out endless moans.

The Librarian gazed with sorrow at the fate of a constellation.

"The epidemic your party called the zombie virus. Its true nature is a curse."

"A curse..."

"Mm. A curse left behind upon the death of this martial world's constellation, [Yellow Dragon Dwelling in the Great Lake]. A grudge that cannot die even in death. A corpse already dead, yet with its flesh remaining, forced to endure suffering. When the people of the martial world were infected by that curse, they became living corpses."

I looked up at the dragon's corpse.

"It hurts..."

The host of the plague. The epicenter of the curse.

The disease that destroyed this world had begun in that very corpse.

Ultimately, the dragon's curse was also the reason Master had lost her life.

"... Unless the constellation stabbed itself in the chest, someone must have killed it."

"Common sense would suggest so."

"Who did it?"

"You already suspect the true culprit."

I ground my teeth hard.

"Lefanta Aegim."

"Indeed."

The Librarian nodded.

"His epithet is Heaven-Slaying Star. He crosses the boundaries between worlds and kills constellations."

Sparkle had told me that a constellation was a being that represented its world.

"And a world that has lost its constellation is like a castle that has lost its defensive walls. It becomes more likely to meet an abrupt destruction such as this."

An apocalypse.

A world whose representative had died, and whose inhabitants had all disappeared.

"Why does that bastard kill constellations that haven't done anything wrong? If he founded the Aegim Empire, he should stay in his own country and play emperor. Why go around ruining innocent worlds?"

"That I cannot answer for you."

The Librarian studied my face.

"I am no more than a reader. You called me omniscient and omnipotent, but that is not true. If anything, I am omniscient and impotent. I can know the truth of a world, but I do not intervene in it."

After speaking self-deprecatingly, the Librarian suddenly pointed at my waist.

"But you are different."

At the sword hanging there.

"You can intervene, and you do. Whether you wish it or not, you are repairing, one by one, the things someone else has broken."

"..."

"Once may be coincidence. Twice is a connection. By the third time, it becomes inevitability. You saved the empire the Heaven-Slaying Star abandoned, took in the constellation he split apart, and now have arrived in a world destroyed because of him."

The Librarian said,

"The means used to kill [Yellow Dragon Dwelling in the Great Lake] were vicious and cruel. An ordinary person cannot even lay a hand on that sword. But you can. Gongja, your coincidences and connections have overlapped to form a single inevitability."

I looked at the black dragon's corpse again, murmuring inwardly.

'Sparkle.'

The holy sword trembled faintly.

[Sparkle replies, "Yes, Hero."]

'What do I need to do to take in your sister?'

[Sparkle says you need only draw her and touch her to her sister sword.]

'All right.'

I drew my sword.

The winter air split apart.

I struck the sword embedded in the black dragon's chest with my blade.

[The Goddess of Protection absorbs her fragment.]

In an instant, my blade was enveloped in light.