TRPM 300

chapter 300

“…There were scribbles here too. Do they make the book hard to read?”

When I showed the librarian the markings in the book, he sighed and asked like that. Hearing him, I flipped to the next page for a moment and…

‘…They kept scribbling from this page onward.’

Starting in the middle of the book — what meticulous scribbling. I thought that to myself and nodded at the librarian. One page of scribbles might be tolerable, but with this much it would be hard to read.

“It looks like it’ll be inconvenient.”
“Really? Then I’ll get to work right away.”

The librarian said that and took the book from me. He slid the defaced book into a mechanical device next to his desk with the pages open.

“Let’s see…”

He then started operating the computer connected to the machine. This was…

‘A book-restoration device. Not that complicated.’

It seemed to use magic to improve the condition of the paper, then bleach the page white, and finally print the original content again with a laser printer.

‘Which means that computer must have the exact contents of every book in this library registered on it.’

Otherwise it couldn’t print the original material accurately. But it wasn’t as simple as just putting the book in — the librarian was taking the book out after restoring a page, turning to the next page, and putting it in again, repeating the process page by page.

‘If they upgraded that machine a bit they wouldn’t need to do that tedious work… but maybe they figured it’s cheaper to make the librarian do extra work than to invest in an upgrade.’

I felt a little sorry for him. After a long while of restoration work, the librarian finished and handed the book back to me.

“When you’re done reading, put it back where it belonged. If you can’t remember where it was, just leave it on the desk or bring it to me. Okay?”

He said it like a plea. Apparently a lot of people put books in strange places. Then it becomes the librarian’s job to find every misplaced book and return it to its proper spot.

‘Besides…’

I glanced at a stack of books piled to one side. Before I arrived, the librarian had been flipping through them as if checking something. Those were probably books from the return box in front of the library, and he was likely checking whether any of them were damaged.

“Okay, take care.”

I said that and turned away from the librarian. A little later, back at my desk reading, I could hear the librarian muttering to himself.

“Ha… someone even tore out pages. Given the size of this volume…”

…So it wasn’t just scribbles; somebody had torn pages out of some books. The librarian inspected and restored those too. Being a librarian wasn’t only that, of course — besides organizing books, he had to handle a bunch of other miscellaneous library tasks.

‘Must be exhausting…’

With that thought I returned my gaze to the book. I felt sorry for the librarian, but I had no intention of meddling.

Tap tap.

While I was reading, someone tapped my arm. It was Kim Eun-yeon, who had been reading a chemistry book beside me.

“Could you… recommend any books on alchemy…?”

She must have finished the chemistry book in the meantime. She asked me to recommend alchemy books, but…

“Well… I’m not sure this library even has books on alchemy.”

Books on alchemy are rare. There are very few alchemists in this world, and among those alchemists, hardly anyone writes books to pass on knowledge to others. The few books that do exist are compilations — the World Awakened Association organizing collected alchemical knowledge obtained from alchemists.

“But you’ve probably read those books already.”
“Yeah… I read the translations and the originals.”

If that’s the case, I had nothing to recommend to her on alchemy. Before my regression, I also learned alchemy from those books. Knowledge you can’t get from books, you obtain by experimenting yourself.

“Then… how about a book on dungeon ecology?”

The book I wanted to recommend wasn’t directly about alchemy, but more like a dungeon encyclopedia. It didn’t only cover monsters commonly found in dungeons, but also catalogued herbs that grow around those monsters.

‘Although it mainly covers herbs with high demand.’

It didn’t list the herbs’ effects in detail. But Eun-yeon already had those memorized, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Okay… I’ll take that.”

Eun-yeon said and stood up. She put back the book she had been reading and went to find the one I suggested.

‘It might not be there, though.’

Because the book focuses on in-demand herbs and monsters, it’s popular with Awakened people, so there’s a good chance it was already borrowed. The library probably stocked multiple copies, but it’s possible all of them were checked out.

“…Geon-woo.”
“Hm?”

After Eun-yeon disappeared between the stacks, I went back to reading. Then Lee Ha-eun called to me.

“Why?”
“Wanna look for secret places in the library?”
“?”

What was she talking about all of a sudden? I glanced at the book she was holding.

‘Ah…’

The book in her hands had changed from a magic theory text to a novel about mages. She must have grabbed it while I went to the librarian and waited for the restoration.

“Does the library in that book have a secret room?”
“Yeah.”
“…Even if the book’s library has one, there’s no way the real library would have such a space.”

If it were a library with historically valuable old texts, it might have restricted areas to preserve such documents. But our neighborhood library isn’t anywhere near that big. And even if there were such a space, it wouldn’t be the kind of secret room Ha-eun was imagining.

“We could at least look around, right?”
“That would bother other people.”

There were quite a few patrons in the library besides us — many appeared to be preparing for exams like the college entrance exam or professional certifications.

‘It would be rude to disturb those people.’

A library should always be quiet anyway.

“But… I can sense a ward in the library…”

Ha-eun mumbled that. I replied as if it were obvious.

“Of course there’s a ward. Don’t you know anti-theft magic?”
“Ah…”

A ward that sets off an alarm if a book leaves the library without checkout. It’s the kind of ward you can find anywhere the state runs an institution, not just libraries.

‘…If they could install wards like that, they should have also inscribed contamination-prevention runes on the books registered to the ward.’

Then books wouldn’t be damaged unless someone intentionally tore them. Maybe the maintenance cost for magic would be too high, though. Anyway.

“Too bad… I wanted some fun adventures in the library.”
“Don’t look for that in a library — go to a dungeon.”
“Still, could you check if there’s any hidden spot in the library, Geon-woo? Just in case?”

Sighing at Ha-eun’s request, I briefly widened my senses. I had narrowed them before to focus on reading, but they quickly returned and I began to feel everything happening in the library. And naturally…

“There’s no secret room.”

I couldn’t find the secret space Ha-eun wanted.

“Tch… too bad.”
“……”

I sighed for Ha-eun and started to reduce my senses again.

“…?”

If I hadn’t felt something strange, that would have been the end of it.

‘…No way…?’

Could there really be a secret spot? Even thinking that, I looked toward where the odd feeling was coming from.

“Hey? What’s up?”
“…I need to check something for a moment.”
“Is it a secret…?”
“No, I don’t think it’s that.”

It was too small to be a secret room. The presence that made me feel odd was small enough to hold in one hand.

“…What is that?”

I approached the shelves like in a trance and pulled out a single book. There was something in this book. At least that’s how I judged it.

“…A novel?”

Ha-eun asked when she saw the cover of the book I had taken out.

“Hmm… I haven’t checked the contents, but it looks like an autobiography.”
“Really? How can you tell?”
“Sense.”

That was all I could say. I hadn’t read the contents, but for some reason the book felt like someone’s autobiography.

‘Whose autobiography, though?’

Where the title should be written, there was the word “Life.” Life of a person… But strangely, there was no author or publisher information on the cover.

‘The call number on the side shows it’s definitely a library book…’

While I was thinking that…

“By the way, Geon-woo.”
“Mm?”
“To me, that book looks totally ordinary.”
“…What?”

Ha-eun said that, and I had to ask back.

“Are you sure?”
“Yeah… I didn’t use detection magic, but I don’t feel anything.”

If even Great Mage Ha-eun couldn’t sense it… whatever was in the book must be hiding its presence well. It didn’t look like it could conceal itself so completely, though. I looked closely at the book.

‘Ah, I roughly get it.’

After scrutinizing the book, I realized what was inside and why Ha-eun couldn’t sense it.

“A soul…”

Even Awakened ones generally can’t observe a person’s soul. Ha-eun was the same — even a Great Mage has limits. But I was an exception.

[Samādhi is the ability to perceive the essence.]
[Not just energy like mana or aura, not only invisible waves like electromagnetic waves.]
[Soul (靈魂), thought (思想), concept (槪念)…]
[To put it plainly, Samādhi allowed me to observe things close to those.]

Seeing the world through Samādhi, I could detect the soul contained in the book. In other words…

‘Right now, this book actually contains someone’s soul itself.’

It was natural my expression hardened at the realization.