Chapter 13

Chapter 13 : Let’s Change the Look (3)

On the very lowest floor of the castle.

There was a Record Archive in the hardest place to reach, even from the great tree that formed the castle’s central axis.

“If it is that you want, go to the Record Archive. The Archivist is quite kind about such things.”

When I asked Ochel about this thing called a Frame, that was the place she recommended without a second’s hesitation.

The problem was that entering it required the Archivist’s permission, and because his movements changed every day, she said it was difficult to guarantee when I would actually get in.

If my luck was poor, it could take days. She even added that perhaps I ought to just ask Pan again instead.

And yet.

“Oh? Ohhh? Ah!”

A person carrying a stack of books taller than herself came stumbling right in front of me—right in front of the door to the Record Archive—and sent them crashing down.

Naturally, since I had been crouched there waiting, the books came pouring down on me. Some hit me, and some rolled across the floor.

I blinked as I looked at her, wide-eyed and even more startled than I was.

Her short, softly curled pale green hair was so round and layered that it looked like lettuce. Each layer fluttered as she moved.

I hurriedly began picking up the books after her.

“Waaah! So you are that Underfolk, are youuu?”

At some point the books had ceased to matter, and she had darted closer, her eyes sparkling.

Still holding the last book, I rose awkwardly without even managing to hand it back to her. She looked ready to seize me by the hand and drag me away.

Where to?

A laboratory.

“Rumors really have spread this far, then.”

“Oh, if you mean the Underfolk who was walking around dripping bright red blood everywheeeere, then yes. The rumors spread quite a bit.”

“Ahaha…… that is not quite right.”

“Not right? But I saw it myself.”

Were you the source of the rumor?

“So what are you doing here? If you loiter around here and get caught, I am going to kill youuu.”

“Keh, khh.”

I choked on my own breath.

After coughing several times and finally calming down, I looked back at her, still smiling brightly.

So you are the Archivist, Ru.

I gently placed the final book atop the stack in Ru’s arms and swallowed.

I did not need anyone to tell me separately that if I said the wrong thing here, she really would kill me.

Meeting Ru’s tilted gaze head-on, I opened my mouth.

“There was something I wanted to look up.”

“Oh my, are you a spy?”

Her eyes alone looked as though they could kill a person.

“……If I were a spy, I would not have been waiting out in the open, would I?”

“Then what exactly did you come all this way here to look forrr?”

“I heard that if I came to the Record Archive, I could find out what I wanted to kn—”

“—Hmmm.”

Cutting me off with an exaggerated sigh, Ru shoved the whole stack of books into my arms.

I caught them by reflex, first startled by the weight, then briefly wondering just how monstrously strong Ru must be if she had carried them one-handed, before deciding to stop trying to imagine it.

“So you are curious about Frames?”

“……How did you know?”

Had Ochel told her beforehand? Or Pan?

Caught off guard by the sudden correct answer, I could only laugh awkwardly without being able to recover.

“I can think of just the right book for that. Ah! Help me put these away, and I will give it to you. My lord said that since you are Slave No. 1, I should feel free to take you out and use you whenever I need.”

Chezer Pan, damn you.

The huge door, much taller than I was, swung open, and the smell of books from inside the Record Archive washed over me.

The dizzying height of the bookshelves was impressive enough, but what stole my attention was the enormous space and the other tree towering in the center of it.

The Record Archive itself had been built inside the trunk of a gigantic tree. And though another tree was growing within that space as well, the way it occupied the center without making the room feel crowded was nothing short of wondrous.

Where the roots had descended, more bookshelves had been stacked layer upon layer, and the scattered lights between them made it barely possible to guess at the endless quantity of books stretching on without end.

Ding!

【Field】 Treasure Hunt—This One Won’t Be Easy

You have stepped into the largest Record Archive of the Surface Folk.

Before you can even collect yourself in the face of this tidal wave of books, something about it strikes you as suspicious. Within this Record Archive, which houses approximately fifty million volumes, you must find the Trace Left by the Master of Phantasms.

▶Fragment of the Original Work (Bound)

〈Tip〉 The location of the volumes may change daily at the discretion of the librarian.

〈Tip〉 The quest will not be canceled even if you leave the field (common to all Field quests).

Was treasure hunting your hobby or something?

Ignoring the Field Quest that had barged into the side of my vision, I obediently followed Ru deeper inside. There was no way I could start rummaging around while the owner of the archive was standing right there with her eyes wide open.

“Actually, only the Archivist and my lord are allowed in here, but surely they would not kill youuu, would they?”

Stopping before a desk beneath a tree that looked like a zelkova, Ru swept aside a scatter of dried papers rolling across it and took the books from me.

“It is messy, but sit anywhere.”

Pale dust rose every time the papers scraped across the surface. I had covered my mouth with the back of my hand and started to choose a usable chair, but gave up.

Every chair was equally buried in dust, so I simply chose a place as far from Ru as possible and sat down there.

“Can you write at all?”

“Write?”

“I need a copyist.”

I could not answer carelessly.

I had confirmed that my language synchronization allowed me to read and speak, but I had never tested whether it extended to writing.

Tilting her head, Ru seemed to think of something at last and let out a long, satisfied sound, then shoved a blank sheet of paper toward me.

“Try writing.”

“Anything?”

“Hmmm. Let us compromise with something like: Assistant Pering pulled out his hair again today. What are you waiting forrr? Write.”

After sitting half-lidded in thought for a moment, Ru presented me with that absurd sentence as an example.

I picked up the quill stuck into the holder beside me and began writing the sentence I had formed in my head.

Even I found the handwriting somewhat surprising.

“Waaah, why did you only come now? It is such a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Slave No. 1.”

Ru stared fixedly at what I had written, then seized my hand and shook it up and down.

The unpleasant feeling that I had gotten myself into trouble, for some reason, proved entirely correct.

Ru, with a refreshed and deeply satisfied expression, cheerfully dumped an enormous mountain of papers on me, along with full copies of every book I had helped carry in.

“Is this really the amount of work one can finish in a day?”

“Come back tomorrow too.”

Eyes curved into crescents, unable to hide her delight, Ru spun in circles and vanished between the rows of bookshelves.

A book ghost had definitely possessed me just now.

---

My arms, my wrists, my neck, my shoulders, even my back.

Thanks to Ru, who at least fed me while working me to the bone, I ended up trapped in the Record Archive all day long.

Aside from my body suffering, it was not entirely bad work.

I had no intention of immediately taking on the Field Quest—when exactly was I supposed to search through fifty million books?—but part of me had harbored the shallow hope that if I settled in and looked around long enough, I might stumble across it by chance.

And the material I was copying by hand was excellent for gathering information, since it contained all sorts of incidents and small daily matters that occurred here.

The only problem was that nothing was organized by importance, so rather than a well-structured account, it felt closer to an observation log.

After writing dozens and then hundreds of pages of that sort of material, the stories had become so tangled in my head that I could no longer easily separate out the events relating to any one subject.

“And you are comfortable assigning this sort of work to someone you treat like a spy?”

“Did you not say you were not one?”

That was the answer Ru gave when I asked, roundabout, how much longer this had to continue.

In other words, keep going.

I rotated my aching wrist and narrowed my eyes.

Not one of the sections I had copied contained anything about Frames—the one thing I had actually wanted. There was no choice but to conclude that Ru had deliberately set aside that information somewhere else.

Why?

So she could use me as free labor.

“What exactly is the Acrophobia Support Group?”

It was in the section I had just been copying, submitted in the form of a report.

Out of all the things on the page, that was the one that drew my attention, perhaps because I found it unexpectedly moving that enough people here suffered from that sort of condition for there to be an actual group.

Everyone here lived in the air, after all.

Whoever it was, I could not help sympathizing. Life must be miserable if one suffered from acrophobia in a place like this.

“Ahhhh, that one. It is on the verge of being suspended because there are not enough applicants.”

That sounded about right. Of course.

No one born and raised in trees dozens of meters above the ground was likely to have a fear of heights.

“……Why are you looking at me like that?”

Perhaps because I had nodded along too readily in understanding, Ru had somehow approached me without my noticing, and was now staring at me with shining blue-green eyes full of expectation.

‘This happened before I even started copying.’

The feeling of foreboding was so strong that I shook my head before she could even finish speaking.

“Riwin—”

“Whatever it is, I am not doing it.”

“—do you happen to have acrophobiaaa?”

“No.”

“There is exaaactly one person missing.”

“I said no. I do not. Absolutely not.”

Why, then?

Why, despite my firm refusal, did I somehow end up signing myself into that ridiculous scam of a group?

Let me state once more that it was absolutely not because of 〈Easy Even for Children! Bringing Out Your Frame (1)〉.

---

Improving people’s perceptions of me was, admittedly, necessary.

Even after dyeing my hair and cutting it to reveal my eyes, rumor spread more quickly and more strongly than any firsthand impression.

I could not remain shut up in an attic forever, so I decided to try, as Pan had said, to make an effort.

If I wanted to change the ending of the Original Work, then I had to broaden the range of my life here and learn to function sensibly alongside other people.

So I joined the fear-of-heights support group that was on the verge of being abolished.

I piled up a number of reasons afterward to justify it, but let the record show that it was forced.

The first meeting of the support group was held at the very top of the castle.

“Ru?”

“Welcome! You are most welcome! Waaah. Clap, clap, clap.”

Standing there on the terrace at the very top, where the wind blew freely, Ru welcomed me by making clapping noises with her mouth instead of her hands.

“It looks as though I am the only participant.”

“Yes! That is right!”

“So there were no participants at all, and then I signed up and…… whew.”

I pushed back my hair and gave her a pleasant smile.

“Ru? This is what people call fraud.”

Only now had I learned that the group, which had been ready to be discontinued with zero participants, had been revived because I signed up. Faced with that, I felt on the verge of transcendence.

What happened to my bright, sensible social life?

It was over.

“If you are going to live here, this is essential general education!”

They had planned it all. Pan, Ochel, Pering, Ru. They were all in it together.

No wonder Pan had kept snickering under his breath while cutting my hair yesterday.

“Riwin, you look muuuch better with your hair cut.”

“Because of the eyeballs?”

“Ah! Please refrain from such vulgar language…… though to be honest, I do rather want to gouge those eyes out and take them.”

Good Lord.

Was that not even more vulgar?

I quietly widened the distance between us and gripped the railing jutting out at the side.

I had never had acrophobia to begin with, and all that remained now was a little trauma from that fall, so there was really no longer any reason for me to keep this support group going.

More importantly, I decided I would use the opportunity to ask about a few things in that book I received yesterday, the Easy Even for Children one or whatever it was called.

“About the book you gave me yesterday. When it says I should open my hand and focus, what exactly does that—”

“—Riwin? Idle chatter is prohibited.”

“It is not idle chatter, it is a question—”

“—Questions unsuitable for the group are not permitted.”

“That is not the point. The method for bringing out a Frame needs an explanation. Everyone keeps dodging the subject, but would it not be easier to just tell me directly?”

Ru tilted her head and looked genuinely unable to understand why I was even asking.

At least, that was how it felt to me. As though she were staring at me like someone wondering why I was asking such a thing after being handed such an easy book, and why I was so fixated on Frames in the first place.

“Riwin really knows nooothing.”

“I lost my memory.”

“That is not what I mean. It would be better if you did not know about Frames, you know? Most Underfolk Frames do things to the surroundings……”

Ru suddenly clamped her mouth shut in the middle of the sentence.

Do what to the surroundings?

Frowning, I urged her to continue.

After Pan had already all but confirmed that I really was Underfolk, I had no intention of denying it one by one anymore. But what about an Underfolk Frame? Why? What does it do?

Why did you stop talking?

“Ru?”

“All riiight! The fear-of-heights support group’s first mission is! Drumroll, drumroll, drumroll.”

“Ru, you were in the middle of explaining what an Underfolk Frame does.”

“Go and retrieve the lost item waaay down below.”

At the same time, Ru pulled out a rope and threw it at me.

There was no time to react.

In an instant, the rope wrapped around me in a blur and wound itself tightly around my legs and waist.

A chill prickled up the back of my neck.

My body screamed at me to tear it off at once. Cold sweat poured down my spine, and beyond my shaking vision, Ru smiled as brightly as ever.

“Aaaah!”

When I came to my senses, I was already in midair.

Once again, I was falling.

No, why, again, what was even the problem this time?