The beast rushed them with a tremendous burst of speed. "You're mine!" she shouted, before a harsh force tackled Noah into the ground.
Looking up, all he could see was tens-hundreds-thousands of legs, all eager to strip him of his clothes and touching him. As he cried out in shock, he tried to extricate himself from beneath her, only for the legs to latch onto him. As he turned to the group of heroes he was accompanying, he gasped out. "Help!"
As the lights in the sky began to flicker repeatedly, he watched as the Centipede, still grasping onto him, twisted her tail only to land a devastating blow on a hero, throwing him into a tree and breaking his spine. "Oops! I think I went a bit too hard there." she giggled, not caring about the damage she'd dealt or the fact that the lights were turning on and off, on and off, on and off... what?
As Noah began to blink repeatedly, both from the lights flickering and the lack of sense that the vision before him was making, his eyes focused once more on the figure before him. "Hm. A whole three minutes. I was beginning to wonder whether you would have a heart attack before you snapped out of it."
The woman... no, the monster before him, finally pulling back the finger that was repeatedly tapping the lamp in front of her was dressed sensibly... at least, the part of her that was. A leather sleeveless jacket, white shirt, and a blue tie. A black skirt flowed down where her legs would be... up until it reached her monstrous body. A red, fleshy mass that opened in a pink opening, with grey tentacles sprouting out of every which section of her body.
Looking back to her humanoid part, he saw that she had long, blue straight hair, a pair of glasses on her face, and elf-like ears. He squinted his eyes to make out what a small card on her bust said, before reading
「Hello, my name is: |
| Cornelia 」
...why was she out of her book?
"I..." Noah fought against the dryness and the taste of bile in his mouth. "Sorry, I had a moment there. Forgive my rudeness. I am going to heal my hand now, because this pain is very distracting."
Her lips, previously set into a thin line, quirked up slightly as he muttered the incantation to himself. Disappointingly, the pain only lessened, rather than disappearing entirely. "Fufufu, a human with manners. Those are rather rare to find. Especially given that it's clear to see you can't stand the idea of talking to me."
Noah remained silent, prompting her to continue. "So, what does Ilias' dark horse want with me?" Noah's lips quirked downward, but as he went to speak, she scoffed harshly. "And do not dare insult my intelligence by pretend like you didn't mean for this meeting to happen. For the entirety of last week you paced and stared at the exact library containing the one book we inhabit like a caged tiger, and I know for a fact any follower of Ilias would have us fed to the pyre in order to rid of the monster presence. So, what is it that you want? Is it knowledge? Perhaps a desire to kill me personally, instead of doing so with your fellow knights? Or..." Cornelia's voice turned sultry, as she wiggled her tentacles. "Is it that you've acquired a taste for the pleasure only a monster can bring?"
She watched in satisfaction as Noah shuddered, though she was left slightly disappointed as a woman as she failed to detect even the slightest hint of arousal.
"An... associate of mine has informed me that you could help me with learning how to properly do magic." He eventually managed to speak out. "I know humans aren't permitted to read the book concerning the spirits, but that's fine. Anything will do."
At that, the de-facto queen of Page monsters hummed. "I very well could. It would be easy, for me, in fact; your capabilities are similar to that of a monster child." As she saw the light of hope shine for a moment inside Noah's eyes, a sadistic smirk appeared on her face. "But I won't. Why should I? Your request is about as ridicolous as a lamia suddenly reaching out to the King about becoming a nun." Noah's face took a weird turn at the moment, but he managed to suppress it.
"I cannot imagine you allocating that power to a good cause. And that is also the reason why I cannot let you live." She offered him a dark smile.
Noah, previously trying to force himself to act like he didn't feel himself in danger, gasped. "What?!"
"Don't be daft. You are as clear as a picture to read as they come; a scared little boy, left traumatized by a monster, gets picked up as a hero by the Goddess. He reveals a talent for magic, becomes powerful, and suddenly, the oppressed becomes the oppressor. I hold the power in my hand right now to nip that in the bud." She said, smiling sadistically as her tentacles swayed. "Don't worry- I'll make sure your death is very pleasurable."
Slowly, Noah began to inch away, as though his movement would go unnoticed. Cornelia's smirk grew. Might as well have a bit of fun before her meal.
"You would be going against the Monster Lord's orders of attacking humans only in self defense, you know that?" Noah nervously replied, a hand slipping behind him. "How about a trade? I know of a prophecy, that concerns you and this library. That, in exchange for my life and some information?"
Cornelia adjusted her glasses, subtly dispelling whatever magic the kid was trying to cast. While she wasn't afraid of whatever paltry spell he could conjure, it could very well damage the books. "Cute attempt. No. The Monster Lord isn't here right now, is she? And I believe, given what you will grow up to be, that she will understand a minor infraction in the name of peace."
Inside Noah's mind, something dark stirred, as his opponent's desire to kill him became more and more apparent. This... monster was truly the only appropriate way to call her heinous existence, had decided to kill him for the sole crime of being human. Not out of hunger, or because she was ordered to- she was actually going against orders, because she'd decided herself judge, jury and executioner of him, because she'd decided on her own that he would go on to do the same to other monsters.
How ironic. He wanted to laugh. But instead, his voice came out to barely above a whisper. "How unfortunate."
*tink*
As he showed both of his hands, you could hear a pin drop, with how silent the library was. And that's exactly what the two of them heard, as his hand clutched an item in a white knuckled grip.
Cornelia's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing?"
Noah's words came out in a hate-filled sneer. "Well, since you decided to pass up the chance to educate me and want to go straight for the kill, let me educate you on something instead. Now, I'm not a very smart man, but thankfully, this is a very simple contraption." He showed his hands, one empty, and one clutching like a lifeline the lever of a small object. "What you just heard fall was the safety pin that normally keeps the lever in place. What I am holding now is the safety lever, which, as long as it is held tightly, prevents the mechanism from going off." He paused for emphasis, showing off the item.
"This, is a bomb. A firebomb, to be exact. Anything happens to me, this thing goes off. And I don't know about you specifically, you monsters are stupidly sturdy like that," his grin was manic, and his eyes shone with malice. "But I know you book monsters are weak to fire. So anything happens to me, and you, me, this library and all of your monster underlings get engulfed in flames."
Cornelia, previously triumphant and sadistically satisfied, was panicking. "You- you're going to die too, killing who knows how many humans in the process!"
"I'm going to die anyways if you have your way, am I not? Might as well go down in a blaze of glory. Or you can give me what I want, and we all get to go home and rest easy."
The blue haired woman's eyes were darting around, trying to see a way around this, and glancing at her fellow pages who were all hidden around them, nervously staring at the spectacle. It would be easy, trivial even to kill or incapacitate the human, but right now, the library's survival was contingent on his! Eventually, she sighed. "Fine. I will give you something from my private collection that will help you master the magical arts. Let me just check that it's the right one..." she murmured as she began speedreading. Something was tickling at the edge of Noah's mind, but he waited to see.
"Fool." She finally said, her eyes once more shining with a mysterious light as her book of hypnosis slammed shut. Immediately, the man went slack, but still was standing. She couldn't use her Eye of Sleep, or it might cause him to drop the damned device, but her Eye of Domination would just cause him to also drop it to play with himself.
He wouldn't be jumping at the chance to serve her, but she could definitely order him around in this state. "What is the thing you are holding?"
"A firebomb." He confirmed, and Cornelia sighed. She was really hoping it was a bluff. "How is the device disabled?" She asked next.
"You can't. It can only blow up somewhere it doesn't hurt anyone."
"I see. Now come over here, then, and hand big sis the bomb so no one gets hurt."
"...no." Noah murmured. Cornelia's eyes shot wide open. The human was swaying on his feet, his body eager to comply with her request- but somehow, he was resisting her.
"Didn't you hear what I said! Give it here!" Cornelia lumbered forward, lumbering forward to close the distance, but somehow, despite clearly remaining hypnotized, the human swayed out of the way, mumbling something.
"What did you just say?" Cornelia asked, beginning to get quite irritated.
"I said," suddenly, a crossbow was jammed into Cornelia's gut. She gasped from the point blank shot, reeling backwards- it didn't damage her much or touch anything vital, but it hurt. "Try to touch me again and this whole library goes up in flames."
The two glared at each other scornfully, the hatred of two enemies willing to kill each other if they just had the barest of chances to, though Noah was hiding behind the shadow of his wizard hat- a wise choice, given that almost all of the skills she had to block him required eye contact.
"My hand is getting tired." Noah threatened through grit teeth. "So what will it be?"
Cornelia scoffed, but before she could reply, a shrill voice cut through the air. "STOP IT!"
The two of them turned in surprise, coming face to face with something unexpected. A blonde young woman, wearing nothing if not a few pieces of dark armor that did nothing to cover her and left nothing to the imagination and a pair of glasses. "Level 100 female rpg armor", Noah thought to himself. However, this was only true up until her thigh; the rest of her body was halfway inside a book. The horns and the tail also identified her as a succubus.
"Augustina-" the larger monster began, but the smaller whirled around with a snarl.
"No, ma'am, you don't get to Augustina me! I'm sick of watching you have a pride contest with a lunatic who'll kill us all just because you don't trust humans!" She shouted.
Taking a deep breath after her outburst, she whirled around. "And you!" As she came face to face with him, she paused to take a gulp, biting her lip and adjusting her hair. "So, uh. Hello, I am Tina, and you are... the first human I see in a long time- I, I mean, you are?"
Face to face with him, she realized it was rather easy to read his face go through various emotions. Anger, confusion, a small pang of fear, and finally, exasperation. "Noah. Not interested." He rejected her immediately. "All I wanted was to get to speak to someone about some fucking reading material. You know, as one does. In a library."
"And how do we know you won't use the knowledge you gain to harm others?" Cornelia challenged.
"I would promise to not do anything to a monster that you wouldn't do to a human, but that wouldn't mean much now would it?" He sneered by way of reply. "You know, I would've been disappointed, but ultimately accepted, just being told that humans were a no no."
"Then leave." Cornelia replied spitefully from behind Tina, and after a moment, the younger book monster tilted her head in askance.
"Fuck no." He growled. As Cornelia went to open her mouth to reply, he cut her off. "I would like to put emphasis on the term 'would have' of my sentence. Now that I've been threatened that I'd be raped to death and had to waste one of my precious grenades to provide the means of, I don't know if you are familiar with the term, mutually assured destruction, we are way past the point of parting amicably. Now, I'm taking a page out of you monsters' book and not taking no for an answer."
"Right." Augustina gulped. "Now that we've established that you are the big, strong man that holds all of the lives of non-queen monsters in this library," she ignored the scoff of her headmistress, as she did the raised eyebrow on Noah's part. "What can we do to send you on your merry way without blowing up the library?" She asked.
"Why don't we just give him the Enchiridion, then?" Yoko, also having appeared from inside her book, suggested. Noah glanced at the new arrival, feeling uneasy, before remembering her as that book girl from the game who wore pajamas and could summon giant hands. Slowly, he took a step back from her.
"Absolutely not!" Cornelia refused immediately. "That book was given to us by the Monster Lord herself-"
'And in 500 years that we've held onto it, we've been no closer to actually finding out what the big deal with it was, besides some healing spells that we cannot even cast. It's perfect! He gets a time-waster of a book at best or something that can't do harm to other monsters at worst, and we get to live!' Augustina, the 667th page, mentally cheered, cutting off the older one. "No, Yoko is right. That is the best outcome right now." She turned back towards Noah, her tail slowly unwinding from a book it was holding. Cornelia was tensing up more and more, but Tina had by now taken complete control of the situation. "We give you this book, since I doubt you'd be interested in direct lessons," the withering glare she received served as confirmation of just that. "And you leave, taking that thing away with you. Forever. Deal?"
Noah's mind was currently reeling from everything that was happening; the death threats, needing to interact with multiple, dangerous monsters, being on the receiving end of mind control, and the knowledge that if at any point he unclenched his hand he would die a fiery death were wearing away at his mind. And now a book that the Monster Lord had given them- different from Four Animists and their Sources.
Slowly, Tina went to hand him the book, which he took gingerly with his mildly burnt hand, nesting it in the crook of his arm. And with that, he slowly grabbed his lantern and backed away, making to leave the library.
"There will be disciplinary action taken for this, Augustina, I hope you know that." Cornelia threatened. "That tome was a relic that the Monster Lord had entrusted for us to hold on to."
Noah paused just as he was leaving. "Weird timing for you to care about the Monster Lord's orders." He sneered mockingly. As he watched her teeth grit, he felt the edges of a smile take hold. He was the one in control here. He could hurt her- hurt them all, so very easily.
But watching the other two book monsters, and feeling so many more sets of eyes on himself... his burning need for reprisal slowly died. He settled for a half-way measure. "You wanna know something, Cornelia, now that I am halfway up the stairs? This is a projectile with a delayed explosion. I could chuck this behind myself and still blow up the library. You're lucky I'm no fucking book-burning Nazi, and that your associates knew manners, unlike yourself."
"...never show yourself in my library ever again. Or else." the voice cut through the air, the promise of violence thick in the air. Noah shook his head with a shudder. "Just you wait for Luka to show up. No sealing bullshit. When you're down, you will die."
And then, he came face to face with a guard just outside the library, staring at him. "Halt!" The knight barked, pointing his lance at Noah. Slowly, he put up his hands in the air in surrender as much as he could.
"Not to be urgent, but I had a vision from Ilias that a vile monster set a trap in the library to make it explode. I found it, but any moment now it's going to blow up and I need to take it far away from the castle." The guard's eyes widened.
"I'll escort you outside."
Noah's expression tightened. "Yeah, let's do that."
Don't you just hate when you try to check out a book at the library, but the librarian is racist and threatens to kill you?
I'm gonna be changing my update schedule! Updating 4 fics all at the same time is hard, man . instead, I will be uploading one update at the start of each month, and every week thereafter, it'll be another fic (In the order of The Elemental Nations Gamer Experience - Comfort By Candlelight - Royal Business - Syzygy). But don't worry! This month, I'm doing my start-of-month update, *and* this new update!
If you wish to support my writing, you can check me out on the place of patrons where I post five chapters ahead. Alternatively, you can always PM me in private if you wish to commission something written where we can hash out the details. Otherwise, a review is still more than enough, and I can't be thankful enough for it.
I now also have a Discord Server! If you want to come talk to me about anything and interact with other people reading my works, here's the link! /xuSVQY7bw3
Drink water, stay awesome. Nick of Name, out. :)