Despite being this busy, he was also training at the Ministry. I knew he was an overachiever, but that sounded like a bit too much.
“You’re training? Aren’t you tired?”
Jeord was usually smiling as if nothing could stop him. That made sense to me when I was playing the game and he was just a character, meant to be charming above all, but now he was a real person, who could get tired and even hurt. The problem was how good he was at hiding that.
“Thank you, but I am fine. You, on the other hand, seem quite exhausted. What is the matter?”
Does it show that much?
“I’ve been doing research for work, but with no results.” Of course I couldn’t disclose any details, but I figured that saying that much would be fine.
After thinking for a moment, Jeord replied. “It is often the case that when you cannot find something, it was right beside you all along.”
“Is that a quote?” I asked, intrigued.
“Yes. Mine.”
I dropped my jaw in surprise, and, while my mouth was still open, Jeord threw something inside it.
What?!
I was obviously surprised at first, but quickly realized that it was a piece of chocolate.
“Nothing quite like eating sweets when you need energy. Next time you are free, by all means, let us partake of some delicious dessert together,” he said while gently caressing my head.
Whether it was because of the sweet chocolate melting in my mouth or because I was being patted on the head, I started feeling warm inside.
Sora then came out of the library as well, and was as surprised as I was to see Jeord.
“I have heard that you are looking after my Katarina here at the Ministry. You have my gratitude,” the prince told him.
“Oh, no need to mention it,” Sora, somewhat taken aback, replied.
The bell signaling lunch break rang, and we were joined by Maria and Dewey. Jeord, after greeting the two, reminded me of his invitation and then left.
The four of us then went to the dining hall together. Along the way, I heard Sora murmur to himself, “Phew, that was scary. He was smiling, but his eyes were burning. Was he trying to threaten me or something?”
He sounded tired from all the reading as well, so I decided to give him a couple of good recommendations for lunch.
After recharging with a good meal, we went back to work. Once again, I was silently flipping through the pages of relatively ancient books together with Sora. I kept reading and reading, but found nothing useful. I let out a big sigh.
“You are working really hard,” I heard someone say from behind me. It was the smiling librarian, who had come to put some books back. She must have heard me sighing. I’d spent the last few days in the library, so she was getting used to seeing me.
“Yes... I’m looking for something, but I can’t find it no matter how much I search,” I said.
“That must be tough. I only wish I could help you somehow,” she replied, looking preoccupied as she saw my clearly exhausted face.
“Thank you, I really appreciate that.”
“If you are having that much trouble finding what you are looking for, perhaps it is back in the forbidden library?” she said with a laugh.
“Forbidden library? What is that?”
“You have never heard about it?”
“Not until now!”
“I see... Perhaps people outside my department do not hear about it as much,” she said, referring to the Library Department. As it turned out, the existence of this “forbidden library” was common knowledge there.
“It is a special section of the library that only a few select people can enter.”
“What?! That kind of thing exists?” I said, and she laughed again.
“Hahaha, of course not. There are a lot of rumors about it, but that is natural for a place as old as the Ministry. Every department has its own stories and myths.”
“Oh...” I said, disappointed, and she gave me a few words of encouragement before returning to the counter.
If there really is such a place as the forbidden library, the covenant just has to be in there. If this was a game, it’d be a given. You open the door and there it is, the shining covenant, waiting to be picked up.
Too bad we aren’t in a game. Wait, what? A game? Scratch that, we are in a game! And FL2 is set in the Ministry!
With that in mind, I realized that the forbidden library probably did exist. I looked at Sora, who was close enough to have heard the conversation between me and the librarian.
“Hey Sora, what do you think of that?”
“I think it’s worth a shot. We should probably tell the others about it,” he said after thinking for a while.
And so, we went to the corner of the library where Maria and Dewey were sitting.
“This word connects to this one, you see?”
“Oh, you’re right! Dewey, you’re so smart!”
The two were hunched together over a single book, with Dewey explaining something difficult to Maria. His face now looked red and very happy.
I can’t interrupt his moment of joy like this. Maybe I should wait, I thought to myself.
“I know what you’re thinking, but we have no time for that,” Sora told me before barging in. He could be so cold...
Since Sora’s entrance had disrupted any semblance of romance anyway, I followed him up to our two friends and explained what I’d heard from the librarian.
“I have never heard about this forbidden library...” said Dewey, looking thoughtful.
“Neither have I, but we are still newcomers, after all. Maybe Mister Lanchester or Miss Larna know something about it,” said Maria.
That made sense — even if we didn’t know about it, our bosses, who’d been working here for years, might.
“But the librarian said that it was only a rumor, right?” asked Dewey.
“Well, yes...” I said.
Of course, I couldn’t explain to him that it was likely to exist because we were living in a game. As I struggled for words, Sora came in to help.
“It may only be a rumor, but so what? The book we got from the professor is a fairy tale for kids, and we’re still using that as a hint,” he said. Both Dewey and I looked surprised. “What are you getting surprised about?” he asked me.
He probably thought I should have realized that from the beginning, which I had, but I hadn’t given it any deeper thought than that.
Sora looked at me with an expression between disappointment and despair and went on talking. “Just because it’s a rumor doesn’t mean there’s no truth behind it. The book we got from the professor is evidence of that. So the rumor about the forbidden library could also be based on a real place.”
Oh, that’s impressive. Sora wasn’t brainy in the same way as someone like, say, Dewey, but he was smart in his own way.
“I agree. We should ask Mister Lanchester about it,” said Maria, who, unlike me and Dewey, didn’t seem to be surprised by Sora’s words. She had a determined look on her face.
And so, we took a break from reading through the books and went to ask Cyrus about the forbidden library. Luckily he had just finished one of the tasks he was working on, and he happened to have the time to come with us to the meeting room to listen.
“Unfortunately, I’ve never heard about that,” he said, looking troubled, “I know that there are many strange rumors around the Ministry, but I don’t really involve myself in anything that isn’t directly related to my work, so...”
I’d forgotten about it after his confession on the vegetable field, but Cyrus wasn’t really the type to talk about things other than work. It was no surprise that he wouldn’t know about rumors.
“We would probably have better luck asking Larna Smith about it. I don’t know whether she’s there, but I’ll try going to the Magical Tool Laboratory,” he said as he made to leave.
But we couldn’t ask our boss to do that, especially considering how busy he was. Larna work
ed in the same department as Sora and me, so we offered to go look for her ourselves. With that, it was decided that I would be the one to go, so that Sora (who was better at that kind of thing) could report on our progress on the ancient books.
When I opened the door to my department’s office for the first time in a few days, I was met with the sight of my colleagues looking dangerously tired.
“...Are you people okay?” I asked while standing at the door. When they noticed me, one of them raised his voice until he was basically screaming.
“Lady Claes! Is your special mission finished?!”
“N-Not yet,” I stammered. Disappointed, he collapsed onto his desk.
I was still looking at him, trying to understand what was going on, when Laura walked towards me. She asked me the same question and, upon hearing my negative answer, reacted with just as much disappointment as her colleague.
“Excuse me, but what is happening here?” I asked her.
“Miss Larna disappeared again. And what do you know, just as she did that, we were hit by an avalanche of documents that need our attention. As a result, everyone is so overworked. If that special mission ended, Miss Larna wouldn’t leave the office as much...” she said, staring into the void.
My earlier hope — that Larna might learn to be responsible by seeing Cyrus’s example — was dashed.
Since I couldn’t find her, all I could do was go back and report that to Cyrus. A newcomer like me wouldn’t be able to help my colleagues with the paperwork anyway. I’d just be a nuisance.
“I’m sorry I can’t be of help. I’ll be going,” I apologized.
“Don’t worry, I know you have other duties to attend to. But why did you come here in the first place? Didn’t you need something?” Laura asked.
Despite being so tired from work, she was still thinking about me. I was lucky to have colleagues like her.
“I wanted to ask Miss Larna about one of the Ministry’s myths, but since she isn’t here, it doesn’t really matter.”
“The Ministry’s myths? You mean one of those rumors about the place?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes. Why, do you happen to know anything about those?”
“Not really. I don’t care much for myths. But I know someone who does,” she said, then told me the name and department of that person. “It’s not too late. You should be able to see her if you go right now.”
I thanked Laura for her help and hurried to the department she had told me about. The workday was almost over, but I wanted to ask her about the library today if I could. The sooner we found the covenant, the sooner Larna would be back at the office, and the sooner my colleagues would get some help with all of their work.
I was running so fast that I reached my goal in no time. I took a deep breath, looking at the plate on the door that read “Biomagic Research Department.” I’d visited this place a few times so far and regretted it every single time. If the director caught me, he probably wouldn’t let me go for quite a while.
I knocked very lightly on the door before opening it, hoping not to be found by either Delius or that wretched monkey. The serious-looking woman standing right next to the entrance looked at me with some surprise.
“Oh, you’re the girl from before...”
“Before?” I repeated. She looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t recall where I’d met her.
Seeing my confusion, she laughed dryly. “I’m sorry that our director and his monkey caused you so much trouble back then, and then again not much later.”
“Ah... You’re the one who came to visit me after I lost consciousness and then helped me a few days ago!”
She was the woman who’d dragged Delius to me to make him apologize! And then, she saved me when he was bothering me in front of his department!
She smiled and nodded, confirming my hypothesis.
“Thank you for all of your help, and also for your present when you visited me after I lost consciousness,” I said, referring to the snacks she had brought me while scolding Delius and the monkey.
“Don’t mention it! It was all our fault to begin with,” she said.
Seeing her apologize again made me feel for her. She wasn’t to blame for anything, yet she had to deal with all the problems caused by her director and his monkey...
Thinking about it, I got nervous at the idea that the monkey could appear again out of nowhere.
“Don’t worry,” she said, noticing that I was looking around, “the director is at a meeting today, and the monkey is in its cage.”
I let out a sigh of relief, which made her laugh.
“Anyway, can I help you with anything?” she asked.
I said that Laura had told me that a certain “Alice” from this department could help me with my search.
“Oh, that girl... Sure, I’ll call her here for you. Just wait,” she said with a troubled expression.
Why did she react like that? I’ve got a bad feeling about this...
She came back, followed by a girl so beautiful that she looked like a doll. Since she was probably older than me, I should have thought of her as a woman rather than a girl, but she was so short and cute that she looked younger.
Interestingly, her getup also made her look like a friend of Laura’s. She hadn’t changed her uniform drastically, but she had adorned it with several small ribbons, similar to the big one she had on her head. Her face was covered in meticulously applied makeup, and her nails were painted cute colors. She was treading the fine line between acceptable and unacceptable work attire (unlike Laura, who had crossed the line by so much that she’d probably lost sight of it).
“I’m Alice. What do you want?” she asked me as I was staring at her. Her voice was much colder than I’d expected from her lovely appearance.
“Oh, yes, I’m Katarina Claes from the Magical Tool Laboratory. Miss Laura told me that you were knowledgeable about the Ministry’s myths, and I wanted to ask some questions about them,” I said, and her eyes immediately started sparkling.
“Are you interested in the wonderful legends surrounding the Ministry?!”
“W-Well, I need to learn about them for work...”
“Oh, I see... work. So, what do you want to know? I’ll answer all your questions!” she said, still looking at me with sparkling eyes and completely forgetting that I had mentioned work. I was happy that she’d help me, but her eyes reminded me of Delius’s when he was talking about animals.
I told her that, rather than listening to her by myself, it’d be better if she could come to the meeting room and talk in front of everyone.
“Vice-director, my work for today is done, so I’ll go with this girl. She said she wants to learn about the Ministry’s myths, so I just have to help her,” she said to the woman I’d been talking to before, who I now realized was the vice-director of the Biomagic Research Department.
“Okay,” she said, looking concerned, “but try not to bother anyone.”
“Me? Bother anyone? I’m going to help them! They’re going to be grateful, if anything!” Alice replied, pouting.
The vice-director saw us off silently. Her expression told me that I was in for some trouble, but I was glad that I could at least find someone to ask about the forbidden library.
Everyone in the meeting room looked confused when I walked in with Alice, so I explained what had happened.
“You’ve got quite the dream team here...” Alice murmured to herself.
After all we had Cyrus, the director of the most popular department, and Maria and Dewey, who were known throughout the Ministry as two of the most promising newcomers.
“So,” Alice then said to all of us, her attitude unchanged despite being in front of Cyrus, “which myth do you want to hear about? I know around 30 of them.”
“There are that many?!”
I thought that there would be seven, like the stereotypical seven myths circulating in all the schools of my old world.
“Of course — the Ministry is large
and has a long history. Some are similar to each other, though, like the ones about the screaming voices one can hear at night, which...”
“Thank you, but we don’t really care about that. What we want to know about is the library,” said Cyrus, stopping Alice before she could start her enthusiastic lecture.
She looked a bit displeased, as she obviously wanted to tell us about those stories. Nevertheless, she obliged.
“There’s the one about the cursed book that kills everybody who opens it after a few days, or the one about the invisible librarian who wanders through the library at night...”
That’s not quite it... I mean, those sound scary, but I don’t even like horror stories. That thing about the invisible librarian is enough to make me determined to never go to the library at night ever again...
Cyrus, unlike me, seemed completely unfazed. “That’s not what we’re looking for. We’re interested in something called the forbidden library. Do you know anything about that?”
“Oh, that one?” Alice replied, and her glaring expression changed to one of boredom.
“Don’t you know about it?” Cyrus asked, again completely unfazed.
Surely he’s noticed how her expression changed, right?
“Of course I do, but it’s very boring as far as stories go.”
Cyrus asked her to explain, and, despite being clearly disappointed, she did.
“It’s a story so boring, in fact, that most people outside the Library Department probably don’t even know about it. There’s a special library that only a few select people can enter... That’s it.”
“And does it really exist?” Cyrus asked, and Alice grinned.
“That I don’t know. It’s a very old story, so it could be true, but it could also just be a rumor.”
“I see. You said that the people in the Library Department know about this. Do you think there’s someone in there who could tell us more?”
“I doubt it. You’d probably only hear what I just told you. I like researching myths, even the boring ones, so I already asked all the librarians about it.”
My Next Life as a Villainess Page 13