The door behind Noah groaned shut.
He didn't touch it. Didn't have to. The stone moved on its own, slow and final, sealing him in with the dark.
Ahead: a long corridor. Cold and narrow, yet tall enough to swallow cathedrals. It stretched forward endlessly, lit by the same blue lanterns that had followed him since the ballroom—hung like dying stars in iron sconces along the walls. Their light didn't flicker. It pulsed. Like a heartbeat.
Noah stepped forward.
His boots clicked softly over cracked marble veined with silver and bone. The air here was thinner, sharper. Like the place was still remembering how to breathe.
And the silence?
It wasn't empty.
It watched.
He passed a fallen banner, shredded and curled. It might have once displayed a crest—some noble house, or royal line—but now it was too faded to read, nothing more than dust held together by memory.
Then something caught his eye.
He stopped.
The walls—lined with frescoes.
Painted directly onto the stone. Worn but intact. Preserved by magic or mourning. And though the style was elegant and dreamlike, it told a story as clearly as any book.
Noah tilted his head and stared.
The first panel showed a bed.
Dark wood, deep blues, golden trim. A woman lay on it—pale, sick, her body sunken with illness. Beside her knelt a man in robes and crown. Hands clasped. Face shadowed in grief.
The second mural: the same man. Sitting on a throne, stiff and lonely. The throne beside him empty.
Noah's lips parted slightly.
The queen.
Gone.
The third image: three hooded figures entering the throne room, black robes trimmed in crimson. Their faces were shrouded, heads bowed. The king stood to greet them. A flicker of desperation in his posture.
"Those black mages…" Noah muttered under his breath. He remembered the ghost-woman who disturbed his sleep. Her rage. Her grief.
The fourth panel: the queen, standing tall again, smiling. The king beside her, whole.
Miracle.
Cure.
But the fifth panel shifted the tone. Darkness threaded the corners of the throne room. The hooded figures stood farther in the background now, cloaked in shadow. Something unnatural spilled from their feet—inky tendrils stretching toward the crown.
The sixth panel—
Was broken.
The wall had cracked violently at this point. Marble split from ceiling to floor, obliterating whatever image had once been there.
Noah stared at it for a long moment.
"What happened?" he murmured. "What did they do?"
He didn't expect an answer.
But something behind him shifted. Stone moved. A breath exhaled where no one stood.
And Noah's pulse started to rise.
A whisper of motion stirred the corridor.
Noah froze.
He hadn't moved. Not a breath, not a step. But something behind him—had.
He slowly turned his head.
Nothing.
Just the flickering blue lanterns and that long, mournful hallway stretching back into darkness.
Still—his skin itched. His body knew.
Another breath. Another step forward.
And then he heard it.
Soft. Deliberate.
Step. Step. Drag.
Noah ducked low and pressed himself against the wall, spine cold with sweat.
He edged to the corner where the corridor forked—then risked a glance down the left-hand path.
A shadow moved across the far wall.
And then—it stepped into view.
A hooded figure.
Exactly like the ones from the murals.
Tall. Robed. Face lost beneath a shroud of deep gray fabric. No footsteps, no sound now—just an eerie glide, like silk over ice. Something hung from its waist—a chained relic or staff, maybe—but it never looked up.
Noah held his breath.
His mind sprinted through possibilities: ghost? memory? system event? boss?
He backed away.
And something to his right moved.
Another shadow—closer this time, slinking up the wall beside him like smoke.
Panic took over.
He turned and ran—not back toward the murals, but away—down a short hallway on his right. Broken stone gave way to a massive iron door, carved with sigils that shimmered as he passed.
He didn't think.
He pushed.
And it opened.
The air shifted the moment he crossed the threshold.
Warm. Dry. Scented with parchment and dust.
He stumbled into a circular chamber, tall as a cathedral, ringed with tiers of bookcases that climbed into shadow. Spiral staircases coiled upward like twisted vines of bronze. Lanterns floated freely in the air, blue and green and violet, casting soft halos over leather-bound tomes, ancient scrolls, and cracked glass cases.
A library.
A throne of knowledge buried beneath a corpse-city.
Noah staggered to a halt.
His heartbeat slowed—not calmed, but caged, like a wolf behind fragile bars.
No footsteps followed.
The doors creaked shut behind him.
And then—
"Ah," a voice said from the shadows, calm and faintly amused. "A visitor. How rare."
Noah spun, raising the cane like a weapon.
A man stood near one of the floating lanterns, half-transparent, his robes silver with threads of deep green. He had no shoes. His fingers glowed faintly at the edges, and his eyes shimmered like old glass under candlelight.
He was not alive.
But he smiled.
"You've taken your time getting here. What kind of tome do you seek today, young master?"
Noah opened his mouth. Closed it.
The ghost tilted his head politely.
"Well? It's not often we get castle-borns requesting books in person. Are you with the College? Or one of the high families?"
"…I'm new," Noah said finally, brain scrambling to catch up. "I, uh. Got turned around."
"Mmm." The ghost nodded. "They all do, eventually."
Noah licked his lips. His palms were sweaty against the cane's grip.
"I do like books, though," he said, grasping at the thread. "A lot. I just—there's one I have, but I… can't read it. I don't know the script. Is there something that could help?"
The ghost blinked.
And then smiled brighter than before.
"Ah! A lover of tomes, and a humble one at that. Excellent. Then yes—yes, we most certainly do."
He turned, robes trailing like mist, and floated toward one of the nearby tables.
"A certain brilliant engineer—a dreadful student but clever hands—designed a series of enchanted spectacles precisely for this problem. To read the True Script, you see, when the mind is still too young to know it."
He reached under a desk.
Then frowned.
"Hmm. Not here. Not here…"
Noah watched warily.
"You'll have to retrieve them yourself, I'm afraid. Second floor. Take the right-side staircase and look for a glass chest beneath the northern window. They should be in a velvet-lined drawer. You may take one."
"...Thanks," Noah said slowly.
The librarian nodded.
"I'll be here. Just don't drop anything enchanted. Again."
Noah made his way toward the staircase, mind buzzing.
He didn't know whether this was a dream or a glitch in reality.
But for now?
He had a chance to read.
The staircase creaked beneath his boots, each step dusted with years—or centuries—of neglect. Noah moved slowly, eyes flicking toward the balconies above, half-expecting another hooded figure to lurch out and ask if he'd accepted darkness into his heart today.
But no.
Only silence. Only the steady float of lanterns above, drifting like deep-sea creatures through an ocean of still air.
He reached the second tier.
The bookshelves here loomed taller. Older. Their titles pulsed faintly in unreadable glyphs—some etched into bone, others into what looked suspiciously like skin. He didn't stare too long.
The northern window was little more than a cracked arch facing solid stone, but beneath it sat the glass chest the librarian had mentioned.
Noah approached and crouched.
Sure enough, inside: a row of antique spectacles resting on dark velvet. Some were cracked. Others warped. But one pair gleamed faintly with runes etched into the lenses.
He opened the case.
It didn't bite him. A win.
He grabbed the glasses and stood, wiping them instinctively on his blood-smeared coat before realizing it only made them filthier. He sighed. Put them on anyway.
The moment they settled on his nose, the world shivered.
The runes around him… shifted. Letters once unintelligible began to twitch, rearrange. Not into perfect English—but into something close enough for his brain to wrap around.
Noah blinked.
"…That's new."
He descended again, slower this time, and returned to where the ghost had left him. The librarian seemed content—shelving spectral tomes with the patience of a saint and the presence of a corpse.
Noah sat.
Tugged the blue book—the one from the ballroom chest—out of his satchel.
Faith Weaving: A Beginner's Guide to Channelling Belief through Cards
He opened it.
This time, he could read.
"To those chosen by Fate: You do not cast spells by will alone. You cast them by belief. To believe is to shape the thread. To thread is to change the world."
"Your relic is your channel. Your Arcana is your source. Your body is the loom. Begin not with the grand, but with the simple: the first weave, the Flick of Faith."
Noah raised an eyebrow.
"Flick of Faith," he muttered. "Sounds like a slapstick church attack."
Still, he turned the page.
"The Flick of Faith is the first weapon of the weaver—a conjured card, charged with emotional intention and launched with precision."
"To cast: Visualize the card. Feed it intent. Hold it in your hand. And let it fly."
"Beginner tip: Do not overcharge. We do not refund vaporized items!"
Noah snorted.
"Great. Death by greeting card."
He stood and walked to an open stretch of floor. Focused.
Visualized.
A card.
Not one from the real world—but one from his deck. Something elegant. Blank. Waiting.
He held out his hand.
Nothing.
He breathed slower.
Focused on how he felt: exhausted. Angry. Determined not to die without at least denting something.
The air shimmered.
A flicker of white appeared between his fingers.
A card—thin, humming, inscribed with shifting silver lines.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
He aimed it toward an empty space between two shelves.
Flicked his wrist.
The card shot from his hand like a razor of light, spinning fast, cutting the air—and then exploded.
BOOM.
A pillar cracked. Shelves toppled. Ancient books screamed. A gout of ghost-flame erupted like startled fireworks, hurling shattered parchment across the floor.
Noah stood in stunned silence.
Then looked down at his hand.
"…I could get used to that."
"WHAT—IN THE SACRED NAME OF THE ARCHIVIST—WAS THAT?!"
Noah winced.
The librarian floated around the corner, robes fluttering in outrage.
"Do you think this is a dueling hall?! This is a sacred archive, not a fireworks stand!"
"Sorry!" Noah called back, not sounding sorry at all. "First spell. Got excited."
The ghost sputtered, indignant and muttering something about "barbarians with books."
But Noah wasn't listening anymore.
Because the air had changed again.
He felt it first—then heard it.
A door.
The massive door leading into the library—once only cracked—was creaking open.
Wider. Louder.
Stone groaned.
Lanterns flickered.
Noah's blood turned to ice.
He didn't need to check.
He knew.
The hooded figure had heard.
And it was coming.
Noah didn't run.
He hid.
Far in the back of the library—past ancient shelves and spiral staircases choked with vines—he slipped behind a wall of heavy tomes, crouched between a fallen globe and a cracked display case labeled "Golem Theory: Volume XI."
From there, he could just barely see the library's main entrance through a slit between two bookshelves.
The door had opened fully.
And standing in the archway was the hooded figure.
Silent.
Still.
It didn't step inside. It didn't need to. It filled the space just by existing.
Noah felt his heartbeat in his throat.
The librarian—still mid-rant and floating toward the wreckage Noah had left—stopped.
Mid-sentence.
His glow dimmed.
He turned toward the entrance slowly. Palms together. Head bowed.
"Ah… My Lord."
His voice was no longer angry. It was… childlike. Reverent.
"My deepest apologies. There was an unfortunate accident. A… delinquent. An unruly one, yes. He summoned a spell without supervision and caused minor damage, but I shall repair it, I promise—"
The hooded figure did not respond.
Not with words.
It lifted one arm.
Long. Fluid. Unnaturally smooth.
Noah squinted.
The hand wasn't a hand.
It was black. Pure black—dripping, like thick tar. It shimmered where the blue lantern light hit it. Something about it made his teeth itch.
And then the fingers twitched.
And snapped.
The sound was soft.
The librarian stiffened.
Then began to disintegrate.
Not collapse. Not scream. Just… vanished—his body dissolving into glittering threads of dust, evaporating like a burnt page caught in wind.
Noah stared.
Mouth slightly open.
"…Okay," he whispered. "Holy shit. I'm so unbelievably fucked."
The figure didn't move.
It just stood there.
Watching.
And then—something began leaking from the shadow beneath its hood.
Not light.
Not even darkness.
Shadows.
Actual, living shadows, curling like black smoke, poured silently from where its face should've been and spilled out across the marble floor. They moved like water across ink—slick, slow, hungry.
They crept toward the bookshelves.
Toward him.
Noah's breath caught.
He inched further behind the shelf.
And then the shadows changed.
Out of the inky mass, tendrils emerged.
Not smoke. Not cloth.
But flesh.
Viscera-like ropes, twitching and glistening—moving like eels beneath the surface of water, phasing in and out of sight, warping the air around them.
One of them brushed against a pillar.
The stone hissed and cracked where it touched.
Noah's eyes widened.
He didn't move. Didn't breathe.
The shadows crept closer.
He clenched the cane in his hand, knuckles pale, heart hammering.
Tendrils flickered at the edge of vision—half-there, half-nightmare. The whole library warped with wrongness.
Noah exhaled through his teeth.
"Great," he muttered. "Of course I get dumped into a goddamn Elden Ring world—with flesh trees, whispering ghosts, and hentai shadows—when all I wanted was a chill Isekai with a hot top harem, maybe a castle, and no tentacles."