Arsh had noticed the creature had no eyes, yet he still felt as though it was staring right at him from those empty hollows.
'I thought it was blind… or is it?'
A wave of fear washed over him. He knew he only had a second or two to distract it. The creature had already lunged toward their position.
He grabbed a book from the shelf and threw it as far as he could. The thud it made when it hit the ground was loud enough to make the creature shriek and bolt in that direction. But when it found nothing there, its screams grew even more. Each shriek felt like a knife being driven straight into his brain.
Fear was forcing his body to react. Arsh was certain that even if they didn't move, the creature would soon be able to find them just by the sound of their rapid breathing and pounding hearts. He had seen how fast it could run when it charged toward the book. The staircase Arsh had used to get here was now far behind them. The nearest stairs lay behind the creature. Even if they somehow managed to reach them and climb up, he had no idea how they could prevent the monster from following. They had no weapons. If they tried to move, the chance of getting away without stepping on books or dry leaves without drawing the creature's attention seemed nearly impossible.
When he glanced sideways at Walter, crouched low on the ground, he could tell from his face that Walter was just as clueless as he was.
He focused, trying to find where Bera and Mr. Herman were. But he could feel that both golden threads extending far away from them. Although he hoped, somehow, to get help from them, it didn't seem very likely. For a moment, forgetting how weak he actually was, he realized how reckless he had been to come here to help Walter.
'I should have found the others first and come back with them to help… But now it's too late. We have to figure something out on our own' he thought, realizing his mistake.
They needed to distract the creature somehow. At that moment, Arsh noticed that, other than his own heartbeat, he could clearly hear Walter's heart pounding right beside him. If he could hear it, then the creature would surely hear it too.
"Can you do something about your heart? The sound will attract it," Arsh said, moving his lips without making a sound.
He wasn't sure Walter would understand, but Walter did and responded the same way.
"What? How am I supposed to control my heartbeat when that thing is right behind us?"
"We need something that can make noise."
Walter shook his head, clearly telling that nothing came to his mind.
Arsh kept looking around, but there was nothing except books and bookshelves. A few more times, he threw books as far away as he could, trying to draw the creature's attention away from them. Still, he wasn't sure how long that trick would continue to work.
"Can't you pass through walls?"
"I almost ran out of all my strength while escaping before you arrived."
Then, as he kept looking their surroundings, an idea flashed through his mind. He signaled Walter to come closer.
"On the count of three, push the bookshelf with all your strength. As soon as it starts to fall, run to the stairs behind it as fast as you can," he whispered.
"Is this going to work work?"
"I hope so."
The creature lost interest in the last book Arsh had thrown and began moving toward them again.
The two of them pushed the bookshelf with all their strength, but it was heavier than Arsh had expected. Walter was quite strong, but although they managed to shift it slightly, they couldn't bring it down. Still, the noise they made had already drawn the creature's attention.
At the last moment, they both took a step back and, once again, pushed the bookshelf with all their strength. This time, it worked. As the shelf began to topple forward, they sprinted into the corridor on the opposite side, of the creature.
When the falling bookshelf slammed into the one ahead, it set off a chain reaction. One after another, the shelves collapsed in succession. The bookshelves, which seemed to stretch on forever, continued to crash into one another. The creature, maddened by the noise, run through the collapsing shelves.
Arsh hoped this would buy them at least a minute or two. As they rushed toward the stairs, he suddenly felt something snag around his foot, slowing him down.
"What the hell is this… Ugh, disgusting."
It was the black mucus like liquid dripping from the creature's mouth. He felt like crying from disgust but there was no time for that.
As the bookshelves continued to collapse one after another, the noise drowned out Arsh and Walter's footsteps, preventing the creature from focusing on them for now. With their hands pressed tightly over their ears to block out the shrieks, they raced up the stairs as fast as they could.
When Arsh felt they were far enough away, he formed a golden thread between himself and the creature.
"We're safe for now," Arsh said.
"How… huff… do you know?" Walter replied, bent forward, struggling to catch his breath.
"I'll explain later," Arsh said. "First, we need to find Mes."
However, through the golden threads, he could now sense that Mes was very far away. He didn't understand how, but the library seemed to be constantly expanding and shifting. Everything felt like an illusion.
This time, he focused on Bera and Mr. Herman. Unlike before, they were no longer far away—on the contrary, they were relatively close.
"Mr. Herman is on this floor. Let's find him and then move on together. Follow me."
Walter looked better than he had moments ago. Although he had said the night before that his ability was called guide, he didn't really know what that meant exactly. He knew that siuni names were usually meant to define an ability in a single word, but he had never been curious enough to dig for deeper meanings. Also, it wasn't a siuni he had ever heard of before. Still, rather than questioning it, following this new guy who acted as if he knew exactly what he was doing felt like the easier choice. So he quietly began to follow Arsh.
They kept running between the bookshelves, but the space felt endless.
…
'What if something happened to them? How am I supposed to explain this to Reiner? How do I tell him that they vanished right in front of my eyes… I shouldn't have shouted at Walter like that. Even if he's been a troublemaker since childhood, he's always been a good kid…' Herman thought.
He was sitting on a chair, holding a gun in his hand, trying to piece together everything that had happened. About an hour and a half or maybe two hours earlier, he had suddenly found himself inside the library even though only a moment ago he had been in the exhibition hall. But what was even stranger that the place was nothing like before— books scattered everywhere, mixed with branches and dry leaves.
When Mes said that something was bothering him and that he wanted to go back down to the exhibition hall while they were searching for Walter, Herman had gone with him. After they descended, he had only taken his eyes off Mes for a single moment—just long enough to look down to figure out what the sticky thing beneath his foot was.
When he lifted his head again, Mes was gone.
No more than a few seconds later, Herman found himself here.
Although he searched for the others, he couldn't find them. Then he heard Walter's voice along with the sounds of a strange creature he couldn't identify. He moved toward the direction of the noise, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't locate them. When he went upstairs, the sound seemed to come from below; when he turned left, it came from the right.
In the end, he decided to sit down for a moment to think and figure out what to do. But instead of finding a solution, he sat there, consumed by guilt, convinced that something terrible had happened to Mes and Walter. One hand hung limply at his side holding the gun, while his other arm rested on the table.
When he heard those disturbing screams again, he waited to recognize Walter's voice, or perhaps Mes's this time. But he heard nothing else.
'I couldn't even protect two kids. I just hope Bera and Arsh are safe…'
Herman usually worked in the police branch of the FFSD. Gathering intelligence was his responsibility, and he rarely struggled while on duty, especially since his job sutible with his siuni. But the situation he was in now was completely outside his job description. He had thought this was just a simple missing persons case and didn't really think it would be related to an artifact even though his superiors said so. These days a lot of people were getting lost so he didn't give attention unlike himself. Instead, he had found himself trapped inside a library that had suddenly turned into an endless labyrinth.
As he stared blankly ahead, a dark silhouette appeared between the bookshelves. He raised his gun instinctively, but the moment he recognized who it was, he lowered it again.
"Arsh… are you here too?"
When he saw the pale face with red hair appeared right behind Arsh, a huge wave of relief washed over him.
"Walter… Walter, come here…"
He rushed toward Walter and hugged him tightly.
"Mr. Herman… Mr. Herman… Uncle Herman, what are you doing?"
Walter tried to push Herman away, but when it came to physical strength, Herman was clearly stronger.
As Arsh told Walter again to stay quiet. Mr. Herman kept saying that he had thought Walter was dead, that he was sorry for shouting at him so much in the past, and rambling on in a rush of guilt and relief.