The Art of Gold Digging

Ch.53— The Library

Back in her original world, Amy had seen drawings of the Library of Futures in the Quest for Avalon manga, and even back then, despite how much she disliked the series, she had to admit the artwork was incredible.But the real thing was beyond anything the manga had shown.

The first thing that she noticed was the scale. The ceiling was so high up that if it weren't for the pillars made of marble placed between the seemingly infinite shelves, she would have thought there was no ceiling at all, and instead just a white sky.

Just as expected of a Library, it was replete with shelves and books, which gave it the smell of old paper characteristic of these places.

Amy was sitting at the front of the group with her bloody hands at her sides, and Libris pressed against her chest.

She looked around at the others who—just like her—had been resting after fighting Abaddon, took one long breath through her nose, stood up, and spoke.

"We should get going."

The only ones who seemed to acknowledge her words were two. Zayd fell into step beside her without a word while Iris pushed herself off the wall she'd been leaning against, rolled her shoulder once with a wince, and muttered something about sleeping before walking towards her.

Amy glanced back at the others. Lyra stood with her arms wrapped around herself, observing the environment silently, while Ash was still sitting in deep thought. Lain was leaning against a shelf while looking at the floor, a bit farther away from everybody else. And as for Crow, he simply stared at her in silence without moving from where he stood.

Amy opened her mouth, considered repeating herself and adding something about how it was almost over, that they had made it, that they should just keep walking a little longer—

Then she closed her mouth.

Whatever. It didn't matter. They would follow or they wouldn't, and she was too tired to be a shepherd.

She turned back around and began walking. Iris and Zayd followed.

"Stake."

But then a male voice stopped her. Amy turned her head slightly to look at the black-haired boy with a stoic expression.

"The key," Crow said in a completely emotionless voice as he watched her fixedly. "You said it needed preparation time before it could be used and that it couldn't be activated immediately."

Amy's eyebrow lifted.

"The timing," Crow continued, "I was listening closely, and it happened right before the barricade gave out, which was very convenient. That's why I want to ask you… Was it chance?"

Amy stared silently at him. She considered for a second what to say, and eventually decided that the best course of action to avoid problems later was to be frank; if her actions were to be shown in the manga as they were, the readers would know either way.

"No, it wasn't chance," she said after a pause before turning and starting to walk again. "I lied."

Iris suddenly laughed.

Meanwhile, Crow didn't answer, and nobody stopped Amy as she kept walking. The conversation ended exactly there.

Amy could instinctively feel the gazes on her back getting harder, but she ignored them while continuing to look at the shelves as she walked, following a trail of white books, just as the protagonist party had done in the manga. Then, as she kept walking, she heard footsteps somewhere behind her, adding to those of Zayd and Iris; the others had finally woken up, she supposed.

"So," Iris said as they walked, breaking the awkward silence.

Amy glanced at the girl walking by her side.

"Where are we going exactly? Is there a desk to check in at?"

"There is," Amy responded.

Iris looked at her while tilting her head for a few seconds before frowning. "And where is this desk then? Like, are we going towards it?"

"You are in front of it, dear."

It wasn't Amy who responded. The voice came from in front of them.

Everybody stopped walking.

"...What the hell?" Iris said.

One moment, they had been walking through a labyrinth of books with seemingly no destination; the next, they were standing in front of a desk where all the shelves seemed to circle, giving the sense that they had reached the Library's epicenter.

It was a large desk made of dark wood, and on its surface sat an inkwell, a stack of papers, and a few books.

Behind the desk sat a woman. She was watching them with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She had red hair and white eyes. Two black curved horns were on top of her head, and she wore thin golden glasses. As for her clothes, she wore a simple white tunic dress.

"Congratulations. You've made it," she said. Her voice was soft and calming.

Nobody moved for a second. Then Iris leaned toward Amy and spoke out of the corner of her mouth. "Is that—"

"I don't know," Amy said, which was not entirely true, but close enough.

"You don't need to whisper," the woman said with an amused smile. "The acoustics in here are extraordinary. I hear everything."

Iris straightened.

The woman folded her hands on top of the desk and regarded them. "Please, come closer. You've come a very long way, and standing at a distance is unnecessarily theatrical."

Amy, wanting to be finally done with this, started walking first. The others followed, some more slowly than others.

As they drew nearer, Amy could see the woman more clearly. After being transported to this world, she had gotten very used to pretty people, yet this woman felt like another level. Combined with her warm atmosphere, she gave the feeling of being someone you could trust at first glance, maybe by design.

When they stopped in front of the desk, the woman looked at them all once more, then smiled.

"Crow," she said, pointing at him first, then moving along the group. "Lyra. Zayd. Iris. Ash. Lain and Amy. Seven of you. All still breathing and with every limb attached—more or less." Her gaze lingered on Crow for a moment. "Honestly, I'm a little shocked. I completely thought everyone except for Crow would die."

"Who—"

"Zayd," Amy interrupted the speaking Zayd, who seemed to be about to—

"Ssshhhhh."

Amy frowned as she looked at the source of the sound. The woman behind the desk had a finger on her lips and was now looking directly at Amy.

"Just be charitable this time, would you," the woman said with a light, playful tone. "Let me have this."

Amy stared at her.

"I will give you what you want in return, as well as a bonus gift for everyone in case they get mad at you—again. I won't trick you in any way, shape, or form possible, I promise. That is a deal."

A beat of silence passed.

Amy was tired, and the last thing she wanted was to be on the receiving end of whatever this woman's idea of a deal was.

But her words about giving what she wanted were all she needed. After all, the whole reason they were in this Library was to get an object for her, and if she went and tried to antagonize her, things might not go as planned.

Although Amy doubted the woman would withhold it from them, since in the manga it was clear that she had an underlying motive for helping them, she still wouldn't risk it.

Amy exhaled once through her nose.

She said nothing and stepped back half a step.

Zayd, who had been watching this exchange with a visible furrow between his brows, glanced at Amy once more in confusion before hesitantly turning back to the woman behind the desk.

"Who," he said, with a more careful tone than the one he had before, "are you?"

The woman behind the desk tilted her head slightly while looking at him. "Straight to it. I appreciate that." She folded her hands on the desk before speaking. "My name is Azazel. Demon of Knowledge, Keeper of the Library of Futures, and…you may also know me as the Academy."

There was a long silence following her words.

Then Iris said, "I'm sorry, the what?"

"The what, what?"

"The final part. What do you mean by academy?"

"Exactly what you think I mean," Azazel replied. "The building. The halls. The classrooms, the dormitories, the lecture rooms, the gardens, and Building B." She gestured vaguely with one hand. "All of it. That's me."

"You're a building?" Ash said.

"Among other things, yes. In fact, I'm the sole reason you were caught while trying to sneak into Elyndra's office." She said with a bright smile. "You're welcome."

Everyone stared at her in silence, and Azazel stared back with a growing smile.

"What about you being a demon?" Iris asked, breaking the momentary silence that had formed. "I'm not going to get a more detailed answer than that, am I?"

"Actually, you would have gotten your answers, but now that you've said that, I don't feel like telling you anymore, so no."

Iris' face shifted to shock, and she turned to Amy with eyes that seemed to say 'do something'.

Amy did not look back. She was watching Azazel, who gave her a nod before refocusing on everybody.

"I should first offer my congratulations," Azazel said. "You completed the trials. All of you. That is not a trivial accomplishment."

"Yeah," Ash suddenly spoke, from somewhere at Amy's left. "It genuinely wasn't."

"I am aware. I designed them." She paused, then tilted her head. "Although I will confess, I made them easier than I otherwise should have."

"Easier…?" Lyra repeated.

"Yes." Azazel nodded with a bright smile. "The trials are calibrated so that if you don't have strong enough mental fortitude, you will break completely. In your instance, given the particular concatenation of circumstances you had already navigated before reaching this hall, including Abaddon's intrusion inside the nightmare—who, by the way, congratulations on killing—I chose to calibrate them somewhat below what I would usually consider appropriate for beings of your ability level."

"You call that easier?" Ash said flatly.

"Yes," Azazel said. "I do. But anyway, as I was saying, you have completed what was required of you. That means that as per my contract with Headmistress Elyndra, any being who successfully completes the trials and reaches this desk is entitled to ask me one question about anything they desire to know about."

"One," Iris said.

"One," Azazel confirmed.

"A single question."

"Correct."

Iris pressed her lips together. "That feels deeply insufficient given what we just went through."

"I understand that feeling, but please understand that if it were my will, I would eat your souls and have you burned for eternity in hell as I torture you until the end of time," Azazel said, with a completely amicable tone and a bright smile. "Unfortunately, the contract prohibits me, and it also specifies one question. I honor contracts."

Iris chuckled at her words, while the others just stared at her in silence. Only Amy knew she wasn't joking.

"You may take a moment to confer," Azazel offered. "There is no rush. The Library is patient."

"How patient?" Ash asked.

"Considerably more than you," Azazel said, without inflection.

Iris snorted despite herself, then immediately pressed her fist to her mouth when Ash looked at her with a nasty gaze. She tilted her head at him, but he just gave her the cold shoulder.

Amy finally looked away from the two of them and back to Azazel. “I think that’s enough,” she said.

“You are quite right, Miss Stake, I had my fun,” Azazel replied. "Always a pleasure to make fair deals from time to time," Azazel said, leaning back in her chair with an easy, unhurried air. Her white eyes moved away from Amy and slowly across the group. "Alright. Let us begin then. Crow, Lain, and Amy." She folded her hands. "What would you like to know?"

There was a beat of silence following her words.

"Our questions?" Crow suddenly asked with a frown. "You only said three names. Why specifically us?"

"Well, obviously because the others had already asked their question." Azazel's smile didn't waver. "And now you did too."

"What…?" Ash said with a dumbfounded voice.

Azazel looked at him with a smirk and then at the others, whom she hadn't named, in addition to Crow.

"As I said," she said simply, "you have already had your question."

The silence that followed was one of the longest since they had entered this place.

"...I'm sorry?" Iris finally spoke in a very low voice. "We haven't asked anything; what the hell do you mean?"

"Haven't you?" Azazel tilted her head. "Let me see… You have asked: Who is that; Where is this desk; Who are you; What do you mean by academy; You're a building; What about you being a demon; You call that easier; One question." She paused, then smirked harder. "Shall I continue?"

Nobody spoke as the woman sitting at the desk chuckled.

"Each of you has already asked me your question. Several of you asked more than one, which was rather generous of me to reduce to just the first. Honestly, you should be rather grateful."

"She tricked us…" Iris said. It wasn't a question.

"I did," Azazel confirmed. "I am a demon, dear. It's rather what we do."

Iris opened her mouth, closed it, then turned to look at Amy.

So did Crow.

His gaze was not particularly warm.

"You knew," Crow said.

Amy's jaw tightened, and she looked away from him and back to Azazel instead, who received the gaze with an expression of mild amusement and then exhaled through her nose in something that was almost, but not quite, a sigh.

"A deal is a deal," Azazel said, folding her hands once more. "And as for my arrangement with Miss Stake that was formed minutes ago—" her white eyes moved briefly to Amy, then back across the group, "—I did promise a gift. For all of you. So." She gestured loosely with one hand. "Please stop being angry. It makes things slower to proceed."

"You should have told us," Crow said, and it took Amy a moment to realize he was talking to her and not to the demon behind the desk.

She looked at him again.

"If you had consulted us before agreeing to whatever arrangement you made with—"

"I was going to," she interrupted, "but I believed gaining a 'gift' for everybody was a better deal."

"That's not for you to decide. It’s for everyone to choose, right?" Crow looked around at the others.

Lyra and Ash shared nods of agreement. Lain stayed silent, her expression giving nothing. Meanwhile, Iris and Zayd…

“Nah, I’m starting to get used to blondie keeping secrets, kinda endearing if you think about it,” Iris spoke while raising her shoulders. “Moreover, right now isn't the time to discuss that. Getting the secrets out of her can wait till the nightmare is over.”

“I trust your judgment, Miss Stake,” Zayd followed.

Crow frowned at both of them before shaking his head. “You really don’t care that she denied us our questions?”

Amy frowned and, with a headache already forming, glared at him. "If I weren't here, you wouldn't have gotten either the questions or the gift."

Crow's jaw set, and a similar frown formed on his face. "That doesn't mean—"

"I know," Amy said. "It doesn't mean I was right to not tell you. I know that now, and I'm…slightly sorry for it. I still did it. And I'd do it again, though, because it was more than beneficial for us."

Ash, somewhere to her left, made a sound that might have been an attempt to disguise a cough as something else entirely. Iris, to her right, was suddenly very interested in the spine of a nearby book.

Crow looked at her for another long moment, then turned without saying anything else.

Amy turned back to Azazel, who had been watching all of this with a patient, faintly entertained expression.

Azazel received the look, interpreted it correctly, and smiled. "Yes, yes. The gifts." Slowly, Azazel rose from her chair. The smile on her face remained perfectly pleasant as she adjusted her glasses and stepped out from behind the desk. "Come along then. Follow me."