Previously
Ariella meets Philly, a lonely fairy librarian who shifts from cold hostility to ecstatic joy upon finding someone who actually wants to read books. Philly guides Ariella through the massive, crumbling library, revealing a hidden trove of legendary human artifacts and rare magic texts that have been neglected for centuries.
Whoosh—!
Rain began pouring outside. Ariella looked up at the ceiling in utter disbelief. Water was dripping straight through.
Philly, who seemed thoroughly used to it, answered nonchalantly,
“Ah, there it goes again. Just a moment, I’ll fetch some buckets to catch the leaks.”
“I’ll come with you!”
Philly tried to dissuade her, insisting she need not trouble herself, but Ariella wouldn’t hear of it.
“How can you just stand by?! The heritage of mankind and the treasures of the demon realm are about to become a pile of soggy rot!”
Ariella rolled up her sleeves with determination and helped Philly scatter buckets throughout the library. Raindrops leaking through the roof landed inside with steady plinks and plops.
Catching her breath, Ariella asked,
“Does this madness happen every time it rains?”
Philly’s delicate wings drooped along with her mood.
“Yes. The wooden extensions have begun to rot away, and I haven’t been allocated any budget to fix them.”
She added in a dismal tone,
“Important facilities…like bridges, for instance—even if they keep collapsing, they always find money to repair them. But the library never gets a thing.”
“Bridges? What kind of bridges keep collapsing all the time?! They aren’t made of brittle skeleton shins!”
True enough, walking through the territory had shown her that almost nothing was in working order, so collapsing bridges were hardly a shock.
“I mean, don’t the officials here care if these precious books turn into moldy trash?”
“I’m doing everything I can to care for them, but honestly, it’s beyond me.”
Philly thrust out her lower lip, on the verge of tears. Composing herself slightly, she told Ariella that there was something she wanted to show her.
Ariella followed the fairy, and the moment she saw what was inside the room, her jaw dropped in shock.
“Good heavens, these…these precious books!”
Piles of books lay soaked until the ink smeared, their pages torn or invaded by mold until they were utterly unreadable.
‘This is sheer madness!’
Among them were undeniably priceless ancient volumes.
Not just works from the demon realm, but texts from the human world as well.
Yet the biggest problem was…
“These are official records!”
The rainwater certainly hadn’t spared the paperwork. Several ledgers she needed to examine immediately were already ruined.
Left like this, even more documents and books would be destroyed.
Worse still…
‘What if the ceiling caves in? We’ll be buried alive before we can review a single thing.’
Some of the wooden pillars creaked ominously, swaying at the slightest touch. The ancient stone foundation still held, but the shoddy wooden additions were an accident waiting to happen.
Ariella made up her mind.
‘I have to fix this place before the rats eat it alive. The library…and the entire fief.’
“You want to restore the library?!”
Ariella had marched straight to the head butler. The Kobold named Groib perked up his ears in sheer astonishment at her unexpected request.
“However, the budget…”
“I knew you’d say that. If there’s no money in the territory’s coffers, take these gold coins!”
Ariella drew out a few gold coins she had pocketed while fleeing the ship.
“I believe this should amount to roughly five thousand sil in demon realm currency, wouldn’t it?”
The Kobold nodded as he weighed the gold in his hands.
“Yes, that appears to be about right.”
“I would love a complete overhaul, but that’s impossible right now. Let’s put out the urgent fires first so the place doesn’t come crashing down on us. We have to keep the documents from being ruined before we can discover anything.”
“Understood. With this amount, it should be sufficient.”
Hiring the territory’s residents as laborers, purchasing materials, and commencing the repairs would take time.
Ariella, however, had no intention of idling until then. The sky looked ominous, threatening to pour again at any moment.
When Ariella returned to the library, Philly welcomed her with an expression of stunned gratitude. Word of what she had done had clearly reached her.
“Goodness, Miss Ariella! Mere words cannot express my gratitude. To go so far for the library…!”
“No, we’re not done yet.”
“Pardon?”
Ariella looked up at the ceiling. Beyond the gap, dark storm clouds gathered, swollen with rain.
Having sorted through her thoughts, Ariella made a proposal that struck the fairy as utterly bizarre.
“Philly, what do you say we go on a little hunting trip?”
“A hunting trip?”
“Yes. I saw some slimes on my way back.”
“True, slimes are practically everywhere.”
Philly looked perplexed.
Slimes couldn’t be eaten, held no economic value as livestock, and caused no real harm if left alone.
It was standard practice for the domain’s residents to ignore them entirely. Only in rare cases, when they multiplied out of control, would they be culled.
“Still, why slimes of all things?”
The head butler, Groib, had the exact same reaction.
“You wish to leave the castle merely to hunt slimes?”
He seemed more worried about the outing itself than her reason for it.
“While it is true the area remains within the territory, I cannot permit you to venture outside unguarded, Miss.”
Groib insisted an escort must accompany her. If anything happened to Ariella, Ludvic would bear the consequences as well.
Ariella recalled the slovenly demon soldiers she had encountered at the castle gates.
‘Those useless fools wouldn’t do any good anyway.’
Fortunately, Groib had no intention of relying on them either. Instead, he led her to Richmond’s laboratory.
“What is this place?”
Even before the door opened, a dense, dark, heavy aura of mana saturated the air.
‘Wow, this is truly insane.’
What sort of research was conducted here?
They said he could command zombies with ease. If he possessed that level of power, what kind of magic did someone like Richmond aspire to?
Was it necromancy that resurrected an entire entity from a single body part? Or some arcane art that fused multiple corpses to create an entirely new creature?
While Ariella buzzed with curiosity and Philly shivered in dread, Groib turned to them and knocked politely on the door.
“It is Groib.”
“Enter.”
The voice that came from the skeleton was deep and charming, hard to believe it originated from the mouth of an undead.
The door opened, revealing the laboratory’s interior.
“Eek!”
Philly took one look inside and turned completely pale with terror.
“Miss Ariella! May I…may I wait outside?”
“Hm? Of course.”
Ariella could easily guess why she reacted that way. Inside the laboratory were taxidermied beasts preserved in their original forms, alongside internal organs and tissues submerged in strange fluids.
A normal reaction would have matched Philly’s. Ariella, on the other hand, stood in stark contrast, her eyes wide with boundless fascination.
‘There are creatures here I’ve never seen before! What kind of monster is that?’
As she wandered about in wonder, Groib explained the situation to Richmond.
Richmond nodded in understanding, giving his clear assent.
“So you require an escort. Well, seeing as this is an exceptional circumstance, I shall permit the use of my subordinates.”
Subordinates?
Richmond rummaged through his pocket and withdrew several small bone fragments. Without hesitation, he cast them onto the floor and murmured an incantation.
Suddenly—
Vwoooom—!
“Whoa!”
Ariella let out an appreciative gasp. Yin mana—that is, dark mana—gathered in an exquisitely intricate pattern.
The energy surged into the bone fragments, causing them to proliferate explosively.
Then a miraculous sight unfolded. Just as seeds swell with moisture and sunlight, the bone fragments bloated dramatically, sprouting limbs and arms.
Within a few blinks, four armed skeleton soldiers stood summoned before them.
Their bone structure, the size of their skulls, and their distinct teeth suggested the skeletons had belonged to Orcs.
“Skeleton Summoning Magic?”
Ariella grew so excited she forgot she was speaking aloud.
This was the first time she had witnessed such magic firsthand. None of the spellbooks she had studied ever mentioned anything like it.
“What is the underlying theory behind this? The mana flowed in such a peculiar way. Do you have another bone left? I want to see it again!”
Ariella’s eyes sparkled as though holding stars. In that single moment, her personal opinion of Richmond shot straight up.
When she had first met him in the meeting hall, he had struck her as a sly schemer testing others for no good reason.
Noticing her expression, Richmond chuckled softly and replied in a voice as smooth as velvet,
“Ho-hoh, it seems this magic fascinates you quite a bit, Contractor?”
“Yes!”
“Do you have any questions?”
Ariella did not miss the opportunity. Naturally, she wanted to grasp the mechanics of the spell itself, but more importantly…
“If you can create skeletons from mere bone fragments, why don’t you deploy them as a military force?”
Silence fell over the room. Even Groib gave Ariella an odd look.
“Am I wrong? In our current predicament, we’re desperate enough to borrow a zombie’s hand, so why refuse the help of skeletons?”
Richmond finally broke the silence.
“…Now that is truly interesting.”
END