Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the library itself were testing his resolve. By the time he reached the third floor, his breath came in ragged gasps, sweat clinging to his brow.
He leaned against a nearby shelf, chest heaving, the sticky saliva sticking to his throat. For the first time in his life, Noel felt the urge to curse whoever designed this whole location nonstop.
He swallowed back his series of curses as he gently pulled the fabric he was wearing that clung to his skin due to the sweat.
He shifted uncomfortably for a moment before he looked down from his floor as he leaned on the wall-like railing. He was not a man that got PTSD easily; he had to suffer from something multiple times before he realized that it was wrong.
As such, he did not mind the memory where he fell off a similar railing in his previous world and simply marveled at the beautiful view of the library.
He hadn't noticed this previously as he had been too preoccupied with climbing the accursed stairs, but the library was much more than he had initially thought.
A white, deciduous tree sprouted from the center of the library, its bark glowing slightly. Around the beautiful tree was what seemed like glimmering dark blue and dark purplish sand, as if plucked from the very cosmos themselves.
The tree in the center glowed like starlight, surrounded by sand that shimmered with the colors of the void. Noel admired it for several seconds before muttering,
"Oh my, seems like someone dropped their galaxy collection," he mused.
Humming gently, he looked up, only to see the rest of the twenty-seven floors, each with its own merit. Despite appearing the same, there was always one or two factors that differed from floor to floor.
Noel had attempted to open a book and try to read its content, yet to him, all he could see was gibberish — not even binary that he could decode.
I wonder how they were able to understand my writing on the board. At the thought, Noel's humming paused, earning a frown.
It seemed that he was able to speak their language, but unable to write. He would need to experiment in the near future to see what his role in this world was exactly.
He did not believe in coincidences, especially when it was related to him.
"Wait... don't tell me they didn't understand... what I wrote on the board...?" he questioned, as if the very notion of the question hadn't crossed his mind.
Yet, he did not panic despite coming to such a realization.
The language of the Devil God?
Laughable.
Noel was no fool; he did not believe in Gods. For all he could tell, Mr. Nothing was a delusional man who claimed himself a Devil God. But say, if a man had told you that the moon turned green when it was feeling nausea, would you believe it?
Of course not.
Moons weren't breathing beings to start with.
Wiping the sweat with the back of his hand, Noel got off the railing before he dipped his hand into his pocket by habit. Upon realizing what he was searching for was not present, he merely sighed in resignation.
He lay down on the beautiful red and golden carpet of the library, his slightly long hair spreading like a dainty waterfall.
"Sigh... perhaps I should try to invent cigarettes in such a melancholic world."
If the library had a smoking section, he hadn't found it yet.
He sighed once more at the thought, as if drifting to the land of dreams.
He did not need a couch anymore. He was thirsty, yes. Hungry, yes. But he could do nothing about it.
And so he decided to sleep for a while. On the rose-smelling carpet. Such a delicate fragrance it could have.
Or so he had wanted.
Click!
Noel froze. Somewhere near, a faint clink rang out — the unmistakable sound of porcelain.
He blinked, straining his ears. He hurriedly sat up, brushing his clothing and straightening it up.
The sound was oddly familiar, although he personally preferred a different beverage to it, the sound was unmistakable to any mortal being.
At least to intelligent life.
He called out in undeniable excitement.
"...Tea?"
His stomach grumbled.
His first thoughts were not about the responsible individual or whether they were ancient deities that could obliterate a continent with a flick of their fingers, nor an eldritch deity that even angels would fall into a coma upon landing their gaze upon it. Not about the mysteries of this ancient library.
No, it was about something much, much more profound.
Something that humans felt, and the heavens didn't.
Man proposed, heaven disposed.
My stomach.
Food.
Noel doubted higher beings needed to eat or drink.
But he, of course, needed to.
For a moment he thought exhaustion had finally claimed him, that his brain was fabricating hallucinations of warmth and comfort.
But then, carried down by the stale air of the library, came a scent — sweet, buttery, impossibly out of place that he never imagined to smell here.
White chocolate cookies.
Nay, this was too good to be true. Noel shook his head as if clearing his mind, yet as stoic as ever, he stood up, brushing his clothing, walking toward the direction of the scent.
Following the trail, he passed bookshelves, chairs, tables.
He turned left and halted, as his gaze landed on the origin of the smell. A glimmering white cookie plate with dark blue patterns on the edges.
Floating in the air slightly.
A small delicate hand took a cookie out from the plate, his eyes following where the small hand would stop.
A girl with small build that appeared no older than ten — or rather, in plain modern terms, a l*li — was perched atop a tower of books stacked in reckless defiance of gravity, sipping delicately from a porcelain cup, a plate of sweets balanced in front of her in the air.
She had dark purple hair curled into perfect drills, framing a face both youthful and sharp.
Her left eye was hidden behind a black eyepatch with a purple 'x', while the other gleamed violet with a butterfly-shaped pupil that fluttered subtly as her focus was entirely on the book that was as thick as an encyclopedia.
Noel studied her for a moment.
He wasn't entirely sure if she was ignoring him, or if she really did not feel his presence.
Well, in both cases, he simply didn't care.
Promptly ignoring her presence, Noel walked up to a shelf before he carefully took out several thick books. He placed them on the floor before stacking them slowly atop each other in a way that he could stand on.
The first book was a black book with a blood-reddish edge, almost as if a cursed grimoire. But to Noel, it was a book like any other. Cursed or not, books were meant to be read.
He briefly wondered if the curse on the book would kill him before he finished chapter one. Still, he pulled it off the shelf — dying halfway through a book had happened to worse people.
The stacked books started increasing at an alarming rate, before Noel started climbing slowly. According to his estimations, the plate was floating approximately five meters in the air.
He balanced himself properly before he slowly grabbed the floating plate, only to be met with resistance. He watched the girl with the corner of his eyes for a moment before he simply left the plate as is, and instead grabbed a handful of cookies and stuffed them in his pocket.
They seem soft yet have a firmness that can only be mastered by few. Soft but firm, truly a piece of art. However, just as he pulled a handful of cookies, he froze as he felt a chilling gaze settling on him.