The counseling room was warmly lit and tastefully arranged. Comfortable chairs faced each other across a low wooden table that looked like it had been crafted by someone who understood the importance of putting people at ease. Shelves lined the walls here too, but these seemed less threatening than the fog-covered tomes downstairs. These shelves held journals, poetry anthologies, psychology texts, and a few decorative plants that looked only mildly cursed.
Levi sat casually in one of the chairs, his posture relaxed but precise, like a therapist who had dealt with far worse cases than whatever Ren might present. Much worse.
He glanced up from the book he had been reading, offered a faint smile, and gestured toward the empty chair across from him. "Have a seat, Doctor. Tea or coffee?"
Ren stood stiffly for a moment, his eyes sweeping the room for hidden dangers. He looked for trap doors, cursed dolls, portal openings, or bloodstains that might indicate what happened to previous "patients" who didn't survive their counseling sessions. Finding none of the obvious warning signs, he gave a slow nod.
"Tea, please."
"Good choice," Levi said pleasantly, setting his book aside. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers with the casual gesture of someone ordering room service.
There was a soft mechanical whir from somewhere behind the walls.
Ren flinched as a humanoid figure entered the room from a side passage he hadn't noticed before. The creature was tall and angular, with metal limbs that moved with fluid motions. Its face was made of smooth ceramic painted to resemble an antique servant, complete with rosy cheeks and a pleasant smile. Its eyes glowed with a faint blue light that pulsed gently, like a slow heartbeat.
The golem carried a silver tray in its articulated hands, steam rising from a delicate porcelain tea service.
Ren nearly stood up again, his muscles tensing for flight or fight. "What is that?"
"A golem," Levi said calmly, as if mechanical servants were the most natural thing in the world. "Harmless. Mostly. It serves tea and occasionally helps with filing."
The golem bowed silently and offered a steaming porcelain cup with precision that went far beyond human capability. Its movements were smooth and deliberate, like a clockwork dancer performing a routine it had perfected over centuries.
Ren took the cup with both hands, the warmth seeping through the delicate cup into his palms. He muttered a nervous
"Thank you"
under his breath, unsure whether the golem could understand him or if politeness even mattered to a mechanical being.
The golem's painted smile seemed to brighten slightly before it withdrew to stand at attention near the door.
"Now then," Levi said, settling back into his chair with his own cup of tea, "why don't we start by introducing ourselves properly?"
"I thought you already knew about me, Mr. Levi," Ren replied, taking a cautious sip of the tea. It was perfectly brewed, with a subtle complexity that suggested expensive leaves and expert preparation.
"From all the things you've been saying, calling me 'doctor' and all."
"No, it's not that deep," Levi waved his hand dismissively.
"I know your story and your basic information, but that's just from having good genre-seeing eyes, you see."
"What's that supposed to mean, Mr. Levi?" Ren asked, his tone carrying a hint of suspicion.
Levi smiled warmly, the expression reaching his eyes in a way that made him look almost paternal.
"Nothing too mysterious. Just a talent for reading people and situations. You develop it after enough time in my line of work."
"Let me start first then," Levi continued, settling more comfortably into his chair.
"My name is Levi Warwick. I am a librarian and the current owner of the Library of Levi. I've been accepting patrons of different calibers for a long, long, long time."
There was something in the way he said "long time" that suggested he wasn't speaking in mere decades or even centuries. The weight behind those words implied an existence that stretched back through ages that most beings couldn't comprehend.
"Sorry if this offends you," Ren asked carefully, "but what kind of patrons usually visit this place?"
Levi's smile widened, and he took a thoughtful sip of his tea before answering.
"It's quite a wide range, actually. Some are cultivators seeking enlightenment or power. Some are immortals dealing with the existential weight of eternity. Some are arch-wizards researching spells that could reshape reality. Some are princesses trying to escape her tragic fate. And some are gods working through identity crises."
He paused, his expression becoming almost conversational, as if he was discussing the weather rather than impossible beings.
"Oh, and some old uncle in the neighborhood named Az@t#$th visits once in a while as well. We're friends, you see. Nice guy, terrible at chess, tends to accidentally unmake reality when he gets frustrated with losing."
Ren's mouth hung wide open. The casual way Levi had just mentioned what sounded like the most powerful entities in existence, including what was presumably an Outer God from cosmic horror mythology, left him speechless.
What the fuck is this guy? he thought desperately.
Is he mentally ill? No, from what I've seen so far, it seems entirely possible somehow.
"Your joke is good, Mr. Levi," Ren laughed nervously, trying to show some social grace while his mind reeled from the implications.
But Levi just smiled back at him with the same warm, patient expression.
"What, you're joking, right?" Ren asked, his voice rising slightly with hope and desperation.
Levi continued smiling warmly, saying nothing.
For the first time in a very long while, Ren was completely speechless. The silence stretched between them, filled only by the gentle ticking of an antique clock somewhere in the room and the soft whir of the golem's internal mechanisms.
.
.
"Okay, back to the topic, Mr. Doctor," Levi said eventually, breaking the uncomfortable quiet. "Please introduce yourself. And please leave nothing out. Trust me, the more I know about you, the better I can assist."
Levi took another sip of tea that the golem had prepared for them some time ago, his manner suggesting infinite patience and genuine interest.
Ren felt something deep in his chest, an instinctive sense that somehow he could trust this man. If Levi already had information about him, and given the casual way he discussed cosmic entities, then perhaps there was no point in holding back the facts. Maybe for the first time since his transformation, he could tell someone the complete truth without fear of judgment or disbelief.
"Mr. Warwick," Ren began slowly, setting his teacup down on the table between them.
"My name is Ren Hector. I am a doctor by profession, or at least, that is what I still choose to call myself."
He paused, gathering his thoughts and choosing his words carefully. This felt like a confession, and he wanted to get it right.
"I was trained as a surgeon in another world, one ruled not by mana or mystical laws, but by science, blood, and consequence. My hands were once meant to save lives, yet every incision I made brought me closer to something I could never understand. Fear, perhaps. Or inevitability. The knowledge that no matter how skilled I became, death would always win in the end."
Levi nodded encouragingly, his expression showing no surprise at the mention of other worlds or the philosophical weight of medical practice.
"When I came to this world," Ren continued,
"I found myself bound to a system that claimed to heal, though its design was nothing divine. It reshaped me, corrupted my craft, and gave birth to what it called the Doctor of the Ruin Gospel. My methods are... unsettling to most people. I do not heal through faith or purity. I mend through horror. My patients recover, but not without leaving a part of themselves on the operating table."
He flexed his fingers unconsciously, remembering the feel of tentacles that could emerge from his flesh at will.
"You may notice traces of that corruption in me. Tentacles, whispers, things that don't belong in the body of a man. They are not ornaments of power, but remnants of adaptation. I learned early that to survive in this world, one must accept the things that shouldn't exist and learn to work alongside them."
Ren's voice grew quieter, more introspective. "I do not consider myself a hero, nor do I think of myself as a monster, though I've been called both. My duty remains the same as it was in my old world: to keep the living from falling into the dark for as long as their will allows. If that means crossing lines others fear to approach, then I will do so."
He met Levi's eyes directly, his own filled with a mixture of defiance and exhaustion.
"That is who I am, Mr. Warwick. Ren Hector. Doctor, patient, and on some days, the disease itself."
The silence that followed felt different from the earlier awkwardness. This was contemplative, respectful, as if Levi was processing not just the words but the weight of experience behind them. His dark eyes never left Ren's face, studying him with the intensity of someone reading a particularly complex text. There was no judgment in that gaze, no disgust at the horrors Ren had described, only a deep, analytical interest that somehow managed to feel warm rather than clinical.
Ren found himself holding his breath, waiting for some reaction that would tell him what this mysterious librarian truly thought of his confession. He had laid bare the darkest corners of his existence, revealed transformations that would horrify most people, admitted to consuming divine essence and becoming something monstrous. Yet Levi sat there with the same patient expression he had worn throughout the entire conversation, as if cosmic horror and medical corruption were just another Tuesday afternoon topic.
The weight of vulnerability pressed down on Ren's chest. He had never spoken so openly about what he had become, had never trusted anyone enough to reveal the full scope of his transformation. Even Lu Changcheng, despite their bond as sworn brothers, didn't know about the soul ocean or the true nature of what lay beyond death. But something about this place, about Levi himself, had drawn the truth out of him like poison from a wound.
Levi's fingers drummed once against his teacup, a small gesture that somehow conveyed thoughtful consideration. His head tilted slightly to one side, and Ren caught a glimpse of something ancient behind those deceptively young features. Not old in the way humans aged, but old in the way that concepts were old, as if Levi had been present for the birth of ideas themselves.
"Your story," Levi said finally, his tone carrying a weight of genuine interest rather than polite acknowledgment, "is far more layered than most who find their way to my library. The progression from healer to horror to something attempting to bridge both worlds... it speaks to a fundamental question about the nature of existence itself."
Ren felt a mixture of relief and apprehension wash over him. Relief that Levi hadn't recoiled in disgust or fear, apprehension at what that acceptance might mean. If someone like Levi, who apparently counted cosmic entities among his casual acquaintances, found his story noteworthy, what did that suggest about the path he was on?