The royal chamber was located somewhere deep within the heart of the castle. Unlike the rest of the building, it managed to escape much of the rot and destruction, appearing untouched, like a glistening gem floating amidst the tides of the ocean.

Of course, this wasn’t our destination.

In an open space a few halls down, we were standing in front of an intricately designed wooden door. The surface of the door was engraved with an emblem, and depicted two rigid streaks cutting across a billowing cloud.

“Is this it?” I asked.

“Yes.” Mereli nodded. “This is father’s library… Father’s library has a lot of books, probably even more than Miss Sage’s room.”

“Oh?” My brow raised in fascination. “The Sage also has her own library?”

She shook her head. “No, Miss Sage keeps everything in her room. Mereli’s always wanted to go there, but Miss Sage never let me.” Her cheeks inflated, while her lips puckered into a pout. She let out a resigned sigh, before stating, “Even though Mereli wants to go there, even though Mereli really really wants to go there, Mereli doesn’t even know where her room is.”

An expression of frustration flashed across her youthful face. It seemed so uncharacteristic, that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s fine,” I consoled. “Someday, we’ll find her room together. That way, we can play with all her stuff, and for as long as we want.”

Mereli’s gloomy expression brightened, as she looked up at me with an expectant gaze. “Really? You promise? You can’t break promises, okay?”

I laughed again. “Sure, I promise.”

She nodded in satisfaction, before she turned back towards the door. Her expression quickly grew solemn. Mereli hesitated for a moment, before she extended her hand out to touch the surface of the door. Her fingertips lightly brushed against the cloud shaped emblem.

“This is the family’s regalia.” She spoke with misty eyes, her words not directed at anyone in particular. “Father said to always remember the regalia, no matter… no matter what happens.”

I silently nodded, as my gaze drifted towards the regalia.

It appeared simple. No, that wasn’t quite the right word to describe it. It was simple, in a primitive sort of way. A simplicity that gave of an indistinguishable archaic impression.

Before I could appreciate the image any longer, the sound of creaking wood echoed through the hall.

With a grunt, Mereli forced the door open. A stream of fluttering dust leaked out from the gap, before the door suddenly gave way, and fully opened. Caught off guard, Mereli tumbled to the floor, inadvertently setting off clouds of dust in the process.

The library was not exactly what I had expected. It appeared perfectly untouched, unaffected by whatever disaster had torn through the rest of the castle. Cobwebs gathered in the corners of the room, while a thin layer of grime covered every inch of the surroundings.

The room was circular in shape, with a domed ceiling that shot up twenty meters off the ground. Shelves, filled to the brim with books, lined the walls, while the hypnotizing scent of aged paper wafted through the air. In the middle of the room was a single wooden table, as well as a matching chair. An old rolling ladder was propped near a corner of the room.

As I walked into to the library, I unconsciously looked down at my feet. Each footstep left behind a noticeable imprint on the floor, one carved in dust.

The room was smaller than I had anticipated, and coupled with the sheer number of books that lined the walls and filled the nearly fifteen-meter-tall book shelves, I couldn’t help but feel congested. It felt as if every inch of the room was crammed with information and knowledge, like some sort of paper bound can of sardines. It was a painfully suffocating sensation.

“It’s kind of small.” I thoughtlessly commented, as I circled the room. My gaze occasionally wandered through the myriad shelves.

Mereli acted as if she did not hear my words, as she stared up in awe at the library. There was a sort of yearning glimmer in her eyes, as her shoulders noticeably trembled in excitement. She slowly stood back up, her gaze perpetually locked onto her surroundings. She lightly dusted herself off, before sprinting towards the nearest book shelf. Without a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out a book.

Mereli blew across the surface, scattering the dust that had collected, before she hurriedly flipped the book open and scoured through the pages.

“Oh, what book is that?” I asked curiously. From her excitement, it should probably be something good.

Contrary to my expectations, Mereli shook her head.

“Don’t know.” She answered plainly. “But Mereli always wanted to read Father’s books, so I’ll read them all now.”

Her lips curled into an expectant smile. Seeing her eyes constantly darting across the page, I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

Her earlier apprehension seemingly all but vanished the moment she had opened that rickety old door.

With Mereli pre-occupied by the book in her hand, it was finally my turn to act.

My original goal was to look for any information pertaining to this new world, and the first step in achieving that goal lay in the hands of the books currently in front of me.

I suppressed my bubbling eagerness, and approached the nearest book shelf. My hand drifted towards a random book, before I gingerly pulled it out.

“That’s weird…” Mereli’s childish voice suddenly echoed through the room, breaking me out of my concentration.

“What’s wrong?” I put the book down, and turned my attention over towards Mereli.

“Mereli can’t read the words.” She frowned as she raised the book up to her face. “Even though Mereli’s super smart, and can already read, I can’t read this book.”

“Really?” My words floated freely through the air, while Mereli quickly picked up another book from the library.

Mimicking her actions, I turned back over towards the book in my hands. Almost immediately, my eyes narrowed, while a shallow frown twisted my lips.

“I can’t read this book either…” I mumbled to myself, as I flipped through the pages.

The book in my hands was written in a language that I did not recognize. It was different from the one that I was familiar with, and honestly came as a surprise to me, although in retrospect, it should have been an obvious outcome.

Although I had information transcribed to my head, there was naturally a limit to what, and how much information was transcribed. To the best of my knowledge, I was transcribed with only one language from this world. While I was familiar with a few languages from Earth, primarily that of English, that sort of knowledge really wouldn’t help with my current situation.

On this world, I only knew one language. What the name of that language is, I don’t know. It was apparent that while my inception granted me a few notes of practical skill, there was no actual information in this dumb head of mine.

Skimming through a few more books from the shelf, I took note of the fact that quite a few of them were written in languages that I could not read. Or rather, they were all written in a language that I could not read.

From what I gathered so far, outside of the one language that I could understand, there were at least three different languages used within the various texts around the room. This was readily apparent due to the different alphabets that they used. The differences in writing was quite easy to make out. It was similar to comparing Chinese to English; even if you don’t know both, it was still possible to differentiate between the two.

Of course, cases like English and Spanish, where two different languages share near identical alphabets could also exist, so my original estimate might be higher than what it actually is.

After a few minutes of sifting through the various books around the room, I couldn’t help but let out a frustrated sigh.

The number of books in the library was simply too massive to properly search through and manage. It was evident that Mereli’s father did not organize the books by language, and searching through everything to find an actual book written in a language I actually understood was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

“I have a long day ahead of me…” I bitterly muttered to myself, as I stared dead eyed at the domineering bookshelf that towered above my head.

****

How much time passed? Two hours? Twenty hours?

By the time I finished, the sun had long started to set. A tender warmth seeped in from the only window within the room, and illuminated the library with a pale orange vibrance.

Despite the ambient lighting, the library looked like a mess. Shelves were emptied, and books were haphazardly strewn on the ground. The table from earlier was pushed off to the corner, while the rolling ladder had inexplicably toppled on its side. The once neatly organized room now had a hint of the same chaos that proliferated the rest of the castle.

It was bad, but for the record, not everything was my fault. A good majority, yes, but not everything.

On top of the mess that I had previously made, a couple of blankets were also strewn across the floor. This part was all Mereli’s doing. A little bit earlier today, she raided the royal chamber, and suddenly stuffed the library full with expensive, albeit damaged, comforters.

Her reasoning for this was that she needed a replacement for the blankets she kept in the cavern, and if she did it any later, she would run the risk of forgetting. Mereli was pretty adamant over this, so it wasn’t like I could just refuse. In fact, back then, it had taken nearly my all to convince her to leave the giant king-sized mattress alone.

Well, in either case, the mess in this room was merely just a sign of how hard I worked, and after such an incredibly tasking day, I could feel the piled-up fatigue welling up deep within my bones.

Unsurprisingly, this body of mine was quite fragile. Just a day of work, and already, I felt like taking a twenty-four-hour coma. Granted, most of my fatigue was more mental, what with the several thousand books I had to go over, but still, my point stands.

If, after all that hard work, my efforts were to be rewarded, then I wouldn’t be as miserable as I am right now. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t give out any handouts, nor does it care about my personal circumstances. Throughout all this time, my grueling hard work was met with failure after failure.

It was honestly quite ridiculous.

Almost every single book within this god forsaken library was written in a different language. Worst of all, they were written in languages that I couldn’t understand! It was frustrating to say the least, putting all that effort, only to be met with an empty hand.

It was frustrating, incredibly so, but it wasn’t like my efforts were completely fruitless. Like a shining light at the end of a long, and arduous tunnel, I finally found one. A book that I could actually read. A book written in a language that I understood.

It only took several hours, and thousands of failures, but still, yay.

The book in question was quite old, and worn down.

The color had faded from the cover, while the edges were all frayed and covered in stains. The seams too, had all but come completely undone. The words on the front cover were of half faded script. It was nearly unreadable, and took me approximately five minutes before I could make out the single word [Hero].

Hero.

That was the title of this old book.

This book was something I found tucked away at the bottom of an inconspicuous book shelf. Just like where it was hiding, the book was neither extraordinary nor eye catching. It was thin, barely the width of half my thumb. If I hadn’t been so zealous in my search, I would have probably missed it all together.

If there was anything extraordinary about it, then it would be the amount of wear and tear it endured. This thing looked as if it had suffered through several natural disasters, a couple of house fires, and about one to two wars.

Clutching the book in my shaking hands, I flashed a weary smile, before I sat down on the only chair within the library. The moment, I opened the book, I locked eyes with a certain grey haired little girl.

From underneath a pile of blankets, Mereli stared up with wide eyed curiosity. For a moment, her gaze lingered on my face, before it shifted over towards the book in my hand. Almost immediately, her expression changed. An indescribably nostalgic frown floated to her lips.

Seeing such an odd reaction, I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you recognize this book?”

A few seconds of silence passed before Mereli nodded. “Dad… Father always read it to me.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Your father did?”

She nodded once again. “Even though he was always busy, Father would still find the time to read to me every night…”

Mereli’s father… frankly speaking, I thought he was a weird guy.

The owner of a castle in the middle of the woods. A man who could overpower a group of knights. The one whose DNA was used in my inception. Mereli’s one and only father. What sort of person was he? A cold, callous ruler? A kind, benevolent king? A good father?

From Mereli’s longing and attitude, it was clear that he was someone she looked up to.

To her, he was family, but to me, he was simply a weird stranger wrapped in mystery. Where did such a person go?

For that matter, what exactly happened in this castle? Where was everyone? Why was everything so badly damaged? Where was that father that Mereli looked up to?

Were they all dead? If so, then why was Mereli still here? Why was she still alive, all alone, and in such a place?

I shook my head, and pushed back all those lingering thoughts. I sighed, and looked back up at Mereli. Without me noticing, she had long since made her way to my side.

With less than a foot between us, she hesitantly looked up at me, her face twisted with a rather… different expression.

I had been with Mereli for a little more than a day now. In that time, I have seen a myriad of her emotions. From the nervous expression she sported during our first meeting, to the sometimes haughty, sometimes smug faces that she so often liked making, even to the reminiscent gaze she wore whenever she stared off longingly into the distant.

She was someone who walked around, seemingly unaware of how cruel her own situation was. A vibrant little girl who wore her emotions plainly on her sleeves for the world to see. I had seen plenty, but this time… her expression was new. It was different. I didn’t know exactly how to describe it.

It was an amalgamation of several types of emotions, some I could describe, while others I couldn’t.

Those eyes of hers, filled with that sort of indescribable emotion, stared up at me, while her pale white hand tightly clutched onto the dust laden cloak that I wore.

Her lips cracked open, and flapped noiselessly in the air for a moment. She visibly hesitated, before she asked in an almost silent whisper. “…Can you read the story for me?”

I paused for a moment, and stared down at her. In that instant, our eyes locked. They were light blue, the same color as that of a vibrant and cloudless sky.

Were my eyes like that too? I wondered. What sort of light flashed beneath my own irises?

I unconsciously nodded.

She retuned my nod, with one of her own. A slight smile floated to her lips, as her eyes curved into two pleasant crescents.

Before I could do anything, Mereli suddenly moved. She climbed up on top of me, and forcibly sat down on my lap. She looked up at me, and seeing the confusion and surprise in my eyes, she explained, “Father always lets me sit on his lap whenever he read. Is… Is it no good?”

“No, that, it’s fine. Do what you want.” I mumbled, subconsciously nodding along in agreement.

Seeing that, Mereli meekly nodded once more, before she wriggled around on my lap in an effort to find a comfortable position. In the end, her body was pressed against mine, as she clutched tightly onto my chest. Her head was turned away, her eyes locked intently on the book in my hands.

“Can you start?” She whispered, her words muffled by the cloak that I wore.

I paused for a moment, before a light sigh leaked out of my throat. I briefly nodded, and opened the book. After one last bout of hesitation, I started reading.

“An old story, a fairy tale passed down for eons.

Of a Hero, and of the fate of the world.

A story that starts with a boy named Karm…”