“‘Manifold’ Zentzu,” the librarian’s voice came back to a normal level. “He's been misbehaving a lot since he entered the library. He crossed the limits by recording a fraudulent name in the register. Since you are here, you must punish him appurtenant to his actions.”

Zentzu looked at Lirzod, who portrayed a pococurante face, causing him to ruminate. He must have not heard him. What should I do?

“You must be joking,” the guard chortled, “this library isn’t even officialized, yet you want to punish him? For what?”

The librarian’s shoulders slumped. He looked at the commander, hoping he might still help him.

“He’s right,” Zentzu was quick to back the guard’s words.

The librarian let out a bitter smile.

“Don’t worry.” Lirzod placed his hand on the librarian’s shoulder and said, “You can hurt Tarqa if you want.”

“Tarqa?” the librarian gave a puzzled gaze as he unknowingly spoke aloud. “You mean the one in the book? He’s real?”

“Of course.”

“He’s on this ship as well?” 

“No.”

“Then how can we hurt him?” the librarian barked. “Not that I want to hurt him.”

“It’s fine. You can strike Tarqa whenever you want,” Lirzod took the register from his hand and stricken over the signature ‘Tarqa Pudota’ with a quill. “There you go,” he handed the register back.

The librarian got buffaloed by his action and couldn’t tell if Lirzod was willfully being facetious or not.

At a certain place.

“Shattering things looks like a distant dream right now. I hope I can break the brick at least tomorrow.” Tarqa just came out of a room when a passing-by crow discharged its waste on his shoulder. Seeing that, Tarqa fumed. “You cheap crow!” he picked up a nearby stone and darted it at the flying away crow but badly missed it. “Come back here! You useless bird.” He could catch its caws as the crow distanced itself, for the reason it employed its wings.

CAW! CAW!

Back to the library on the tenth deck, the four of them were subconsciously speaking lustily.

The caws of a crow reached Lirzod’s ears, making him look around. “Did I just hear something?”

“Mm?” the librarian paused a moment before replying, “Ah, it’s a passerine.”

“Oh, where is it?” Lirzod asked as he looked around. “I can’t see it.”

“What the hell is a passerine?” the guard murmured to himself, but his voice ended up reaching the commander’s ears.

“A passerine is a songbird that sings for communication, halfwit,” Zentzu coldly said.

“S-Sorry, Commander,” the guard almost crumpled to the floor when the commander suddenly replied to his susurration.

The librarian asked Lirzod to help move the desk, and when they did, a tiny creature revealed itself.

“So, here you are,” Lirzod picked it up, and the other three came closer.

After taking a closer look, the guard smiled. “What, so it was just a crow,” the guard snorted, but after receiving quick stares from those three, he shut his mouth and stepped back twice before opening his mouth again. “It’s a passerine!”

“What’s this baby crow doing here?” Lirzod looked at the librarian. “Are you raising it?”

“No. It was just waiting at the door last night. I tried feeding it, but it wasn’t eating anything.”

“Can it fly?”

“I didn’t see it fly. It’s only a couple of weeks old, I guess.”

Zentzu intervened. “Must have left the nest before it could fly.”

“Or, the nest might have gotten destroyed as well,” Lirzod said and looked at the librarian. “Did you check if there was any crow’s nest on this deck?”

The librarian’s face warped badly. “No. Why would I do that?” But seeing the blank stare from the commander, he cleared his throat. “There’s no way I can look for a small nest on this deck and succeed in less than a day.”

“There’s always a way,” Zentzu said in an ascetic tone. “Go and look for it.”

The librarian was bewildered. “C-Commander, I am doing my job. I can’t just leave the library for a crow! Neither is it my job nor am I interested.”

Zentzu narrowed his eyes.

The guard gripped his weapon tightly. “Did you just raise your voice against the commander?”

The chills that spread across his spine brought the librarian to his knees and made his hand touch Zentzu’s bantam feet. “I was foolish. Please, look past this mistake, Commander. I will immediately look for that nest.”

“Shitty nest, huh. Success shouldn’t get to one’s head,” Zentzu calmly said. “I will be shifting a thousand books from here to my room.” The librarian’s expression turned as if a boulder that weighed a thousand books fell upon his head. Zentzu continued, “If I see that your character improved with my own eyes, then I will consider giving back the books.”

A severe chest pain quaked the whole of the librarian’s body. A thousand books wasn’t a small number. He never felt so miserable in a long time, and he was just a step away from crying his eyes out.

“Here,” Lirzod handed the baby crow to the librarian. He took out the unpleasant almond out of his pocket and left it at the crow’s feet.

“It’s useless,” the librarian said in a sorrowful tone, “I already told you. It wasn’t eating anything.”

The next moment, the almond disappeared and ended up in the crow’s stomach, surprising the librarian.

“H-How?” he looked at Lirzod, expecting some answer, but Lirzod shrugged his shoulders.

“What did you try giving it?” the guard asked the librarian with a blank stare.

“A fresh piece of apple,” the librarian said.

“Maybe that’s why it didn’t take it.”

“What do you mean?”

“That crow probably likes to eat rotten food.”

The librarian gave a suppressed version of a displeased look to the guard. He wanted to slap the guard so hard at the time, for everything he did. If only the guard wasn’t there, things probably wouldn’t have ended up the way they did. As if everything he did wasn’t already enough, he was still trying to crack jokes.

Zentzu surveyed Lirzod for a slight moment before speaking, “Did you come here for a casual read or for a particular business?”

“For a poem by Surya Chand.”

"Einfalt?" Zentzu was surprised. “Are you his fan?”

“Not really. Duera is his fan, but you can say that I’m half the fan she is.”

“Duera? Who’s she?”

“My girl—” Lirzod paused for a second, “friend.”

“Oh,” Zentzu spoke without even pondering for an instant, “then you can take that book for free and then gift it to her.”

The librarian could no longer hide his tears, and they streamed out. He ran behind one shelf, not wanting to show his crying face to the commander and especially the guard. The tenth deck commander was well-known for his competence in dealing with people. Those who were on his good side got to borrow money at low-interest rates, but those who were on his bad side were not left alone and were languished in one way or another. Now, it was the turn of the librarian to experience the impact of staying on his bad side just for a brief moment. The price he had to pay, however, felt too much. Though many thoughts flooded his mind, including the settling of the score, vengeance wasn’t a discreet way when a deck’s commander self-embroiled into the affair. Still, he couldn’t believe how he enmeshed himself into such a harrowing plight.

“Is she a girlfriend or the girlfriend?” the guard just wanted to ask.

Lirzod stared at him for a moment before patting his shoulder. “Both are friends only, right?”

“They are not—” the guard was about to say, but the commander’s clearing of throat alerted him to a stop.

“Go and bring that book of poems,” Zentzu ordered the guard who responded with no delay. After the guard brought the book, Zentzu opened it up and stopped at a particular poem named ‘I promise.’ He looked at Lirzod. “What do you think about this one? The famed Surya proposed his girlfriend through this one, a driftless art.”

Lirzod took a look at the poem.

I PROMISE

On Ground, I promise

On Water, I promise

On Wind, I promise

On Fire, I promise

On Heavens, I promise

My love for you is real, I promise

With my hand, I promise

With my shadow, I promise

With my heart, I promise

With my love, I promise

With my life, I promise

My everything wants to be with you, I promise

More than the shining stars I promise

More than the caroling birds I promise

More than the rumbling clouds I promise

More than the rain they bring I promise

More than the rainbow that follows I promise

My self savors your smile, I promise

Like the blackening fire whirls, I promise

Like the swallowing maelstroms, I promise

Like the arcane fish rain, I promise

Like the great salmon runs, I promise

Like the migrations of monarch butterflies, I promise

My zeal is just as natural, I promise.

“What do you think?” Zentzu asked again.

“This is a spanking art,” Lirzod’s eyes enlarged. “How did I miss this one till now?”

“So you didn’t know about it,” Zentzu took a slight breath. “That’s unlucky. This poem was a goto move for every man who wanted to propose to a woman. There’s no guessing how many succeeded from using this one, but because of its repetitive usage, it became too widely known, and women no longer fall for this trick.” His voice contained a bit of sadness.

Lirzod understood that Zentzu must have tried using that poem on someone. He nudged him a bit, “C’mon man, you can tell me how you tried to propose. Your description might be of use to me later on, you know.”

Zentzu sighed and shook his head. “My proposals failed at abysmal proportions. It’s a lot better to talk about Surya Chand’s girlfriend, Fritzie, and how Surya explained the pleasantness of his girlfriend in ‘Five Facets of Fritzie.’ That might teach you more than a thing or two.

“Oh, please go on.”

“It went like this...

“A cough worth ten praises

A sneeze worth a hundred praises

A smile worth a thousand praises

A laugh worth a million praises

A gaze worth a billion praises.”

Lirzod was mesmerized by his words. “Her cough was worth ten praises. Her sneeze was worth a hundred praises. Her gaze was worth a thousand praises. Her smile was worth a million praises. Her laugh was worth a billion praises… Wow, truly wonderful.”

“You totally got it wrong,” the guard looked at Lirzod with blank eyes.

“O-Oh, did I?” Lirzod embarrassingly laughed.

“It’s alright,” Zentzu said, “one can’t easily remember it from only one hearing. So, what do you think about this one?”

Lirzod pondered for a moment. “It does feel like I’ve heard it before, but I might be wrong, though. That said, I think there’s more to it like...” he suddenly raised his eyebrow, “a sixth facet?”

“Sixth one?” Zentzu was puzzled a bit. “There’s only five.”

“No. I just had this feeling,” Lirzod pondered a moment.

“Don’t bother,” Zentzu said. “There’s no sixth facet.”

“Ah, I got it,” Lirzod hit the bottom of his fist on the other palm, “what about her fart?”

The expressions of both the librarian and the guard turned in a manner as if they heard things wrong, yet their imagination ran wild.

Zentzu, on the other hand, lost his composure just a bit but didn’t know what to say for more than a few seconds. Only after sighing a bit, he replied, “There was no praise for that, my friend.”

“What? He chose not to praise it, huh…” Lirzod scratched his chin. “Probably, Surya must have felt it wasn’t worth a praise.”

“There’s nothing pleasant about that after all,” Zentzu calmly said.

“But women hide it very well, don’t they?” Lirzod took a breath. “Ah, whatever.”

The guard standing behind those two, who had mixed opinions on Lirzod till then, was now trying his best to not burst out into laughter. How are these two able to talk about it so casually and that too without laughing?

As he was laughing on the inside, the guard just happened to look toward the door, and Ballu was in the doldrums.

“God,” Ballu, who just heard the commander call Lirzod as ‘my friend,’ lost all hopes on getting his revenge, “it hasn’t even been a few minutes since I praised you, and you do this to me. What wrong have I done?”

BANG!

At that moment, something struck him hard on his spine from behind, making him fall headlong. The coin sack in his hand slipped and fell to the side. Someone snatched it in a flash and didn’t waste a second more to run away.

Ballu, who was still on the floor, looked at the four figures that were running away. They were the Jewel Juniors. “You brats!” Ballu ground his teeth so hard that it made a clear sound. He stood and took off after those four. “Give me my money back, you little punks! Or I swear I will never forgive you four!”

The four boys snickered as they ran off. “You think you can catch us with that pathetic pace of yours? Even pigs run faster than you can carry your fat ass.”

“Shut up, you skinny scoundrels!” Ballu bellowed. “ Stop right there!”

“We’re not stopping. Catch us in your dreams, uncle!”