Fated meeting

After wandering the forest for what seemed like forever, Mio sat down, leaning her back against a tree, for a small break. “Ahh...why did I have to spawn right in the middle of a forest that doesn’t even have any roads that would lead to a village or something?” Mio sighed. “But what is bothering me the most is that I haven’t seen any animals or monsters. It’s a fantasy world, shouldn’t there be like some cute slime monsters or big scary monsters?” Mio said while looking unsatisfied. “But then again maybe I should consider myself lucky that I haven’t run into any, as I have no skills suited for fighting and terrible status points.” Mio looked at her status screen in despair.

“Like how am I supposed to live out my dream with skills like this? Am I going to throw books at the monsters from my pocket dimension? Or maybe I can talk to them with my multilingual mastery? Yeah right, as if monsters would stop and listen to what I have to say. In the first place, are they even capable of intellectual thinking?” Mio was sitting there sulking when she suddenly heard a noise close by.

Mio hastily stood up and picked up a stick on the ground, ready to swing at whatever was approaching. “Please don’t let it be a man-eating monster.” The source of the sound was getting closer by the second. The only other sound being Mio’s loud heartbeat. But to Mio’s relief, what appeared between the bushes was just a frog that was slightly bigger than the ones you see at home. A huge wave of relief brushed over Mio, as the frog continued on its way, paying no attention to the guarded Mio.

“Phew, thankfully it was only a frog.” Relieved, Mio sat back down. “But a frog is quite disappointing to be the first living thing you see in a fantasy world. Hopefully the next thing I see is something cute like a unicorn-rabbit hybrid or something like that? Maybe I could even get a cute fox monster as a companion.”

After spending a few minutes fantasizing, Mio continued walking in hopes of finding her way out of the forest or some form of human life. But what she ended up finding was a small wooden hatch on the ground. It had some writing on it.

“To open the lock, all you need is to say these words: ‘I like pancakes.’” After reading the message out loud, there was a small click sound. “Why would someone make that the secret code to open a lock. And then write it on the door where everyone can see it.” Mio then opened the hatch to reveal a staircase leading down. “Welp here goes nothing.” Mio claimed as she made her way down the stairs.

At the bottom of the staircase, there was a room filled with bookcases and tables full of paper scrolls. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, like no one had been there in decades. She began inspecting the books when suddenly a loud voice startled her.

“Who do you think you are, going around touching other people’s stuff?!”

Mio flinched and turned around, and to her surprise, what was yelling at her wasn’t a human, but a floating book. “Do you have a habit of going to other people’s houses just to snoop around?” The book looked to be a magic tome, a grimoire. It was mostly deep purple with faint blue spots like in a galaxy. It also has silver accents framing the book, with a lotus shape in each corner of the cover. And what made the book more special, was the fierce looking red eyes, accompanied with eyebrows and a mouth. While Mio was admiring the peculiar book, the book, looking frustrated, asked “Oi! Are you even listening to what I am saying?!”.

The confused Mio finally snapped out of it. “I’m sorry, it’s not every day you see a talking book yelling at you. And I didn’t even touch anything...yet” The book seemed to get even more heated after that.

“How dare you reduce me to just a talking book!”

After listening to the book giving her a lecture about respecting other people’s property, she suddenly remembered one of her skills: grimoire whisperer. “Let’s just calm down first, alright?”.

And just like that the book suddenly fell quiet and said “Oh well, it’s not that big of a deal anyway. I will let you off the hook this time.” The book started moving and landed on a desk at the back of the room.

Mio then approached the book. “So, what should I call you, mister book?”

The book perking itself up “My name is Selric Maros, but you can just call me Selric. And I’m not really a book, I’m a human. I was just a bit careless with this grimoire and got myself stuck in it.”

Before Mio could introduce herself, Selric continued; “So anyway, would you be so kind as to read the passages after page 25 on the chapter about soul binding magic? I need to figure out a way to release myself from this book.” Selric said in a wishful tone.

Mio carefully picked up the talking grimoire and began turning the pages, only to see that the pages after the said chapter were torn off. “I would love to help you out, but the next pages after page 25 have been torn off. It only continues with 37.”

Selric sprung up in the air “You got to be joking, right? I have been stuck in this basement for ages, and finally when someone who can read Zhaloric came along, you are telling me the pages are not there!” He started floating back and forth, as if he was pacing around the room thinking.

Mio shrugged “I don’t know what else to tell you. You could always try to find the missing pages, if they even exist anymore.”

Selric turned to Mio. “That’s it! You are going to help me find the missing pages.” Selric seemed awfully commanding, despite being the one in need of help. “Now that I think about it, the person who gave me the grimoire said that there were some pages missing as it was deemed too risky to keep all the pages together.”

Mio ignored Selric’s commanding request for help and instead asked “Why did they think it was risky to keep them together?”.

“Because it is written in Zhaloric and most humans cannot read it as it is a demonic language and therefore it is deemed dangerous.” Selric somehow looked smug despite being a book with only a pair of eyes and eyebrows. “Of course it is not a problem for me Selric Maros, the great sage of Verdelore kingdom.”

“The great sage you say...not so great if you get stuck in a book in some basement.” Mio said under her breath.

“Oi! I heard that! Just because I was careless once doesn’t make my title any less true.” Selric started to lecture Mio about his greatness, but Mio, completely uninterested, interrupted him.

“So, do you happen to know how to get out of this forest?”

Selric stopped to think for a moment. “Hmm...I don’t know how much the outside world has changed in the past few years since I have been stuck in this basement. I can only sense the mana of living things close by, and I do sometimes sense some mana belonging to humans. If everything has remained the same as before I got trapped in here, there should be a small village close by.”

“If you promise to help me finding the missing pages, I will help guide you out of the forest. Deal?” Selric said, holding out the corner of the book as if to shake hands.

Mio didn’t really have much of a choice, so she agreed to Selric’s terms. “Alright, I will help you find the missing pages, but I can’t promise much, as I am not a fighter, so any dungeon exploring is out of the question.”

Selric seemed to look her up and down. “How did you get deep into the forest alone then?”

“It’s a long story, but what matters is that we need to get out of here safely.” Mio casually tried to change the subject. “You don’t happen to have any magic tomes that could give me some amazing magic skills? Like fire ball or wind cutter?”

Selric again, being seemingly smug, told Mio “Who do you think I am? Of course I have some grimoires around.” Selric, remembering Mio’s statement about not being a fighter, offered a suggestion. “Maybe you should pick out one that has protective spells, as we can’t really carry all of them.”.

Now it was Mio’s turn to look smug and tell Selric “That won’t be a problem, we can take all of them as I have a skill where I can store books in a pocket dimension.”. Selric, while slowly clapping the book covers together, said “Wow, you are so amazing.” After collecting all the possible grimoires, the newly founded party was ready to head out onto their grand quest of the missing pages.