Chapter 5 – Down the Rabbit Hole

Following the hole in the wall was a case of stairs. At least I hoped so, since everything I could see was a pitch of black. It wouldn’t be nice to go all Alice and having to beat a demon queen in a match of croquet. Although this was exactly what we were going to do. Though Princess Abc with her One Punch probably would be able to hole-in-one and punch Miss Dementia thus ruining her pretty face.

“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Shelly asked whilst walking towards the hole.

“That definitely was not princess-like!”

Aster and I followed, him taking down his blinds again.

“There is only one big room beneath those stairs. It is … a library?”

“Well, at least that seems to fit the description of someone stealing Grimoires.”

“There’s something else, but I'm struggling to describe it. Maybe a giant ball-shaped crystal?” He put on his blinds again, as we took the first stairs.

“I was wondering,” I began, “how do your surroundings look for you, if don’t have your blinds?”

“I guess it’s like … a three-dimensional model where I’m able to move around freely at any speed I like.”

“So, what is it like, with your blindfold?”

“Normal? I don’t have any comparison, sadly.” He gave me a dry laugh. “As I said, I lost my real eyes as a child, and I can’t remember how it was before at all. Guess, I was really young, when it happened.”

“That’s … interesting.”

“I can’t use them because it would cost all my mana, and I’d say, I have quite a lot. My body’s mana circulation somehow adjusted to those eyes but there is another reason why I am not very fond of using them.”

“What is it? And what on earth is a mana circulation?!”

“Shelly, I guess he really is from another dimension.”

Huh, she told him?

“I told you.” I heard from below us.

“The mana circulation is the same as the blood circulation. As our blood contains mana, our body will use blood as the source of energy for spellcasting. Of course, we die if we lose too much of our blood. But that’s not the reason I prefer not using the eyes. The reason is simply that the giant input of information makes my head feel like it’s going to overflow. Which basically means I get headaches very easily.”

“We reached the bottom!” By which Shelly meant her and Princess Abc.

“Maybe we should catch up,” Aster exclaimed laughing. We had stopped near the first few steps to talk. Sunlight was still reaching us. A few meters down the stairs were small orange lights. Torches? I followed Aster and after around fifty steps we reached a metal door. Shelly and the Princess were already waiting for us.

“Are you done talking, or can we proceed?” Shelly seemed a bit on edge.

“Let’s go.”

She laid her hand on the door handle. Surprisingly the door wasn’t locked. But then again who would have thought of locking a door hidden underground by a thick stone wall?

We entered the room.

What we found was a library.

“Are those Grimoires?” I asked.

“I think so …” Even Shelly was stunned.

“Say, what is the average life expectancy of a succubus?”

“Around 5 centuries,” Princess Abc answered.

“But even if she was collecting those her whole life, it’s not possible that she only stole those from our city,” Aster realized. “No, she must have been collecting those from other cities, kingdoms, or even continents. How many are those?”

The cave was around the size of a ballroom, at least in length, as bookshelves were lined up behind each other. They made space for a small way between them. There were maybe a dozen bookshelves? At least not as impressive as I expected this library to be.

“And somewhere in here is my grimoire!” Princess Abc had a frantic expression on her face. Of course, because she was here to find her grimoire and it might take a few hours to find it.

“We might help you, if you could describe, how it looks,” Shelly proposed.

“It has our family emblem on its’ cover and spine.” She pointed at the pin holding together her cloak. It was a red rose. It would be no surprise, if there was a family having a white rose as an emblem.

“We should search for it, separately,” Shelly declared.

I took the backmost row. On both sides, my sight was blocked by those books. They were pretty much all same-looking. At least their shape. Each of the spines glaring at me had different colors, but that was it. I didn’t remember what color my book had, sadly, but then I realized that it didn’t matter.

Are you there?

Of course, I was supposed to search for Princess Abc’s grimoire, but I’m a selfish person. Most people are selfish. It’s the easiest way to survive, I guess.

[I’m on the right side in the lowest row of the second shelf.]

I could have done that before …

[Of course.]

I knelt down in front of the second shelf.

Now, which one are you …

[I’m the tenth book in this row.]

From the left or the right side?, I joked.

[Left.]

... Thanks.

I counted the books in this shelf and picked the tenth. I thought it must have been mine, since it had this weird symbol on its cover as opposed to the other books in this shelf. Also, my name was written in it.

That’s settled then, I guess.

“Nothing here,” I said, leaving my row.

At the same time, I heard Aster shout: “Found it!”

He, Princess Abc, and Shelly came out of their respective rows, and we met in the central corridor. Aster handed it over and Princess Abc somehow let it disappear under her cloak.

“Thank you so much for helping me!” She was really excited.

“I also found my Grimoire by the way.”

“That someone like you possesses a Grimoire …” the Princess commented.

“Remember, we’re not done yet,” Shelly reminded us. She pointed behind me. There was curtain covering the entrance to another room.

“Oh yeah, there was this crystal ball,” Aster remembered.

“Do you know what it is?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any idea what it could be.”

Shelly took the lead and shoved away the curtain. We entered the room just behind her and took a look at the giant flashing crystal ball in front of us. It took up at least half of this big room. We took a few steps further to investigate this … machine. Its socket was actually covered with metal and a few light bulbs were sticking out. Electricity was used in this world, but this thing was a bit too much for that in my opinion.

“What is this thing ...” Princess Abc was stunned.

“Some kind of machine, apparently,” Shelly stated the obvious.

I took a closer look at this thing and noticed a hatch. Of course, I had to open it. A wave of hot air brushed my face and caused me to jerk back.

“What are you doing?!” I heard Shelly shout.

The hot air vanished and luckily I didn’t get any serious burns from this sudden attack. I peeped at the contents of the hatch, and I was surprised to find a Grimoire lying in there. It had a grey cover. I touched it, but drew my fingers back, since it was still hot.

“Leave that to me,” Princess Abc said, and weirdly put it between her palms, which were covered by her mitts.

“It’s … grey?” She appeared to be dumbfounded by the sight of this Grimoire.

“I remember seeing a bunch of grey ones in the front rows of this library,” Shelly pointed out, her hands in a thinker-pose.

“What does this mean?” I think I was startled, but at the same time I had no idea what this was supposed to mean. I have only been in this world for a couple of hours after all. What's a color to say about a Grimoire, after all.

Princess Abc was waving the Grimoire around and blew at it, to cool it down. Then she opened it. “That it lost its powers.” I looked over her shoulder as she flipped through the blank pages of the book.

“Is something like this even possible?” Aster asked.

“Grimoires are relics created centuries ago. Nowadays you wouldn’t be able to do this under normal circumstances, except if you had a device from that time.” She looked up at the machine. “And this might be what caused it.”

“Oh, you figured it out already?” Contrary to my expectations the voice saying this was actually male, instead of female. It was Raven Way, just as endearing as his older sister next to him, Ebony Dark’ness Dementia.

“Oh my god, Raven! It’s him! That cute boy I was sucking at! Actually, I thought he was … dead.” Her voice took a dark turn towards her last sentence. Her voice was seductive yet forbidding simultaneously. I wondered if her brother was also as double-edged as his sister.

“There we have our culprits!” Shelly exclaimed. “This probably won’t end without a fight, but I’d like to notify you that hereby I declare both of you as arrested.” Her body language was shouting “Objection!” as she said this.

“What a pity. Of course, we won’t give up without a fight, but … there’s one thing I actually wanted to know.” She hovered towards me at an insane speed, and came really close to my face, touching it with her slender hands.

A second after she touched my cheek, I felt our bodies part, as Princess Abc sent her fist directly into Ebony's direction. The Succubus flew away at the same speed and landed next to Raven.

“Ara, ara, you’re a violent one, aren’t you, Princess?”

Next, Shelly stood in front of both of us, drawing a sword from the sheath attached to her right hip.

“Princess, stand back. I promised to protect both of you.”

“Officer, I am very well able to defend myself.”

“Please, we already had this discussion.”

“Turns out to be interesting, am I right, Sis?” the Incubus stated.

“You might be right Raven. Though I’m not very interested in this pesky police officer. Could you get rid of her? I will take on … the princess.”