Wall of Questions

“Medrauta, Medrauta! Look at this! It’s so wonderful!”

“I’m not sure if you should be saying that right now, Viviane.” Medrauta heaved an exasperated sigh as she continued holding onto Viviane’s wrist as if her arm were no more than a leash. Truth be told, no one could’ve expected the interior of the supply tower to look like this, but now that they were here, it would be practically impossible to restrain Viviane any longer.

“Why not!? These must be ancient!” Viviane gushed. “And to think we’re the first...!”

“Careful!” Medrauta warned, quickly tugging Viviane back once more. “They might be trapped!”

“No one’s going to trap books, Medrauta. Now c’mooooooon!” Viviane pleaded, pouting cutely as she stared at Medrauta with wide, doe-like eyes. She even fluttered her eyelashes once or twice for good measure, but the knight’s grip remained firm and unyielding.

Medrauta returned her lady’s gaze coolly, unwilling to let Viviane’s cuteness sway her no matter what. She hadn’t expected the supply tower to actually host a library. Large floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were set into the curved walls of the tower, each of them holding an enormous wealth of knowledge in the tomes contained therein.

In the first place, Viviane’s lust for reading wasn’t exactly a priority given the pressing situation at hand. Not only were they completely sealed off from the outside world, but countless soldiers were probably fighting for their lives against the witchspawn rushing toward the south. In fact, Medrauta’s keen senses could still pick up the faint thunder of their advance echoing from outside the tower.

Originally, Viviane shared the same sentiment as Medrauta. After all, reading could always come later once they finished excising the witchspawn from the area, but one glaring problem allowed her quite the convenient excuse to satisfy both her craving for books and address the situation at hand. Namely, the interior possessed no staircase or passageway up to the upper floors, not to mention the fact that the ceiling looked rather solid and integral for the tower’s support. Should Medrauta simply attempt to bust through with brute force, it probably wouldn’t bode well.

“At least let me check the books first,” Medrauta sighed. “With any luck, we’ll be able to find something that opens up a stairway or something.”

Viviane nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. We’ll look around for any books that talk about architecture first. Maybe we can find a clue to help us find our way up.”

“You don’t think the stairway works like the entrance, right? Maybe if I just touch the ceiling, the bricks’ll come falling down to form a staircase?” Medrauta mused.

“You could certainly try,” Viviane said. Incidentally, she hadn’t found the time to dispel her Crest thanks to the distraction provided by the tower’s wealth of books. Although maintaining her Crest used to be something that she had to actively concentrate on, it was now second nature to her after experiencing so many pitched battles by Medrauta’s side.

Medrauta nodded in response and squatted down before thrusting her feet against the ground, propelling herself upward until she was within arm’s reach of the ceiling. Slapping her palm against the smooth stone surface produced a rather satisfying sound that echoed through the tower’s interior, but nothing else of note occurred. The knight landed on her feet, clicking her tongue in annoyance.

While she’d been occupied with that, Viviane had already made a beeline to the closest bookshelf, rifling through its contents rapidly as she searched for any content that pertained to the construction of towers similar to the one they occupied. Although reading about architecture certainly wasn’t her first choice, it wasn’t her last either and it wasn’t as if she had forgotten about the true reason why they’d come to the supply tower in the first place.

“Hey, Medrauta...” Viviane began.

Medrauta looked over at her lady, slightly concerned about Viviane having gone through multiple books already before the knight even had the chance to check them. Of course, trapped bookshelves were rare, but they still existed. In fact, they were among one of the many trap types that knights were taught about in their first year at Avalyne Academy.

However, it wasn’t the bookshelf that Medrauta was concerned about. More common than trapped bookshelves were trapped books. Despite Viviane’s insistence on the impossibility of books being dangerous, it was actually a very real risk in high society. As it was common to gift items such as books to noblewomen, a common assassination technique was to poison the edges of the paper, causing death through repeated exposure as the victim flipped through seemingly innocent pages.

Of course, the chance of books having poisoned pages inside this ancient library was highly unlikely, but the prospect still scared Medrauta for reasons that not even she could comprehend, but the knight assumed it was probably due to the whole situation they’d found themselves in and the unexpectedness of a library inside the supply tower. Before arriving here, the pair had thought these structures created by Amelia, but ever since they were able to look at it up close, the likelihood of it existing far before the witch was even born increased significantly.

“...Huh, this is strange.” Viviane mused as she flipped through a randomly selected book.

“What’s up, Vivi?” Medrauta asked, approaching her lady. She peered over the noblewoman’s shoulder, attempting to grasp the contents of the book but failing. Everything seemed to be written in an ancient script that appeared to be a precursor to the empire’s current writing system. Although a few of the glyphs seemed similar, the knight couldn’t make out any of the words.

“It looks like the same error keeps being repeated over and over in this book. Here, look! Even this portrait is totally wrong!” Viviane said as she stopped at the section she was perusing and pointed to a rather beautiful colored illustration inked onto the page. It depicted a woman with brilliant golden hair wielding a shining sword as she marched toward what was clearly the Witch Queen’s territory.

Medrauta frowned, a dull ache throbbing in her head as she inspected it. She shrugged the faint headache away, focusing on the portrait instead. There was something extremely familiar about it, and while she couldn’t quite notice what it was at first glance, a couple of seconds was all it took to realize just where exactly she’d seen a similar portrait before.

“W-Whoa! Isn’t that supposed to be Emperor Soleil!?” Medrauta’s eyes widened in surprise, taking a closer look at the illustration and confirming her suspicions. Everything in the portrait down to the woman’s posture was completely identical to another portrait that was included in almost every history book back at the academy. The only difference was that this illustration depicted a woman instead of a man.

Viviane nodded. “Yeah. It’s supposed to be, but... Everything in this book seems to be wrong. I mean, it’s not wrong. All the events seem to match what I’ve been taught, but every instance of Emperor Soleil has been replaced. Plus, this portrait’s kind of weird, isn’t it? I mean, other than the emperor being replaced by a woman, isn’t there something a little off about the sword?”

Medrauta squinted, inspecting the sword. There wasn’t anything really off about it. In the original drawing depicting Soleil, the emperor had been wielding a greatsword. The weapon was mirrored in the book Viviane held, so the knight found no fault in the illustration at all. She turned to Viviane, shaking her head. “Not really. What’s wrong with the sword?”

Viviane tapped the drawing with her free hand, indicating not the sword itself, but the area around it. “I don’t know if I’m remembering correctly, but the original drawing didn’t have all these weird lines around the sword, right? It was just supposed to be a normal sword, but now it seems like the artist is trying to imply that it was magical here?”

Medrauta shrugged, taking another look at the picture. Sure enough, Viviane was right, but the knight didn’t really think it was that significant. “Might just be the color smudging after so many years or something. Besides, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise for the emperor to have wielded a magical sword, right? I’m pretty sure Caliburn was enchanted.”

“Yeah, I guess so...” Viviane’s voice trailed off. “Maybe I’m just being thrown off by all of these weird changes. I mean, it’s not just the one error that’s being repeated. There’s a lot of things that were changed to accommodate it too. Like for example, when it says—

“Uhh, hold on, Vivi. What’s this error that you keep talking about?” Medrauta asked. “I can’t read a single word on any of these pages.”

“Well, they keep referring to the first emperor as ‘Empress Soleil’ instead of—” Viviane’s eyes widened in horror as she watched Medrauta stumble and clutch her head before letting out an ear-splitting shriek. The noblewoman didn’t waste even a single second. The book slipped from Viviane’s hands as she dashed toward her knight, clutching Medrauta in a tight embrace in an effort to prevent her from collapsing onto the ground.

“Medrauta!? Medrauta!!!” Viviane cried, shaking the unconscious knight repeatedly. Her attempts to awaken Medrauta were in vain as the knight continued to remain unresponsive. At once, dark thoughts rushed through Viviane’s head as she immediately began blaming herself for Medrauta’s sudden relapse.

N-No...! I can’t... I can’t let myself fall into despair... Viviane shook her head violently, casting off the heavy cloak of anguish and self-hate that had draped itself over her shoulders. Not while she needs me!

Taking a deep breath to clear her mind, Viviane laid Medrauta on the floor gently, making sure to check if the knight was still breathing. She released a sigh of relief once she confirmed that Medrauta was still alive, placing her ear against the knight’s chest and listening closely to Medrauta’s heartbeat. It was weak, but present.

For a moment, Viviane considered using her ki reserves to rejuvenate Medrauta just like last time, but logic quickly overrode the emotions flowing through her body. The tower was still surrounded by witchspawn and the sun was still a long way from setting when they entered the tower. If anything happened, she’d need those reserves to protect Medrauta. More importantly, Viviane had no idea how much ki was even required to resuscitate Medrauta. In the worst case, she’d waste all of it with no results to show.

With no further ideas coming to mind, Viviane resigned herself to sitting with Medrauta, resting the knight’s head on her lap. As much as she wanted to reawaken her beloved knight, there was truly nothing she could do in this situation but wait. Precious seconds were being wasted as the storm of witchspawn continued to march toward their destination and Amelia’s foul plan—whatever that was—continued to bear fruit. Had she been capable of hardening her heart, Viviane would have simply allowed Medrauta to rest against the ground while she browsed through the tower’s repository of books, searching for a way to the upper floors while Medrauta remained asleep.

But her heart was fragile, and Viviane could do nothing but stare at her knight’s sleeping face with a tender gaze that bore nothing but worry and guilt.

“Oh, Medrauta... Just what should I do right now?”