Chap 40: The underground library
2183 Words
The next day, when Galen woke up, he opened his eyes widely when realizing the clock was pointing to 11:30am. Since he decided to stay in the mansion of Felica, he even didn’t have any awareness about the time anymore.
This is bad, he thought. He blamed himself that he had to set up his sleep time properly.
Galen rushed washing his face, changing clothes and went to the main hall of the mansion. But there was no one around anymore and everything had been left so silently.
He was wondering where everyone was, Norn – the dark elf that Liana mentioned about came to Galen and talk with him.
“Good morning, young master. You are looking for someone?”
If Galen looked closer to Norn, she was a plump middle-age woman who had particular dark skin and a pair of elven ears. Her face showed her kindness, didn’t have any threatening atmosphere with half-opened golden eyes and gave Galen an impression of a kindhearted madame. She was totally different than the dark-elf that he had been believing about: Dark-elf is usually evil according to the book at Tredia.
Madame Norn was wearing a pink apron, which was still dirt the trace of flour. Galen guessed maybe she was cooking, then heard his sound at the main hall and rushed coming here.
“Oh, I’m sorry for disturbing your work.” Galen awkward answered “I’m just looking for madame Felica and my friends…”
“Please don’t worry. Master had given me the task to take care of you while she was away.” She smiled “About your friends, they were practicing at the mansion’s garden.”
“Thank you so much! I’ll go to the garden now!”
“Please wait for a moment, young master!” Galen was about to leave but he was stopped by her “At least you need to eat something before going out. It was dangerous outside if you don’t have enough aura energy.”
If that, Galen didn’t have any reason to refuse her. He hadn’t stepped at the garden before. So, in this space where the boundary between light and darkness being messed together, he didn’t know what happened if he went outside without any preparation.
***
After taking the lunch, madame Norn gave Galen an accessory looking like a necklace. It was attached with the transparent crystal. However, inside that crystal, there was the black smoking moving inside with a weird symbol pattern inlaid inside.
“This is the talisman. It will help you neutralizing your inner aura energy and not being affected by the environment outside.”
“Thank you, madame Norm.”
As Galen wore the necklace, the pattern inside the crystal sparkled a weak light then it turned off. That talisman had been ready to protect his aura energy from the environment of Black Magic Realm.
“Madame Norn, what will happen if a mortal step outside the mansion?”
“I don’t know. I just hear from my friends saying that you will be affected by the curse since Black Magic in the air will slowly eating your aura. It will not only eat your body, your flesh, but also your humanity.”
Galen got shivered to the spine when hearing that. If that, how can the family of his mother could get this curse generations after generations? That question accelerated his curiosity.
But wait, Galen just noticed one thing, who is Madame Norn’s friends?!
“It’s them.”
Madame Norn pointed her finger to the goblins, who were transporting something very heavy inside the mansion and didn’t forget to wave their hand to her, with friendly smile.
Those goblins somehow gave Galen a confusingly familiar feeling, when he looked at them.
But then, everything was too rushing. Galen just could wave his hand back to greet them and stepped outside the mansion.
***
Even it was already midnoon according to the mansion’s clock, the scenery outside the mansion was so dark. The only thing Galen could see right now was… fog. Fog was everywhere, that Galen could barely see anything.
While being escorted to the garden area by a goblin and a ghost, Galen hugged Mira, turned his face around while couldn’t hide his fascinated face.
So it was the boundary between the real world and the Black Magic Realm? He wondered.
In this place, light and darkness were unclear. They were combined together and created a spooky scene. Since their destination was the garden in the backyard, Galen didn’t see the buildings anymore. Instead, it was a road being covered by the dead trees at the both sides. Its destination had been blurred away by the fog, gave Galen an uneasy feeling, because he couldn’t know what would await for him forward.
If this place could be called as the reality how a ‘horizon’ looked like, he would believe it too. Until he heard something was crying in the middle of the dead trees in the forest, he was sure it was the monster. But they couldn’t approach him, thanks to that protection talisman.
“Kiuh…” Even Mira in his hug was scared as well and hugged Galen tightly. The goblin heard Mira, it talked to Mira with a weird language to cheer her up. Galen was surprised by how Mira could also understand what that goblin said and it responded by a wave of her tiny front leg.
They together kept walking through that scary road. Slowly, Galen could hear the noise from Liana and Roman. It meant he had arrived!
“Thank you, guys!!”
“Yahh! Yahh!”
After saying goodbye to the goblin, Galen entered to the garden area to see Liana and Roman.
“ROAR!!!”
“Magic Codex – Tier 3: Sabatos Arrow!!”
In the middle of the empty land, Galen was amazed by the duo combat between a giant dragon as red as the flame and the cat teenager. Roman was floating himself on the air, shot the wind arrow to Liana. However, even at Liana, she didn’t give up as well, countered Roman back by using her meteor.
He felt ashamed himself. While his friends trying to practice to enhance their combat skill, what did he do? Sleep until midnoon and didn’t practice anything.
Noticing the existence of Galen, Liana and Roman both stopped their fight and smiled at him.
“Aye, Galen! You are late!!”
“Yeah, I’m so sorry.” Galen gave Roman a bro fist to each other and apologized “I was just happy to meet my aunt so I was talking with her whole last night.”
“It’s ok, bro. If I was you, I would do the same too.” Roman answered “After all, she is the only one in your family right? So just enjoy this moment.”
“Thank you for your understanding, guys.”
Then, a question then popped up in Galen’s head.
“By the way, guys. Did Madame Norn give you anything look like this talisman?”
Galen showed up the mysterious necklace that madame Norn gave him earlier before going out the mansion.
“Yeah, we have our own talisman too.”
Liana and Roman together showed the protection talisman in front of Galen. Different from him, Liana got one attached with her hair band, which was tying her long pink hair with ponytail style. Meanwhile Roman got one as his cat choker. Looking at them, Galen just realized how thoughtful Madame Norn was when thinking how to design the talisman for each of them, without entangling their combat performance.
“Do you really think it’s for protecting us from the environment of Black Magic Realm?”
“What do you mean, Galen?”
“Because if you remember guys, when we helped aunt Felica, we were still fine even without the protection talisman.”
Both Roman and Liana ‘ohhh’ in surprise. If it wasn’t for protecting them, what they were for anyway?
The first theory that Galen doubted the most: It was for monitoring three of them inside this world. When hearing this, Roman and Liana nodded their head. It could be true, since this world was dangerous and they need something supporting from behind.
“Aye, I’m so curious too.” Liana asked the boys “What are those monsters that we did fight last night? I have never seen them before.”
“Also, goblins are counted as monster, right? Why do they choose to side with Felica, but not their fellow monster?”
Everything around this house had so many mysteries that urged Galen’s curiosity more and more.
If he remembered, according to the map of the mansion, there was a library at the basement area. Maybe he could discover something about his mother’s family.
After an hour practicing fighting with Liana and Roman, Galen decided to sneak into that place without letting anyone know, even his friends as well. In the worst case, he didn’t want to become the trouble for them.
***
Galen was the one who finished the training first. He said goodbye to Liana and Roman, began his personal plan.
“Madame Norn, can you guide me to the library of the mansion?”
“Oh, sure about it, young master.” Madame Norn gave him a laugh “As expected from nephew of master, you are such a boy who love reading~!”
Galen never thought about he could be praised for this hobby of his, so he got a mixed feeling between awkwardness and satisfaction.
Really… Madame Norn had helped him and loved him a lot, even aunt Felica too. Since they both gave him a feeling like he was living at home, Galen thought, once he finished his life mission, he would choose to live with them for the rest of his life.
“By the way, young master. Before we go to the basement, please wear this coat first.”
Galen listened to Madame Norn and wore the coat that she gave him. When they both went to the basement, he did understand why.
They arrived to the entrance of the mansion, which was weirdly hidden behind a book shelf. As she opened the door, suddenly, Galen felt his spine being frozen by a flow of the icy wind, coming from the scarily dark tunnel.
So cold! Galen was stunned. Without the coat, he might already feel cold to death!
“So long time we haven’t gone here, but I still remember it’s cold beneath here, haha.”
Madame Norn lighted up the paper with her magic spell. Galen recognized it was the paper charm that Liana used to guide them into this place too!
“Please be careful, young master. The stair step is very slippery due to being frozen.”
“I got it.”
Despite both Galen and Madame Norn slowly stepped on the stair and carefully hold the handles, the little paper charm still patiently waited for them and floating on the air, gave them the light resource to look around. Everything was so dark, Galen’s vision was also limited to the light of the paper as well.
As he stepped deeper and deeper to the underground area, the wind current was blown stronger and stronger, brought the subzero cold feeling that almost trembled his body.
“Please handle for a little moment more. Once we arrive to the library door, we will escape the wind.”
“It’s ok, madame Norn. I’m still strong enough to endure it.”
The paper charm guided them until the heavy wooden door being locked carefully. Due to the darkness, Galen didn’t notice that at the top of the door, there was a lot of sealing pattern being drawn by red color on there…
Madame Norn used her key to open it, the door heavily moved as Galen helped her pushing it and they could enter inside.
“Wow…”
The space inside this library had been so far warmer, but what caught Galen’s attention the most was the immensity of the room showing in front of them. Under the light of the paper charm which was partly damaged due to the strong wind current, he could see the book shelves were located everywhere… with some sort of topic he had never seen before: Black Magic.
Galen believed that those books in this room would answer every question of his about this strange world named Black Magic Realm, and about the curse of House Hartridge. The most important… he could even learn how to use Black Magic!
“Thank you so much, Madame Norn!”
“You are welcome, young master. So… I’ll go back to the kitchen now, if you need something, just call me.”
Madame Norn gave Galen another paper charm for the light, then closed the library door, leaving Galen alone in the darkness.
“Now it’s time to discover the truth!!!”
At that moment, Galen didn’t know that he just made the biggest mistake ever in his life…
- Writer
