----
- - -
-- -
It was sothing so bizarre that it was hard to believe it even existed in this world.
At first, I thought it was a house-sized centipede, but then it took the form of a giant lizard with short arms. I could also see a human with bulging eyes.
Crack!
The unidentified creature wreaked havoc, tearing through the area around where she had been monts ago.
If soone hadn’t pulled her in, she would have been imdiately overwheld.
The chilling possibility made the hairs on her body stand on end.
How much ti had passed?
The monster disappeared.
It didn’t move sowhere else; it simply vanished from the place, leaving no trace.
Crack!
And then the light returned, illuminating [The Archive].
"Are you okay?"
Legatia breathed a sigh of relief and could finally fully see the face of the one who helped her.
Dark skin, but clean and flawless, not a single blemish.
A sharp, high nose.
With its elegant features, this Dark Elf boy could almost be mistaken for a girl at first glance.
"Hey?"
Her consciousness, which had been montarily lost, ca back with repeated calls.
"Are you alright?"
"Ah, yes... yes..."
It had been a ga, but the recent situation had felt so real.
It wasn’t easy to snap back to reality.
"Thank you for helping ."
"You must’ve been scared. When I first ca here, I was so terrified of that thing, I ran away without thinking."
One thing was for sure—if the Dark Elf in front of her hadn’t helped, sothing bad would’ve happened.
"I’m Legatia."
That’s why she was curious.
Who was this Dark Elf in front of her? Why was he here, inside [The Archive], and what was going on in this situation?
What kind of identity did he have, to be such a skilled survival expert?
"May I ask the na of the one who helped ?"
"Huh? My na is... huh?"
But the answer she got was unexpected.
"I... what was it?"
"…?"
He suddenly grabbed his head as though he was experiencing a headache.
"I don’t know... who am I? I can’t rember anything before I entered here."
mory loss...?
The strange changes in [The Archive] and the sudden appearance of the monster.
And now, the mory-lost survival expert Dark Elf.
The horror ga was taking a unique turn.
***
"So, the oldest mory you have is being chased by that monster?"
"Yeah, that's right."
The boy reassured her, saying that the monster wouldn’t be returning for a while. He then piled up books between the shelves to make a small hill.
Legatia sat on top of the hill with him, continuing the conversation.
"Then, you don’t rember anything from before you ca here?"
"That’s about right."
Big bro, I’m scared.
Dark Elf, co here!
Legaya! Don’t!
The girl who goes to the Dark Elf doesn’t co back!
The chat exploded with ssages, but Legatia had long forgotten the existence of the broadcast.
The boy said that when he regained his senses, he found himself inside [The Archive], surrounded by bookshelves.
He didn’t even rember his own na or how he had survived.
If that’s the case, had he been living here for such a long ti that he had lost track of ti?
"So, how did you manage to eat or drink?"
"I took it from the books."
He picked up a book that was lying nearby, opened it, and reached inside.
He stuck his hand deep inside the book, rummaging around, before pulling out a loaf of bread.
"You can get food like this from the books. Want so?"
"……."
Legatia took the bread from him and stared at it, dumbfounded.
Food coming out of a book?
"The food from other books is good, but this book’s bread is the best."
Thinking about it, [The Archive] is a storage warehouse that holds stories from all over the world.
Maybe it’s not so strange to take food from the stories inside.
She felt like she was beginning to understand so of the secrets about the Overseer and this space.
She took a bite of the bread and then asked the boy,
"What was that monster earlier?"
"Monster? …Oh, that one?"
The boy scratched his head.
"Honestly, I don’t really know. I’ve just been hiding from it to survive."
[The Archive]’s Sector 21 was a bizarre space that repeated infinitely.
Sotis, the fifth bookshelf of Sector 21 would endlessly split apart.
And whenever that happened, the monster would appear and tear everything apart.
"But there’s no need to be scared. The monster doesn’t appear more than twice a day, and if you hide behind the bookshelves and don’t make any noise, it won’t find you."
So, since it had appeared once, it shouldn’t be coming back.
…But how does he know about ‘a day’ in here?
"So...?"
Smash!
At that mont, the lights in the archive went out again.
Just like when they first t.
Just like when the monster appeared.
"This… this isn’t good, is it?"
"…It can’t be."
Though she couldn’t see due to the darkness, the boy’s voice was filled with panic.
"Sothing’s wrong…!"
--- - - - -!
The strange noise of the monster echoed again.
The monster was coming.
!!!
The boy hurriedly covered both their mouths and pressed them against the bookshelf.
Crunch! Crunch!
The monster was attacking the bookshelves where they had been sitting.
It was a close call.
But they couldn’t relax just yet.
Crunch!
The monster began tearing apart the area around them.
It was only a few steps away from where she was, glowing and threatening.
It wouldn’t have been strange if it found them at any mont.
Then—
--- - - - -!!!
‘Did it find us…!!’
With a sound that was hard to tell whether it was a scream of pain or a laugh of ecstasy, the monster lunged toward Legatia and the boy.
"Damn it!"
The boy hastily grabbed the book he had pulled out earlier.
"Get in!"
He grabbed Legatia and pushed her into the book.
Boom!
"Ouch!"
She fell from a slightly higher place, landing on her backside.
"Are you alright?"
Then the Dark Elf boy followed her inside.
--------!!!!!!
From above, they heard the monster’s roar, as if frustrated at having missed them.
"Sorry. This was the only way to get away from it."
"It’s okay. I understand."
Legatia rubbed her sore bottom and held the boy’s hand to help herself up.
"Where are we?"
"We’re inside the book we got the bread from."
Had they entered the story itself?
When the Overseer had done it, there had been so magical effect, but could they have physically entered this way?
"How do we get out now?"
"I don’t know. This is my first ti coming in, too. I don’t even know if we can leave."
The two elves scanned their surroundings to understand where they were.
[Bring the enemy commander here!]
[No, don’t!]
[Commander Gaizerus, raise your head!]
From far away, Legatia could see so elven children playing.
"It looks like we’ve entered the playroom for the young elves."
The architecture of the building and the furniture looked luxurious, and the children were dressed in fine clothes.
The status of the elven children playing didn’t seem ordinary.
As she considered whether to hide just in case of misunderstandings,
"Don’t do it!"
A Dark Elf boy, fleeing from the elven girls, passed through Legatia’s body.
‘...A soul?’
It seed like she had entered the story in the form of a soul, just like when Perlerina had done so before.
*
"So, are we staying in this story in the form of souls?"
"It seems so."
"Hmm..."
The boy quietly watched a girl who had been bullied by other children burst into tears.
"If we’re in the form of souls, can’t we just fly out of here?"
"I tried, but it didn’t work. It’s like the walls around us are sealed by a barrier, and we can’t get out. I think the only way out is through that door."
Legatia pointed to a small door at the back of the playroom.
"Should we try going out?"
"To find a way out, we don’t have a choice. Let’s go."
Legatia walked through the door of the playroom with the boy.
[Screech!]
[S-Safira!]
And once again, the sa background unfolded before them.
But this ti, it was slightly different—a scene where the children were being kidnapped by adult elves.
"Repeat...?"
"No."
Even though they had clearly gone through the door, the playroom appeared again.
However, the events taking place there had changed.
"It seems like this world wants us to watch the story unfold."
Maybe, if they went through that door again, the story that followed would progress.
After confirming the scene of two elven children being kidnapped by strangers, she and the boy stepped through the door once more.
This ti, instead of the playroom, they were greeted by a small, dark, damp room in an underground city.
The Dark Elf boy, who had made a contract with the leader of the Dark Elf criminals, was undergoing harsh training for the girl he brought with him.
As the training progressed, the boy began to grow.
And his appearance slowly started to change into soone she recognized.
‘...So that’s it!’
Only then did she understand.
Who the true master of this story was.
And why this world wanted her and him to watch this story unfold.
***
Sowhere in the heavens,
Bubbling...
A tank filled with water, brimming with divine power.
Inside, a single Dark Elf god floated.
"Confird cohesion of perception."
The Goddess of Wisdom examined the asuring device created by the Magitech Engineer and adjusted the readings.
"Target exceeded."
She smiled, clearly pleased with the observed data.
The first fracture of sin, born from the shock she felt while playing the ga.
As the perceptions of countless beings began to gather within it,
The fracture widened, reviving the long-forgotten bonds of the past, obscured by centuries of foggy nightmares.
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