The reason the Nolan Post Office was under renovation wasn't due to a generous municipal grant or a private donation, but because a severe thunderstorm on Monday had brought the ceiling crashing down.
It was still unclear whether the cause was a structural defect or simply a freak accident from the weather. But for safety's sake, a thorough inspection was unavoidable, which ant that for now, only the left side of the post office remained operational.
The publication Jenkins was looking for, *Tropical Disease dical Outlook*, was a niche journal primarily circulated in the Cheslan Kingdom and so overseas territories. In a temperate city like Nolan, the only place to find the latest issue, aside from a handful of dical colleges, was the post office.
With the post office's usable space cut in half, a staff mber approached Jenkins the mont he walked in to ask his business. Upon hearing that Jenkins wasn't there to mail a letter or a package, the young, uniford man let out a visible sigh of relief.
"Thank the Traveler! If you had to line up to buy stamps or fill out a mailing slip, you'd probably still be here at closing ti. A magazine, you said? Right this way. The racks have been moved out of the main hall into the first room on the left. You wouldn't believe how many tis those blasted things were knocked over yesterday!"
Normally, Jenkins would visit the post office in his black-robed disguise to purchase *Tropical Disease dical Outlook*. To be cautious, he would always buy five or six different magazines at a ti. This was how he had ended up with copies of *A Guide to Sweater Weaving (Autumn 763, Golden Chestnut Kite Calendar)* and *The ow-ow Guide to Raising Cats* in his ho.
The racks that had once lined the post office's main hall were now consolidated into a side room. A uniford man sat at a desk near the entrance, engrossed in a copy of the *Detective Knight Biography*. He gave Jenkins a passing glance before returning his attention to the book.
His stillness was a stark contrast to the bustling young employee who was constantly on the move just outside the room.
"The latest *Nolan Spring Travel Guide*..."
He muttered the title as he entered the maze of shelves, searching for his magazine by alphabetical order and issue number. He had amassed quite a collection of such useless periodicals at ho; Jenkins planned to find ti to donate them to the church, which would in turn distribute the well-preserved books to children who loved to read.
"Here it is!"
He browsed idly, and his eyes landed on a magazine titled *Fidektri Public School Directory*. Finding it interesting, he reached out to pull it from the shelf.
"Giggle~"
A pleasant giggle echoed in his ear, but when Jenkins, his hand still outstretched, turned to look, he saw nothing. There were perhaps seven or eight other people scattered around the room, but none were close to him, and none looked capable of producing such a sound.
"Was it my imagination?"
He turned back, pulled the magazine from the shelf, and opened it right where he stood, curious about Nolan's local education system. But just then, he heard the giggle again:
"Giggle~"
He glanced behind him, toward the source of the sound, but again saw only the silent rows of shelves. Jenkins let out a long breath.
"If this is another one of those mischievous little sprites," he thought, "I swear I'll tan her hide."
With that thought, he slid the magazine back into its place on the shelf and surveyed his surroundings with his Eye of Reality.
His sight pierced the mundane. About a block away, two Benefactors were walking together, but they weren't what he was looking for. Vague spiritual auras drifted past the post office outside, likely soone carrying materials imbued with spirit. Upstairs, a brilliant golden radiance emanated from the holy symbol of the Righteous God, the Traceless Traveler—who was also the Patron of Mail Carriers, a domain similar to Jenkins's own Patron of Flower Girls. The symbol, of course, was not his target. And then he saw it: on the bookshelf behind him, a book on the very top shelf was glowing with a blue aura...
"That's it!"
He strode over, but the mont his fingers brushed against the book, its glow vanished.
"Let's see... what could this be?"
He pondered as he scanned the room again. A magazine, glowing with the sa uniform blue aura, lay on a shelf on the opposite side of the room. But by the ti Jenkins reached it, its light had faded as well.
He began to move continuously from one shelf to another, hunting his elusive target. He must have looked quite odd to the other patrons, but for the mont, no one said anything.
This continued for more than ten minutes, and Jenkins had explored nearly every corner of the room. He saw the aura vanish from right under his hand, only to reappear on a book in the most remote corner. After a quick glance to confirm no one was watching, he instantly disappeared from where he stood.
"True Phantom!"
While wandering about earlier, he had purposely left one of his shadows in that unoccupied corner. Now, having teleported to it, he instantly snatched a book from a nearby shelf: *Delicious Fish: A Lund Island Cookbook*.
With a soft crackle, a layer of frost rapidly spread from his palm, encasing the entire book in ice. This ti, the blue aura did not vanish.
"So it was you, B-05-5-5455, the Heart Book!"
This wasn't the mischievous sprite he had imagined, but sothing far rarer: the Heart Book. The realization that this particular Extraordinary item only appeared to followers of the Sage filled Jenkins with a profound sense of satisfaction, as if he had been personally acknowledged.
The Heart Book possessed the innate ability to avoid living creatures, allowing it to instantly transfer to any other book within a thirty-foot radius; moving beyond that range required a bit more ti. Furthermore, contact with a being that possessed spirit could slow its transfer speed. And completely sealing it off from the air—as Jenkins had just done—would strip it of its ability to move altogether.
The history of the Heart Book was well-docunted within the Church of the Sage. This special numbered item was said to have originated from a C-class Bestowal from an ancient epoch known as the Book of All Things. That legendary to supposedly contained all the world's knowledge and was of the sa caliber as the Millstone of Fate.
But the book was lost, and no one knew why. The few records that exist from that ti suggest its disappearance predated the appearance of the Sage, the deity who holds the domain of Books.
Before the Book of All Things vanished, a few of its pages had, for various reasons, beco separated from the main text and scattered. One such page fell into the shadow realm and was later brought into the material world during the 9th Epoch by an unknown shadow creature, triggering the infamous Black Book Incident. That event, now classified as a Cursed Item, spread like a plague: anyone who read a book infected by it would transform into a shadow creature.
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