All Chapters of Librarian of the Void: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
18 chapters
1: Class Nobody Wanted
Leo was trying very hard not to fall asleep while standing. It was not easy. The Grand Hall of St. Orison Academy had been designed for important ceremonies, which apparently meant the floor was polished enough to blind people and the ceiling was so high that every cough became a public announcement. Hundreds of students stood in rows beneath floating lamps. Teachers sat on a raised platform. Cameras hovered near the walls, broadcasting the awakening ceremony to half the city. Leo stared at the nearest camera and wondered if it could detect boredom. If it could, he was probably already trending. "Stand straight," whispered Claire from two places behind him. Leo moved his shoulders a little. "I am standing straight. My soul is the one bending." "Your soul has been bending for twenty minutes." "It has a weak back." Claire sighed. She had been his classmate for almost a year, which meant she had already heard most of his excuses and still had not blocked him in real life. That w
2: Part-Time Job, Full-Time Humiliation
The message stayed on the screen for exactly three seconds. Then it vanished again. Leo kept staring at the catalogue as if looking harder would force it to explain itself. The screen returned to the normal search page, showing a list of books about basic healing skills and one badly scanned cookbook from the cafeteria. Nothing unusual. Which was suspicious, because the message had definitely been unusual. "Did you break the catalogue?" Professor Ruth asked from behind the desk. Leo turned. "Not yet." "That was not the answer I wanted." "Then you should ask a better question." Professor Ruth came closer. She was a small woman with silver hair tied at the back of her head and the kind of eyes that made people remember crimes they had not committed yet. "What happened?" Leo pointed at the screen. "There was a book." "There are approximately two hundred and eighty thousand books in this library." "This one was reserved for me." Her expression changed so slightly that anothe
3: Door Behind the Catalogue
The click came from the oldest shelves. Leo stood still, one hand inside his jacket and the strange card pressed against his chest. The sound had been small, but the library was quiet enough for him to hear every part of it. A latch moving. A lock opening. Something on the other side of the shelf shifting its weight. He did not like that last part. Leo glanced toward the front desk. Professor Ruth was no longer visible from his position. He could hear the faint movement of papers and the soft buzz of the desk lamp. He should leave. This was the sensible option. Go home. Sleep. Return in the morning with an adult, preferably one who knew what an uncatalogued remnant was and had insurance against mysterious doors. Instead, Leo reached toward the shelf. ''If this kills me, I am going to be extremely annoyed,' he thought. His fingers touched the wood. The entire bookcase shuddered. Dust fell from the upper shelves. The books did not move, but their pages rustled together like
4 Welcome to the Spectral Library
The book slam echoed through the hall. Leo flinched so hard that his shoulder hit the shelf beside him. Dust rolled from the upper stacks. The floating black card stopped moving, hanging in the middle of the narrow path with the word Threadstep glowing across it. Then the sound faded. Nothing else moved. Leo waited. Five seconds passed. Ten. "Okay," he whispered. "That was probably normal library behaviour." The silence did not agree. He kept his eyes on the corridor and slowly backed toward the Entry Hall. The doorway to the academy library was still behind him, a rectangle of warm yellow light in the distance. It looked safe. It also looked much smaller than it had a minute ago. The card drifted after him. Leo stopped. The card stopped too. He took one step forward. It followed. "You are either a clue or the most annoying bookmark in existence." The card rotated until its blank side faced him. The word disappeared. A small grey line appeared above it. [Record fragme
5: Rules Written in Dust
Leo did not touch the grey book immediately. He crouched beside it and studied the cover from a safe distance, which was not actually a safe distance because he was still in a library where impossible doors had opened behind shelves. But it was the closest thing he had. The silver thread moved. Only a little. It shifted across the cover like a worm beneath paper, then went still. Leo stood up. "I am going to get coffee first." The book remained on the floor. He went to the staff room, made coffee that tasted like hot metal, and returned with the mug in one hand and a plastic ruler in the other. The ruler had been intended for straightening shelf labels. It was now his weapon. He tapped the book. Nothing happened. He nudged it with the ruler. The cover opened. Leo dropped the ruler and stepped back. The pages were blank except for a single grey line in the centre. The line moved when he leaned closer, changing from a curve into a symbol he did not recognise. His System w
6: A Skill with No Owner
Leo did not move. The restricted collection remained dark behind the glass. The black card lay on the floor between the shelves, its pale word still visible. Threadstep. Behind Leo, Professor Ruth’s office light had gone out. He heard a key turn in the corridor. His first thought was that Professor Ruth had returned. His second thought was that the key sounded wrong. Professor Ruth’s office door had a smooth modern lock. The sound behind him came from an older metal mechanism, heavy and deliberate. Leo turned. The corridor was empty. The office door stood open by a few centimetres. He stared at it. 'Of course it is open now. Why would anything in this place behave normally?' he thought. The grey book under his arm pulsed with warmth. A warning appeared. [Unregistered movement detected.] [Investigation integrity at risk.] [Recommendation: Preserve current evidence.] Leo looked at the black card behind the glass. He had no idea what investigation integrity meant. He
7: The Public Ranking Board
Leo ran until the restricted collection was behind three locked doors and one very confused security camera. He stopped beside the vending machines on the second floor, bent over, and tried to remember how breathing was supposed to work. The grey book was under his shirt. It had not burned him. It had not spoken. It had not grown teeth. Still, Leo did not trust it enough to carry it openly, so he had wrapped it in an old library cloth and pushed it beneath his uniform jacket. His phone buzzed. Claire: Where are you? Professor Ruth is asking for you again. Leo typed a reply while still trying not to die from stairs. - I had an emergency. - What kind? He looked down at the book hidden under his jacket. - Shelf-related. There was a pause. - You are the worst liar I know. Leo slid the phone into his pocket. That was unfair. He was not the worst liar he knew. He had once met a second-year student who claimed he had missed class because a gate opened inside his bathroom. The s
8: First Practical Lesson
The training hall had been built to make students feel weak. Leo decided that was the only explanation for the enormous iron doors, the dark walls, and the twenty combat platforms arranged beneath a ceiling full of observation crystals. Every platform had a different testing device. Some measured strength. Others measured speed, mana output, balance, or reaction time. At the centre of the room, a large display listed the order of assessment. Leo was number forty-three. That was almost comforting. He had time to watch other people embarrass themselves first. Hannah went early. Her assessment was not subtle. She stepped onto the strength platform, activated Iron Vanguard, and punched a metal pillar hard enough to make the measuring crystal flash orange. [Strength output: Above recommended first-year standard.] The students watching from the edge of the hall cheered. Hannah looked at the result and nodded like the pillar had finally done its job. Leo clapped politely. "You ar
9: A Torn Page
Leo waited until the training hall emptied before looking at the paper. He did not trust the paper. That was becoming a general rule for his life. The instructors had taken the assessment equipment away. Students had left in groups, arguing about scores and complaining about whoever had received a higher ranking. Hannah had been called aside by one of the combat teachers. Owen had disappeared without making another comment. Leo sat alone on the lowest training platform. The torn paper rested on his knee. It was not a normal sheet. The edges were uneven, but the tear looked old rather than fresh. The surface had a grey colour similar to the light from his class awakening. A thin diagram covered half the page. Several lines crossed at sharp angles. One line began at a black circle, moved across the page, and returned to the same circle without touching the space in between. Leo traced it with his eyes. A small pressure formed behind his forehead. His System window appeared.
10: Girl Who Hits Problems
The tapping came again. Leo stood in front of the grey door with his hand hovering a few centimetres from it. One tap from inside the darkness. Then another, slower this time. Tap. Tap. He did not touch the door. The normal library was behind him. The staff room light was still on. His phone showed 11:48 p.m., which meant he had already spent too long staring at impossible wood. A third tap came from the other side. Leo took one step back. The door vanished. The shelves snapped together with a loud wooden crack. The cold air disappeared. The library returned to its normal state so quickly that Leo almost wondered if he had imagined the entire thing. Then his class window appeared. [Entry attempt incomplete.] [Record access postponed.] [Investigation status: Active] Leo looked at the notification. "You could have told me it was going to close." The System remained silent, probably because it had no mouth. He checked the shelf one last time. There was no grey light, n