Librarian of the Void

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 another person might have missed it. Leo noticed because noticing small things was one of the few skills he had that did not require a System window.

"Show me."

He tapped the recent entries. The catalogue displayed the last book he had scanned, the cafeteria cookbook, and a record of a returned first-aid manual.

No grey line.

Professor Ruth watched the screen for several seconds.

"Maybe the system is reacting to your class awakening," she said.

"That sounds like a sentence people use when they do not know what is happening."

"It is also a sentence that can be correct."

"So the official answer is that the library is haunted by software?"

"The official answer is that you should finish your shift."

Leo was beginning to miss having no supernatural problems.

He returned to the cart. Professor Ruth remained near the catalogue for a while before going back to the desk. She did not ask him another question, but he could feel her watching him through the reflection in the glass.

That was great.

He had been in the academy for less than one day as an awakened person, and his boss already suspected he had become a problem.

At midnight, Leo finished the last shelf and opened his class window again.

[Librarian of the Void]

[Level: 1]

[Strength: 5]

[Agility: 5]

[Vitality: 5]

[Intelligence: 7]

[Luck: 6]

[Skills: None]

[Class Description: The bearer is qualified to access records that have fallen outside the recognised catalogue.]

[Access permission: 0.01%]

[Unique Function: Locked]

Leo blinked.

The class description had changed.

The last time he opened it, there had been no description at all. Now there were words, but they were not useful words. What did it mean to fall outside the recognised catalogue? Was that a fancy way of saying lost books?

He scrolled through the window.

At the bottom, three lines were covered by dark squares.

[Condition required.]

[Condition required.]

[Condition required.]

The System offered no explanation.

Leo poked one of the squares.

[Access denied.]

"Yeah, thanks," he muttered. "Very helpful."

The System did not respond.

At least it was consistent.

He closed the window and started preparing to leave. The public wing had been locked hours ago, but the older wing remained open for staff. His shift ended at midnight, which meant he had just enough time to walk back to his apartment before falling asleep.

He passed the oldest shelves on his way out.

The air felt colder there.

Leo stopped.

The shelves in this section were made of dark wood. They contained records from before the academy had become famous: early dungeon reports, first-generation class studies, and badly written survival guides from people who had apparently discovered monsters and punctuation at the same time.

There was nothing unusual about the shelves.

Except for the cold.

Leo held out a hand.

The temperature dropped near the fourth row from the wall. It was not a normal draft. It felt like standing beside an open freezer, except there was no wind and the rest of the room was warm.

He looked behind the shelves.

No vent.

He checked the floor.

No broken tile.

He pressed his palm against the wood.

The cold disappeared.

Leo pulled his hand back.

The cold returned.

He tried it again.

Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm.

The shelf was responding to him.

"That is not normal," he whispered.

Somewhere in the library, a book fell.

Leo nearly jumped out of his shoes.

The sound came from behind him, near the public corridor. He turned quickly, but the corridor was empty. A thin book lay open on the floor. He walked over and picked it up.

The title was **Basic Mana Control for New Awakened**.

He placed it back on the shelf.

When he returned to the dark wooden shelves, the cold spot had moved one section to the left.

Leo frowned.

It was now beside a narrow space between two bookcases. The gap had always been there, but he had never noticed it because the shadows were too deep.

He shined his phone light into it.

Dust floated through the beam.

At the back of the gap, something grey reflected the light.

Leo crouched and reached inside.

His fingers touched paper.

He pulled out a thin catalogue card.

There was no title on it. No author. No classification number.

Only a single mark sat in the middle: a small circle surrounded by seven short lines.

The instant Leo touched it, his class window appeared by itself.

[Uncatalogued remnant detected.]

[Source: Unknown]

[Restoration requirement: Incomplete.]

[Progress: 0.00%]

Leo stared at the notification.

His heartbeat became annoyingly loud.

The card trembled in his hand. The grey mark seemed to darken, as if ink was spreading beneath the paper.

Then another line appeared.

[The bearer may enter the Spectral Library.]

Leo read it twice.

He had never heard of a Spectral Library.

He looked around the empty wing. The cameras above the corridor remained still. Professor Ruth was in the front office, far enough away that she could not see the card unless she came looking.

His common sense told him to place the card back where he had found it.

His curiosity told common sense to shut up.

Leo turned the card over.

The back was blank.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

"So how do I enter?" he whispered.

The card became cold.

A line of grey light appeared across the wooden shelf beside him. It formed a rectangle, thin and tall, like the outline of a door.

Leo stopped breathing for a second.

The outline vanished.

Then it returned, brighter than before.

The shelves made a slow creaking sound.

Leo took one step back.

The grey line remained.

It looked less like a reflection now and more like a door waiting to be opened.

From the front desk, Professor Ruth called, "Leo?"

He nearly dropped the card.

"Yes?"

"Are you leaving?"

Leo stared at the grey outline.

"Soon."

"You said that five minutes ago."

"I was emotionally delayed again."

There was a long silence.

"Go home, Leo."

The outline faded.

Leo looked down at the card in his hand. The grey mark had disappeared, but the paper was still cold.

He slipped it into his jacket pocket.

The library became warm again.

For a moment, he convinced himself that he had imagined everything.