TUTORIAL TO BECOME A GREEN FLAG (BUGGED)

Chapter 7: The Library Stakeout

The library of Aethelgard Academy was a sanctuary of hushed whispers, the scent of vanilla-aged parchment, and the oppressive weight of impending midterms. For Aris, however, it was a tactical zone.

He sat at a mahogany study carrel in the far corner, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he scanned the perimeter. His objective was clear: monitor Tia. She had been acting suspiciously—scouring historical archives, whispering to professors who were notorious for their silence, and worst of all, she had recently topped the magical theory rankings, pushing Aris down to second place. In the binary world of Aris’s internal processing, competition was a glitch that needed to be patched.

His internal interface flickered to life, a translucent blue overlay that only he could perceive, hovering inches from his retinas.

[SYSTEM ALERT: POTENTIAL RIVAL DETECTED.]

[TARGET: TIA L. VALERIUS.]

[THREAT LEVEL: ASCENDING.]

[MISSION: ELIMINATE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND THE TARGET.]

Aris blinked. The command was stark, urgent, and, typical of the System’s cryptic nature, slightly vague. He looked at Tia, who was seated at the large communal table three rows over. She was hunched over a mountain of grimoires, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. There was a solid six feet of polished floor between his desk and hers.

"Eliminate the distance," Aris whispered to himself, his voice barely audible over the rhythmic turning of pages.

He looked at the open space. The library was sparsely populated, but there were enough students present that walking over and sitting next to her would cause a social disturbance. It would trigger a conversation—variables he couldn't control. The System demanded efficiency. It demanded a tactical approach.

He stood up, his movements fluid and calculated. He didn't walk toward the table. Instead, he dropped to his knees.

A soft thump went unnoticed by the occupants of the library as Aris transitioned from standing to crawling. He stayed low, maneuvering beneath the rows of carrels like a soldier infiltrating enemy lines. The carpet was plush, muffling his movements, and he felt a strange sense of professional satisfaction. This was how a high-level operative moved. No wasted energy. No unnecessary noise.

He reached the underside of the large table where Tia was studying. It was a cavernous space, dark and cool, smelling of floor wax and the faint, sweet scent of Tia’s perfume—something like pressed violets.

He didn’t hesitate. He scooted forward until he was positioned directly beneath her chair.

[DISTANCE: 0.00 METERS.]

[MISSION STATUS: SUCCESSFUL.]

Aris sat cross-legged, his back pressed against the sturdy wooden center post of the table. He was now perfectly shielded from view by the thick tablecloth that draped down to the floor, creating a private tent-like environment. He was quite literally sitting between Tia’s feet.

He could feel the rhythmic tapping of her boots against the floorboards as she read. Each vibration traveled through the wood and resonated in his own chest. He remained perfectly still, his breathing shallow and synchronized with the ambient noise of the library.

Target neutralized, he thought, though 'neutralized' felt like an understatement. He had achieved total proximity.

Above him, the sound of parchment flipping intensified. Tia sighed, a soft, frustrated sound that echoed through the small space.

"Useless," she muttered to herself. "The binding ritual requires the alignment of the Third Star, but the text is missing the incantation."

Aris’s eyes widened in the darkness. He knew that text. It was the Codex of Celestial Anchors, kept in the restricted section. He had spent hours decoding its secondary index just last week. The information she was looking for wasn't in the book—it was in the marginalia, written in a cipher that required a specific light-refraction angle to read.

He felt the urge to speak, to correct her, but the System’s guidelines were strict: Observe. Analyze. Subvert.

Tia’s foot shifted, her heel catching the edge of his shoe. Aris froze.

"What the—?" Tia stopped tapping. She shifted her weight, the chair creaking above him.

Aris held his breath. His heart rate slowed to a deliberate, calm pace. He had eliminated the distance, but he hadn't accounted for the possibility of the target detecting an anomaly in their immediate physical proximity.

"Is someone there?" Tia whispered, her voice sharp with sudden alertness.

Aris watched her feet through the sliver of space between the floor and the hem of the table. She was looking down. She was leaning forward.

[SYSTEM ALERT: TARGET IS ACTIVATING SENSORY SCAN.]

[RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN STEALTH. DO NOT DEVIATE FROM PRIMARY DIRECTIVE.]

Aris stayed perfectly motionless. He felt like a statue, a gargoyle guarding the architecture of the library. If she looked under the table, his cover would be blown. He would be labeled a stalker, a weirdo, or worse—a threat. His academic reputation, carefully curated over four semesters, would crumble.

But then, the System provided a tactical suggestion.

[SUGGESTION: DISTRACTION.]

Aris reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, kinetic marble he’d been tinkering with. With a flick of his wrist, he rolled it toward the far side of the room. It hit the leg of a distant bookshelf with a sharp clink.

Tia’s attention snapped away.

"Hello?" she called out, though she kept her voice low enough not to summon the librarian.

She pushed her chair back, the movement forcing Aris to tuck his knees tightly against his chest to avoid being seen. She stood up and walked away from the table, her footsteps retreating toward the sound of the marble.

Aris exhaled. He was now alone in the sanctuary of the table. He looked at the books she had left spread out. She had been analyzing the Ritual of the Weaver. It was a complex bit of magic, prone to causing temporary spatial folding if performed incorrectly. If she tried that in the dorms, she would burn the building down.

His competitive streak flared. He couldn't let her fail. She was his rival, yes, but a rival needed to be at the top of their game to be worth defeating.

He reached out and tapped the underside of the table, specifically beneath the page she had left open. He traced the cipher he knew so well into the wood with his fingernail, a soft scratching sound that wouldn't be heard over the hum of the library’s magical cooling system. He was leaving her a breadcrumb—a hint that would lead her to the answer, but only if she was smart enough to look for it.

He was essentially tutoring his rival from beneath her own desk. It was insane. It was brilliant.

He heard her walking back.

"Must have been a rolling pen," she muttered, sounding unconvinced.

She sat back down. Aris pressed his back against the center post, feeling the heat from her legs radiating through the wood. He stayed there for twenty minutes, listening to her turn pages, listening to her mutter formulas, and waiting for her to notice the markings he’d left on the table.

Finally, she stopped.

"Wait," she whispered.

The sound of her fingertips brushing against the wood was loud in the silence. She was feeling the grooves he had left—the cipher.

"Who wrote this?" she whispered to herself. Her tone wasn't one of fear anymore; it was curiosity. Pure, intellectual interest.

Aris felt a surge of pride. He had engaged her. He had challenged her. And he was currently sitting at the very center of her world, a hidden variable in her equation.

[MISSION UPDATE: TARGET IS ENGAGED.]

[SUCCESS RATIO: OPTIMAL.]

Aris checked his internal timer. The library was closing in ten minutes. He needed an exit strategy. He couldn't just crawl out and walk away; the optics were terrible.

He watched her feet again. She was distracted by the cipher, her pencil scratching frantically against her notebook as she decoded his hidden message.

Aris began his retreat. He crawled backward, inch by inch, moving toward the shadows behind the shelf. He was a phantom, a whisper in the library, a master of proximity. He reached the edge of the rug and slipped behind a towering stack of encyclopedias just as Tia pushed her chair back to retrieve a book from the shelf behind her.

He stood up, brushed the dust from his knees, and adjusted his glasses. He checked his reflection in a dark window pane. Perfectly composed.

Across the room, Tia was standing by her table, holding her notebook to her chest, her eyes bright with the thrill of a discovery. She looked toward the bookshelf where Aris was hiding. For a second, he thought she might have seen him—or perhaps, she felt the lingering static of his presence.

She didn't spot him, but she smiled—a small, enigmatic curve of her lips.

Aris turned on his heel and walked toward the exit, his heart rate steadying. He had eliminated the distance, provided the necessary intelligence, and remained undetected.

[MISSION COMPLETE.]

[NEW DIRECTIVE: PREPARE FOR THE NEXT ENCOUNTER.]

Aris stepped out into the cool night air of the campus, the library lights flickering out behind him. He wasn't just a student anymore; he was a silent guardian, a rival, and a partner in the secret dance of academia.

And tomorrow, he would have to find a way to get even closer.