24 Running Into Danger

Ignatius couldn't blow Siegmund's whistle.

He couldn't use any of his skills.

The Silence effect which surrounded him like a cocoon of spider silk was almost unbreakable. Ignatius pulled up his character menu and glared at the information he'd been expecting: the Silence would run out naturally in just under an hour, or when he moved to a different game map.

'The most infuriating part,' he thought, 'is that my [✧Purgation] skill could get rid of this Silence… if I could cast it!'

He ran through possibilities over and over in his mind, but he kept running into the realization that he simply wasn't equipped to deal with this encounter. The Librarian was going to just keep attacking from the angle that would be the hardest for him to counter, no matter which way he faced. After all, every wall was a bookcase, and every bookcase was an opportunity for the Librarian to attack.

Even aside from his skills, if only Ignatius didn't have the Silence effect on him, he could shout and attract the Librarian to the location of the vocal noise, which would let him…

Then something finally snapped into place in Ignatius's brain.

He smiled again, realizing that he still had a chance.

Ignatius put his right hand against the wall and ran as fast as he could, glancing at each and every book that he passed, looking for one design in particular.

In the Library Labyrinth tileset, some special books always had the same designs, no matter what. These were mostly the books which contained small amounts of Essence.

However, there were a handful of other special books, ones which contained Skill Gems… or special enemies, like the Black Book. These ones had designs which were randomized whenever the level was generated.

That was why Ignatius hadn't realized the identity of the Black Book which had summoned the Librarian in the first place.

But now he knew exactly what to look for.

It took him a couple minutes to find one, but then he grabbed it from the shelf and hurled it at the floor with all of his strength.

The extra force of the throw dealt a decent amount of damage to the Black Book, reducing its HP even before it finished transforming. Then it expanded, becoming a monstrous, flying tome with yet another clawed hand of cracking energy reaching out to slash at Ignatius!

He parried and retaliated, but was only able to use an auto-attack, since Silence prevented him from using [✧Sacred Fist]. However, the huge damage boost from [✵Sarexia's Gauntlets] was so large that he only needed to auto-attack a few more times before the Black Book was destroyed.

Unfortunately, it dropped no treasure this time.

However, Ignatius didn't care about this. Instead, he took a long step back and waited.

After a few moments, he was rewarded with the exact scenario he'd planned for.

Because Ignatius was Silenced, he couldn't hear anything or make any sound. However, 'other' objects and characters could still make sounds! And so he'd initiated a fight with another Black Book, which had created the same high-pitched screech as the first one had when Ignatius had fought it.

Even though he couldn't hear the screaming, Ignatius knew that it had happened. That was the main function of a Black Book, to attract the Librarian to the source of the noise.

And so the Librarian's spiny, arachnid arms reached out from the hole in the bookcase where Ignatius had pulled the Black Book from! Ignatius leaped forward, grabbing onto one of the arms with all of his might and punching it repeatedly with his gauntleted fists!

Pain filled his body as the long, needle-like spines on the arms pierced all the way through his hands and forearms, dealing a lot of damage in retaliation, but he gritted his teeth and kept attacking!

The Librarian's arms thrashed, trying to dislodge its attacker. It tried to grab Ignatius with its free arm, but he took a moment to parry this grab—such attacks would always break through a block, but were very easy to parry—and then the arms went limp as the Librarian's last HP drained away.

At the moment of the monster's death, the sound rushed back to Ignatius's perception, and he fell to the ground, overwhelmed by the pounding of his own heartbeat and the gasping of his own breathing.

He grinned up at the ceiling of the Library Labyrinth, at the magical chandelier which swung gently above him in response to the motion of combat down below.

"I did it!" he laughed to nobody in particular. "I've never tried something like that solo… but I did it! Thank God for those gauntlets."

His own words rang loud and clear through the corridor. Ignatius stood and blew Siegmund's whistle, summoning the Onion Knight to his side.

"Oh, there you are!" the companion said in a tone of sheer relief. "That horrible fiend has been tormenting me without cease! Since I can speak once more, I assume that you have slaughtered our furtive enemy?"

"Yep," said Ignatius. "Now come on, let's get to the next floor before anything else happens. Another Librarian can spawn if we wait too long, and I don't want to have to deal with all of that again."

Even still, they carefully walked shoulder to shoulder as they followed their original path, each of them watching for any books that might fly from the shelves to attack them.

Thankfully, nothing happened for the rest of the floor. Because of the distraction and the vast size of the Library Labyrinth tileset, Ignatius's Hunger Clock had less than a minute by the time they finally found the stone staircase leading up to Floor 2.

"Finally!" Ignatius sighed.

They stepped onto the stairs and were teleported to the next level. However, without even noticing where they'd ended up, Ignatius immediately exited and returned to the City of Stomrus with his loot of 600 Essence—50 for each Black Book and 500 for the Librarian—and the [✯Skill Gem].

He was especially eager to identify the item, to see exactly what the first piece of random loot in this new life would be.