Book Storage

"What kind of sorcery is this?" Ayana was dumbfounded as she walked toward a small window near the door. The window was not that big, but it would be visible from outside the building.

She was sure she checked everything carefully earlier and cannot find even any tiny holes on the outside from the first and second floors.

After standing there for a while in a daze, Ayana started to walk around the room. Her eyes were searching for the magic device to create such an illusion. She believed there was such a thing since nothing was making any sense besides that.

She had heard about the magic tool to create an illusion before, but it usually covered a big area, and people would definitely notice the illusion. It was obviously a waste of money to use that illusion only to hide all these tiny gaps from the outside. Moreover, what was the purpose of doing that?

Ayana shook her head after thinking for some time. Whoever used this illusion tool must want to hide something, but what is it?

Not getting anywhere after thinking for some time, Ayana shook her head and decided to keep the thought about this illusion magic in the back of her mind.

When she observed the building earlier, she found it strange that she could not find any sign of renovation. This was unlike other rooms she visited with Irene in the whole castle. Everything also did not look like an illusion.

The tiles under her feet were not that shiny anymore. It was so dull that Ayana was sure that no one had changed the tiles since the castle was built. She could even see the crack in several places.

'Does Luca really stay here? If he really is, he really has a strange taste for the place to stay,' Ayana thought with a little frown on her face. She looked at her surroundings with more questions appearing in her mind.

'Irene said that Luca was the only one with access to the tower. Then what is all this room used for? I guess we have a lot of time to spare to look at every room in this tower,' a smile appeared on Ayana's lips as she started walking to the nearest room.

Ayana carefully opened the door. After making sure that there was no hidden mechanism or trap inside the room, Ayana stepped inside.

Ayana pouted in disappointment when she found that there was nothing inside.

Ayana scanned the room with the flashlight from her phone to find a switch to turn on the lights. Although she had to be surprised that there was nothing like that inside. Ayana could not believe it and walked around as she lightly touched the wall with her fingers. 'Maybe there was an illusion trick inside the room that made me unable to find the switch,' Ayana thought as she carefully lit the wall with her phone and touched it as she walked.

She felt another wave of disappointment when she could not find anything at all inside the room. 

'Let's check another room first,' Ayana sighed tiredly and got out of the room.

**

"What the fricking hell is this!" Ayana uttered the words with gritted teeth. She stomped out of the last room on the second floor with annoyance on her face.

She felt like she was lied to, cheated on, and fooled. Something was totally wrong with this tower. And after checking the last room in less than five minutes, she concluded that this tower was unsuitable to be called a place for living for any human or any living being.

All the rooms were absolutely the same as the first empty room she checked.

There was also another thing she noticed about this weird tower. The thing was, the rooms had several small holes that might work as the air ventilator, and it was totally invisible from the outside. That's it. It doesn't equip with lamps, switches, or anything. It was literally an empty room.

At first, she was really curious about all the rooms and the function and so on, but after several disappointments for finding nothing, she started to get annoyed.

She had walked around the room for around ten minutes before concluding that nothing was different between the first room with the second room. She tried every trick she knew to find, maybe hidden stairs or hidden spaces in the tower, but there was nothing. It was just a normal empty room.

Ayana checked all the rooms on the first floor and realized that all the rooms on the first floor were empty and nothing was strange except for the windows.

She proceeded to go upstairs.

It was as Irene said. There were only two lifts in the entire castle. One was on the tower where she stayed, and the other one was on the main lift.

'Why has no one installed a lift here? Is Luca really a rich general I marry? Why did they renovate the tower where I stay but not do anything to this tower?'

Ayana frowned as more questions popped into her brain. Nothing was making sense. She was starting to doubt that this was really the place where a loaded general of District 2 stays.

'Compared to a place that can be called home, this tower is more suitable to be used as a prison to torture people,' Ayana massaged her head.

Ayana's breath hitched when she stepped on the third floor. Excitement filled her as she looked at the only door on the floor. Compared to the other tower that has three rooms on each floor, this room should be special. There should be something interesting inside.

Ayana started to smile a little, thinking she might have found something interesting besides some empty rooms. She could not help but get excited to know what was inside.

'Please don't let it be an empty room,' Ayana prayed as she pushed the door open.

The smile on her lips got bigger when her nose smelled something. She was familiar with the smell. 

Ayana opened the door wider and stepped inside. As she predicted, the room was so big. Her eyes could also see that something was inside.

Ayana walked further inside the room, and her eyes examined tons of boxes that almost filled all the space. She touched one of the boxes carefully and opened it. As she predicted, it was a box full of research papers and books. She had smelled the fragrance of books inside the room.

She was curious about what was written on the sheet, so she took one of the papers and tried to read several messy handwritings on it. She frowned when she could not read the strange characters on it.

"What the hell is this?" Ayana murmured, but the excitement inside her did not decrease at all.

'Seems interesting, but I will look at other books first,' Ayana thought before putting the paper back in the original place.

She then skimmed the room. She still remembers there were several big windows on the tower. 

She had turned off the flashlight since she could see the window of the third floor from outside. It would be chaos if she accidentally flashed the windows and the guards noticed that the light on the third floor was on.

After walking around the room for some time, she found a corner where she could sit and read the book with the flash in her hand without noticing the guards. The space was surrounded by stacks of boxes, creating a space where she could read comfortably.

Ayana sat in the corner and started to open another box. She knew that most of the box contained paper and books, but it did not dampen her enthusiasm to find out what kind of book was inside the box.

From the light from her phone, Ayana found out that some of the books and paper in the first box contain information about nuclear energy. Although she could also see the books about recipes and children's fairy tales mixed on the stack.

Ayana thought that all these books were weird. This place should be considered Luca Winter's private diary, so what was the use of recipe, kid's book, and even coloring book here?

It did not take long for Ayana when something passed her mind. She looked down at the coloring book for kids in her hand and started to examine it.

This might be another thing that she was bad at. She was so bad at detecting the magic power. She could only sense the power when it was so strong. Her dull sense could never feel the tiny magic around her if it used to hide the content of the book in her hand or maybe the small holes on the wall.

She had asked Rama to train her ability to detect the magic, but she once again became Rama's worst student. Not that Rama had another student besides her.

She cannot believe that this is just a normal library to store some kids and other normal books. In the end, Ayana put the book back in its original place because she could not do anything about the real content of the book.

Ayana did not waste her time and started to unpack other boxes. It did not take long for Ayana to drown in her own world as she started to read some of the books. There were many fascinating topics such as DNA manipulation, magic circle manipulation, species unification DNA, magic flower care, dark magic, species classification, mythical creatures' resurrection, and much more. Reading some of those made Ayana feel like she was reading a title of fiction.

That was what she thought at first. After skimming several books, she found that she was addicted to reading the book and cannot stop reading them.

Ayana only learned that she spent almost 2 hours reading the book in the dim room. Her eyes started to hurt as she overworked her pupil to read in this dim room. Ayana looked around with a frown. She frowned a little when she discovered that she created a mess.

Initially, she tried to cover her trace by arranging the boxes she moved to the same position as before. Even though after finding the topic in the book getting more interesting, she forgot to fix the boxes and started to enjoy the book.

Ayana stretched her body and looked at the mess with a tired face. Her eyes are tired since she read the book with the dim light from her phone. She can make a brighter light, but she was afraid people outside would notice it if they saw the dim light from her phone. After all, vampires have sharp eyes, therefore she just could not let her guard down and make mistakes.

In the end, Ayana left the room and decided to go back to tidy the room tomorrow. She heard people talking on the plane that Luca was going somewhere for a week. She has a lot of time to tidy up the private library.

She cannot help it since she is a professional procrastinator. Why should she fix this today if she can fix the room tomorrow? Ayana thought as she observed the room. Moreover, from the thick dust on the top of the boxes, she was sure that people rarely come inside this room. Ayana was confident that no one would notice the change in this room as long as she fixed this mess before Luca came back.

Ayana then looked at the boxes around her and started to choose some fascinating books to read. These boxes of interesting books are like a treasure for a bookworm like her. Her eyes caught an interesting topic in one of the books.

New Hope In Zone C

Zone C is a mysterious zone that was found almost three decades ago. Even presently, the total expedition group that survived and came back safely can be counted with fingers since the portal to Zone C was very unstable. There was even a case where the portal was closed while the expedition team was still inside, killing all of them.

The limited information about the zone makes every information about Zone C valuable.

Ayana carefully examined the book. It would be very expensive if it was sold. She believes that only several important people get a hold of the similar book.

Ayana looked at the book in amazement. This book was difficult to get since this book was only published to some privileged people for research purposes. She then rummages through the boxes again, hoping to find a similar book about Zone C. In the end, she has to swallow the bitter pill since she cannot find anything besides that.

Before leaving the tower, Ayana took the interesting book and put it in her bag. It seems like her days here will not be as dull as she thought.

Ayana had observed her surroundings since she walked inside the castle and found that she could only escape from the third floor.

Ayana sighed, but before she could get out from using the window, she wanted to check the door one more time, hoping the same miracle happened again.

Ayana did not directly open the door. She glued her ear on the door and tried to listen to any voice from outside. When she did not detect anything, she started to work on the door.

It was less than ten minutes when Ayana decided that there was nothing she could do besides using the window and started walking back to the third floor.

Ayana observed everything outside the window as her brain started working. The outside texture of the walls made Ayana easily step on the wall. Ayana placed her foot on the hollow to hold herself before jumping to the roof of the opposite building.

After making sure that everything was fine, Ayana jumped to the opposite building.

Ayana sighed in relief when she made it to the main building without too much hustle. 

Unlike her previous thoughts, Ayana easily returned to her room. All the tools she needed to get back to her room like ropes could be found in the storeroom and after that, all she had to do was climb. Luckily there were no guards hanging around downstairs so she could easily sneak back into her room.