Books in the game were expensive, and the players knew it. But this Outer Library held thousands upon thousands of volumes; after picking until their eyes crossed, the players figured they might as well have Wusu choose for them.
Wusu came down from the windowsill.
He was carried down.
By a tentacle as wide as a bowl, ugly and bristling with spikes.
Mina: ?
Since when was there a tentacle monster?
Curious, she risked a few more glances.
Blister-like growths piled layer upon layer among the spikes; the ugly exterior breathed a faint, fresh fragrance, yet beneath it lurked some thick, wet, rotting reek that needled at the nerves. Mina stared hard at that jet-black covering of flesh; beneath the dark skin, endless hidden colors seemed to churn. She shivered, as if she had glimpsed something never meant to be looked upon, and the sudden dizzying headache nearly made her retch.
She was about to. She was about to…
Tap!
Mina’s eyes snapped wide.
In an instant, every strange symptom was gone.
In her swaying vision appeared a soft, white little hand.
It patted her face.
“Mina?”
Wusu stood shorter even than Mina, yet he rose on tiptoe to reach her.
Mina looked at him. That exquisite, painterly little face was blank; he hadn’t yet learned many expressions.
But in those jet-black, guileless eyes sat a worry that Wusu himself didn’t understand.
She stole a glance at the tentacle behind him and saw only it looming there, glaring hungrily at his back.
Mina’s drifting heart floated back into place.
She rolled her eyes. Behind her the Elf was snarking that this thing’s looks rivaled the clown flower’s, and not far off her teammates’ voices drifted over.
That secretive, eerie feeling now seemed like nothing more than her own wishful imagining.
Surging, splitting, mending, splitting…
The tentacle’s skin, endlessly tearing and healing, betrayed nothing of that brief descent; its “smooth” surface nuzzled and rubbed against Wusu.
Wusu touched its tip, and it went soft as water, winding around his waist.
Clinging. Unwilling to let go.
If the tentacle monster had possessed hands, Mina would have sworn the thing was two seconds from smooching Wusu full on the face.
Marked!
Mina chucked that inexplicable feeling straight out, heart wrung with grief for the creature: Simps never come to a good end! A simping bully even less so!
She kept well away from Wusu. “Wusu, could you help us pick books?”
Wusu: “Okay.”
From that little face, who knew whether he’d understood.
His little legs carried him along the shelves, a tentacle trailing behind, and not even the players could get close.
The Elf trailed after with his arms crossed, vaguely dazed by how affectionate the tentacle looked.
I Don’t Eat Eggplant, for his part, forcibly made out a hint of… arrogance.
The Elf pressed a hand to his forehead, wondering if he’d played himself half-mad lately?
That headache before had nearly killed him; he could almost feel someone rolling around inside his mind, even the illusion of his eyes having been borrowed. That creeping terror had scared him into logging off on the spot.
Only after half a day disconnected did he crawl back on.
And now, he actually thought a tentacle looked arrogant?
No, no, no, it went beyond that.
It was an arrogant sort of calm, inexplicable, steeped in a divine indifference.
The Elf: Bah!
His nearsightedness must not have healed!
The books stood sorted by category upon the shelves, layered curtains between them drifting a faint fragrance.
Turn left.
Turn right.
Splat!
Oops. Little legs had walked too fast.
Wusu, arms wrapped around his tentacle, toppled headfirst into a bookshelf.
The lovesick tentacle: !
A mass of black whipped around and cocooned Wusu; the aura of divine descent, only barely contained to begin with, broke loose and spilled out, and as it dispersed it crushed down upon the lower-order rules, whose wailing shards gave silent screams. The Outer Library stood on the verge of destruction!
The black mud throbbed twice, exactly like two tiny fists pushing up.
Then a little fist patted the black mud, and as if soothed by a gentle kneading, the tide of escaping aura melted away in a rush.
Hearing the commotion, the players bolted over, and there stood a blob of black mud.
The black mud raised both little hands.
The very picture of a dumpling.
Mina strangled the scream climbing up her throat: Oh my god, too cute, I’m deceased…
“It’s fine.”
The little black-mud figure spun in a circle, and several books tumbled down at his feet.
The sopping black mud dripped away like water, then thickened back into mist-soft clumps.
Mina narrowed her eyes. That was the tentacle from before. Having weathered that bout, it seemed drained of all vigor, drooping limply across the polished floor.
Wusu hadn’t noticed yet; he bent down and scooped up those books.
He was too small, and some of the books were great big blocks.
Lifted into his arms, they all but swallowed him whole. He said, softly, “These ones.”
Red hair like burning fire, forever roiling with the flame of the dragon race; the steady Hugo strolled over, bent, and took the five books from Wusu’s hands. “Thank you, Wusu,” he said, low.
“Thank you” was a good word.
Wusu knew that.
Hugo stepped back and went over the five covers one by one; the teammates crowded in for a look, and the titles burned themselves into their eyes: 《Decree of the Lord》, 《Divine Revelation: Darkness》, 《Complete Compendium of Astrology》, 《Spell Manual》, 《Bloodline》.
[Players have obtained reading rights for the books. Please return them once you have finished reading.]
While the players mulled over the books, Wusu patted his waist.
Wusu: Huh?
Gone?
Wusu looked down.
Alyosha, nearest to him, caught that little face practically radiating fully formed confusion and looked over as well.
After a moment’s restraint, a cool, low voice sounded. “Died?”
Wusu looked at her.
Alyosha explained on reflex. “I mean…” She weighed what death actually meant, paused, and said flatly, “That it means never seeing each other again.”
Wusu: !
(Alana said gently: it means never meeting again.)
Were “kill” and “die” the same thing?
Wusu folded down into a little dumpling.
He touched the withered tentacle.
Wusu cried without a sound.
For once, Alyosha found herself at a loss. She was calm by nature, but she had never learned to comfort anyone. She could see that Wusu hadn’t wanted the tentacle to die, but… she crouched down all the same and laid a hand on his head.
The Divine Temple, shrouded since time immemorial in the Bell-Chime Tree’s gleaming white radiance, warped obscurely for a single instant, so brief it left only a pale smear on the retina, an illusory afterimage.
It spoke, in a voice no language could hold.
As you wish.
[Temple Awakening Progress: 8]
