Ch.374374 – Library Expedition Team 1

<374 – Library Expedition 1>

“This is what happened!”

I rescued a friend who was being beaten by spirits in the professor’s lab with Zhang and handed him over to Giselle.

“Oh my.”

Giselle sighed.

“Being kidnapped by a professor… I can’t really blame this… It’s remarkable you returned alive. Anyway, thank you for your hard work. I’ll cover the medical expenses as a form of workers’ compensation.”

“Thank you, Miss Giselle!”

“You must be exhausted after being beaten by spirits all night. You may go home now.”

Giselle’s kindness in sending the tired student home to get some rest was admirable, but her timing was unfortunate.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t go home~”

At my casually thrown comment, Dobby, who was about to leave the office, stopped with a mechanical creak.

“W-why would you say that…?”

“Dobby, you made a promise, right? With the spirits.”

“I intend to keep that promise.”

“Spirits have a different sense of time than humans!”

“I heard they can sleep for 10 years at a time?”

“That’s why every minute they’re awake is precious! During such times, if they’re quietly waiting for a promise to be kept, their patience might run out in just one day!”

“So if I go to sleep tonight…”

“Wouldn’t the spirits who’ve run out of patience escape from Professor Weird’s lab and come looking to cut off Dobby’s head?”

“Eek!”

Zhang, who was listening, looked dumbfounded.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“You didn’t ask!”

“…”

I would have told you if you’d asked!

“They’d probably be happy with any gift, and saying ‘good night, princess’ would be easy enough, but a fairy tale book might be quite difficult!”

“Couldn’t you just order a fairy tale book from outside for delivery?”

“It probably wouldn’t arrive in a day!”

“Gasp! So, am I just supposed to wait for a spirit to come and cut off my head?!”

“Are you stupid, Dobby? The Academy has a library!”

“Ah! That’s right. If I don’t have a book, I can borrow one from the library.”

“That won’t be easy either.”

Giselle interjected with a serious face.

“The actual location of the library hasn’t been revealed to first-years yet. You can only ‘order’ books by their exact titles from the store and rent them for a limited time.”

“!!”

“Even if you’re lucky enough to find the library, when it’s time to return the borrowed fairy tale book, the spirits might throw a tantrum and refuse to give it back. Then Dobby would have to pay all the late fees.”

This was a perfect example of things going from bad to worse.

Dobby’s face became severely gaunt in just a moment.

“…I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have fallen for the professor’s temptation… Waaah. My life is over!!”

Perhaps feeling guilty that a student’s life had been ruined because of a task she had assigned, even though it wasn’t her fault, Giselle patted Dobby’s back with great sympathy.

“Zhang. Oknodie. I need your help. Please help Dobby become a free man again. I’ll pay you for your services.”

“We can’t pay the rental fees!”

“The Dark Guild has collected information on the suspected location of the library. You two just need to break through to that place. I’ll pay the rental fees and plan to later purchase the fairy tale book externally and submit it to the library.”

This was a method only possible for someone wealthy like Giselle.

Honestly, I didn’t care much about an extra like Dobby, but I did need to clear the path to the library at some point anyway.

I decided to help, thinking it was a win-win situation.

* * *

Hector’s Believers.

Compared to other first-year organizations, this group had a major weakness in that its leader, Hector, was not a member of the upper classes and didn’t possess any notable power.

However, their passion for maintaining hostility toward Oknodie while swallowing up the marginalized and fallen one by one surpassed all other organizations.

“Is it true that Oknodie’s gang is recruiting a party to break through to the library?”

“It’s absolutely true. I heard it clearly with my own two ears.”

Upon hearing the news brought by his loyal follower Deiphobus, Prince Hector of Troy felt anxious.

“Oknodie’s faction continues to rise steadily. Unlike the current system where only a limited number of books can be indirectly borrowed through the store, if they break through to the library and can freely borrow books, the difference in benefits enjoyed by their members will grow even larger.”

“Enough! I know that too. Only someone with extraordinary talent who’s never been buried under assignments would not understand the importance of the library. And someone with such great talent wouldn’t join Hector’s Believers in the first place.”

Hector knew.

They were still lacking.

In terms of skill, talent, and personnel, they were significantly behind even the organization that Oknodie had created seemingly as a joke to play with.

But now, when the gap showed signs of widening rather than narrowing, he couldn’t just sit idle.

If he did, only ashes would remain, having burned white-hot the passion for revenge against Oknodie.

Like a called game in baseball, they would suffer a blowout before even reaching the bottom of the ninth inning, making it meaningless to continue.

“Issue a summons. We will also form a library expedition team immediately. This time, we must follow Oknodie no matter what sacrifices we have to make.”

“…Understood.”

They had gathered enough people.

There were plenty of students suffering disadvantages on assignments because they couldn’t borrow the necessary reference books.

What they needed was reference material, not the time of self-torture and pain spent wringing out their insufficient wisdom to forcibly extend their assignment answers.

“Hey, I got the information you needed. It cost more because I had to get it without overlapping with the Dark Guild…”

“That’s enough, Yuie.”

“With this, we can teach that wicked Dorothy a lesson. She stole the position that should have been mine!”

Hector knew about Yuie’s past, how she had approached the capable swordsman Rockpell to use him for her own purposes.

Instead of pointing out her past disgrace, he nodded, meeting her expectations.

“I heard they’re appointing Dorothy as their guide. If we succeed, it will also serve as a blow to Dorothy.”

“…Dorothy as a guide outside the forest? Let me be our guide.”

“You don’t have to push yourself.”

“I want to push myself. I understand the information I brought better than anyone. I can’t miss this chance to defeat Dorothy in her specialty area—the Dorothy who took my Rockpell, my upper class position, and my popularity!”

If she insisted that much, there was no helping it.

Hector assigned Yuie as the expedition’s guide.

“Yuie has a record of losing to Dorothy in the entrance exam. Her desire for revenge will be a strong motivation, but can she win against Dorothy, who is a guide by title?”

“I never expected her to win from the start.”

“Then why…”

“I just wanted to check something.”

“Yuie’s thirst for revenge?”

“No. The Foundation’s and Oknodie’s intelligence network.”

Hector’s grand vision looked beyond the immediate battle.

“If there’s information that we don’t know but they do, we can figure out who had access to that information after this expedition. Then we can narrow down who the Foundation’s collaborators are.”

“I, Deiphobus, am truly impressed. Your wisdom is so brilliant that Troy’s future will surely be filled with light!”

Hector inwardly laughed bitterly.

Is the light of a doomed nation found in following the footsteps of the Foundation’s lady?

Even if such a country has a tomorrow, that tomorrow would be the future shown by the Foundation.

Is such a future truly the right one?

This was his true feeling that he couldn’t bring himself to tell his loyal follower who had been following him since before entering the Academy.

* * *

Dorothy was surprised to hear about the size of the expedition.

The Library Expedition team had gathered over a hundred people, practically the entire organization’s membership.

The convenience and happiness of many would be determined by how well she guided them.

“Really? I can be the guide?”

“Yes. Dorothy’s 500% buff has a cooldown, but its performance itself is quite decent!”

“I’m not sure what that means, but it’s a compliment, right? I’ll do my best!”

Dorothy bounced around excitedly, preparing supplies and adventure equipment for 100 people with the organization’s activity funds.

Zhang wasn’t pleased with Dorothy’s excited behavior.

“Is she really that good at finding paths?”

“She usually follows the paths I already know.”

“If you’ve verified her skills, I’ll trust her abilities… but can she handle it? The important responsibility of guiding an expedition of this size.”

Zhang’s concerns had their basis.

“This expedition won’t end in just an hour or two, right?”

“Right!”

“Even though we’re acting over the weekend, we’re starting in the late afternoon and continuing through the night.”

“That’s right!”

“If the schedule gets delayed or if we happen to get caught by patrolling instructors, we’ll be fined on the spot for loitering in restricted areas and for leaving the dormitory.”

“Giselle said she’d cover it once.”

“Fine, let’s say Giselle covers it. But what if we’re ordered to return to the dormitory?”

The expedition that everyone had committed time and effort to might be ruined midway.

Zhang was thinking they could pretend to return while secretly splitting the group, allowing an elite few to continue the library expedition.

In such a situation, even if the elite few reached the library, the resentment of those who couldn’t would be directed at Dorothy.

‘A position where you get blamed for even one mistake. Can she handle such a burdensome task in a place that’s not even a forest where she’s adapted?’

Most people would crumble under the pressure and make repeated mistakes or give up midway out of fear.

But Oknodie’s answer was so clear that it made Zhang’s worries seem pointless.

“If we get caught, we’ll just knock out the instructor and continue!”

“…”

Clever tricks are only used when you lack strength!