Chapter 107 – 16th Floor.

Thud-thud-thud-thud—

The puppet librarian fiercely charges toward me, its robe so long it drags on the floor as it flutters.

I focus on the dagger thrusting in a bizarre direction as the spherical joint rustle- rotates, taking a light step backward to avoid the first trajectory.

Swoosh!

With the sound of air being sliced, my front hem gets slightly torn.

Fortunately, since there’s no stinging or wet sensation, it seems the wound wasn’t even shallow.

“Good thing I brought extras!”

Roughly where I estimated it would be.

Remembering the location of objects I’d noticed before being spotted by the puppet librarian, I reached back and, as expected, felt a rod with a hard, comfortable thickness.

I grab it and pull without hesitation.

A heavy weight and the sensation of striking the air with a whoosh- transmits through my arm as my shoulder muscles contract to their limit.

Crack—!

A tall ladder-like staircase used to retrieve books from high places.

The enormous improvised wooden club, weighing at least a dozen kilograms, strikes the puppet librarian who didn’t even have time to react, scattering fragments in all directions.

“Batter number 4, Shin Yuhyun~ swings the bat!”

The weight of a medium weapon typically used by ordinary humans is only 1-2kg. Even a heavy one is limited to about 3kg.

At 4kg, it becomes closer to a ceremonial or decorative object.

So the destructive power of an overwhelming mass more than a dozen times that of conventional weapons, swung with superhuman physical abilities, would be explanation enough without saying more.

KWAANG—!!!

“Home run!”

The featureless head is completely smashed, and the waist snaps in half, flying off to cover another one that was running behind it.

Crash-thud!

The last librarian, hit by the suddenly flying heavy projectile, rolled on the floor with it.

“Ah, not a home run but a base hit.”

The ladder, despite everything, doesn’t have the durability of a weapon, so it broke and became much lighter.

I finished off the fallen librarian by delivering a chair shot with the now-broken, sharp-edged ladder.

Three puppet librarians suddenly stopped moving.

“It’s a problem if I fight too well. There’s no tension, no tension!”

I was worried that I might not even feel excited when meeting a sub-boss or boss.

My talent was frightening even to myself.

After tossing the ladder aside, I shook my head and walked forward to continue exploring.

Click-

“Huh.”

A hole opens in the floor, and green gas that practically screams “I’m poison gas!” sprays toward my face.

[You have been poisoned.]

The moment I inhaled that gas, my vision turned red and shook so violently I couldn’t perceive anything, and my esophagus and trachea burned as if on fire.

Simultaneously, a ringing in my ears and crazy migraine like my brain was being poked with an awl made it impossible not to scream.

Who on earth invented such an inhumane toxic gas!

“GAAAAH!!! SLIME!!! SEVERA!!! KALI!!! ALRAUNE!!! ARACHNE!!!”

So this is what they mean by hitting all seven vital points. Fuck.

“Cough! Damn…”

After neatly taking down the puppet librarians, I stepped on a trap that happened to be nearby and got poisoned, which was quite vexing.

Fortunately, my health was at full strength, and both hunger and thirst levels were above 75, so it was possible to recover while enduring the DOT damage from poison until it wore off, but pain is still pain.

I took off my shirt, now uncomfortably stained with black blood that had flowed from my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, and tossed it casually to the floor.

Splash-

The discarded top stuck to the floor, splattering droplets of blood around with a heavy sound, suggesting I had lost quite a bit of blood.

Since there are many librarians here, someone will clean up the trash.

No, wait, what kind of psychopath puts traps in a library in the first place?

“Ugh, this is killing me.”

Even while poisoned, with time being precious, I didn’t rest and explored for about an hour, moving in a snail-shell pattern, gradually expanding the map, and was able to illuminate about 5% of the total area.

Unlike other regions, without shortcuts or special objects, there were only extended bookshelves and glass-walled corridors.

This meant that by simple calculation, one could explore an entire floor in 20 hours. And there were four more floors ahead.

‘If I spend about 6 hours a day exploring… roughly 2 weeks should do it.’

If I were alone, I could push myself to spend 8 or 10 hours a day on exploration without issue, but while Blue Tongue, who had become a half-elemental, might be fine, this could be a harsh schedule for Albert, who was merely a skilled human.

‘He’s an elderly gentleman, and while I don’t need to revere the elderly, I shouldn’t attack them either.’

Born in the East, the land of courtesy, my yearning for politeness is making me weak.

Perhaps to survive, people need to become a bit trashy? My heart is too soft, and that’s a problem.

Tap- Tap-

Moving forward again, I stuffed potions or scrolls occasionally placed on bookshelves, as if accidentally left behind, into my backpack.

Items that appeared consistently despite my luck not typically being so good, as if compensating for stepping on the trap, almost made me grin, but I quickly slapped my cheek.

“Surely there must be other things dropping as well?”

What I need to obtain from this area are artifacts with end-game level performance and treasures that can be converted to money when I return.

More precisely, not some unknown art pieces, but preferably gold or gems with good exchange value.

Even if I regularly extract silver when defeating sub-bosses, with more mouths to feed, I can’t withstand the 21st century’s K-prices that rise and never come down.

In my current state, if there were a jewel in front of me, I’d pour the potion in my hand into my mouth and pick up the jewel instead.

Of course, this potion is a healing potion.

My heart started pounding with anxiety.

World, please save me!

“I wonder what kind of visitor this is.”

Clatter-

Red tea on a small tea table, cold from being left unattended for who knows how long, yet still maintaining its red hue.

From its fragrant aroma with deep richness, one could tell it was quite a premium variety.

But regardless of such quality, a hand with spherical joints inserted at each knuckle retrieved the tea, which showed no signs of being sipped, and disappeared somewhere.

“I thought there would be no more visitors here.”

A voice muttering lowly.

The owner of that voice wasn’t paying attention to the tea being cleared away but was looking into a glass marble that had been beyond it.

More precisely, it was watching a doll inside that glass marble.

A black-haired man with dried blood stains on his face and upper body that he hadn’t wiped off, carrying a backpack and a box, wandering through this library.

“A lost traveler? But to consider him as such, the magnitude of power he possesses is extraordinary.”

The man in the glass marble was randomly breaking the librarians it had deployed.

Those librarians were merely byproducts of magical experiments it had conducted, but they were still items that would be evaluated as dangerous monsters outside, difficult to handle for an ordinary soldier or mercenary.

Yet this man was breaking them easily, as if snapping twigs.

“Oh my…”

While librarians are the most numerous among this library’s managers, they are still valuable personnel. If they cannot properly exclude the unidentified intruder, it would be better to prevent further destruction.

They had an important mission to stop uninvited guests in other sections, after all.

With that thought, the librarians reflected in the glass marble stopped abruptly as they rushed toward the man, then returned to their places to resume work.

The man looked around at the librarians who had suddenly become peaceful, scratching his head, but then continued walking down the corridor, seemingly without any intention of picking a fight.

“It seems he doesn’t hold much hostility toward this place. Then, like other visitors, is his purpose to find treasures?”

It watches the man’s footsteps with its glass marble-like eyes rolling.

He seemed to be looking for something.

While he was picking up visitors’ lost items placed on shelves or bookcases, that appeared to be secondary.

“Should I have a direct conversation…”

Creak- Creek-

As if to say that’s not allowed, the butler, with joints identical to those of the librarians, made vigorous gestures while moving its joints.

Seated demurely in a chair, it had no choice but to surrender to the butler’s desperate dissuasion.

If something happened to itself, which held the power of life and death over their existence, neither librarians nor butlers could be maintained any longer.

Such concern might exist, but the butler’s plea seemed closer to a concern filled with what the world would call affection—a more fundamental emotion.

“Alright, let’s watch a bit longer.”

There’s plenty of time until the predetermined end.

A doll seated at the tea table closed its eyelids for a long time after looking at the newly placed hot teacup.