PAF 07

Chapter 7

“No, but why on earth…?”

“Then you may take your leave first. The exit lies that way.”

The Crown Prince was pale as a sheet, looking as though he might collapse at any second from the agonizing aftereffects of having thirty percent of his lifespan forcefully ripped away. Cold sweat glistened on his forehead as he offered Head Librarian Kaellariatus a brief, stiff bow. Without uttering another word, he turned on his heel and walked toward the designated portal.

I stood frozen, completely dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events.

It felt as though I had been violently swept up in a massive, unstoppable current.

Why? Why?!

Why would he do something that put him at such a severe, life-threatening disadvantage?

What could he possibly gain from sacrificing his own lifespan for a woman he claimed to barely know?

“My dear librarian.”

The Head Librarian’s smooth call snapped me back to reality.

“Still, since you happen to be the librarian I cherish the most, I shall grant you a special administrative privilege.”

“…Really?” I asked, eyeing him with deep suspicion.

“Of course! Of course,” Kaellariatus chimed, tilting his head. “Have you spent your entire life being deceived?”

“Actually, yes, I have spent my whole life being deceived, and now I’m actively dying because of it!”

The Head Librarian let out a soft chuckle, covering the lower half of his face with the book in his hand. The smiling, lapis eyes visible above the leather cover—which was decorated with intricate, bone-white skeleton illustrations—looked chillingly eerie. That was one morbid-looking tome.

“The one who betrayed my dear librarian,” Kaellariatus whispered, leaning in slightly, “is a single individual.”

“…Well, that’s actually welcome news,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “A much better way to go about it than just giving me a useless hint.”

As Kaellariatus continued to toy with me, my tone naturally turned sarcastic. Unsurprisingly, he simply snickered at my sullen attitude.

“The reason I cannot outright speak their name to you,” he explained, “is because you, my dear librarian, already know the traitor’s identity.”

“I already know…? Then…”

Frowning, I quickly summoned the Archive and began rapidly flipping through its system pages. The Archive was my administrative safety net—an external brain I always carried while deployed. Even if my organic memories were fragmented, a permanent record of the traitor’s identity should have been logged in the system.

Yet, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find a single clear entry. It was possible the information was locked behind a specific keyword, but I had zero idea what that keyword could be.

Besides, the Archive had lost the majority of its functional capacity, and countless records had been corrupted while it was actively shielding my soul from the Spirit-Severing Venom. To fully restore its database, I would first need to recover my lost administrative power.

Which meant… recovering my lost name was ultimately the exact same task as identifying the traitor.

Kaellariatus watched me with amused, glittering eyes before his playful smile suddenly vanished into a sharp, neutral line.

“In that case, I will allow you to track one vital variable—since you are currently at a severe disadvantage, my librarian.”

“What variable?”

“Open the target profile on that insect.”

‘Calling a handsome royal an insect…‘

Grumbling under my breath, I brought up the Crown Prince’s system interface.

[ View Information → Target Entity Profile ]

Identity: Crown Prince

Classification: An unauthorized Possessor discovered within the novel .

The character description was ridiculously brief—likely because my mind still didn’t fully comprehend his true background. However, directly beneath his basic description, a completely new system stat had been appended in bright, glowing text:

♥ Favorability: 90%

“Favorability…?!” I gasped, staring at the screen.

“Yes,” Kaellariatus purred. “It seems exceptionally well-suited for tracking down traitors, don’t you think?”

I was about to snap that he could have just handed me a direct list of suspects, but I held my tongue. This was infinitely better than nothing. As infuriating as his methods were, it seemed the Head Librarian genuinely favored me above the rest.

More importantly… why on earth was the Crown Prince’s favorability toward me at ninety percent?!

Was this a system glitch?! Ninety percent was an insanely, unnaturally high number—a stat reserved for lifelong soulmates or obsessed fanatics!

Logically, how could anyone feel that way toward the terrifying archmage who had systematically tried to destroy his kingdom?! No, even worse—this meant he felt this level of intense affection toward me, knowing I was an interdimensional librarian rather than that original hero!

On top of all that, he had casually surrendered decades of his own human lifespan just to buy me time?!

‘Is that guy completely out of his mind?!‘

I needed to talk to him immediately. In any case, it was an undeniable fact that he had just saved my life, and in my utter shock, I hadn’t even offered him a proper thank you.

Snapping the Archive shut, I gave the Head Librarian a brief nod and darted toward the portal after the Crown Prince.

✦ ✦ ✦

The moment I stepped through the portal, the dreamlike cosmic night sky vanished instantly. The shift was as jarring as if dozens of industrial floodlights had been cut simultaneously.

In its place stood the true heart of our headquarters: a massive, multi-tiered circular library so immense that its vaulted ceiling felt as though it opened directly into the upper atmosphere.

Endless rows of towering bookshelves stretched into infinity, packed tightly with millions of ancient volumes. Though every single book contained the complete life and destiny of a human being, here within the sanctuary, they were just quiet, heavy tomes emitting the dry, crisp scent of aged paper.

A strange lump formed in my throat. To think I had actually managed to return to this sanctuary… I had been so convinced I was destined to wither away as a beggar in a filthy alley.

I never could have dreamed that my savior would be the Crown Prince. He was the ultimate enemy I had battled while playing the role of the Azure Flame Mage, and I had possessed zero clue that he was an external possessor like me.

And that very savior…

“Ugh… Blech…! Cough! Kkh…”

…was currently collapsed on the polished marble floor just a few paces away, dry-heaving as if his soul were literally leaking out of his chest.

I didn’t know exactly how many decades of his life force had been drained during the transfer, but it was painfully obvious that standing tall and composed in the Head Librarian’s presence had required every single drop of his remaining strength.

“Hey! Are you okay?!” I rushed over, dropping to my knees and gently patting his broad back. “This is why you shouldn’t have meddled! I mean, I’m grateful, obviously, but…”

As I rubbed his back, he lifted his head, his face ghostly pale and slick with cold sweat. His voice trembled violently as he squeezed out the words.

“Th-that… that thing… is that the H-Head Librarian…?”

“Hm? What about Kaellariatus?”

The Crown Prince visibly flinched at the mere mention of the name, reacting as though hearing it was far more agonizing than having his lifespan carved away.

“You might be fine… because you’re a powerful archmage… but I… cough!“

‘I told you, I’m not a mage anymore!‘

I opened my mouth to correct him for the hundredth time, but seeing him in such visceral, trembling pain forced me to bite my tongue. I simply kept rubbing his back in slow, soothing circles until his breathing stabilized.

He still viewed me through the lens of the terrifying Azure Flame Mage, and if I was being completely honest, part of my brain still instinctively viewed him as the ruthless Crown Prince. My logical mind accepted that he was a fellow possessor, but my gut was still screaming at his royal aura.

I waited until the color returned to his cheeks before speaking up.

“We need to have a proper talk.”

Assisting him to his feet, I placed his heavy arm over my shoulder and led him toward the private residential quarters provided within the library district. As we walked, I began organizing the complex reality of our situation in my head.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Dimensional Library.

This place where I worked was no ordinary library.

Anchored around Head Librarian Kaellariatus and suspended within a localized rift between dimensions, this sanctuary was an administrative hub where the inner worlds and destinies of human beings were cataloged in the form of books.

Every single volume contained the genuine lifespan and fate of an individual, making a librarian’s core directive absolute: protect the integrity of the text at all costs.

When a localized narrative error or external anomaly corrupted a story, a librarian was deployed into the text to resolve it. However, because entering a book meant diving directly into the collective consciousness of another reality, it was a wildly perilous task.

A single misstep could cause a librarian to suffer narrative assimilation—forgetting their true identity or becoming permanently trapped inside the fiction.

I had suffered that exact operational failure, becoming trapped in a novel where I nearly faded into nonexistence.

Yet, the reason librarians willingly accepted such terrifying risks was that the rewards offered by Head Librarian Kaellariatus were beyond human imagination.

The rewards Kaellariatus could grant were infinite—ranging from mundane desires like vast wealth and worldly honor, to achievements utterly impossible for an ordinary mortal to attain.

“Rewards…?” the Crown Prince asked, leaning against the cushioned sofa in my private quarters. He looked up, his turquoise eyes filled with genuine curiosity. “You mean… wealth? Noble status?”

“If that is what a librarian desires, then yes,” I answered, pouring him a warm cup of herbal tea.

“What do you mean ‘if that’s what they desire’?”

“It means that even a simple desire like ‘wealth’ manifests in entirely different forms for different souls,” I explained, sitting down across from him. “Some wish to receive wealth as fair compensation for hard labor. Others want to earn it through brilliant conquest or personal achievements. Some wish to be born into an ultra-wealthy bloodline and inherit it, while others just want a random windfall—like stumbling upon a chest of gold in the street.”

If someone simply asked for raw money, Kaellariatus would casually toss a bar of solid gold at their feet.

Yet, surprisingly, beneath the surface of a simple wish for money, human beings harbored vastly complex desires.

Some wanted their social honor elevated so that powerful people would offer them tribute. Others wanted to be born into a powerful, pampered family so they would never have to worry about survival, even if they spent their entire lives idling away.

They were all wishes for wealth, yet they were fundamentally different destinies. And many of those desires were things a mortal could never achieve in a single lifetime, no matter how desperately they struggled.

“The Head Librarian can grant every single one of those variations as a complete, unalterable reality,” I said softly.

“Even reincarnating someone into an elite family?” The Crown Prince raised an eyebrow, clearly struggling to process the scale. “Is something like that truly possible?”

I nodded firmly. “The volumes stored in the Dimensional Library aren’t just paper and ink. They are active blueprints containing the absolute destinies of living beings. That is precisely why a librarian is strictly forbidden from altering a book’s contents for personal reasons. Doing so is an act of illegal interference in another soul’s fate.”

That was why an external corruption of a text was treated as a catastrophic event.

It was a librarian’s highest duty to fix such anomalies, and even when deployed inside a story, they were strictly prohibited from damaging the core plot structure.

Because that text represented someone else’s real life.

However, that didn’t mean no one had the authority to alter fate.

“The Head Librarian holds that absolute right,” I stated.

“…I see,” the Crown Prince murmured, taking a slow sip of the tea.

Surprisingly, he accepted the concept with startling ease. The authority to observe, edit, and rewrite the destinies of infinite worlds—he didn’t ask skeptical questions like “How can a god like that exist?” or “How is that scientifically possible?”

“You believe me that easily?” I asked, tilting my head.

“After being dragged into that cosmic realm and standing face-to-face with ‘that thing’…” He shuddered slightly, a faint grimace touching his lips. “…it isn’t difficult to believe at all.”

By ‘that thing,’ he obviously meant Kaellariatus.

The Crown Prince seemed surprisingly hesitant to speak the Head Librarian’s name directly. Was Kaellariatus truly that terrifying to an outsider? To me, he was just an insufferable, overly dramatic boss who refused to give straight answers.

I leaned back against my chair, crossing my arms as I looked straight into his clear turquoise eyes.

“So… what about you? What is your actual reason for wanting to become a librarian, Your Highness?”

The Crown Prince set his teacup down on the saucer with a soft clatter. He looked up at me, his gaze intensely focused, a subtle smirk touching the corner of his lips.

“…How long do you intend to keep calling me by that title?”