CHAPTER 38: RESEARCH AND RECKONING

Days rolled by very differently for everyone on the first floor. For a majority of those who chose to join the combat class with Testmaster Varrick, it went slow. They had to endure the harshest of trainings and to be honest a week was not even enough to grasp the basics of what it meant to fight.

But at least they would die in a battle knowing that they had an idea of what to do to avoid actually dying. There was some solace in that.

Emil had reported what she had learned in the first two days, but afterwards they decided to focus wholly on what they learnt. The good news Aerith received was that she was learning more about her abilities and it’s limits, and that was progress enough.

He wished he could say the same for Nasha, she did not seem to receive any ability from the tower. They hoped they would blossom soon. Nasha grew even more silent it made their group feel more empty than it had ever been. Aerith wished he could comfort her but he had no idea how.

There were some who chose not to partake in the lessons, they instead chose to enjoy their lives as much as they could. It looked pitiful in Aerith’s eyes, he could see the indescribable fear hidden in their fake smiles as they waited for a death they chose not to fight against.

"Go on fattening yourselves like pigs you fools." He told himself constantly to keep his thoughts grounded on what he had ahead of him.

For him the past five days had been a blur, he had lost himself in the books even forgetting to meet both Emilia and Nasha at the cafeteria. But every second more he spent he learned more and asked even more questions to which there were more answers that bred more, and the circle kept turning.

Forcing himself to devour several thousands of pages of ancient knowledge was far too tasking for him. It caused his head to ache, and he would begin to forget many crucial information.

It be and frustrating for him to go through several books and remember absolutely nothing. He wanted to read as many of the library’s books as he could if he wanted to keep his comrades alive and he was failing at such a simple task.

After several nerve wracking hours Aerith came to a compromise that worked to well. It was a long shot but if it worked he would not only be able to have the contents of several hundreds, maybe thousands of books with him. And he would not even have to memorize them anyway.

Aerith remembered what he had summoned from his original world, it was his smartphone. A completely useless and unneeded tool in the tower, till now that is.

"Come on; appear." He groaned as he tried to summon the phone somehow, in return his skull answered with a white-hot headache. "Why is there no manual for this?" He only received pain and mocking silence from the library.

Minutes turned to hours and another day was gone, the time he could have used to actually learn something was gone. Wasted trying to make a phone appear like a magician.

His heart palpitated and the air tasted foul in his mouth as he tried to get his act together. Which was severely hard to do when knowing that ignorance would lead to a very short lived life, fortunately he had learned that the hard way in his previous life.

The next day Aerith was faced with a dilemma, he would have to choose to continue shredding through books in hopes that he would remember even a page of what he read when he entered his very first gateway. His second option was to try summoning the smartphone from whatever world it was in and risk wasting another day.

Time tied a noose around his neck and deprived him of air, his breath grew raspy as he sat being a beautiful well polished ebony table with several books open before him. Each option had a risk of their own, and he had to carefully weigh his choices well.

Currently his comrades were doing their best to grasp the art of combat which they could possibly teach him in due time. And all he had to do was read a few hundred books filled with massive lore in such a short time.

A bead of sweat trickled down his temple. "No biggie, I guess." He told himself so many times that he would have received a medal of honour for copywriting the line now.

The best course of action would be to get his smartphone and take images of every single book in the library to use later. This would save days, no— weeks of torturous reading but it also came with the biggest risk of not being able to summon the phone. Another thought escaped into his mind making him wish it hadn’t.

"What if I do summon the phone and it’s dead?" He swallowed as the thought started to blossom a number of thoughts. Soon his eyes started to itch for some reason. "Now that would be tragic."

Another thought struck like a hook. He pictured a cracked lens, a useless slab of glass. His eyes watered. The library blurred; the idea of losing that one shortcut felt worse than exhaustion.

Aerith was beginning to go mad with these rabid thoughts, there was only three days left and he was already losing it. He was beginning to question if coming to the library would be the best course of action for the time being.

He had learned quite a bit, "What use is knowledge is your dead?" He tried to convince himself. "I’ve wasted enough time here, if I can learn how to swing a sword or block a few shots then I’ll be fine."

He stroke his chin and thought to himself deeply, after a long time he finally came to a decision that would shape his future. "Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Starting tomorrow I’ll be joining the combat training class."

He had made his decision, that day he commited all of his already taxed brainpower to digesting words at a speed unknown to man. This resulted in him eventually passing out and losing his sense of time till the day was almost up. Aerith hated himself for it, he slowly left the massive library disappointed and frightened for what his sloppiness would cost him.

He made his way to the cafeteria for a light meal before returning to his room, he went through the daily routine feedback with Emil and Nasha before returning to his room to rest his tired brain.

Sinking into the soft foam of his bed he shut his eyes and felt the skin above them burn against his iris. His brain thanked him for the much needed rest, his neck that had been leaning over staring at books for days made a snapping noise so loud that Aerith practically had an attack; thinking that his head had snapped off his body.

Grateful that he was intact he heaved a deep sigh of relief and muttered under his breath with cold indifference. "What are you relieved for fool, if you keep slacking off you’ll die tommorow. Or the day after."

He steeled his resolve as he shook away all of the negative thoughts and told himself. "Tomorrow, I stop being a footnote."