CHAPTER 365: CHAPTER-365

"You’re alive," he said flatly.

"Barely," Kaya muttered, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.

Veer’s eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

Cutie glanced at Kaya, then back at Veer. "She flew."

Veer blinked. "She what?"

"I flew," Kaya said, her voice strained. "I don’t know how. I just... did."

Veer stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he cursed under his breath. "This just got a lot more complicated."

Kaya decided to move as quickly as possible. Time was running out, and she knew it.

She called Sparrow and the others over. Of course, Sparrow wasn’t in high spirits—still sulking from his embarrassing distraction mission—but whatever. That didn’t matter right now.

Kaya had all three of them change their scents. Even though they hadn’t been caught, there was a high chance the guards were suspicious of Sparrow. They could track his smell down if they wanted to. Cutie had been with her during the escape, so she didn’t want to take any risks with him either. And she was changing her own smell anyway.

As for Veer? He’d stayed out of the whole mess, so there was no problem there.

Kaya decided to visit the so-called big library—or archive, or whatever the hell they called it—first thing tomorrow morning. She wanted to know what was in there, if there was anything useful she could get her hands on. Now that time was ticking, she knew the longer they waited, the closer they were to getting caught.

She asked Cutie to make a floral scent she could pour on herself. It was made from flowers—strong and perfume-like, similar to the rose water people used back home. Kaya poured it over her clothes and skin, letting the smell soak in.

For Sparrow, Cutie made something completely different—a dried wood smell, earthy and subtle. For himself, Cutie used a floral mix, blending different flowers together.

As soon as morning came, Kaya dressed up carefully. She grabbed Veer’s arm, leaning against him with a clumsy, affectionate posture—looking every bit like a newly married couple, lovesick and inseparable.

They walked toward the archive together, playing their roles perfectly.

As soon as they arrived outside the library-like building, some guards stepped forward, blocking their path. One of them, a burly bear beastman, looked at Kaya with curiosity.

"Who is she?" the guard asked. "We need to verify her identity."

Veer’s expression shifted instantly. His eyes went cold—sharp and dismissive. He looked at the guard like he’d just asked the stupidest question imaginable.

"Did your nose stop working or something?" Veer’s voice was flat, cutting. "Can you not see? She’s my ’wife’. And you dare to question her like this?"

Kaya tightened her grip on Veer’s arm, leaning into him with a shy, clinging posture. She ducked her head slightly, acting every bit the bashful, obedient wife who relied on her husband for everything.

The guards glanced at each other, then back at Veer. One of them nodded slowly. "She’s your wife?"

"That’s all you need to know," Veer said, his tone icy and final. "If you have a problem with that, go ask my father yourself."

The guards exchanged looks but didn’t argue. They simply nodded and stepped aside, allowing them to pass.

Kaya kept her face soft and sweet, playing the role perfectly as she walked through the entrance with Veer. Her eyes stayed lowered, her grip on his arm gentle but constant—like she couldn’t bear to be separated from him for even a second.

Inside, she smirked.

’This is actually working.’

But as soon as Kaya entered the so-called archive, she felt like beating a few beastmen.

Really?

Kaya could not believe this was their "great library." Even her own library back home—her home ’before’ she killed that bastard—was much bigger than this. This library finished before it even started. There were, at most, fifty books. ’Fifty’. Maybe not even that.

She stared at the rows of shelves, barely half-filled, most of them dusty and clearly untouched for months. The room itself was small, cramped, with low ceilings and narrow windows that let in barely any light. A few scrolls were stacked haphazardly in one corner. Some books looked so old they might crumble if she breathed on them wrong.

Kaya’s eye twitched.

’This is it?’

She’d risked her life sneaking into the department compound, nearly got caught by wolves, flew through the air like some kind of lunatic, and ran from dozens of guards—all to get access to ’this’?

Veer glanced at her, noticing the shift in her expression. "Something wrong?" he asked quietly.

Kaya forced a smile, still clinging to his arm like the obedient wife she was pretending to be. "No," she said sweetly. "Just... surprised. I thought it would be bigger."

Veer smirked slightly. "This is the tribe’s archive. It’s not exactly the imperial library."

Kaya wanted to scream. But instead, she just nodded, her smile frozen in place.

’Fine. Whatever. I’ll work with what I have.’

She scanned the shelves quickly, looking for anything useful—books on beastmen abilities, maps, records of the department heads, ’anything’ that might give her an edge.

Because if she came all this way for nothing, she was going to lose her mind.

Kaya looked at some of the books, pulling one off the shelf. When she opened it, she got another shock.

The writing was in a completely different language.

From the plain paper—clearly someone had copied it by hand—she could tell it wasn’t from this world. She squinted at the characters, trying to make sense of them. Japanese. It was ’Japanese’.

Damn it.

She grabbed another book. Chinese.

Another one. Russian.

’Good. Very good.’

Kaya’s eye twitched. Her jaw clenched. She was about to lose her mind.

She moved down the shelf, flipping through book after book—Korean, Arabic, something that looked like Hindi—none of it useful. None of it in a language she could read.

Just as she was about to snap and throw a book at the nearest wall, she found one more.

She pulled it out, opened it, and—

English.

’Finally.’