CHAPTER 9
Soon, they were quickly led through the shelves of books to the very end of the library. Though there were hardly any people in the library, every area of the place had at least one person going through every hour or so, except for this one.
It was abandoned, with some books having not been touched since they arrived here. How long that had been, though, none of them knew.
Well, this was completely normal; no one cared about history. Many would much rather think about the present and future rather than go searching for answers about things that happened long before they were even born.
His mind was heavy with so many thoughts, and after speaking for a while with Yuki on his way here, he had realized just how much he was yet to learn. She was just as interested in mysteries as he was, and she had a more vast knowledge of things than he had hoped to imagine.
And now, she was the one picking out the books with the help of Gekka while he was seated at a table staring idly at his journal that lay on the table. The day was starting to feel very long.
After a while, Yuki returned with a few books grasped tightly between her arms. Opening them, she allowed the books to fall onto the table, lying flat on top of each other.
Megumi slowly reached out and picked up one of the books on the table. The book was about three times the length of his palm, with the title boldly written in front—Moonlight Mysteries.
"Hehe, catchy." He mumbled, flipping through the pages of the book.
Just as he thought, the book told tales of Lady Tsukiakari and the great things she achieved, at least in the earlier pages. The story here was a bit more detailed than most tales he had heard so far.
Lady Tsukiakari was a woman born into the Boma clan during the Dark Ages. The existence of demons had only recently come to the knowledge of humans, and they had begun fighting back with all they had.
It was during this time that masters of mystic arts—sorcerers who had been hiding for ages—and exorcists who swore to bring an end to the wrath of demons finally came forward.
Once again, humanity prevailed. They fought back against the oppressive power of the demons until they began to push the demons back.
Through countless blood sacrifices, humanity managed to reclaim most of what had been taken from them. The strong warriors who had aided humanity in their battles set up strongholds and began teaching their subjects the arts of sorcery.
Megumi stopped reading, staring intently at the book without any particular expression on his face.
'That's weird; why didn't they mention what those strongholds were called? At first, I thought it was the ten powerhouses that ruled over the world today, but that didn't seem to be the case.'
He thought hard and long for a while, but really, all he could come up with were theories that were only stretches given how little information he had with him at the moment.
Shaking off the thoughts, he continued reading…
Lady Tsukiakari was one of the few who had come forward to dispel the darkness that had plagued the world.
It was after the war against demons had come to an end, or at least they thought it had come to an end, that she finally settled down and got married. Seven years later, she was blessed with three sons.
After reading further, Megumi came to discover that the story was incomplete. What he had been reading was only the first volume, and he had no idea whether the second was available.
Reading through it, he couldn't help but keep remembering a few words Yuki had said to him earlier.
'A sprinkle of truth in a pool of lies told through time.'
The future generation would eventually come to read this at some point, believing that their ancestors had brought them peace at some point. If anything, this only reminded him of the short prologue he had read before he was run over by a car.
But even still, with those sprinkles of truth, he needed to figure out what little of the things that were written in the book were truths and separate them from the lies. If he could do that, then he would at least have somewhere to start from.
He opened up his journal and quickly began jotting down everything he had read that actually made sense to him. From the arrival of the first sorcerers to the very end of Tsukiakari's reign over the Boma clan.
There wasn't a single reckoning of her death throughout every book he read; they all believed she had died of natural causes. It was as if her existence after she had had her children was completely erased.
There had to be someone, someone who knew what had become of Lady Tsukiakari later in her life. He already had a slight grasp of how powerful each of the current heads of the Boma clan's branch families were; a person who possessed all three of those abilities would be able to rival this current generation of sorcerers alone.
Well, his mother and a few others excluded…
*******
It was already getting late, and they both had to go home. He was going to find out about the mysteries surrounding their long-forgotten moonlight priestess next time.
Before leaving, they both made sure to have the books placed back in their original locations and left with many questions unanswered.
This would have to do for now; they had better things to do at their age than go solving the mystery of a long-dead hero. Foremost, they had to grow up, and they had to grow stronger.
He had a long talk with Yuki on their way home. She had managed to pick up on a few of the things he managed to see in the historical tales, as well as a few others that didn't make any sense to him.
She was still just a six-year-old; he couldn't expect very much from her…
They didn't make much progress, which taunted him a little, but she didn't seem to care in the slightest about the massive wall that now stood in the way of her progress. If anything, she was just happy that she had got to read with him today.
They soon went their separate ways.