Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 84: Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon
Stick-figure Salaar was only a thin layer. The black lines that outlined him were so light they seemed weightless, leaving Myss baffled on how he was even standing. No, wait, that wasn’t the point. The point was, what the hell was this thing?!
Myss stretched out his cotton-stuffed soft hand and poked Stick-figure Salaar. The latter cried out, “Please don’t do that, Mr. Gray. That’s impolite!”
Myss turned his head in confusion and looked at the real Salaar.
Then he discovered that Salaar himself wasn’t much calmer than him. With a face composed of nothing but two buttons and a stitched mouth, the Salaar doll managed to produce a rather subtle expression of astonishment.
And yet, it wasn’t over.
Something struggled out from between the pages and only managed to stand unsteadily after quite a while. Its lines were even simpler than Stick-figure Salaar’s. It was clearly the Chaos Archdemon from the story.
“Awoo, awah!” Stick-figure Archdemon growled menacingly.
Myss: “…”
Fine. The stick-figure version of himself couldn’t even speak human language.
Speaking of which, when he and Salaar had fought, he indeed hadn’t been able to speak human language. Myss glared at stick-figure Archdemon and sulked for a moment.
“You fiend! You’re not allowed to scare these two gentlemen!”
The stick-figure hero brandished his poorly colored little sword and charged toward the little Archdemon that looked like a bedsheet ghost.
The Salaar doll silently moved in front of Bedsheet Archdemon. The stick-figure little man’s sword poked him, only to be bounced back by the rough cloth. Stick-figure Salaar staggered and fell onto the desk, flattened against it.
“Grr grr.” The Bedsheet Archdemon proudly swayed his body.
Stick-figure Salaar struggled back up. “Mr. Black, don’t be bewitched by it. It’s actually the Chaos—”
“Hey, Mag!”
Salaar craned his neck to call out of Mag, who was busily organizing documents, in a dramatic act of self-sacrifice. “We’re seeing something very strange!”
Cousin Mag, whose attention was entirely focused on Kalen at that moment, finally snapped back to reality.
When she saw the two stick figures on the desk, her face turned deathly pale, and she took half a step back on the spot. “How did ‘that’ appear here?!”
Myss looked at the shocked Mag, then looked at the silly-looking Stick-figure Salaar.
This lady might be overreacting a tad, he thought. That stick-figure little man’s sword couldn’t even pierce cotton, much less injure a human.
“I apologize for frightening you, Giant Lady.” Stick-figure Salaar waved his hand and gave a proper little bow. “I beg your pardon for my impetuosity.”
His manner of speaking was that of how the bards would describe Saint Salaar.
The real Salaar wasn’t this polite. Currently, the Salaar doll was curiously circling around the Bedsheet Archdemon, studying those floating ink lines.
“So the ‘that’ you people mentioned refers to this thing? Characters from books crawling out of its pages?”
He worked hard to make his tone sound annoying. “It doesn’t look like anything serious. It’s rather interesting, so why do you look like the end of the world has come?”
Mag gave a cold, sardonic laugh. “This is the United Library, my dear cousin. When the things that run out don’t belong to children’s picture books but come from A Guide to Dark Taming or Forbidden Flesh Alchemy, things stop being quite so amusing.”
Then she pinched the bridge of her nose tightly, as if she had made some decision.
“Forget it. I’ll say it plainly. Similar phenomena have broken out in the restricted book area and in the private collection rooms of several senior scholars.”
“Some extremely dangerous things have run out of books. The United Library is doing everything it can to seal them while also searching for the cause of the abnormality.”
Throughout the entire exchange, her gaze followed the two stick-figures on the desk.
“Is it really all right to tell us this?” Father Kalen asked, holding his breath.
“Among newcomers, there has never been a doll transformation before, yet you transformed. In the ordinary collection area, there has never been a similar phenomenon before, yet it appeared here. If I keep hiding things, I won’t be able to conduct my research properly.”
Mag took two steps forward and planted both hands on the edge of the desk, drawing closer to the two ink-drawn figures.
She tried hard to make herself look as if she had the overall situation under control, but anxiety still seeped continuously from her eyes and brows.
Mag had originally believed that the United Library had already found part of the pattern. Whether it was the people who turned into dolls or the books that underwent “knowledge activation,” they all had quite a few years on them.
Therefore, most people had speculated that this abnormality was related to “time,” —specifically, that the Stargazers Society was using Divine Blood to conduct time-related experiments.
As a result, her wicked cousin had charged recklessly into the city and triggered a whole chain of anomalies that moment he arrived.
Kendrick Karns, Myss, and Dragon Fae Tass Ga. The combined ages of these three didn’t even come close to the age of her superior. To say nothing of that children’s picture book that was practically brand new.
Their previous guesses had been completely overturned, and everything had to start from zero.
Her hands slowly tightened on the edge of the desk, the tips of her fingers turning white.
Tass, however, seemed thoroughly intrigued. “That picture book just now seemed to be called Brave Salaar? According to Lady Mag, you two are the characters from the book, right?”
“Yes. I am Brave Salaar. That one is my destined mortal enemy, the evil Chaos Archdemon.”
“Awoo! Grr! Rawr!”
The two stick-figure hopped around, while Mag held her breath and stared nervously at them.
“I am Tass Ga, the one who only failed once. You may call me Sir Tass.” The Tass doll patted his chest.
Toward this kind of “lifeform” that was clearly a pure magical product at a glance, Dragon Faes had a natural fondness.
“All right, Sir Tass.” Stick-figure Salaar was quite receptive to suggestions.
Seeing this, Myss immediately moved closer. “My name is Myss, not Mr. Gray. And you’re… you’re Brave Fool, and he’s Bedsheet Archdemon.”
To be honest, Myss didn’t particularly want these two guys carrying the titles “Salaar” and “Chaos Archdemon.”
“But my name is Brave Salaar.” Stick-figure Salaar was somewhat confused. “If you think that’s too long, then call me Sa—”
“Brief,” the Salaar doll said.
Stick-figure Salaar: “?”
“Because my name is Salaar too. My companions are already used to calling me that and changing it for you would be troublesome.”
The Salaar doll walked to Myss’s side and used a soft hand to grip the Myss doll’s shoulder.
Mag could not help shooting a glance at him. “???”
The Salaar doll waved at Mag. “It’s the fake name I use outside. Is that not allowed? You can call me Salaar too.”
“Go to hell.” Mag clearly didn’t approve of this “blaspheming the ancestor” behavior.
Stick-figure Salaar, no, Brief, thought for a while, then curved his mouth into a semicircle smile. “All right, then I’ll be called Brief. Brave Salaar should fulfill children’s wishes!”
Bedsheet Archdemon: “Awoo whoooo!”
He seemed quite dissatisfied, but no one present could understand his words, nor could they read his expression. After howling for ages to no result, Bedsheet Archdemon angrily crouched down and shrank into an ink-line ball.
“So, Brief. How did you come out of the book? According to the ending of that book, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
Myss squeezed away the ink-line ball Archdemon and asked impatiently.
“Yes, but at the beginning of the story, I was alive, too.”
Brief answered in utter confusion. As a stick-figure drawn in ink, he didn’t seem to understand that death was irreversible.
“A big hole suddenly appeared in my world, so I crawled out to see what was going on. This place is even more interesting than I imagined! Everyone is so puffy… wow!”
Two silver cages descended from above. Lady Mag held one in each hand and trapped Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon inside the magic containment cage.
Fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead. Her movements were neat and decisive, like she was capturing highly poisonous pests.
Brief froze in place, his beady eyes blinking gloomily. “Madam, I have no intention of hurting anyone.”
Bedsheet Archdemon immediately spread out his body, howling as he slammed into the cage until it thumped. Strangely, those fine ink lines were unable to pass through the gaps of the silver cage.
“I must conduct tests according to procedure. I’m sorry. Please cooperate.”
Mag’s voice was a little hoarse. “I have no intention of hurting you either. Trust me.”
Brief tilted his head and thought for a while, then revealed that silly smile again. “All right. I trust you.”
The Salaar doll looked as if he was on the verge of sighing. He smoothed the creases of his doll clothes. “It seems your samples have increased by two more.”
“Now what do you plan to do, dear cousin?”
However, this sentence sounded less like a bewildered question and more like a subtle warning.
Mag’s head ached.
Now that things had reached this point, she should hand all of these people over and let everyone know about this new case. But if she did that, these guys would definitely do everything they could to escape.
Kendrick still had a kill order from the royal capital hanging over his head. If he appeared in this state and passed from researcher to researcher, Mag wasn’t confident she could protect him.
Even worse, if something happened to them, her personal relationship with Professor Gentry would deteriorate.
“Relax. I’ll keep my promise and won’t hand you over.”
Mag let out a long breath. “In any case, let’s first do a Divine Blood test.”
After saying this, Mag stood wearily and walked to the bookcase.
She raised her hand into the air, letting the shadow cast by the light touch a copy of The End of the Night Scourge. The projection of her index finger tapped specific characters. Immediately after, amid a rumbling sound, the books on the shelf flew and swirled, forming a floating safe made of books.
With her back to them, Mag silently recited something. The safe slowly opened, revealing a small test tube inside.
A subtle magic fluctuation rippled outward. Myss frowned slightly and looked toward the long, thin test tube that resembled a glass vial.
Inside the test tube were a few drops of pitch-black liquid. They tumbled and rolled like smoke, giving off an extremely faint fragrance, like a flower bud that hadn’t bloomed yet.
The Salaar doll staggered forward. “This is… Divine Blood?”
His tone was off, as if something had caught in his throat.
“Yes. My private collection, from the Karns family’s underground treasury.”
Mag’s tone was heavy. “To request use of the United Library’s Divine Blood, one must have a fairly high clearance level, and every request leaves a strict record. As for where the Divine Blood is stored, even I don’t know.”
Myss leaned even closer. This so-called “Divine Blood” gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
“My Divine Blood is actually not as pure as the United Library’s. But at least they came from the same container, so the essential difference shouldn’t be too great.”
Mag thought Myss was curious and patiently added this explanation.
She carefully took out a drop of Divine Blood and dripped it into the exact center of a large silver plate. Then she took out a full set of long metal needles rolled in small sheepskin from a drawer.
“The next test may hurt a bit. We never dared try it on those senior scholars, and we never caught any ‘knowledge-activated’ monsters…until now. And here they are, both on my desk.”
Mag tugged at the corners of her mouth unhappily.
“As for the dolls, my thick-skinned cousin will do. As for the knowledge-activated monster, Bedsheet Archdemon is the perfect fit…”
“No!”
“Absolutely not!”
The Myss doll and Brief spoke almost at the same time.
“What if the two of us are in different situations?” Myss jumped to Salaar’s side and puffed his chest up high. “You can’t only test him!”
“What about me?” The Tass doll pointed a stubby little finger at himself.
No matter how one thought about it, as a Dragon Fae, he was the one most likely to be different.
“You figure it out for yourself,” Myss said indifferently.
Tass: “…”
“Just test me. We came from the same book, so the effect will be the same!”
Brief’s argument was the exact opposite. “Bedsheet, he… no one can understand what he says, and he’s been locked in a cage. He must be scared.”
The Salaar doll finally stirred a little. “He’s your enemy.”
“We come from a fairy tale.” Brief grinned. “There are no eternal enemies in this world, Mr. Salaar.”
“Woo, grr.” Bedsheet Archdemon struggled desperately in the containment cage, like a kitten locked in an iron cage.
The Salaar doll fell silent.
“He and I were born from the same bottle of ink and drawn by the same pen, Mr. Salaar.”
Brief spoke in a cheerful tone, his smile pure and brilliant.
“…If he disappears, my existence will have no meaning. That is what a fairy tale is, Mr. Salaar.”
……
In the corridor.
Redding quickly rounded a corner and collided head-on with another staff member hurrying past. The two immediately fell into a heap, taking quite a while to scramble back to their feet.
“Raymond? …Redding?” The young man who had crashed into Redding covered the back of his head and asked dizzily.
“Redding. Raymond is sleeping in his room. He’s exhausted.”
Redding stood, patting the dust from his knees. “Why are you in such a hurry, Truff?”
“Don’t even mention it. The people above are all busy with major matters, so my workload tripled.” The young man named Truff spoke with a miserable expression. “I really envy you and Raymond. Lady Mag has one of the best tempers…”
Before he could finish speaking, his feet had already carried him far away.
Redding shrugged and began tidying his messy clothes. Halfway through, he raised his eyebrows at his left cuff. The cuff had been badly torn open, and the button on the sleeve had flown off to who knew where.
“I’ll have to fix that as soon as possible.” He clicked his tongue and turned back toward his room.
Beneath the cuff, within the shadow, a seam lay quietly across Redding’s wrist—a nearly imperceptible joint that would only appear on a puppet.
The author has something to say:
Stick-figure Salaar tragically lost his name. (…
But he really doesn’t have much to do with the real Salaar, so you can think of him as a completely independent individual! He has his own Bedsheet Archdemon. [dog head]
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