Dragging me away she went to a random direction. The scene around me changed from a stone wall on one side and a shelf on the other to book shelves all around us.
Like earlier, entire sections were gone while some stayed completely intact. When we stopped I our entire 360 degree view was covered in the shelves.
She let go of my arm and just kept walking down the isle of shelfs. I was sort of expecting her to say something as we stopped, yet the sounds of our footsteps were all that was heard. In case we separated I lit one of the talismans as well.
I walked a steady meter or so behind her as I kept scanning the area. The gaps left by some of the empty sections let me see through to the other side. The library kind of felt endless as we walked through it.
It was almost like a repeating cycle of book shelves on each side before we reached an intersection where we could choose to go to another section if we so wished.
I only saw as Yao Ya kept moving forward not even glancing at the alternate paths presented. While walking I decided to pick up a random book. I wondered what kind of manuals they would have read and this one happened to have pages sticking out.
'Huh, I guess it only makes sense that they would have some sort of entertainment here.'
The title of the book was "The Chrysanthemum of the World."
'Ah yes, the butthole of the world. Truly a fascinating book title, I wonder what's inside.'
Turning over the cover, a few pages fall out onto the ground. I looked down and without even having to reach down to pick them up I knew what they were. Stylistic drawings covered the pages, curvy figures dotted the landscape shown posed in erotic stances.
A woman stood alone by a tree, only a few scraps of cloth covering her. Her head was tilted back towards the tree and her torso was puffed outward. Another lied by a river, exaggerating the curves on her body.
I looked at it a little longer than I probably should of. But I had never really seen ancient versions porn. Most of what I've seen are from the modern times... so better. The proportions of ancient drawings were always a little weird and off to me.
Looking at it I thought about the last time I had a 'me' time. It was before I came to the new world, to be honest I don't even know how I managed to keep the urge away for so long especially since I had two beautiful women near me for so long.
Oh wait, that's right they were too close to me. I couldn't get away from them for long. OK I have to stop thinking about this, it's not helpful at all, in fact things might be worse for me if I get a boner.
Erasing those thoughts I looked up to where Yao Ya should have been, yet a void like darkness was all there was.
"Yao Ya! Where are you?" Saying her name was my first thing that came to mind. I almost instantly regretted it as I remembered why we were searching this area in the first place. If there really were enemies here they would have all been alerted by me!
'Damn you porn! Damn you for distracting me! Yao Ya, please come back! I'm sorry the horny got to me! Ah wait! That Qi Sense thing!'
Focusing on the area around me once again, the small invisible circle appeared once again expanding outwards. Reaching the limit of five meters it stopped, I'm not going to extend it again so I should be able last quite a bit.
This should last around four minutes if I don't expand it so I started quicken my pace to a light jog. Along the way I started to see blood splatters around the ground and some shelves. There were signs of battle around as books were torn and the shelves had crumbled a bit around.
Weapons also started appearing on the ground, it was like what had happened in the first room down here. Yet the only thing currently on my mind was of Yao Ya's behavior.
'Does this have anything to do with the way she distanced herself from earlier? She didn't talk to me at all! Oh god Chen Huang was right! Is she already disinterested in me? I just kind of got used to what she's been doing with me. Have I already lost my chance?'
At some point I reached the end of the room a stone wall faced me, the only choice of direction left was left and right. I chose right and started to just follow the wall hoping to find something along the way. The wall had similar splatters of blood around and a few weapons too.
After a few moments I reached a staircase going up. I was about to pass through before I heard a sound coming from it. I stopped at the noise and hid behind the wall beside the first few steps.
I also extinguished the light talisman and hid in the complete darkness waiting. The talisman crumbled and turned to dust scattering away like it was never even here.
The staircase was T shaped, I was at the bottom of the T shape while the noise heard was coming from the intersection, where a square of flat floor lay. The Qi Sense I had activated didn't reach the middle section, so instead I had to do it the old-fashioned way of using my eyes to peek around the corner.
Blood was all over the staircase and weapons were also strewed about. Signs of battle here are the heaviest and there even still some remnants of cloth probably torn from their robes.
Looking over I saw what was making the noise. A large slab of stone was opening from the wall that divided the staircase, around two meters tall and a meter wide. This was the sound that gained my attention, the grinding of stone against stone.
It was slowly opening around twenty-five centimeters above the flooring. It was pushed out a little bit, before halting and then continuing after a small while passed. I pulled out my sword ready for the potential threat that would come out.
I stopped using the Sense as it was taking them quite a while to open their door and I didn't want to waste any Qi wait for them.
Eventually it was opened wide enough and someone stuck their head out and threw something out as well. Their head was a little small and the height placement of where the head was lower than expected as well. After a few moments a low light was emitted from the thrown object and the small head look around for a bit.
She then pulled her head back in for a moment before the door opened more and then a figure emerged. Lit by the low light A small slightly feminine figure wearing a robe was seen around four feet ten inches tall standing near the light emitting object.
I couldn't entirely see the face of the person, but I did see their lips as it trembled looking side to side and eventually down at the stairway I was. The person looked down and went to pick up a weapon nearby.
It was a sword and the figure held the handle with both hands, it swayed left and right as if they couldn't properly hold the weapon. They held it close to their chest and even from here I could see the nervousness from their body as it trembled.
"W-Who's o-out ther-re?! I-I'm not s-scared of you!" A shaky little girl's voice was heard from her as she looked around.
'What does she know I'm here? Nah that can't be!'
"I-I know y-you' are o-out there! S-Show yourself!"
'Well.... ok then. At least I'll try and communicate first. If all else fails I'm sure I could beat this child, wait that doesn't sound right, Whatever.'
"*Sigh* Whew! I'm glad no one's actually her-*Tap* Ah!? W-W-W-Who's Th-Th-There!?!" The girl who had relaxed instantly became tense, tenser than before. The sword she picked up off the ground was extremely shaky in her hands seemingly like it would fall right out of her hands at any moment.
She trembled so much that I could even see her knees poking through the skirt as they shook.
'So she didn't know I was actually here... Well damn I guess I have to approach her now.'
*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*
As I came closer and closer to the area she was she slowly stopped shaking. When my legs finally entered the low light I spoke.
"Hello, I not here to hurt you. Um.. were you one of the people who lived here?"
"G-Get back! I'm warning you! You can't trick me! Why else are would you be in here?"
I stopped as she asked making it far enough into the light that the only thing that wasn't visible or was darkened was my head. I saw her tilt her head down before her body started trembled again. I followed her line of sight and saw as my weapon glinted from the light.
"Look I'm putting it away, ok?" Sheathing the sword back up I noticed her body relaxed and eased up once more. She didn't tremble much any more and lowered her weapon ever so slightly.
"W-Who are you? You're not one of them and you're one of us either. Where did you come from?"
'It seems she was one of the original people who lived in the stronghold after all.'
"I have a group that just happened to stumble across this place. So we came in expecting it to be abandoned since the front doors were open."
Out of no where a third voice appeared coming behind the slab.
"Big Sister Hu are you okay out there?" The voice of a little boy came out.
"Stay back, don't come out here!" Even though she said that a pair a legs still appeared from behind the slab. Then the whole body, a small boy with the height of four feet five inches appeared.
When she turned around and saw that he came out, she immediately went to shield him from me.