I spent the next day lazing around, waiting for the "her" to come pay me a visit.
(A/N: MC will now refer to the Empress as "her" as she is a demigod.)
Even though she was barely mentioned in the book, I still remembered her personality, and that strong desire for power as she tried desperately to somehow circumvent her fate.
At exactly 4:10, she appeared in my room.
I had kept my mask on the whole day, in case she had come earlier, so I was prepared.
"So you decided to accept after all."
"Let's hurry this up."
She stretched out her hand and I stretched out mine, lightly touching our fingertips together.
Between our arms was the contract, which, after a few seconds of circulating our spiritual power into each other's bodies, disintegrated as the words duplicated, and each set was absorbed into our bodies.
I felt a thin spiritual chain form, as it wrapped around my heart and extended towards "her". I "watched" as it wrapped around "her" heart before completing the contract.
"There, it's done. Come to the school two days after the admissions ceremony to pick a time slot for your training. As you're an especially important figure, I'll give you two slots per week instead of just one."
And with that, "she" left.
Immediately after she left, I changed my facial features to Akimitsu's before taking off my mask, putting on a cloak over my school uniform, and heading out.
I looked up at the Western Mountain from down in the valley.
My destination was at the top, the L's library.
It was a humongous building that enveloped the whole peak of the mountain, and was probably the place with the most knowledge stored in it in the whole world of the book.
It was also going to be the place that I would work shifts for a few days each week for the rest of the school year.
Taking out my kusarigama, I decided that the fastest way to get up there was by using a "spider man" like strategy.
The people around me tensed when they saw me take out my weapons, but they still passed by without doing anything, as the rules of the L clearly stated that, "Students aren't allowed the use of weapons for violence on school grounds unless they are in a class that allows it."
So, I was using my weapons, but it wasn't for violence, so technically, it was fine.
I would just be committing a little bit of destruction of public property on a bunch of buildings.
So I started, throwing my kusarigama at high buildings, pulling myself up, dislodging, repeat.
With this method, I arrived at the library in just under an hour.
Using my water stigma to both sweep away all my sweat and to cast a cleaning spell, I refreshed myself before the grand doors that marked the entrance to the L's library.
Walking in, I felt myself being dragged into a dreamscape.
You see, the entire library building itself was a sentient artifact that had incredible maintaining, restoration, and protection abilities for the books, but its drawback was that it loved testing any first time entrants.
In the dreamworld, I looked around and discovered myself in a certain memory.
'Fuck, it chose one of my most embarrassing memories.'
In the dreamscape, I was currently sitting in front of a computer, playing a horror game while being watched by all the students in the class.
I had done this as I had been called a wimp just because I read books all day, so to show them that I wasn't actually a limp dick, I decided to play a horror game with the volume turned to the max.
Even though I was looking at the memory from the perspective of my old self, I couldn't change any of my actions. I moved the lamp to expose the hallways, found the corpse, grabbed the flashlight, found the other room down the other hallway, looked at the red photo of the "maniac" and when I turned the POV around, the "maniac" appeared right in front of my in a big red flash accompanied by a sudden "BOOM" in the background music.
(A/N: I was literally playing this game today in class with a friend, each of us sharing an earbud, when we were jump scared the exact same way. The game is a particular free game on itch.io that Jackscepticeye played in one of his 3 scary games videos.)
I "watched" as my body screamed like a girl, in horror, before blushing bright pink in embarrassment. (A/N: This didn't happen in real life.)
Then, everything faded away as I found myself at the reception desk in the library, the entrance nowhere in sight.
"Hi, welcome to the L's library! Judging by your slightly red cheeks, you must be a newcomer that was just tested right?" Said a tall blond-haired Class 5 student that sat behind the reception desk.
"Yes." I said in a slightly embarrassed voice.
"So what brings you here today, I mean, not to assume, but you seem like you're from Class 1, and Class 1 students are seldom seen in these parts."
By "these parts" she meant near the top of the mountain, as most Class 1 students stayed near the bottom during their entire first year due to some "unsaid" rules.
"These parts" were usually occupied by Class 5 and Class 6's, with the occasional Class 3 or Class 4.
I was a little annoyed at her assumption, but knew that I did look a lot like a little kid being 13 years old after all.
"I'm just here for some books, and oh yeah, you'll be seeing me a lot more over the next school year." I said.
She would probably mistakenly believe that that meant that I was going to visit the library often to pick up books, but it was actually because I was going to become her one and only coworker over the next year.
"Finally! An underclassman that actually likes reading! So what types of books are you searching for?"
"I can find them myself." I said, before quickly disappearing in the tall shelves of books.
Behind me, with my enhanced hearing, I heard her mutter, "I didn't even get to introduce myself," before I started focusing on my goal.
The L's library, being the largest collection of knowledge in the world, obviously held a few secrets, and I was here for one of them today.
Finding the shelf filled with novels about great thieves that loved creating spectacular performances, otherwise known as "magicians", I quickly found the book I was looking for.
I quickly poured my spiritual energy into the book, causing it to turn into blobs of light, before entering into my head.
I reached my hand in the space that the book had once occupied and motioned as if drawing something out of thin air.
On my third attempt, I successfully drew a monocle out of the space.
As I was about to quickly stuff the monocle in one of my coat's pockets, I heard a familiar charming voice that I had first encountered just a few minutes ago.
"My, my, underclassman, what do you have there?"