Dantalian no Shoka:Volume2 Chapter4

Status: Incomplete

9/67 pages completed

   

She was reading a book.

A young girl was sitting on a stone spiral staircase and reading the book laid open on her lap, her figure being surrounded by countless piles of books.

Her pure white dress made of silk and thinly layered laces was waving in the pale light like water ripples.

There were neither windows nor doors in this world.

Only endless, irregularly curved corridors and countless rows of bookshelves crammed full of books spread everywhere without end like a maze.

The corridors were drawing a light spiral and overlapping each other in several layers from the bottom to the top, holding a giant amount of books. It seemed almost like the Tower of Babel that had been lost during the age of the Bible.

In this vast maze made out of bookshelves only the faint sound of turning book pages was resounding.

Absolute silence and utter solitude.

Silence and solitude then became disturbed by distant echoes of footsteps.

The sleepy atmosphere was stirred, and the fingers turning the pages stopped.

The girl slowly lifted her head.

Her eyes moved, like a gently smiling doll, or like a little child on the verge of tears.

"You've come again?"

Like a small sigh these words escaped from her lips.

With an omnniscient expression she cast her eyes down and closed the book with her slender fingertips.

Then she took out two books from a rear bookshelf and held them out to the one who caused the footfalls.

"Take them and quickly leave — Before your soul gets trapped in this world.", she said in a coldly dismissive tone.

The one who caused the footfalls put out his hand to receive the books and muttered puzzled:

"Two books?"

It was the voice of a young man past his childhood years.

The girl nodded expressionlessly and said: "That's right. The You right now will undoubtedly need these two."

He accepted the held out books. The girl shook her long hair and looked up above.

"Well now, quickly leave... before the Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian closes its gates."

His voice interrupted her.

"What about you?"

"Eh?" Her eyes turned back down. While he held the books with his left arm, the man reached his right hand out to her. A deep crimson gem was embedded in it.

"The lock has already been opened. So you and I can..."

"My world is here."

The girl gently smiled and shook her head. Her hair waved with a moment's delay and produced a rustling sound.

"Every single book there is has been gathered here, which is the equivalent to the whole world being here."

"That said, don't you feel lonely?", asked the man.

"I have already forgotten that feeling."

The girl had stopped smiling and declared as such in a non-emotional voice.

A slightly hurt expression floated on his face, and he turned his back on her.

The sounds of his footsteps became quickly more and more distant. "Good-bye.", murmured the girl soundlessly, and opened the book on her lap.

Her fingertips that turned the pages suddenly stopped.

The piled up dust on the leather bindings trembled repeatedly.

A faint voice like paper rubbing together escaped the lips of the girl who had lowered her head.

"That's right... I had already forgotten that feeling... that is... until you came here..."

In this maze made out of never-ending bookshelves, no one was there to listen to her murmuring.

Only the solemn sound of the lock being fastened reverberated harshly.

Then the girl once more began to read the book, a tale of a girl in a black dress, whose long, jet black hair was fluttering —

Chapter 4 - The Book of Fetus
Episode 07: Shem-ha-mephorash

Part 1

Pale fog was billowing over the forest after the rain.

The thick carpet of fallen leaves absorbed the vapor and slowly moistured the ground.

It was a desolate, silent forest. Nameless plants growing in abundance by the wayside and the entangled foliages of the trees impaired visibility.

The sunlight leaking through the branches was weak. It was close to dusk. In the middle of this gloomy forest two young people, a man and a girl, were walking.

"Is this really the right path, Huey?", asked the young girl in a curt voice.

Her age was no more than about 12 or 13 years. A petite girl wearing a jet black dress.

Her elegant black hair reached to her waist and was bound together by a lace headdress.

The color of her eyes had the same deep black as the night.

She had the beautiful facial features of an expensive doll, but her outward appearance was somewhat strange.

The black dress was fringed by countless laces and frills. These outlines of her were enfolded by metallic protectors on the back of her hands and a rustic tasset. Her looks reminded one of the ceremonial robes of medieval knights — an odd mixture that could be called neither dress nor armour. And finally, where normally there might have been a ribbon, she was wearing an old, metallic chest.

A big lock, tied to her with silver chains.

"This is the fourth time you have asked this question, Dalian.", answered the man while he was consulting an unfolded map.

He seemed to be about 20 years old, a young man wearing a leather frock coat.

On his left side, hidden by the coat, an old handgun was hanging, a top-break revolver.

His movements were those of a trained soldier and showed no gaps, but he did not give an impression of rudeness. Instead, he appeared to be well-brought-up and his face exuded sincerity.

"I think this should roughly be the right direction. If we walk for another fifteen minutes, we should be able to see the premises."

"That's exactly the same thing you said to me thirty minutes ago!"

The little girl called Dalian was staring at him while she harshly retorted.

"And while we're at it, just now was actually the sixth time I stated that question. Are you incapable to count without using your fingers, Huey? Or is your memory perhaps inferior to that of a chicken? If so, it would be best to look for some mushrooms that are effective against memory loss and thrust them into your nostrils."

"I've never heard of that kind of treatment before."

The young man named Huey creased his face given her abusive language that did not match her adorable features at all. While he lightly shrugged his shoulders, he had a look around the inaccessible sea of trees surrounding them.

"Well, I certainly did not expect the colonel's mansion to be this deep in the woods. If the actual road had not been buried by the landslide, we would not have ended up on this animal trail."

"We have to go through all of this because of your greed! You should reflect on that by getting a mushroom haircut!"

"...What's that supposed to be? Besides, wasn't it you who said she wanted to see the colonel's book collection? Something about a famous collector of rare books or whatever."

"You were the one who got lost in greed over that enclosed check."

"We couldn't just turn a blind eye to it after we got our remuneration and travel expenses paid in advance, could we?"

While saying that, Huey took a letter out of his coat pocket.

It was sent by a woman named Estella Lilburn, the granddaughter of Colonel Elvis Lilburn, an investor who died from disease about half a year ago.

The letter was about the tens of thousands of rare books of the deceased colonel in his mansion. Thus, the renowned bibliomaniac Viscount Disward was to be commissioned an expert opinion on those books. The amount of the attached cheque was somewhat higher than what you would normally send to an unfamiliar person.

"I'm still worried about it, though."

Huey put the letter back in his pocket and took a short breath.

Dalian looked expressionlessly over her shoulder.

"Worried about what?"

"This doesn't seem to be a prank, seeing that such an amount was sent, but I do wonder if Miss Estella is still in that mansion. The letter was postmarked nearly a week ago, and she had lost her parents early in her life, so that leaves just her living on her own now."

"Uh-huh, I understand what you want to say!", the little girl in black answered with a serious look.

"In short, you fear that the girl has already died somewhere alone on the roadside. That would be a pretty big problem."

"No, that's not what I meant... There doesn't seem to be a lack of money, so I thought people would usually try to postpone the inheritance matter and relocate into a nearby town. Everyday life would be considerably restricted here deep in the mountains, with the road downhill being buried."

"There is no use to worry about that now. We'll know once we arrive at the premises."

"Well, I hope so... oh!"

Huey suddenly lifted his face while he narrowed his eyes. Through a gap in the dense foliage weak sunlight and the cloudy sky were visible. The thick forest was beginning to clear.

"Ugh..." Dalian's face stiffened and she stopped moving.

Right in front of them, just before the forest cleared, a deep ravine was running.

They could now see their destination: On the opposite side, halfway up a low mound stood an old mountain retreat made of stone. That was probably Colonel Lilburn's residence.

But to get to there, they first had to cross the ravine.

The other side was pretty far away, and a river was flowing down below.

A bridge was spanning the ravine, an old looking, slender suspension bridge made of rotten wood and dirty ropes.

The bridge planks were covered in green moss, with woodworm holes all over it. Strong winds from above caused the bridge to wobble unsteadily to the sides.

As Huey set a foot on the bridge, his weight caused the ropes to make a creaking sound.

When the black-dressed girl saw that, she clung tightly to his right arm.

"W-Wait, Huey!", she said in a somewhat awkward tone. Huey looked bewilderedly down on her.

"Dalian?"

"It's too thoughtless for a coward like you to cross over such a bridge alone."

"..."

"Just imagine you were to be scared stiff halfway across, how troublesome that would be! It can't be helped, yours truly will let you hold her hand, so you can cross over without fear. Let's go!"

Dalian spoke rapidly with a tense, fearful expression. For a short while, Huey just looked at her in disbelief.

"Dalian... could it be that you are afraid of heights? "

"Wha-Wha-What foolish things are you saying, you toadstool-head! Don't think about such unnecessary things and just cross that bridge quickly!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Y-You jerk! Walk more slowly and carefully, otherwise the bridge... will shake..."

"Yeah, yeah..."

Her shrieks and wails resounded and mixed while the two were crossing the long suspension bridge.

On the other side of the ravine, the huge mansion and the sun behind it were casting long shadows.

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