Dantalian no Shoka:Volume1 Chapter5

The awful silence was broken by someone asking "Where am I?"

A maze was unfolding before his eyes.

This maze was made up of countless bookshelves, crammed full of books.

Endlessly overlapping hexagonal corridors with no end were going through it.

In place of walls, one could see nothing but thousands upon thousands of backs of books.

There were no windows or doors in this maze.

Even when leaning one's body over edge of the stone spiral staircase, one could merely see endless corridors of bookshelves.

The corridors were drawing a light spiral and overlapped 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.

This was the tomb of dark and bizarre knowledge.

And it epitomised the universe itself.

"---There's no name to this library. No one would call the world by a name after all, right?"

At last, another voice replied. It was the voice of a girl who sounded still young.

"Is... that so?" the owner of the first voice said. It was a boy who seemed bewildered. He asked back, "Isn't that unpractical at times?"

The girl turned around upon his call. Surrounded by countless piles of books, she had been reading a book laid open in her lap. Her pure white dress that consisted of silk and numerous laces waved like a petal dancing in the wind. She let out a long breath that sounded like a stifled laugh.

"Just call it as you want at such times!"

"For example...?"

"The first person that ever lost his way here called this world 'Labyrinth Library'."

"I see."

The boy nodded. Indeed, this place was like a labyrinth and at the same time like a library.

But he was convinced there had to be a more appropriate name. Therefore, he asked again.

"What else?"

The girl erased her smile and told him silently,

"Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian"

"...Dantalian?"

"It's the name of the owner of this library," she said and turned her eyes to the ground. Terrible loneliness was painted on her face.

Sitting in the depths of the maze of bookshelves, she returned her gaze to the book in her lap.

"'Dantalian' --- Is this your true name?" the boy asked with his glance turned to her.

The girl didn't answer his question. One could only hear the sound of paper. The frail sound of turning pages.