Chapter 267: Completely Cheesing The Trials

I didn’t blink.

Neither did Evelina.

The woman on the throne tilted her head, ash-colored hair sliding over one shoulder, and smiled with all the warmth of a blade. Her gold eyes tracked between us, lingering on my hands where magic already coiled beneath my skin, then on Evelina’s stance, relaxed but ready, weight balanced, fingers curled.

“You’re not surprised,” she observed.

“You’re not the first illusion we’ve seen today,” I replied.

“Illusion?”

She laughed, and the sound echoed strangely off the pillars, too loud for the space, too sharp. The gold veins in her throne pulsed with the rhythm of her voice.

“I’m as real as you are, Cael Arden. As real as your mistress there. More real, perhaps. I’ve been here much longer.”

“You know my name.”

“I know many things. That’s the purpose of a library, isn’t it? To know things.” She gestured vaguely at the space around us, the pillars, the painted shadows, the second throne hidden in its alcove. “Every person who enters these halls leaves something behind. Memories. Desires. Fears. I’ve collected them all.”

“Like a librarian?” Evelina said flatly.

“Like a curator.” The woman’s smile sharpened. “And a gatekeeper. You’ve passed the forest. You’ve rested in the garden. Now you stand before the twin thrones, and you must choose.”

“Choose what?”

“Which path will you walk next?” She rose from the white throne in a single fluid motion, her robes—when had she been wearing robes?—pooling around her feet like spilled ink.

“The left throne leads to knowledge. The right leads to power. Both will cost you. Neither guarantees survival.”

[Photographic Memory]

Yeah, I definitely recognize her. And if the novel’s anything to go by, and it should be, this one is completely untrustworthy. Everything she just said was a blatant lie, a distraction meant to—

[Fabric Chains]

“I pick none.”

Evelina smirked, twirling a finger through the air as multiple strips of fabric materialized out of thin air, restraining the woman in crimson chains that pierced through the muted surroundings.

“W-What was that for…?”

I shot Evelina a curious look. Had she already figured it out? How?

“What do you mean? She’s obviously lying. Her tone, her expression, everything about her. Not to mention my succubus here basically confirmed my suspicion.”

[Fabric Twist]

In an instant, all the fabric moved at once, wrapping around the woman’s arms, legs, and neck tighter than before, so tight it looked like it could crush the very limbs it restrained.

“W-What are you doing…?” the woman groaned, but she got no answer as Evelina finished her off.

“Shut up already.”

She lowered her hand, the fabric twisting fully and ripping her limbs apart. A fountain of gold spilled from the severed limbs as she lay dead on the floor.

[Trial Passed]

Well, that was anticlimactic.

“Do I get a reward for figuring it out?” Evelina looked at me with a smile, a genuine smile that expected a reward. Her mood swings were still as incredible as ever.

“Yeah…”

I laughed awkwardly, petting her head. The way she switched from dominant, to neutral, to submissive still hadn’t lost its charm, and I bet it never will.

“You’re petting me like a dog,” Evelina said, but she didn’t pull away.

“You’re the one who asked for a reward.”

“I asked for a reward. Not a head pat.”

“Take what you can get. I don’t have much on me right now.”

The woman’s body had already begun to dissolve, gold blood pooling across the obsidian floor before sinking into it like water into sand. Her robes crumpled, empty, then vanished entirely. The throne behind her cracked once, twice, and the gold veins running through it dimmed to a dull grey.

The second throne, the black one in the alcove, pulsed again.

Faster now.

“I don’t think we’re done,” I said, my hand still resting on Evelina’s head.

She stepped out from under it, her expression shifting from playful to focused in the span of a breath.

“The next trial’s beginning already?”

“Mhmm.”

“Well, at least this makes things faster…”

She pointed at the black throne.

The pulsing had become a steady rhythm now, like a heartbeat. The liquid surface rippled, and something began to rise from it. Something human-shaped, but wrong. Too tall. Too thin. Its limbs bent at angles that didn’t make sense, and its face, when it turned toward us, had no features at all. Just smooth, black skin stretched over a skull that shouldn’t exist.

It looked cooler than I expected.

“Should I kill it too?”

“Let me handle this one.”

Evelina raised an eyebrow but stepped back, arms crossing over her chest. “By all means. Entertain me.”

The creature stepped down from the throne, its unnaturally long legs carrying it forward in a gait that should have seemed comical, but wasn’t. Every step echoed through the silence, and with each one, the room’s muted colors seemed to bleed away even more, sharpening the contrast between black and white.

[Malignant Flame Manipulation]

Fire erupted in my palm, pale and hungry, still casting no shadows in the room. But the moment the creature stepped onto the fire’s warmth. It immediately stopped moving.

It tilted its head. Smooth, featureless, wrong, and I could have sworn it was studying the flame.

“You don’t like that, do you?”

At this point in the novel, Julius had to make a deal with a devil just to stand a chance against this thing. A being vulnerable to demonic magic and anything tied to the hellish afterlife.

This arc was meant to show how much he was willing to sacrifice to reach the end of the library and obtain the item that would save Lillian.

Sacrifice, the central purpose of this trial. But the archmage who created this part of the trials definitely hadn’t expected someone to arrive already wielding demonic magic.

Because if he had, he would’ve built in more failsafes to keep his trials from becoming too easy. Up to this point, the only thing that had even felt like a real challenge was the trees.

“Bye~”

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