After Story Chapter 14: Former Townsman A Inherits a Library

"Ah, at last..."

The Witch of the Forest whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

"Finally, my long-held ambition is realized..."

"I'm just glad we could be of help," I said. "Wait... what?"

I let out a startled cry. To my surprise, even as she spoke, the Witch’s form had begun to turn transparent.

"No way..."

"I told you at the beginning, didn't I?" she asked softly. "That I was out of time."

"So, this is it?"

"Yes. I knew this from the start. But because of you, I can finally move on in peace."

"..."

"The books in this hut... please, use them as you see fit. It’s the only way I can repay you."

Even as we spoke, her body grew thinner and thinner before our eyes, eventually becoming enveloped in a soft radiance. Then, just like Mary, the Witch of the Forest ascended toward the heavens.

At the very last moment, her lips moved as if she were trying to say one last thing. I couldn't hear her voice, but it looked like she was saying, “Thank you.”

"Ana."

"Yes, Allen."

Together, we knelt before Mary’s grave marker and offered a silent prayer for both her and the Witch’s happiness in the next world.

We eventually made our way back into the Witch’s hut. In the cramped room she likely used as a study, there was a small bookshelf packed with a tidy row of volumes.

Every single one looked ancient; there was no doubt they were priceless artifacts. The problem, however, was that I couldn't read a single word. The script bore no resemblance to the characters we used. To me, the difference was as jarring as comparing hiragana to the Latin alphabet. They clearly belonged to an entirely different linguistic lineage.

"What should we do?" I asked, sighing. "It feels like it’ll take a lifetime just to decipher these..."

"I agree," Ana replied, looking troubled. "This is a problem."

As we stood there at a loss, clutching the books, the Hentai slid over and pointed to a specific volume.

"The information you two are looking for is in this one," Lord Roh said.

"Wait, really?"

"Lord Roh! What does it say?" Ana asked.

"I don't mind telling you, but I have one condition."

"A condition?" I repeated warily.

"Yes. You must give the rest of these books to me."

"What? Why would you want them?"

"I am a man connected to the lineage of Great Sage Loringas. It is only natural that I would crave such knowledge, is it not?"

...Something felt off. This guy was a total Hentai who had prattled on about "mastering the path of the loli" before turning into a Light Spirit and supposedly discarding all his worldly possessions. Was a guy like that really interested in ancient knowledge now?

"Allen, wouldn't that be a fair trade?" Ana whispered. "We can't read them anyway."

"I guess so, but..."

"Then it’s settled," the Hentai declared. He opened the book he had pointed out and began to read. "The title of this volume is Records of Labyrinth Construction via [Alchemy]."

My heart skipped a beat. It was so perfectly aligned with what we were looking for that I actually caught my breath.

"Now then, let’s see what’s inside."

The Hentai began to read the text aloud with effortless fluency. He might be a Hentai, but the fact that he could breeze through an unknown language proved that his reputation as a Great Sage was no exaggeration.

However, as the reading progressed, a strange sense of deja vu began to nag at me. Ana seemed to feel it too; her brow furrowed with suspicion.

"Allen," she whispered, "this terrain and the structure of this labyrinth... doesn't it look like...?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."

"Is something the matter?" the Hentai asked, pausing his reading to look at us. "Does this seem familiar?"

"This labyrinth... it's the spitting image of the ruins near Luluden," I explained. "The ones people call the remains of the Ancient Labyrinth."

Ana nodded solemnly, watching him for a reaction.

"I see," Lord Roh said. He began flipping through the pages at a terrifying speed, scanning the later sections of the book in a matter of seconds.

It was a pace that made me doubt he was actually processing the information—some kind of supernatural speed-reading, maybe?

"I understand now," he said eventually. "It appears this labyrinth never became a 'complete' version. It operated as a Pseudo-Labyrinth for a time, then ceased all functions once the magic power stored in its core was exhausted."

"Wait," I interjected. "If it's dead, then this isn't something we can just fix with Alchemy, is it?"

"Correct."

"Then what about our plan to build a labyrinth...?"

"That is precisely why I had you eat the Seeds of Moon Magic Grass. As long as you can construct a Pseudo-Labyrinth, you can simply ask the God who gave you this quest to turn it into the real thing."

"I... well, I guess that makes sense," I admitted. From a pragmatic standpoint, there was no reason we had to do 100% of the heavy lifting ourselves.

"Precisely. Now, let us continue."

With that, the Hentai proceeded to read the rest of the records to us.