When Arsh opened his eyes, he saw the library's railings shining in the moonlight. He was lying on something soft. When he tried to get up, he realized it was Bera beneath him. Bera gave a little growl to signal Arsh to get off him. Both of them stood up and looked around.
They had returned to the exhibition hall. The glass case around Apeirolimos's bronze chest had shattered, and dozens of skeletons were piled up around it.
"The illusion is broken. Everything has returned to where it belongs... But where are the others" Arsh murmured.
Now, it was finally time to leave.
"I'll be right back," Arsh said to Bera. Picking up the bronze chest, he began staggering toward the main hall. The others were probably somewhere else in the library. Although he wanted to check on them, he couldn't find the strength.
He planned to go to the reception desk and call Professor Reiner. But by now, the professor must have realized they were missing. The moon showed that it was already past midnight.
As he staggered toward the hall, he heard voices. He immediately recognized one of them. When he reached the hall, he saw Professor Reiner with a few other people he didn't know.
When Professor Reiner saw him, he rushed forward.
'Arsh! What happened to you? Are you okay? Where are the others?'
'Too many questions,' Arsh thought with a smile.
Just as the professor was about to reach him, Arsh remembered an important detail.
"I think… I think Bera needs some clothes."
"What? What does that mean?" Reiner asked, but at that moment, Arsh's body gave out. He collapsed to the ground from exhaustion, pain, and relief all at once.
…
"You are very weak… vulnerable like a newborn baby."
Arsh suddenly woke up from a nightmare. These nightmares had stopped with Professor Reiner's treatment after he arrived here. But now, after a week, they were back. This time, he remembered hearing a young girl's voice in the dream, but he wasn't sure what she had said.
When he opened his eyes, he was in his own bed. As he sat up, he realized the pain in his leg, back, and head was completely gone. His clothes were clean. When he uncovered his leg, he saw only a slight redness where the wound should have been. He tried to remember what happened after seeing Professor Reiner, but he couldn't remember a thing.
'I must have fainted,' he thought.
At that moment, he heard a knock on the door.
"Come in."
It was Walter.
"Are you awake? I came to check on you. Your leg looked pretty bad."
"My leg is fine. It's like nothing ever happened."
"Professor Reiner worked hard on it. He went to rest after he finished healing Bera."
"How are the others?"
"Bera is still sleeping. He used a lot of energy. Mes is with him now. Herman went to the police station to take care of Mary. He wasn't injured anyway. I rested a bit too—I wasn't hurt either."
Despite saying this, it was clear how exhausted he was from his dull, sunken eyes.
"What happened to Apeirolimos's chest?"
"Don't worry, they'll take care of it. There won't be any more problems with that thing… Now get some more rest, it's almost dawn. I'll go tell Mes to get some rest too. We'll discuss everything in detail in the morning," Walter said. Then, without saying anything more, he left the room.
Arsh lay back down on the bed. Even though his injuries had healed, he still felt exhausted. He hadn't eaten anything since the sandwich he had in the morning, and his stomach ached with hunger. Still, he couldn't find the strength to go down to the kitchen. Despite the hunger, he fell back asleep before long.
…
He only managed to wake up around noon the next day. When he went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, he realized that although his clothes had been changed, there were still bloodstains on his face and in his hair. He looked terrible. He took a shower and tried to pull himself together.
As he headed to the kitchen to satisfy the hunger that had been gnawing at his stomach since the night before, Bera came out of his room as well.
"How are you?" he asked.
"I'm fine. And you?"
"I'm fine too."
Such a brief exchange was enough for both of them. As Bera followed him into the kitchen, Madam Hilda and Eleni filled the table in front of them with various dishes. They ate quietly together.
"Thank you… you saved me twice yesterday," Arsh said after a while.
"Let's call it even… you were the one who got us out of there yesterday."
After they finished eating, Madam Hilda told them to go down to the library, where Professor Reiner and the others were already waiting.
'If possible, I want to stay away from the library for a while,' Arsh thought. From the uneasy expression on Bera's face, Arsh was sure he was thinking the same thing.
"Maybe it would be better if we held the meetings somewhere else for a while," Bera said after they entered the library.
"Ah… I didn't think of that. Should we move?" Reiner asked. Mes and Walter were there with him.
"No, it's okay," Bera replied.
When everyone took their seats, Professor Reiner began to speak.
"Arsh, we were talking about what happened yesterday. From what I've heard, you were very helpful. But since you've just arrived and only recently acquired your siuni, I wouldn't have wanted to put you in such danger... And Mes, you as well. I misjudged the situation and put both of you in serious danger. That was my mistake."
"It's okay. For me, it was an experience to understand what you're dealing with," Arsh said.
'A terrible experience,' he silently added.
"He is not being sincere," Bera said without lifting his eyes from the table.
"That's perfectly normal. He is just trying to be polite," Professor Reiner said with a smile.
"So, what happened to the student? Mary Lowe?" Arsh asked, trying to change the subject.
"Don't worry. There's someone working on this at the police station along with Herman. She won't remember anything about what happened. Instead, a scenario prepared by the police was explained to her family."
Arsh was not sure how many people were in this organization called the FFSD, who they were, or how far their power reached. Still, it was impressive that they were able to gather people with such siunis.
They continued talking about what had happened in the library. A stack of books titled 'Yulos Legends,' 'Ancient Creatures,' and 'Yulos Culture' was piled up in front of Mes. He had woken up early and started his research using the sources he had. Although he couldn't find much information, his theories about the creature seemed to be correct.
In the legend, Apeirolimos once wiped out an entire village. The more people it swallowed, the stronger it became, and it just kept moving from one village to the next. Eventually, the people looked for a way to trap it and asked the gods for help. Kirana answered their prayers and helped them. A bronze chest was made, and it was the god Kirana himself who locked the creature inside. After that, he told the people to throw the chest into a spring that would never run dry. That way, the creature could never get out and would stay sealed forever.
It seemed that this thousands-of-years-old legend had finally come to an end with what happened yesterday.
"I hope it has. Its shrieks are still ringing in my ears," Walter said.
"Still, to be able to follow the exact traces of a legend like this... isn't it amazing?" Mes said. He seemed to have already forgotten what they had gone through the day before.
"It definitely is," Professor Reiner replied. "Now, let's talk about the symbols Arsh drew on the bronze chest. Mes told me Will showed those symbols to you. But when Mes described the symbols you drew, I realized they weren't in the notebook you gave me," he said. This time, everyone at the table turned their attention toward Arsh.