One-Eyed Monster

The few Spirit Books just lay there quietly, without making the slightest sound.

Stim slowly picked one up from the stool. ”The printing houses of the Three Great Empires each have their own traits. Because there are Dwarves in the Ghost Realm, their bindings are relatively exquisite—they even have little mechanisms that can lock the cover of a book. The cover of this Ghost Realm Travelogue is made of wooden bark and comes with a locking device.”

Everyone looked toward the book Stim mentioned. The brass‑colored bark gleamed with an oily shine, as if it had been lacquered. The book clearly looked different from the others.

”However, the paper inside this book isn’t much different from the others. You could even say it’s the worst paper in the whole series. In the end, the Mantai People don’t like Dwarves. Aside from accepting their mechanism designs, they don’t use anything else made by Dwarves. These sheets are still stuck at the level of craftsmanship when the paper mills of the Kayne Realm had just been founded.”

Perkins stepped forward to study the paper closely. Just one look at the yellowing pages and he knew Stim was absolutely right. Keep in mind that the founding of the paper mills in the Kayne Realm had been many, many years ago, and by Lord Soron’s time paper books were already commonplace across the continent. The Mantai Empire’s papermaking standard back then really was astonishingly bad.

”Now look at this one from the Vero Realm. It’s entirely sewn from cloth and fur. You could say the Vero People still prefer this kind of handmade thing for books. It’s thanks to them being Tree Spirits who made it—if it were just done by people, finishing such a huge workload would have been extremely difficult.” The book from the Vero Realm looked perfectly smooth and very soft; lying there, it seemed like it might sag all the way to the floor.

”Because there isn’t much demand for these Travelogues, the printing houses didn’t produce many copies of the originals. Each title was only printed in a run of around ten. Everyone knows only the very first original can advance into a Spirit Book; those copies printed by the houses can only serve as ordinary books for people to read.”

”This, I don’t get. How do you know so much? You even know how many copies the printing houses made…” Igor asked directly, clearly skeptical of Stim’s claim.

”Well, that’s written on the back of every cover. It’s on the originals, and on the copies too. That’s how the major printing houses keep their accounts!” Stim flipped open a book and pointed it out to Igor. Sure enough, on the back of the cover were written the completion date of the original, how many copies had been made, which print run, and so on.

Seeing this, Igor’s face flushed red. This was what you got for not reading attentively—he’d managed to overlook something so basic. Compared to senior Stim, he really was just academic trash!

”Everyone has their own strengths. Mine is knowing books; yours is exploration. People are different, Igor.” Stim said, comforting him.

”Mm, that’s right, Igor, you don’t need to feel so embarrassed. There’s also something I don’t understand.” Perkins pointed at the remaining Spirit Book. ”The printing houses of the Three Great Empires each printed copies of the Travelogue for their own realm, so where was this final Outer World Travelogue printed?”

That question really was key. Surely this Travelogue wasn’t actually printed in the Outer World, was it? Outside the realms was all Wilderness…

Dean Hoffman stroked his beard, while the two chief librarians Jiggs and Skol stayed silent. Everyone left the floor to Stim.

”Indeed, this book definitely wasn’t copied out in the Outer World, because we still don’t understand the Wilderness beyond our realms. Even among Adventurers, only a handful have ever gone into the Wilderness. Lord Soron’s Outer World Travelogue is the shortest volume in the entire Travelogue series, yet it’s the most complicated in terms of reproduction.”

”How so?” Governor Rostov, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly became interested. The Outer World—beyond the continent belonging to the Three Great Empires, what could there be besides Wilderness? Could there really be some small country beyond the reach of the Three Great Empires?

”This book—Lord Soron copied it himself.”

”Huh?” Everyone exclaimed in surprise. They didn’t understand what Stim meant.

”I mean this book only has an original, no copies.”

”So it’s… out of print?” Perkins’ expression changed as he looked at the book. This was the first time he’d seen such an out‑of‑print volume; he’d only ever heard of them before, and now he was actually able to see one.

”Dean Hoffman really is impressive, to have even collected an out‑of‑print book!” Igor couldn’t help but praise him.

”You give this old man too much credit.” Dean Hoffman chuckled.

”How could we? No one else could possibly collect a whole roomful of books like this!” Perkins joined in the praise.

”Speaking of collecting, this little room of mine doesn’t count for much.”

”Dean, you’re being modest!”

”No, you don’t know the full story.” Jiggs, standing by Dean Hoffman’s side, explained.

”What other story could there be?” Perkins asked, puzzled. He couldn’t understand what Jiggs meant by saying that at this moment. As far as he was concerned, Dean Hoffman’s collection really was remarkable. He’d never been to the large libraries of Scholars in the Three Great Empires, but he had at least heard of the value of Spirit Books. This many Spirit Books could buy up the jurisdiction of a small City Administrative Office…

”The collection in the library of the Empire’s Scholar Commons is far larger than what our Dean has.” Jiggs went on.

”And most of those books are related to spellcraft, the great works forged through the painstaking efforts of predecessors…” Skol added.

”The books Dean Hoffman has gathered here, though many are also works by past masters, are mostly the ones abandoned by the Scholars’ Workers’ Union—books that nobody was willing to take charge of.”

”Uh…” After hearing this, everyone gained a new perspective on the Scholars’ world…

”The Dean believes these Spirit Books form a whole and shouldn’t be abandoned. That’s why he went to such trouble to bring them all together. I’ve never been to the library of the Empire’s Scholar Commons, but seniors Jiggs and Skol have, and they know this very well.”

”Yes. In the eyes of most Scholars, the books here aren’t worth even a single Gold coin…”

”Take this set of Lord Soron’s Travelogues in my hands, for example. Almost no one would trade for it in the Daylight Market, and in the Black Market it’s not even worth mentioning. Only in the Dusk Market do books like this show up. After all, these Travelogues and such can’t improve anyone’s strength; even if some poor sap buys them, they’ll just end up in the attic collecting dust…”