Manager Lee could not understand the situation.
Just moments ago, he had been made to lose his very existence by that girl.
His ears had gone numb, his vision had gone dark, and it had felt as though his nostrils were blocked.
Like being inside a high-pressure decompression chamber.
It had undoubtedly been the sensation of his existence being extinguished.
And yet, when he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of space, and after being sucked into some building moving at the speed of light, he found himself collapsed before the very girl who had tried to erase him.
“H-how⋯.”
The girl was quietly poking Manager Lee with the tip of her quill.
As if she were prodding him to see, Is he really alive?
Manager Lee quickly looked around.
In case the White Mother had returned here by the same process as he had.
But its distinctive pure-white, elongated body was nowhere to be seen.
Ordinarily, one might think he should be wary of the girl before him, the one who had tried to erase him.
Manager Lee thought differently.
Compared to the vast ocean, a great white shark was an enemy far closer to a human being.
Could one truly say they were hostile toward the sea?
The girl was an existence like that sea.
But on the other hand, he was curious.
As for what he was curious about⋯
Simply everything.
“Are you alive?”
Then the girl’s soft, beautiful voice rang out.
Unlike when she had dealt with Manager Lee’s group and the White Mother earlier, it was a humane voice with the faintest touch of emotion in it.
“⋯⋯Are you speaking to me?”
It seemed that the being before him now was⋯
More of a librarian “girl” than a “librarian” girl.
And so Manager Lee asked back carefully.
The girl nodded with a dry expression.
“Fortunately, it seems to have succeeded.”
“⋯⋯?”
“I do not know whether you will visit the library again, but when you do, I hope you will abide by the library’s rules.”
At the girl’s words, Manager Lee felt wronged for a moment.
But soon he had no choice but to accept it.
Rules, in a sense, were an anomalous phenomenon that valued the “result.”
The fact that Manager Lee had been gravely wounded by the White Mother was not important to this library or to the girl.
What mattered to them was that the gravely wounded Manager Lee had ultimately collapsed, soiling a book and making a loud noise.
That was why, in the end, he had received the same punishment as the White Mother: the erasure of his existence.
But precisely because of that, Manager Lee was curious.
Judging by the circumstances, it was clear that the girl who had erased his existence had revived him.
‘Why?’
But⋯ he could not ask.
After all, it was most beneficial simply to be grateful for the whim that had spared him and leave this place as quickly as possible.
How could a human question the whims of a god?
Soon, the girl rose slowly from where she had been crouching.
“Goodbye, dear patron.”
With that, the girl snapped her fingers.
Then, in an instant, some powerful force began pulling Manager Lee in.
“Uwaaagh!!”
Just as he had been sucked in from space, he was sucked out through the entrance in an instant.
And the moment he left that entrance, Manager Lee once again experienced something no ordinary person could easily experience.
At a speed faster than light, he passed clusters of stars hundreds of millions of light-years away, entered our galaxy, entered the solar system, passed Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Moon⋯
And reached Earth, arriving at the stairs of [Goru Bookstore], the place he had entered from.
Crash, bang, thud!
As a bonus, unable to control that speed with a human body, he tumbled down the narrow staircase.
Manager Lee barely came to his senses, groaned his way up the stairs on his hands and feet, and opened the door, but the interior was nothing more than an old bookstore.
“How old am I⋯ She could’ve been a little gentler.”
Manager Lee sat on the stairs with his whole body aching and let out a sigh.
Of course, considering the wounds the White Mother had given him, having his whole body ache was preferable.
Because in the process of reviving him, that girl had healed all his injuries.
After suffering a tremendous reality check from the whole series of events, Manager Lee rummaged through his inner pocket.
But apart from the glossy saliva of the White Mother, there was nothing inside.
“Cigarettes⋯ cigarettes⋯ Ah, that White Mother bastard.”
In the end, Manager Lee could not even heal himself mentally as he dragged his heavy body up.
Judging by the fact that he could not hear a single sound nearby, it seemed the Management Bureau’s support team had already returned.
Which meant⋯ the two of them had made it back safely.
“Heh heh. Their faces’ll be worth seeing.”
After working at the Management Bureau for so long, this was, surprisingly, one of the fun parts.
Appearing right in front of colleagues who had mistakenly thought you were dead.
Especially since Seo Yuna was a rookie in Team 3⋯ she would be in an uproar, crying her eyes and nose out.
Thinking of that, even his craving for cigarettes gradually subsided.
“A connected door nearby is⋯ what? Five kilometers? Are those bastards on the Pioneer Team not doing their jobs properly⋯?”
Since it was dawn and he could not even get a call taxi, Manager Lee walked the five kilometers as he was and successfully managed to clock out.
* * *
“Was that the right thing to do?”
I was in the middle of a heated discussion with the books.
The topic of discussion was the middle-aged man who had just left the library.
Discussion Topic
[Was it truly the right decision to restore and revive the existence of the human male who violated the rules?]
Since it was not something I could judge on my own, I invited several books as panelists.
Flutter. Flutter.
Flutter. Flutter.
Perhaps interested in this new game of make-believe, they participated enthusiastically.
“No, if it’s a discussion, there have to be two sides no matter what⋯ If all of you support my opinion, then it’s not a discussion⋯!”
But all these guys kept trying to take my side, saying it was absolutely the right decision, agreed! So I forcibly made a few of the books present opposing opinions.
“Ahem, hmm. Now, to begin the first discussion, the reason I saved that person was⋯.”
Flutter flutter!
“S-self-introductions⋯? We all know each other, do we really need to⋯?”
Flutter!
“O-okay. I am ■■■, the librarian who manages this Mystic Library.”
Flutter! Flutter flutter!
Clap clap clap!
Tap tap tap!
“Thank you for the enthusiastic applause. Then, to begin the discussion, the reason I saved that person was⋯.”
Of the four patrons who visited this time, a full half—two of them—had broken the rules.
One was an ordinary middle-aged human man, and the other was a pure-white, elongated monster.
The rule they had both broken was the act of contaminating books. Even now, on my desk, the two books that had been splattered with saliva and blood respectively were either sobbing or flapping in anger.
And in the case of the middle-aged man, the mister, he had also made a loud noise.
In a way, one could say the human mister’s offense was more severe.
However, among the “existence deletions” I had carried out by drawing strikethroughs, I revived only the human mister.
A strikethrough was still engraved over the name of the other monster.
The reason I saved that mister was because I thought there had been some sort of relationship between the two.
To be more precise, perhaps I should call it a difference in their conditions.
“It’s because I thought the one who provided the cause for the mister breaking the rules was that other monster.”
I knew well, since I had been human too.
In ordinary circumstances, people did not bleed.
But that mister had been bleeding from his face from the moment he came in.
“Considering what ‘Grandmother’ taught me, I should exclude the cause⋯ but still, since he was one of the first patrons, I also wanted to give him some leeway.”
Flutter. Flutter.
Ruuustle.
“Mm, that’s right. Sometimes the cause is more important than the result. In truth, if that monster hadn’t been there, that mister wouldn’t have broken the rules either, right? If that had happened, then the disaster of half of the first patrons breaking the rules wouldn’t have occurred⋯ Yes, yes. That’s why I did it.”
Flutter. Flutter.
Swoosh. Swish.
I tried to lead the discussion a little further, but the books on the opposing side kept shouting their agreement, so in the end, that brief game of make-believe came to an end.
In truth, the reason I asked the books for their opinions was because they had lived in this library far longer than I had.
I was in a position to manage them, but that did not mean I ruled over them.
I was thinking of taking the books into consideration as much as possible, with the feeling that we were coexisting.
“Anyway, mm. So, for the two contaminated books⋯ first, you with the saliva on you.”
[Inorganic Parasitology, Volume B]
“For you, I’ll give it to you as is.”
I looked at the monster’s name I had written down in the ancient tome.
The strikethrough drawn over the words White Mother.
I rubbed that strikethrough with an eraser.
Rumble⋯.
From somewhere in the library came the sound of something colliding.
“M-M-Manager Leeee!”
“I’m scared!”
“You can eat it.”
Then [Inorganic Parasitology, Volume B], which had been smeared with saliva, flew out of the stacks while flapping its pages, as if it had never been crying at all.
The books watching that sight seemed disappointed, but rules were rules.
“The principle is that the book handles the complete disposal of the one who contaminated it. Bear with it.”
Flutter.
Crunch, craaack.
Gnash, crunch.
“S-save me, save meeee!!”
“Kiiiiiiik!!”
The sound of a vehicle braking, the sound of a person wailing, the sound of something being struck, and more overlapped, and the sound of one existence being devoured rang out.
Leaving that sound behind me, I looked at the book soaked in blood and fuming in anger.
[196,656 Ways to Make Warm Home-Cooked Meals for Your Wife.]
It was the book I had recommended to the mister.
I examined it carefully and reached a conclusion.
“I’ll wash you.”
Flutterrr!!
Flutter! Flutter!
At my declaration, the book that had been angry sent me joy, while the others sent jealousy.
“Ahem. This is because a large part of this book has been contaminated. N-no⋯! That doesn’t mean you should go get mud on yourselves⋯!”
After working hard to calm down the books that were trying to put that absurd idea into practice, I picked up the blood-soaked book and went into the room inside my seat.
Then, together with professional tools, I turned on the water and began washing it carefully.
“I’ll be as careful as I can so you don’t tear.”
Slap.
Soaked with water, it answered me.
Now that the books had emotions, I definitely liked them even more.
And so, a day at the library passed ordinarily.