Chapter 1: The Nonexistent Hardcover Book |
A dark, narrow room.
On a large shared bed, a dozen boys lay sleeping.
They were all around twelve or thirteen years old.
Curled up tightly under thin blankets, none of them dared to extend even a hand beyond the covers.
"Tss!"
Suddenly, a wall-mounted candle flickered to life on the left side of the room.
The boy closest to the flame squinted against the sudden light, then pulled the blanket over his head and kicked the boy next to him.
The next boy, half-asleep, groggily kicked the boy to his right.
And so it went, one kick after another, all the way to the last boy on the far right—who was roughly kicked straight into the wall.
"Ugh..."
Saul groaned softly, rubbing his bruised knee. He sat up, dazed momentarily, trying to wake himself up.
“Get moving... If you're late, the Master Wizard’ll turn you into flower fertilizer.” The boy beside him mumbled like he was sleep-talking.
Saul pressed on the old wound on his forehead. The sharp sting cleared his mind, and he finally began to move.
He climbed off the bed, quickly put on the servant uniform hanging by the wall, opened the door, and stepped outside.
The hallway outside was long and curved, with doors spaced out every few meters. On either side of each door, candle sconces cast dim yellow light, barely pushing back the corridor’s eerie gloom.
Saul glanced to his left, toward his shoulder.
Floating there was a small hardcover book no larger than his palm.
"Still there? Maybe it’s not just my imagination."
Ever since he had transmigrated into this world a few days ago, the book had hovered silently near his left shoulder.
Visible but untouchable. No one else could see it.
He had tried calling it a system, pleading for an AI chip, anything, but got no response. In the end, he chalked it up to a hallucination from his head injury.
But hallucinations weren’t supposed to last this long.
Regardless of whether it was real or not, Saul had more pressing matters to deal with. He didn’t have time to dwell on it.
This place was a Wizard Tower.
Since arriving here, Saul had never once stepped outside.
As a servant, his daily routine began around four in the morning. He had to mop the floors of the 11th through 13th floors—leaving no visible dirt or trash behind. Otherwise, he'd be chopped up and used as fertilizer for the flowerbeds.
The cleaning had to be done before the candles transitioned from a dull yellow to a bright white flame. If he ran into a Wizard Apprentice on their way out... well, he might be dragged off for an experiment.
Wizard Apprentices were all bizarre-looking and quick-tempered, like they were being chased by death itself.
The previous "him" had actually been killed—smashed in the head with a book by one of those apprentices. His body was dumped in a storage room and nearly mistaken for trash.
When Saul crawled out of that storage room, blood covering his face, even the butler thought it was a haunting.
After confirming he was still alive, the butler had immediately assigned him new duties. Saul didn’t even have time to recover before being forced back to work.
That brought him to today.
Finishing the thought, Saul headed to the storage room next to the dorm, collected a mop, a bucket, and a trash bin, and loaded them onto a small flat cart.
The cart supposedly had silence runes etched into its wheels to avoid disturbing the overly sensitive Wizard Apprentices.
A couple of days ago, Saul had studied the runes closely. All he got was a mild headache.
Yawning, he began yet another day of work in the chilly early morning.
The corridor was more of a semi-circle, with doors lining both sides every few meters. Each door had a nameplate with arcane characters indicating the room number.
The body Saul had transmigrated into could read, and after a few days of wandering, he had regained some basic knowledge from scattered fragments of memory.
While cleaning the 11th floor, Saul heard the sound of crying from behind one of the doors.
Every time the crying started, the candle flames on either side of the door would flicker unnaturally, casting shifting shadows that made his skin crawl.
He tugged his collar tighter. Any trace of sleep vanished instantly.
Pretending he hadn’t heard a thing, he quickly mopped the area and moved on.
The 12th floor housed a weirdo who liked to throw trash outside his door.
Hair, shredded paper, unidentifiable chunks of meat...
Saul was already used to proactively cleaning it up as he passed.
He used a small shovel hanging from the trash bin to scoop everything up. As he turned to dump it, he heard a soft scraping noise.
He immediately spun around.
A door behind him had opened just a crack. Its interior pitch black, revealing nothing.
Goosebumps rose all over Saul’s body. His hands trembled slightly as he fought the urge to run. But at the same time, he couldn’t risk offending the apprentice who lived there.
He had learned in just a few days that nothing was more important than showing absolute respect and humility toward Wizard Apprentices.
He was just a twelve-year-old kid, frail and powerless.
Any apprentice could crush him with a snap of their fingers.
As for an True Wizard? Haha. Someone like him wasn’t even qualified to meet one.
Heart pounding, Saul waited.
Nothing else happened.
Time was short. Keeping one eye on the cracked door, he resumed mopping, inching past it cautiously.
Eventually, the curve of the corridor blocked the door from view.
Saul’s shoulders relaxed slightly as he pushed the cart up the sloping hallway to the next level.
The 13th floor.
As a transmigrator, Saul was sensitive to this particular number.
Even if he used to be a rational materialist, this strange, eerie world filled with wizards and monsters made him more than a little superstitious.
Rumor had it that the last servant assigned to this floor had died here.
Saul had cleaned this floor a few times already and hadn’t noticed anything strange, but the place still made his skin crawl.
That kind of irrational, primal fear—like something unseen was watching him—never quite went away.
He lowered his head and scrubbed the floor hard, trying to work the unease out of his system.
But then it happened.
As he passed the third door on the right, a pool of blood suddenly seeped out from beneath the door.
Thick. Bright red. The stench of iron was strong and choking.
One look told him this was no ordinary mess.
The blood oozed to the center of the hallway before stopping.
According to the butler’s rules, Saul had to clean up all visible stains. There was no exceptions.
He tightened his grip on the mop and clenched his teeth, steeling himself to go forward.
Just then, the hardcover book floating at his shoulder suddenly flew in front of him and flipped open with a rustling sound.
Saul froze. It was the first time the book had reacted to anything.
A surge of hope filled his chest.
Could this be my golden finger finally activating to save me in a crisis?
Still watching the blood from the corner of his eye, Saul focused on the book.
It settled on a blank page. Lines of text rapidly appeared:
May 21st, Year 314 of the Lunar Calendar.
While cleaning the hallway, you notice a pool of blood seeping from behind a door.
Though afraid, you stepped forward anyway—because if you didn’t finish your task, you’d end up as flower fertilizer.
But no matter how hard you scrubbed, the blood only spread.
You looked down—only to realize it wasn’t the floor bleeding.
It was you.
The next day, a new dried corpse appeared in the tower’s garbage room.
Saul’s legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed into the trash bin behind him.
He leaned on the mop handle to steady himself, staring at the pool of blood with lingering fear.
So this book is a death warning system?
In a place as creepy and deadly as this, that’s... actually useful.
He didn’t think the book would lie to him.
After all, what value did he have that was worth deceiving?
Saul carefully maneuvered the cart to go around the bloodstain.
But just then, the book in front of him changed again.
You chose to avoid cleaning the blood out of fear.
That morning, the butler summoned you for leaving the hallway unclean.
The next day, the greenhouse gained some new fertilizer.
You found your new stinky form surprisingly satisfying.
Saul: “...”
Damn it!
Either way, I’m dead!
(End of Chapter)
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