61 Great Library

After a harmonious lunch with the family, I told them that I would be be heading out for a while. I didn't mention that I would be heading for the library, but Celine insisted that she'll come with me.

Mom looked like she had something to say about it, but stopped herself and just bid us goodbye.

Celine asked me where I was going, so I told her I was heading to the library. To which, surprisingly, she asked if she could come with me. Though I already kind of know about it, ever since we had our little reading session a year back, she's been into books a lot more. From romance novels, to fantasy books, and now I sometimes see her reading autobiographies, history books, or dystopian novels and whatnot.

Things that I wouldn't have associated with the training addict that she was, a few years back. I guess it also helps not having a private space to train yourself with, like she used to. So reading sort of turned from a niche pastime, to her main source of entertainment nowadays.

The sun was high up in the sky, shining in all of its glory, so Celine had to bring a parasol with her to atleast give us shade. Spring was nearing its end and summer was rearing its hot visage. The streets were in excellent condition, with no snow littering the ground and flowers blooming beautifully in the roadside.

This time, we didn't have to exit the inner city through the western gate so there was no need for us to navigate through the bustling streets of the western quadrant's shopping district. Instead we headed for the southern gate, which is a lot closer to where the city library is.

The streets in the southern district, where our home was located, were noticeably calmer and the scent a lot more sweet and fruity, without the distinct smell of confections being baked or spices being cooked. We only passed by a few elves on the way, all with picturesque figures, simply going through their day. Walking through the paved road with its background of rich foliage of oleander and daffodils, all grown in hedges in the side of the road.

We passed by the southern gate and tread our way through the crowded streets of the outer city. The crowd got thinner the closer we came to our destination, and the noises in the background slowly came to a lull as if the entire street has agreed to a 'Complete Silence' agreement.

After a turn in the corner, we finally reached the street where the library was located. Elvish scholars quietly walked across the streets made of brick stones. The library was built near the river, and the only building that was nearby is an abbey across the other side of the street. Other than that there were only statues in the surrounding area and a pedestrian bridge that was built across the river and linked the road to a government building up ahead.

"No wonder its so quiet" Celine remarked beside me. Ordinary people had no business walking around this place, and the buildings nearby were meant for scholars, monks, nuns, and government officials, leading to the tacit silence that permeated this and the neighboring streets.

We made our way to the grand library's entrance and was awed with what we found. The building was pearl white in colour, and looked more like a mausoleum rather than a library. Pillars, reminiscent of the Greek Parthenon, lifted the building's roof while the large building made of marble had a large dome at its center. There was a long staircase that one had to climb before you reached the library's gates, and there were two sentinels standing guard in each side.

The moment I stepped foot on the said staircase, I felt a strange sensation as if strength just left me out of the blue. I clenched my fist to see if there were any anomalies in my strength, but there were none. It was an unfamiliar feeling that I've never felt before, but I just couldn't quite point my finger in what exactly is it. Nothing was wrong with me physically and it was only until I tried channeling mana that I realized what it was.

I've read of magic sealing minerals, or petricite, as they are called. Once used in armors, but now more used in things like chains, shackles, and arrow-heads. It was my first time actually touching one or even seeing one, so I didn't expect that there would be an entire building whose materials were actually mixed with it.

"Hm?" Celine also felt the strange phenomenon and looked like she had a lot of questions about it so I decided to explain it to her as we made our way up the staircase.

The sentinels let us pass through without asking any questions and once inside, the interior has proved to be just as grand as the exterior. There were murals in the ceiling, and rows upon rows of bookshelves that stood in every corner of the building.

The building's design was actually pretty deceptive, because from outside it looked like two-storey tall, maybe three at best. But the floors actually go down, rather than up. Looking down from the handrail, I could see atleast five more floors below the one I'm currently on. With each floor, containing more bookshelves than the one I'm at.

The librarian asked us to write down our names, time of our visits, as well as our address, before we could head down. To my dismay, the only ones that the public actually have access to, is the two floors that were built above the ground. Meaning the multitude of floors below required special permission and identities.

It makes you wonder, why would they make the floors below visible from the handrails then? To cock-tease ordinary citizens like us? There were guards standing at the stairs leading below, and since the floors were underground you can't exactly just go down and then escape from a window or something. Not to mention, without the ability to use magic trying to jump down the handrails would be tantamount to suicide.

But it's not like I'm here to commit a crime, the knowledge that I want should be easy public knowledge so I wasn't that worried that I wouldn't find it in the one that were available to the public.

"Sis, I'll go to the history section. You can follow me or we can meet here, exactly three hours from now." I told her with a hushed voice

Celine opted to us meeting three hours later, as she went off in her own way and I also started to wander around the library.

…

…

One of things I wanted to learn about, is the war that Mom fought on. From what I can deduce, Mom fought a few years before she gave birth to Celine and from there it wasn't that hard to find it. There were only so few wars that could be fought within a time period and there was a war that matched with what Mom has told me before.

'The Southern Conquests'

Rather than one large war, it was a series of small consecutive wars that was fought around the same time period. The conquests were two decades of non-stop wars from the side of Elban to its much smaller neighbors in the south in an effort to reach the sea, which ultimately failed. The majority of the campaigns were met with overwhelming success, until the Emperor's untimely death and from then on it was an uphill battle and in the end, the elves only retained half of the lands they actually have conquered during the campaign.

However the entire story wouldn't be complete if the prelude to the wars weren't mentioned. It's like how WW1 ultimately gave rise to WW2, the events that led to the Southern Conquest were just as important.

I remember the 'peaceful' image that I had of elves when I was first born in this world, it turns out it was actually true, I was just born a tad bit later for me to actually experience it myself. For more than a century, the threat of being captured as a slave was a reality that most elves had to deal with. Your wife got captured? Big deal. Your village was raided and now your family's gone? Shit happens, just deal with it.

Maybe they were already numb to it or they just didn't care until it actually happens to them, but no one actually dealt with it. People in the city lived secure lives without the constant threat of slavery looming upon them, and realistically it was usually small villages that were being enslaved en masse. It was already rare for any survivors to tell of what happened, and it is even rarer for other people to actually care even if they did know about it.

It was a situation where even if you wanted to, you couldn't do anything about it. It's like telling someone world hunger is bad, yeah that shit sucks but what can you do? It was something that they just had to live with. However, that doesn't mean that they were satisfied with the situation though.

While people in the villages were living miserable lives, the nobility had other things to do and were busy vying with each other. So when it was found out that certain members of the nobility and even the crown had ties with the ongoing rampant slave trade, the opposing faction is more than happy to gobble it up.

One of the things I've learned is that bitterness always needs a target and right now there is a massive target. Something, or more accurately, someone you can point your finger at and blame for all your dissatisfaction and troubles in life. From there, I could have guess what happened already: Have a scapegoat to pin all your troubles with regarding the status quo and then promise you'll do something about it.

The problem was the 'scapegoat' this time isn't a small group of people that can't fight back, you can't just have them locked up in a concentration camp and be done with it. They were other members of the nobility and the royalty to boot, they were more than capable to fend for themselves. But the opposing faction were just as influential.

They said that a person is usually smart, but a crowd of people? Not so much.

They were given a way to do something about a problem that's been plaguing them for a century, and the opposing nobles did their best to fan the flames of rebellion. Whether it was through propaganda or heavy publicity, the crowd that usually ignored the slavery that happens before their eyes was suddenly so against it.

It wasn't just the slave trade, perhaps seeing the chance to break open the status quo, actual revolutionaries also started speaking up against the poor quality of life, corruption, and etc. Then the neighboring human countries wouldn't just let the lucrative elvish slave trade just go up in flames like that. So the situation went from a power struggle between two opposing nobles factions, to a free-for-all royal rumble where differing groups of people wanted differing future for the country.

In the end, in the flames of war, the man who rose as the king of the ashes, was an ambitious man who called himself as Sylvar 'Ilnad' Elban, the future emperor. He wasn't an actual member of the royal family, but was a noble from an impoverished region in the north. It was an inspiring story of rags to riches.

He fell in love with a princess and then married into the royal family, that's how he became the emperor. He did a lot of reforms during his rule, the first one being the nationwide ban of slavery, then reforming the army and the government, then his mostly successful war campaigns until his eventual untimely death. Even the history books, sang nothing but praised for the man who turned the poor kingdom into the empire it is now today.

However maybe it is because I have memories of the history of earth or maybe because I'm just a little pessimistic, that I can't help but take his story with a grain of salt. Most of the opposing factions called for the dissolution of the monarchy but the books said that the second princess publicly denounced her family and sided with the opposition for the majority of the civil war. When they finally succeeded she personally ordered and oversaw the execution of the other members of the royalty, and that's why he was able to marry her without a hitch.

With him in the royal family and with his popularity, he was able to persuade the nobles who sided with the royalty to join him under the guarantee that they'll remain nobles so long as they are loyal to him. Then he just had to deal with the foreign forces that was running across the country and now he was at the top of the nation while having huge public and noble support.

From my perspective, he was someone who played both sides and came up on top. Whether or not his love story is real or he just seduced the princess didn't matter. Through his marriage, he placed himself in a unique where he was both with the opposition and the royalty, while skyrocketing his own status.

Then he stripped the nobles of their own personal armies, in favor of one large 'Imperial' army in order to prevent rebellions from happening again, the same rebellion that put him in power in the first place. Atleast that would be my reason if I was the one in his position. He also made other reforms like, the Royal Court and changing the nation from a kingdom to an 'empire'.

Because technically, his wife was still the queen regnant of the kingdom and he was only the king consort, thus she had the final say over things. So he said fuck that, we're an empire now and I'm gonna be crowned 'emperor'. Again, atleast that's how I see it. The official reason that he stated was "To end the centuries of humiliation that the humans have put us under and show the world that we can stand on our own two feet."

The 'Ilnad' in his name was added to pay homage to the famous epic 'Illnada', which was about a boy who dreamed of unifying all elvish tribes under his rule. After all, there was a lot of parallels between the two and where there are parallels, narratives can be drawn. It was good propaganda, I've got to admit.

His story really felt like it came out of a novel and it didn't help that there was an actual popular novel that had a similar story as him. So it didn't take much to spin it to him being some sort of chosen one, or the incarnation of 'Illnada' himself. Not to mention, when he died in the middle of the war the war suddenly started going downhill from there on out. Without him, the two opposing faction lost their mediator and the chain of command went awry.

So obviously, he wasn't just all talk and had the skills and charisma to back it up.

Whether or not, he was actually some sort of hero, or he was just a master at scheming didn't matter. Either way, he has my respect. In the end, he really was a poor noble turned emperor and all of his achievement are very real. Imagine going from a nobody who's not even up for succession during your youth, to nutting inside the royalty in your adult years with all of your children now members of the imperial family.

I would say that's quite a good life, honestly.

…

It was a more entertaining read than what I've initially imagined. I'd love to hear some first-hand accounts from Mom. Judging by her age she could've already been a soldier during the civil war so if she was, I'm curious which side she was at.

I've actually exceeded the allotted time that Celine and I agreed on seeing that the clock was pointing to a quarter till five. I'm about half an hour late from the agreed time and I only noticed it now. I was maybe a little too absorbed in reading.

I stood up to put the book back from where I first got it, only to see Celine walking towards me huffing and puffing in anger. She had beads of sweat trailing down her face, probably because she's been looking for me now for quite some time.

"Youu..." she called out in anger before she hurriedly put a hand over her mouth after she noticed how loud she was "I've been looking for you, it's already half an hour past the designated time~" she continued this time with a hushed tone

"It's an honest mistake, Sis" I explained myself with a smile "The book was a lot better than what I initially imagined." I told her

"That doesn't exc- Hii?!" she wanted to scold me more when she felt my hand squeeze her ass from behind

"Yeah, I know. I'll cook you dinner this time as apology~" I said, her face getting redder with my hand still groping her plump butt

"N-not here!" she said as she took off my hand before speaking "I'll let you go this time." before telling me to get moving

'That's what you said last time as well' I thought to myself recalling the last time I did something wrong where she said that it would also be my last time

"Really? I'll make sure to give it my best then, cooking dinner, I mean." I said while clasping my hands together in gratitude

Checking out of the library, we both left the building and a liberating feeling then came upon our bodies. We could finally feel our mana flowing inside our bodies normally again.

(A/N: Forgot to add this before, but here's a map of the world. The names are RNG-generated so there's that.)