「The Eternal Library」The Enigma Of Spades 

[Hajiroyuki]> *The italics do not signify the protagonist's thoughts in this chapter. They are unwritten parts of a conversation that had begun in the previous chapter*

Chapter 2

"An old fellow owned this manor before I came here. I inherited nothing after his death because we weren't family, nor acquaintances." Polaris lowered the ring after raising it to the bridge of his nose to examine it. He danced a key across the Baeru, keeping a hand in his pocket as he idly stood before me.

"Who are you? If this isn't your manor... then do you know something about why 'my world is coming to an end'?"

"The only thing you truly must understand is that the past is not what is becoming undone. The past is the past, it is our future that disallows me and you from returning to the present. Though unlike you... I have been here for a very long time. Possibly eternity," He looks at me and smiles.

"You remember the cat, right?" He asks.

" 'Cheshire?' "

I recall the black cat scampering up the old staircase when I realized Polaris was standing in the room.

"Yes, him. He is your guide." 

Polaris sat in a chair in front of the bookcase from the illustration. 

We had walked into possibly the farthest room in the manor after I nearly fainted from the unusual ordeal that had transpired beyond the gate that surrounded the estate.

"Guide for what? Why would I need a guide?" He elegantly raises a hand, acknowledging the seat before him, akin to the one he was sitting on. 

He respired deeply a second time as I sat down.

I leaned back to display that I still bore mistrust, though it was a bit difficult to avoid comfort when the cushion practically inherited my entire body.

"I don't quite understand 'why' myself. Though I can offer you the answer for 'what.' Cheshire has returned to this period more times than I have. That is not to say I am clueless of the 1800s', but that I haven't left this place once since my arrival." 

"The– the 1800s!?" my posture was pulled from the backrest—almost like I was tugged forward by marionette strings.

"Otherwise called the era of Regency!" Polaris tilted the palm of his hand and clapped in short increments. "Although, I call them epochs," He adds.

"This era lasted less than a decade. Precisely, it began in 1811 and ended in 1820." Polaris bore an amused glint in his eye, that leisurely shrank as creases formed in the corners of his mouth and eyes.

"You must read a lot," he says.

"My caretaker is a history professor," I say, though I haven't learned much of anything from him. I derived a majority of my knowledge from the copies of textbooks he left stacked like pillars in his office. 

I figured he might enroll me in high school, so I took the initiative of gaining enough proficiency to breeze through the classes. 

Polaris stands up from the chair, brushing his hand over the vest he wore to smooth out the wrinkles.

"Did you truly think nothing of how I dressed or spoke?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you think I ran? I thought you had a personality disorder or something…" 

He brought a hand to his chest, woefully bowing his head and shutting his eyes.

"You wound me, young lad, I fear your heart has been mistakenly transplanted with coal by our dear lord," he dramatically changes his accent, speaking as though he were citing scripture for an audience of Victorian folk.

"Please stop doing that. Just speak casually," I chided, furrowing my eyebrows with displeasure.

Polaris skillfully steered our conversation back to its respective subject.

"There is essentially only one path that will lead you out of the Regency epoch." He pauses, evidently to construct his words into a 'reasonable' explanation. 

At a minimum, one that I can put into proportion so as not to perceive as nonsense.

"You must exchange the completion of an objective to gain anything in this iteration of the past. I guess… put simply, you have to carry out what you came here for so that you can destroy the barrier of time that traps this particular location." 

I stare at him dumbfounded. 

What did I come here for? I came here for no good reason! To investigate out of boredom, how is that going to contribute to anything at all!?

Despite the elusive thoughts jabbing at my brain and multiplying into more inquiries like a swarm of bees, I ask Polaris a question that could potentially have given him the impression 'I knew what had to be done.'

"I don't know much about the concept of time itself, but wouldn't destroying something from the past be considered a 'high-risk interference?' Doing anything that changes a specific event will ruin what originally occurred in the future... right?"

Polaris scoffs, and then his shoulders begin to shake. A quiet wheeze coils into a reverberant chuckle, and not even a moment later he is resiliently laughing his ass off. 

I am less disturbed by the outburst upon interpreting his acclaimed situation, and accepting that this man has most anticipatedly lost his mind.

"Finished?" I intervene once his laugh quiets down to the respective tone for talking. 

"Haa—ah, sorry Hoku, that was an immature response. What I meant to riposte was that there is no longer a future. The manor is trapped inside of a paradox because there is something in it that has already been interfered with. Care to follow me back into the study?"

I shake my head disappointingly. He was emphasizing the steady ignorance regarding what he had already unveiled to me.

"It means the retraction of our future has finally reached 'Hoku's' universe."

He briefly mentioned this information earlier upon catching up to me at the entrance.

There were two rooms apart from this one that led into the 'guest parlor.' 

The walls were remarkably bare, nearly allowing for the interior to be disappointing in comparison to the exterior.

Maybe all of the clutter that was covered in each corner of the study were adornments that formerly belonged to the second floor.

If that were the case, then why hide everything beneath the main staircase? Is it possible for a person to rob a place confined by both a gate and repeating time?

The elderly man outside scantily acknowledged the manor, innately treating it as though it weren't there.

Polaris hesitates near the door beneath the gaudy staircase. He appears concerned about something in his pursuit, though he reaches for the doorknob that leads down to the study I was requested to trail behind him for.

"You do know why you came here, don't you?" The blonde young man kept his back turned, but his head was angled toward me in a manner of acknowledgment. 

I weigh the outcomes of offering him a fruitless answer, solemnly replying with the best one I had at the given moment.

"No, I don't know why I came here."

"The painting in that 'mysterious white book' never piqued your interest?" 

My expression fell. After a moment of internal scrutiny, I spoke up.

"Was that the large object veiled beneath the red tarp?"

"Indeed," He says.

"You do know. Then perhaps I should inform you ahead that the painting is key to how you will transmigrate into the green zone. Or for your articulate compression, the timeless reality holding this distinct universe together,"

...

"The time stream."

The Memoir Chapter 2

'THE END OF TIME'

Objective 2

Find the twins. They signify the beginning of a new sequence. When one is gone you are still in the same interval of the present. If the one who is gone reappears, it means the sequence has started from the beginning, and the beholder has died.