Chương 4: No Yelling in the Reading Room

Bart sat in his plastic folding chair. The Almanac of Inevitable Doom had been right, the chair was cold, the plastic was hard, and his back started to hurt almost right away. Though he did not care, he finally had a seat. It was a very small win, but it was a win which always counted according to his late dad. He looked across the dusty stone floor at his very first prize. The brand new wooden shelf stood tall in the dark space.

Pinned to the front of the smooth wood was the dirty, yellow wanted poster he had taken from the goblin cave. As Bart watched, resting his hands on his knees, the poster began to glow. The messy black ink started to shine with a soft, warm light. The words slowly lifted right off the paper, floating in the air like fireflies. The glowing letters drifted toward the shelf and sank deep into the wood. When the light faded, the shelf seemed to grow. It got a little wider. The wood looked more real and solid.

Next to the poster, empty paper folders magically appeared, waiting to be filled with more crime stories. The glowing blue System screen popped up again in front of Bart. Document Accepted Category Added: Criminal Records Archive Health: 0. 0000002% Story Link Found Subject: Gregor the Thief Status: Active Action: Retrieval? Bart rubbed his tired eyes under his glasses. He read the last line out loud to the empty room.

"Retrieval?" Next to him, Albert the skeleton stopped sweeping. The skeleton rested his bony hands on the top of his wooden broom and looked at the blue screen.

"Oh, dear." Bart looked at Albert.

"What does retrieval mean? And why did you say 'oh dear'?"

"Usually," Albert said slowly, his jawbone clicking with every word, "it means somebody is about to arrive. The Archive does not just hold paper, sir. It holds the ideas inside the paper. You brought in a wanted poster for a man. So, the Archive reached out and found the man."

"Arrive?" Bart asked, looking around the broken, floating room.

"But we do not have a front door yet. We just have a bathroom door in the corner." Before Albert could answer, a loud sound filled the room. It sounded like a giant glass window breaking into a million pieces. High up in the dark, empty space above them, reality just cracked open. A bright, jagged hole appeared in the air. Someone screamed. A man fell out of the hole. He dropped ten feet and crashed hard onto the cold stone floor, right next to Bart's new shelf.

A small cloth bag fell next to him, hitting the ground and spilling stolen silver coins everywhere. The coins rolled across the floor with loud, ringing noises. The man groaned and rolled over, holding his shoulder. He was young, with messy brown hair. He was wearing dirty leather armor and a ripped green cloak. He looked terrified, totally out of breath, and very confused. Bart stared at him from his plastic chair.

"Are you Gregor?" The man blinked up at Bart. He looked around at the floating shelves, the dark space, and the skeleton with the bowtie.

"Where am I? How did I fall out of the sky? Was I not just running down an alleyway?" CRACK. The hole in the air ripped open wider. More yelling came from the other side. Two large men in heavy iron armor jumped through the glowing hole. They wore the bright red colors of city guards. They landed heavily on their metal boots, making a terrible clanking noise. Without wasting a second, both guards pulled out long, sharp swords.

"There he is!" the first guard yelled. His face was red and angry. He pointed his sword straight at Gregor on the floor.

"Get the thief! Do not let him run!" Gregor scrambled backward like a crab, trying to get away. But his back hit the new wooden shelf. He was trapped and there was nowhere else to go. The two guards stepped forward, raising their heavy swords high in the air. Bart felt a sudden flash of heat in his chest. He was tired. His clothes were covered in gray mud. He smelled like a toilet, and his back hurt from his cheap chair.

Now, people were yelling, throwing coins on his floor, and waving weapons in his brand new workspace. He stood up from his plastic chair. He stood up very straight, pulling his shoulders back the way his father had taught him.

"Excuse me!" Bart yelled. He used his strict voice, not loud but sharp. It was the kind of voice that made people stop what they were doing and listen. It echoed loudly in the archive. The two guards stopped. They lowered their swords just a little bit. They looked over at the tall, skinny man in the dirty green sweater and glasses.

"Who are you?" the first guard growled. He looked Bart up and down, clearly not scared.

"Stay out of this, peasant. This is official city business. We are taking this thief back to the dungeon."

"And this," Bart said firmly, pointing down at the stone floor, "is an archive. And you are breaking the rules." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. As a Keeper you can spend Mana to create rules that everyone has to forcibly abide by! Chimed the system. Mana cost depends on the person and rule. This gave Bart an idea, he pointed his finger right at the guard's sharp iron sword.

"Rule Number One," Bart said clearly.

"No weapons in the reading room." The glowing blue System screen flashed in the air next to Bart. Rule Enforced: No Weapons. Cost: 2 Mana. (Mana remaining: 3) Action: Confiscation. The heavy iron sword was gone. Instead, the guard was holding a tightly rolled up newspaper. It was the Sunday edition of the Beaumont City Times from Bart's old world. Bart realised the rule had only affected the one guard closing into the archive reading room from the door. The guard looked at the paper. Then, he looked at Bart.

"What dark magic is this? Give me my sword back!" Bart sat back in his plastic chair.

"Do you have a membership card?" The guard blinked.

"A what?"

"A membership card," Bart repeated.

"You need a card to check out materials. That newspaper now belongs to the Archive. If you do not have a card, you cannot hold it." The guard looked at the newspaper, then at Bart, completely confused.

"I am the city guard! I demand my sword!"

"No card, no sword," Bart said flatly.

"And if you take that newspaper out of this room, you will be charged a late fee. It is fifty silver coins a day." The guard dropped the newspaper on the floor like it was on fire. His partner, the second guard, grew red in the face.

"Demon magic!" he yelled. He lifted his own sword high above his head and ran right at Bart, ready to strike him down. Bart stood perfectly still. His heart was beating fast, but he did not run away. He just pointed at the second guard's open mouth.

"Rule Number Two," Bart said flatly.

"No yelling." Rule Enforced: Silence. Cost: 2 Mana. (Mana remaining: 1) Action: Mute. The second guard opened his mouth to scream a loud battle cry yet nothing came out. Not a single pipsqueak. It was like his voice had been completely stolen from his throat. The guard kept running for a few steps, but when he realized he could not make a sound, he stopped in pure panic. He dropped his sword on the ground and grabbed his own neck, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

The first guard saw his partner lose his voice and turned pale white. He grabbed his friend by the arm and pulled him back. They ran right back to the glowing hole in the air, jumped through, and vanished. As soon as they were gone, the bright hole in the air snapped shut. The room was quiet again. Gregor the Thief sat on the floor, breathing hard. He looked at the empty space where the hole used to be. Then he looked up at Bart.

"You... you made his sword vanish," Gregor whispered, his eyes wide with fear and wonder.

"You stole a man's voice with just a finger. Are you a god?"

"He is just the manager," Albert the skeleton said, walking over and sweeping his broom over the dropped newspaper.

"And he should be careful. You only have one point of Mana left, sir." Bart looked at the System screen.

"It only cost two Mana to mute him."

"Yes, because he was just a weak human guard," Albert explained.

"The cost is tied to the target. To silence a regular guard costs two Mana. To silence a dragon would cost ten thousand Mana. Plus, your rules only work inside the Archive. If you step outside that door, sir, you are just a normal man with a bad back." Bart sighed. He picked up a piece of broken stone from the floor to use as a paperweight.

"I am not a god," Bart told Gregor.

"Now, pick up those coins. You are making a mess." Gregor quickly scrambled onto his hands and knees and started picking up the silver coins, putting them back into his small cloth bag.

"Yes, my lord. Sorry, my lord," Gregor mumbled.

"My name is Bart. I am the Keeper of the Infinite Archive. And you are standing in the Crime section." Gregor stopped picking up coins. He looked up.

"A library? This place is a library? But there are no walls."

"We are rebuilding," Bart said smoothly. Before Gregor could ask any more questions, the sound of flapping pages filled the air. The Almanac of Inevitable Doom swooped down from its high floating shelf. It hovered right in front of Gregor and snapped open. Bright red ink wrote itself quickly across the blank pages.

"The new human smells like donkey and fear," the book wrote.

"He is a thief. He will try to steal the Keeper's coins, but he will fail." Gregor fell back, pointing a shaking finger at the flying book.

"It reads minds!"

"It does not read minds," Bart said, giving the book a dirty look.

"It just tells the truth, and it is very rude."" You will be stuck here for a very long time," the book wrote back, before snapping shut and flying away. Gregor hugged his bag of coins to his chest. He looked at the skeleton, the flying book, and Bart sitting in the cheap plastic chair.

"Please do not send me back. The guards will hang me." Bart looked at Gregor. The man was dirty and scared. Then Bart looked at his own clothes. He only had one Mana point left. If he wanted a bed, or a cup of coffee, he needed to find more writing. But going through the bathroom door himself was dangerous. Bart got an idea.

"Albert," Bart called out.

"If I hire staff, do I get any extra Mana?" Albert clicked his teeth together.

"The Archive is very empty, sir. If you officially hire an assistant, the System will see the library is growing. Yes, there is a reward." Bart turned his eyes back to Gregor.

"Gregor. How good are you at sneaking around?"

"I am the best sneak in Doren city!" Gregor said proudly.

"I can get in and out of any window."

"I will make you a deal," Bart said.

"You can stay here. It is safe. But you have to work for me. You are now the Junior Helper. Your job is to go through that white door in the corner, sneak into places, and bring back paper. Books, maps, posters. You do not fight. You just sneak and fetch."

"I fetch paper?" Gregor asked.

"Not gold?"

"Just paper," Bart said. Gregor crossed his arms.

"What is the pay?"

"Room and board," Bart said.

"What is board?" Gregor asked.

"Board means I do not throw you back through a hole to let the guards hang you," Bart explained smoothly.

"And you get a safe place to sleep." Gregor thought about it for three seconds.

"Good enough. I am your man, boss." The moment Gregor agreed, the glowing blue System screen popped up again. SYSTEM ALERT: STAFF HIRED New Employee: Gregor the Thief. Role: Junior Helper (Acquisitions). Archive Health: 0. 0000003% REWARD GRANTED: +10 Mana. Management is surprised you found someone willing to work for you. New Furniture Unlocked: One (1) Wooden Desk. A soft chime rang in the air. Right in front of Bart, a solid oak desk appeared out of thin air.

It was old, but strong, with brass handles on the drawers. Bart smiled for the first time all day. He moved his plastic chair behind the desk and sat down. He put his hands flat on the smooth wood. It felt somewhat like he was home.

"Alright, Gregor," Bart said, tapping his fingers on the desk.

"You are hired. Your first shift starts right now."