Chương 61: Ch.60— Okay

The manga's brief omission of Amy's trial seemed to be an exception rather than the norm, as everyone else's trials were shown in detail over seven chapters—everyone except for one girl who, just like Amy, had hers skipped as well. The first trial shown was Zayd's, which had been centered around the Gaspard Family.

During his trial, he found himself trapped in his family's mansion with a body he could not completely control; his body forced him to always listen to his family, stopping him whenever he tried to leave the state, and if he tried to resist or try to escape, "unimaginable pain" assaulted him, to the point of near blackout.

Eventually, he decided to stop resisting and listen to this other will while still trying to find another way to pass the trial, all while a mysterious male voice kept telling him, "correctly done." This voice seemed to clearly affect him as his mental state got worse, while at the same time, the autonomy of his body was overwritten more and more to the point that soon he could not even breathe of his own will.

His trial ended with him pushing with everything he had and passing out at the mansion's exit as he thought about Amy's special relationship with fate, while also remembering the conversation he had with her—after her own trial—when he asked her for a favor once the nightmare was over.

"Jesus Christ" were the words that had come to Amy as she finished reading. Compared to him, she couldn't help but think hers had been easy and fast; the only real problem had been herself… After Zayd's trial was concluded, the manga followed with the events that Amy had lived firsthand and so skipped: their constant battle against the small chaos creatures trying to tire them, while at the same time they continued fortifying the Nightmare's Academy.

The manga, while alternating with Amy's experiences, showed Iris' trial next, which Amy found nothing but baffling. The girl became a slave and faced an arena of opponents who continued getting back up even after she beat them. The trial was literally nothing but her fighting, and she seemed to be having fun with it. Eventually, it ended by itself, as her opponents didn't want to keep fighting.

Meanwhile, Ash had to live in a time loop where he watched his companions and himself die multiple times across their adventures in multiple grotesque ways. At first, he tried convincing himself that they were not real, but sadly, he became attached to the perfect copies of his friends and got hurt in the process. As for Lain, she was actually the girl who, just like Amy, had her trial skipped.

Apart from a single image of a ballroom where she was drawn sitting alone while everyone else danced, there was nothing else. Amy had been deeply confused by this and had asked Libris only to be answered with a shrug, as they also did not know the reason, or whether it was going to be shown at all. They only knew that Amy's trial was going to be shown because it appeared in the chapters already released; however, Lain's had simply been skipped, earning a frown from Amy.

Finally, at Lyra's trial, she had been transported to a church where she became a nun, healing patients and watching them die without her being able to do anything about it.

"This is depressing…" Amy said as she rubbed her eyes with her fingers. After going through the group trials, which had taken seven chapters, and the events in between which she had already lived firsthand and which had spanned three chapters, she had finally arrived, four chapters later, at the group's encounter with Abaddon. Right now, she had just finished 181, which had been the group's conversation with Abaddon while they waited for Crow to end his trial. A sigh left her as she leaned against her room's couch.

"Hey," she said to the ceiling.

"Aren't you getting too comfortable?" There was no response for a second, but soon a small chuckle was heard from below.

"I can't help it. I'm tired." Amy groaned then leaned forward once again, while looking down at the person currently resting their head on her lap. A fractured Libris was looking at her with a smile that provoked a frown to appear on Amy's face.

"Nobody asked you to keep that form," Amy said.

"If anything, I wish you would go back to just being a book, at least until we can do something about the secondary effects." She shook Libris—the book version—between them. Libris's human form's eyes followed the book, and their smile grew.

"Worry not, Amy. Pain is just an illusion. I can take it," they said while giving Amy a thumbs-up. Amy scoffed and considered for a second blackmailing the stubborn book with not reading any more manga chapters if it didn't return to their original form. She quickly shook off the idea; that would be an awful thing to do, especially considering reading her chapters was for her own good in the first place.

Instead, she simply stared at the copy of her face with a disapproving gaze, which was returned with a seemingly innocent smile. As the stare battle continued, Libris's smile didn't fade, but the amusement in their eyes faded.

"Amy," they said with a quieter voice now.

"I know you don't like it. I know you want to argue. But we genuinely don't have much time left before I fall asleep again, and there's still so much we haven't gone through. My mind's made up, there is no point in trying to convince me to change back." Amy stared down at them for a long moment with her jaw tight, before shaking her head.

"Just don't come here crying later."

"I would never."

"You already did one minute ago." A faint chuckle answered her, but Amy was already flipping the page, more out of frustration than genuine readiness. Manga Chapter 182 opened with a cover of a medieval village, and was titled "A Perfect Fantasy." Amy frowned at it as a bad feeling reached her. The second page peeled back into a medieval European kitchen filled with warm light. A woman stood at the counter with dark hair pulled back loosely, humming something under her breath, and a man sat at the table behind her.

Amy's frown deepened, and she accidentally bit her lip. The man had noticed the boy standing there watching them, and gave a kind of smile Amy had never seen on his face.

"There you are," Abaddon said.

"We were starting to think you'd slept through breakfast again."

"Rue, sweetheart, sit down, sit down," the woman said, already pulling out a chair without turning around.

"Your eggs are getting cold." So this was his trial... The last chapter had ended with Abaddon and the others looking at Crow's trial door, waiting for him to come back. Amy wasn't stupid enough not to know; however, what she didn't expect was this… Abaddon and what looked like Crow's mother were here. Along with the context of the cover picture… It had only been a few pages, yet she could already feel it coming. Crow's trial was exactly the same as hers.

In the original manga, his trial had been about never finding his father and having to accept it, yet here… Amy kept flipping the pages. Crow chapters moved differently from Amy's experience. Where hers had been tense and depressing, Crow's trial unfolded first in confusion, and then in slow acceptance. Zayd had mentioned that Amy's trial had only lasted thirty minutes.

Crow's, meanwhile, lasted a lot longer than hers, considering they had to hold out for hours against the horde of nightmare creatures; now she knew why. Days passed. His mother taught him to cook while saying that he might need it once he entered the academy, while his father patiently walked him through some mundane arithmetic at the kitchen table, ruffling his hair when he got it right. Throughout the span of five chapters, Crow continued living his life while pondering a way to pass the trial.

By the third, the art had a somewhat slice-of-life feel to it. It was, Amy thought, almost unbearable to read. Then, in the fifth and final chapter, the day Crow was supposed to leave for the Academy, the art changed back to the usual one. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. At this point, Amy was mostly rushing through the chapters, so she mostly skipped Crow's emotional farewell filled with hugs.

Soon she reached the end of the chapter—and of the trials—leaving Crow alone in a dark space with only a door and an orb waiting for him. Once the chapter finished, Amy stopped reading. She sat very still, staring at the final panel of Crow walking through the door while the memory of her own trial arrived. The Goddess had laughed back then when she had looked into Amy's future. Now Amy understood why. Of course, she'd laughed. Of course, she had. Amy herself had laughed too, even without all the context.

Imagine if she had known that her semi-companion had not only had the same exact trial but also ended it in the most beautiful way possible. Instead, she herself had burned her family and neighbors alive.

"... Amy?" Libris's voice cut through, head tilting up from her lap, and brow furrowing.

"Are you alright?" Amy didn't answer. She just stared at the page a moment longer, then let out another small, humorless laugh and shook her head once.

"Amy."

"Yeah, I'm alright, Libris. Like always," she said as her face grew colder and her emotions fainter.

"I mean it. I just think that both the Goddess and Azazel have a very funny sense of humor." Libris nodded silently at her words but kept staring at her closely. Amy, meanwhile, ignored their gaze and turned to the next chapter, which showed Crow getting back from the trial and then their confrontation with Abaddon. The fight happened exactly as Amy had lived it, and so did the winning blow, her confrontation with Crow, the moment of the vote, and finally, her smashing Abaddon's skull open with Libris.

And obviously, it was then that her trial, which had been skipped before, was finally revealed between the pages of her killing Abaddon, with Crow in the background, looking away. Her trial had been very compressed to a couple of pages, and everything had changed to a medieval aesthetic, but the readers still got the essentials. She had had the same exact one as Crow's trial, and she had ended it way differently.

Once she was done, Amy from the book kept staring at the corpse while a flashback of her conversation with Lain on the Academy's balcony appeared. In this conversation, Lain had warned her about the dangers of the path she was walking—or at least the manga had framed it that way. Then, once the fight ended, came the Library, where the demon of knowledge, Azazel, gave everybody an answer to any question they had, and basically tricked everyone but Amy and Lain, who managed to ask their question about the colossus.

Then also came the rewards in the form of books, and finally, the group's return to the academy. With chapter 195 read, Amy finally closed Libris while letting out a long, tired sigh. Libris—the human form—meanwhile got up from her lap and was now sitting on her side while patting her head.

"Good job," they said while trying to hide their obviously worried gaze as they looked at her. Amy stared at them expressionlessly in silence for long enough for them to seemingly get uncomfortable and shift their gaze away from her to her satchel on the other side of the sofa.

"So," they said, far too brightly, "your gift; the one Azazel gave you. She made a performance out of telling you to open it alone when you probably were dying to know what was inside. I'm almost insulted on your behalf." Amy stared at them.

"I mean, truly," Libris continued without waiting for a response, "such an annoying being. And what's up with her gift copying my look? I mean, I'm copying you, but that's different—""If you are trying to cheer me up while changing the subject," Amy said flatly, "you're being really obvious right now." Libris blinked, then smiled.

"I wasn't trying to be discreet."

"Clearly."

"I simply thought that talking about something less—" there was a pause as they thought of the right words, "—heavy might be nice. For both of us. Especially for you."

"I already told you I'm fine."

"Like always?"

"Yes. Like always." Amy looked at them for a long moment. Then she sighed through her nose and let her shoulders drop an inch.

"And by the way, I already opened the book," she said. Libris's expression shifted instantly into genuine confusion.

"... You did?"

"Yeah. Yesterday. In my room. Alone, just like Azazel said." Libris was still frowning with their gaze unfocused.

"I don't have the memory of that," they said slowly.

"I should have recorded it even in my sleeping state. I always have. But there's just... nothing." Their fingers curled slightly. Amy frowned while staring at Libris's confusion, then looked down at her lap.

"... So it was true," she muttered, mostly to herself.

"What do you mean, true?" Libris asked, head snapping back toward her.

"Amy. What happened while I was asleep?" Amy looked at them. And suddenly a small, mean little urge rose up in her chest.

"Wouldn't you want to know?" she said, voice perfectly even. Libris stared at her. It wasn't nice, probably. But something was satisfying and vindictive in getting back at them for constantly delaying the conversation she had talked about; the one about catching up, where they just talked about their feelings and shit—anything but the end of this damn world. The satisfaction only lasted a few seconds before guilt caught up with her.

"I'm just kidding." Libris exhaled, pressing a hand against their chest.

"That was cruel."

"I learned from the best."

"I have never once been that cruel to you." Amy was about to respond, but Libris's raised hand stopped her.

"Let's not get derailed into a stupid argument. Just tell me what the gift was. And what did that mysterious muttering from before signify?" Amy looked down at the book—not Libris, its copy, the other one peeking from inside her satchel.

"It wasn't anything insane or seemingly dangerous," she said, then reconsidered and added, "though logically speaking it should be both." Libris went very still.

"What is it?"

"Before anything," she said while looking at them seriously.

"Tell me, should I tell you just the basic overview or a detailed explanation?"

"What?"

"We don't have much time, as you said. Soon you will go to sleep. And contrary to what you might believe, the book doesn't seem like something we have to deal with urgently. Don't get me wrong. It's definitely crazy important, but right now it isn't our priority." Libris stayed silent for a second as they pondered Amy's words, then they nodded to themselves.

"Quick overview then." Amy tilted her head, a bit confused.

"You sure?"

"Yes. I trust you, Amy. If you say it isn't pressing, then we should focus on the manga comments first. It's only logical."

"Right…" Amy nodded to herself. Then she turned once again to the Libris copy in her satchel.

"You'd better keep that attitude once I tell you." She turned back to Libris, pondered for a second, then, once she found the right words, spoke.

"You know the colossal obsidian woman in the sky we saw in the nightmare and basically the final boss of final bosses, right? Well, she sort of texted me through this book proposing a deal." The lamp flickered, or maybe it was Amy's imagination. Beside her, Libris had gone completely still, like a board. Amy looked at them for a second before she continued.

"Basically, she sort of texted me through the book and thinks we can work together. She says she can deal with the Goddess if I let her eat me." Libris went very still, and their mouth hung wide open. A few seconds passed like that. Then, finally, in a voice scraped flat of every single emotion:"Is this a joke...?"

"I wished." There was another silence, and then...

"Okay." Amy stared at them.

"... Okay?" Amy waited for more. She kept waiting. Libris's red eyes had gone distant.

"That's it?" Amy finally said after getting tired of waiting.

"We should look at the manga comments," Libris said. Amy blinked.

"What?"

"The comments," Libris repeated while pointing at themselves in Amy's hands.

"Underneath the chapters. We haven't gone through them yet."

"... Okay," Amy said slowly, and opened the book back to where she'd left off. She hadn't been sleeping a wink after the opening of that damn book yesterday. Meanwhile, Libris… They really were a lot more different than she thought. Fine. Whatever. She had already had a whole sleepless night to freak out about it, and the nightmares she had had about the trial were more than enough. Right now, it wasn't the moment—as per usual.

Libris—the book version of them—shone on Amy's hands, and the next instant the usual Internet forum appeared. Amy, without losing any more time, got to reading. And immediately paused right after.

"Libris…"

"Yes?"

"Uh…"

"Well, I did tell you it was a warzone there," Libris said. They looked distracted, seemingly in deep thought about the previous conversation. Yet they still answered.

"Since we have little time, I took the most relevant ones and put them all together. Please gather all the data you can for your future performances." Amy blinked a few times before nodding. Her eyes shifted back to the pages, and there she stared at the ocean of comments, all with a shared peculiarity to them: their profile pictures.

The first commenter she saw had a profile picture of Amy with a red X over it, while the second one—who was responding to the first—had a picture of Crow with a similar cross as their profile picture. They weren't the only ones. The comments continued with a variety of them; either Amy or Crow had a circle or a cross. Not only that, but there were also those of Lain, and slightly fewer of the others, who sometimes had a question mark added on top of the portrait.

Just by glancing over the comment section, the second obvious thing was that it was full of all caps, excessive ellipses, big paragraphs of text, and broken grammar. Whenever people used all caps, it was usually ironic for laughs, but with the context of the excessive ellipses that someone only used when they were really mad, the big paragraphs of text, and the broken grammar—which meant it was tapped out in a rush—it was quite clear what kind of place she was about to enter.

Amy glanced at Libris, who was still lost in thought, completely not paying attention to her, while subtly glancing at the devourer's book, then returned her gaze to the book and, with a shake of her head, decided to get back to reading.