I stepped out of the heavy mahogany doors of the meeting room and immediately spotted the same syndicate gatekeeper who had escorted me earlier, standing post down the hall. Time was ticking, and I needed to shed this Zenni persona fast. To revert to my true form, Eirene Rynd, I desperately needed a large, oversized garment to conceal my massive blood wings and the horrific, mangled reality of my actual injuries.
I walked straight up to him, keeping my tone demanding yet calm.
"Give me your cloak," I ordered.
Seeing that I was Oksana's freshly anointed personal apprentice, the gatekeeper didn't dare hesitate. He quickly unclasped his heavy, dark cloak and handed it over. But the moment I caught the fabric, my nose wrinkled. It absolutely reeked of skunky weed and pungent lotus dust. Walking into the Archivist's pristine sanctuary smelling like a literal drug factory was a massive liability.
"Wait, spray me down. All of it."
I stopped him, pointing to a premium bottle of scent-masking cologne tucked into his tactical vest, the guard nodded frantically, grabbing the bottle and dousing the cloak and my uniform in a heavy, suffocating cloud of synthetic lavender and musk, spraying until the bottle literally ran out of juice. The floral scent was overwhelming, but it completely suffocated the smell of the drug smoke.
"Thank you,"
I muttered beneath my hood, turning on my heel and swiftly exiting the grand, opulent halls of the Emerald Spire.
I slipped out into the cooling evening air of the southern district, navigating the labyrinth of clean, heavily policed avenues. I kept my head down, weaving between the luxury townhouses until I found what I was looking for, a pitch-black, dead-end alleyway completely swallowed by the shadows of a towering brick warehouse.
Ensuring the coast was clear, I stepped deep into the darkness, leaned against the cold brick wall, and deactivated the shapeshifting spell.
[DNA trace depleted. Shapeshift deactivated.]
The transformation was an agonizingly familiar, visceral nightmare.
The healthy, pristine body of the fourteen-year-old boy, Zenni, began to rapidly shift and dissolve. The perfectly healed flesh, muscle, and bone of my left arm suddenly dissipated into nothingness, leaving my sleeve pinned limply against an empty shoulder. Inside my mouth, the tongue I had just used to speak to my sister dissolved into ash, locking me back into absolute, agonizing silence. With a sickening, supernatural pressure, my newly grown left eyeball shriveled up and vaporized, leaving a hollow, charred socket behind. The smooth, pale skin of my cheeks split apart as the deep, jagged ridges of my Glasgow smile violently tore back open. Down in my left boot, the sharp, throbbing ache of my severed toes returned in full force.
And then, with a violent, wet CRACK, my massive, crimson blood wings erupted from my shoulder blades, instantly puncturing two large, ragged holes right through the back of my expensive ivory and gold academy uniform.
I fell to my knees, gasping through my ruined mouth, a cold sweat dripping down my scarred face. I was back. Eirene Rynd, the broken, mutilated S-rank bounty hunter of the underworld, had returned.
I didn't have time to wallow in the pain. I gritted my teeth, grabbed the gatekeeper's oversized cloak, and wrapped it tightly around my mangled frame. I carefully buttoned the thick fabric all the way to the top, adjusting the heavy folds to perfectly mask the bulge of my folded wings and my missing arm. Pulling the deep hood low to completely submerge my Glasgow smile and hollow eye socket into shadows, I stepped out of the alleyway.
Moving with the silent, predatory grace of a ghost, I left the southern district behind and proceeded toward the central library. It was time to give the Archivist the blueprint to a massacre.
Moving like a specter across the rooftops of the central district, I leaped seamlessly from house to house. The cool night air rushed against my heavy cloak, keeping the heavy bulge of my folded blood wings stable against my back. Within minutes, I slid down a stone drainage pipe and stepped onto the paved courtyard of the Grand Central Library.
Even at this late hour, the majestic, multi-tiered building was brightly lit, completely packed with late-night scholars, researchers, and bookish nerds who looked exactly like the civilian persona I usually played. Pulling the deep hood of the guard's cloak firmly over my scarred face to conceal the hollow socket of my left eye and my jagged Glasgow smile, I slipped past the grand marble pillars and walked inside.
The heavy scent of old parchment, vanilla ink, and the suffocating lavender perfume I had doused myself in filled my senses. I marched directly toward the main reception desk, where an elderly librarian with silver-rimmed spectacles was quietly filing catalog cards.
I stepped up to the desk, instinctively opening my mouth to request a private audience. But the moment I tried to form the words, nothing came out. A cold, sharp wave of reality hit me… I had completely forgotten that in this body, my tongue was gone. Instead of words, I merely let out a quiet, raspy puff of air through my teeth.
The librarian paused, looking up from her cards. She didn't flinch or show fear; working in a high-tier city library meant she had seen all kinds of eccentric clovers and battle-worn travelers. She took one look at my guarded posture and the heavy folds of my cloak.
"You're mute, lass, care to hand me your academy or guild status card so I can verify your entry?" she said, her voice surprisingly gentle yet perceptive.
I nodded slowly beneath my hood. Reaching my lone right hand deep into the inner pocket of my tailored uniform jacket beneath the cloak, I pulled out my official, high-tier identification card and handed it across the polished wooden counter.
The librarian placed the metallic card onto a small, glowing magical rune on her desk. The rune flashed a deep, authoritative crimson as my sealed imperial record materialized in front of her.
"Eirene Rynd, an official bounty hunter registered with the Bureau. Well, Eirene, what can the central library do for you tonight?" the librarian murmured, her eyebrows raising slightly as she read the glowing text.
Realizing that I couldn't articulate my request, the elderly woman reached beneath the desk and smoothly slid a blank piece of crisp parchment and a feathered quill toward me.
"Here. Write it down."
I took the quill, dipped the sharp tip into a well of dark black ink, and wrote a single, definitive title in elegant, sharp cursive:
The Archivist.
The librarian's eyes narrowed slightly as she read the name. Seeing that an official, battle-scarred bounty hunter had arrived with urgent business for the library's hidden overseer, she didn't ask any further questions. She reached into her drawer, pulled out a smooth, glowing blue communication stone, and whispered a coded sequence into it, alerting the Archivist's private chambers below.
After a brief pause, the stone flashed once, confirming the message.
The librarian pocketed the stone and looked back up at me, sliding my status card back across the table.
"The Archivist has received your request, but she is currently finalizing an encrypted ledger. She tells you to wait here in the main hall for a short moment. Feel free to browse the aisles and read a book if you want to pass the time, lass."
I took my card, giving her a single, respectful nod. Turning away from the desk, I walked toward a secluded, dimly lit reading alcove in the back of the library. My severed left toes throbbed slightly with every step, but I ignored the ache, sinking into a shadow-drenched leather armchair. I didn't grab a book. Instead, I rested my right hand against the handle of my hidden blade, my lone right eye fixed on the basement stairs, waiting for the signal to dismantle Oksana's dawn empire.
I sat deep within the shadows of the secluded alcove, pulling the gatekeeper's heavy cloak tighter around my empty left shoulder to ensure the tattered, punctured fabric over my blood wings stayed completely hidden.
As I waited, a group of students suddenly walked into the nearby study area, pulling out chairs at a large oak table just a few yards away. Through the gloom, my lone right eye instantly recognized them… it was Garret and a few other first-year boys from the academy. They were still riding the high of the afternoon exhibition, completely animated and bursting with adrenaline.
"I'm telling you, it was absolutely unreal! The way Zenni completely dismantled Yellow Volcano? The guy is a straight-up monster!" Garret whispered loudly, slamming his knuckles onto the table.
"Right?! Everyone keeps talking about his blood manipulation, but his spells aren't even high-level. He literally just used basic, low-tier magic! It wasn't the spells that won the match… it was his freaking mind. He used Volcano's own magma against him! He wrapped that boiling heat right around his own arm just to superheat his blood spray and shatter the senior's defenses!" another first-year chimed in, leaning forward.
"The sheer physical strength and pain tolerance you need to pull that off... it's terrifying, I guess that's what happens when you grow up in the slums. It breeds a different kind of survivor. You become unbreakable." Garret muttered, shaking his head in profound respect.
"Did you see his face and arm afterward, though? He looked like a literal corpse, luckily for him, Principal Elicia herself stepped in and healed him with her divine magic. If it weren't for the offspring goddess, Zenni would be a permanent cripple right now." the second boy whispered, shuddering.
Because of their increasingly boisterous, noisy conversation, the silver-spectacled librarian suddenly materialized at the end of their aisle. She glared down her nose at them, pointing a stern finger in the air.
"Shhh! This is a public library, young men, not the coliseum! Either keep your voices down or take your gossip outside!" she hissed sharply.
"Sorry, ma'am! I'm deeply sorry!" Garret squeaked, raising his hands defensively.
The boys immediately shrank back into their seats, heavily blushing as they began conversing in hushed, quiet whispers.
I just sat there in the dark, a cold, bitter smile tugging at the hidden ridges of my Glasgow smile beneath my hood. It was surreal, almost comedic, to sit less than ten feet away from my own classmates while they fiercely debated my legendary status. They were practically worshipping the ground Zenni walked on, completely oblivious to the fact that the very kid they were talking about was currently sitting right next to them… a mutilated, tongue-less bounty hunter drenched in the scent of heavy lavender perfume and cheap syndicate weed.
Suddenly, the ambient light in my alcove seemed to dim, and a chilling, perfectly composed aura swept over the corner.
A figure stepped out from the hidden stairwell, her footsteps making absolutely no sound against the stone floor. It was the Archivist. She wore her signature dark, floor-length robes, her eyes holding the infinite, terrifying weight of the city's darkest secrets. She bypassed the oblivious students entirely and stopped right in front of my chair.
She looked down at my cloaked, one-armed form, her sharp gaze cutting straight through the shadows of my hood, The Archivist murmured, her voice a low, melodic purr that sent a thrill of cold anticipation down my spine.
"Evening, bounty hunter, I understand you have a fresh ledger that needs blood on the pages."