The Second Page

The Second Page

Rain took a swig from her flask, the crisp, sweet arit juice clinging to her tongue as she glared down at her opponent. The book glared back up at her.

Rain had realized a couple of things lately. The first had been after she snuck away to watch another play. The main character was a really cool investigator who solved crimes and murders. He was really smart, and whenever he was thinking, he would drink from a flask. Rain had immediately thought of the small steel flask that Blondy had given her. She kept it by her bed to remind herself not to give up; only now did she realize what a waste of potential that was.

The other thing, and the reason Rain was in her library, was because of another waste of potential.

She had been exultant after Isster gained his class right up until the point where she realized she hadn't possessed any corruption at the time. Mr. Mirage’s friends had raised their corruption enough to drop hers to the low single digits! Now, Isster had pushed it to zero, meaning that she could have had more corruption without consequence.

It was time to rectify that mistake as she stood in front of the Tome of Chromatic Truths, the very first book she had ever read. She remembered Mr. Purple saying that her Truth Sight would improve by reading more of the book. Well, it was time to see how that went.

She had considered learning a new skill, but the skills she got from the library were so random that she risked getting something truly useless by reading them. Plus, she had no idea how much corruption they would give her. This book, though, had only raised her corruption by three percent. It was basically free. Not only that, but she could actually find it since it was chained to this pedestal, unlike the other books, which seemed to disappear and appear at will in random places on the shelves.

Rain ran her fingers over the eye tattooed onto the cover. She knew she was procrastinating, but this book was also the most painful she had found. She really didn’t want to do this again.

If only the world cared about what she wanted.

Rain gritted her teeth and opened the book, waiting for the words to slide into her eyes. But nothing. The book lay there on its pedestal like a normal book, the words obediently sitting on their page as if they hadn’t ever flown off to assault people.

She gingerly turned the page, and there it was. The words ripped themselves off the page and into her skull. She could feel them forcing their knowledge into her, but she could also feel them observing her, brushing up against her memories, and judging her.

Before Rain knew it, the sensation was over, and the words slid out, squirming out of her eye sockets and back to their page. Rain collapsed, her mind utterly violated.

[Truth Sight has been upgraded]

[WARNING: Mental corruption has risen 21%. Current mental corruption 21%.]

The messages were hard to understand, but if she was reading them right, then the answers she was looking for were in the other parts of the library, the parts she hadn’t explored due to the corruption. That would have to change. She looked in the direction of the door to the shaft. The next time her levels were low, she wouldn’t be taking a new skill.

With her head throbbing a lot less, Rain figured it was time to return to the real world and figure out what her skill upgrade did. It was a shame the skill didn’t help with written words; that would have been so useful. She could have just read books and known which parts were true and which were not.

The moment she stepped out of the library back into her room in Estom Manor, she saw what her skill did.

Black light shimmered off of Rain, drifting away where it pooled in the corners of the room and slowly seeped into the stones of the manor. Rain could see as it slowly transformed the stones into otherworldly fakes of themselves. It wasn’t a process that would finish in a day or even in a month, but it was happening. Rain could see dark pools all over her room. They must have been growing for as long as Rain had been staying here.

Was this her aura? Could it linger like this in a single place? Mr. Purple had said she could see false energy now. But what did it mean if her own aura was false? And what was it even false to?

Rereading the description, Rain had a suspicion. It said it showed false energy that didn’t belong. Rain hadn’t been creating this black shimmer back in the library. It had only started when she stepped into the normal world. In other words, her own skill was telling her she didn’t belong in this world. Of course, it did.

Rain took a deep swig from her flask again. Whoever said that her skill for seeing the truth was correct? She would make herself belong.

Rain gave a grin at the flask. Drinking from it was kinda fun.

That's when Rain noticed it; there was another source of dark shimmer in the room. Flowing up from under the door to her washroom was a small trickle of black. It was a far lighter shade than what poured off Rain, but it was still noticeable.

Doing her best investigator walk, Rain eased the door to the washroom open. The room looked exactly like it always did. Wash basin and mirror to one side with a bucket of water beside them and an empty tub on the other. Rain had actually never used the tub, preferring a cloth and the bucket.

Letting her eyes scan the room, Rain found the source of her investigation: the drain on the floor next to the tub. That's where the trail led. Rain stood over it and looked down, trying to see what was down there. All she saw was a darkness where the light didn’t penetrate.

Out of curiosity - err, that is - as part of the investigation, Rain decided to pour some water down the drain and see what happened. There was a squeak, then nothing as the frigid water funneled down the hole. Soon, the shimmer stopped floating from the drain.

Rain realized that being an investigator was harder then she thought, because she had no idea what that could have been.