Looking At Books

Kies sat down at one of the couches next to one of the bookshelves and randomly picked a book of it. He felt a sense of nostalgia looking at the book but couldn't figure out why. The book looked like it was several years old. The cover was falling apart and the title was scratched off. There were a few loose pages and some of the writing had also faded away.

Kies ran his hand along some of the pages. They felt rough and wrinkled. Kies felt that if he even lightly shook the book or dropped it, the entire thing would come falling apart. It probably wasn't a good idea to try to read this book and so Kies put it back where he found it. He picked one of the newer-looking books off the shelf and took a look at it. There wasn't a title for the book. He flipped through a few of the pages and saw that it was in a language that he didn't know.

"Hoot, a book written in Elvish." Kies almost dropped the book in surprise. When did Haro get on his shoulder? The owl laughed and told Kies, "You know, unlike other birds, we owls are able to fly without making a sound."

"I see..." Kies continued skimming through the book and found not a single word that he recognized or knew.

"If you wish, I can read it out loud for you."

"Please do." Kies put the book down on his lap and flipped back to the first page.

Haro tilted his head sideways a little and hooted. After a brief moment, he told Kies, "This book talks about water magic and its fundamentals. That's quite interesting considering that Elves mainly use nature and spirit magic. But I guess water is also a part of nature."

Kies shook his head and said, "I don't think this book will be of any use for me then." He put the book back onto the shelf and picked a new book. Unlike the other two he randomly chose, this one had a title. It was once again in a language that he could not read.

"A book on blacksmithing. It looks like it was written by a dwarf," Haro examined. Since it wasn't for him, Kies put back the book and picked out several books this time for Haro to identify. "Hoot, I don't know what it is that you're searching for, but if it is a book on wind magic, none of these are what you want," Haro told Kies as he looked at all the titles. "You know child, you can always seek advice from me."

"Hm, I guess I could, but I want to see if there are any books written by an Aeos here." Kies wanted to see if there was a book about the Stormcaller here since the archive didn't seem to have many records of it.

"I see. Let me check if there are any." Haro flew over to one of the bookshelves called upon the winds to pull the books one by one out of the bookshelf. He quickly read each and every title and then gently put the books back. Within a few moments, he finished going through every book on the bookshelf and then continued with the bookshelf underneath it. This happened another two times and Haro managed to go through all the books in under a minute. From all of the books, Haro pulled out two that caught his attention.

Haro landed on the couch in front of Kies and told him, "I didn't see a single book that was written by an Aeos or about the Aeos. However, I did find these two books that might interest you."

Kies picked up one of the books and saw that it had no title. The cover was made out of leather and the pages looked fairly old. The book had an old musty smell to it. He flipped through the pages and not surprisingly, found out that it was once again in a language that he couldn't read. "The one you're holding is a travel journal. It was written by a very famous beastman who explored this vast world and saw all that it had to offer. This book was written before the Bloodtide War so there's a chance that she may have visited the Aeos territory and written about it in here."

Haro picked up the second book carefully with his talons, making sure not to scratch or damage it, and said, "Now this one here is written in the old demonic language. It contains records of various battles during the Bloodtide War. I don't know how it managed to find its way here, but it may contain data on the battles fought by the Aeos."

"Wait, did you just say that one of our battle records is here?" Ammine overheard Kies and Haro talking and stopped training and walked over to the two. She took the book from Haro's talon and skimmed through it. "Huh, this is the real thing. How did this get here..."

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