Chapter 03

The bookstore occupied most of the 6th floor. All other stores aside from it are minor magazine stores, or stores that sells comic books. Though interested on some entertainment stuff this place would offer, she choose to head on the bookstore first, to check some information about the place.

As she saw some poster on the door, amusement filled her eyes. They also do this kind of thing here? There is a small number on the small digital interface of the door. It shows 1998. If not scrutinized well, one could not see it. Thus, she let a person first enter, then followed after it.

"How may I help you?" Asked the mini robot, as it saw her. Then it gave her a small tablet which shows a selection of what genre she wish to pursue.

She clicked several genre such as Non-Fiction, Atlases, and Newspapers. The robot just printed out a piece of paper with information about those places, along with the bookstore layout with marked location, so she could easily find the place.

After she got it, there is a notice on the robot's digital face. A confetti picture and a congratulations appeared.

"Congratulations! You are the bookstore's 2000th customer! As a reward, you could take 3 books with you. After deciding, you can it to the counter and present this voucher to claim the price."

It also gave a small blue voucher, detailing the promo.

"Thanks a lot." She smiled in gratitude.

The robot showed a happy emoticon on its digital face, "Happy to serve you~"

It left and met with other customers entering.

Smiling, the protagonist first headed to the Atlases category to search where in the world is this place.

She can be classified as a realist. But in her heart, she always dreamt about travelling to venture new possibilities. Her dream is to go abroad, to United States, France, Japan, Korea and even China. But due to her family's inability to shoulder heavy travelling expenses, she never fulfilled this dream of hers. That's why her passion shifted to books. So that, by reading, she can explore new worlds, travel into different cultures and live life meeting other people.

Although she cannot memorize easily, various country names are very familiar with her. She can even sketch the world map and mark the continents. She even knows every continent's major culture and famous sites.

Yet, right now. Those knowledge of her, all of it was proven useless. Forget the idea of teleporting to another country. She was actually appeared in another world parallel to her own!

She have read those novels before. She likes it when the main protagonist of the story would regress back in time to correct her mistakes. Or maybe, an individual was suddenly killed and was given a chance to live again in another world as an another entity. Both circumstances are very common in novels, all are happy endings.

Then, what about her? Is it some crack in space that transported her into this world after opened her door, like those sci-fi movie shows? But why of all places, it's her door? And why it's her of all people? She can't help but lament if she's either very lucky or too unlucky.

Back to the atlas of her current world. The most recent world map in the bookstore shows a whole different continental structure than she could ever imagine. Seeing it, she recalled the lesson on her science class once that there is a supercontinent called "Pangea". The map, shows almost the same image. All continents are merged together. Though its not called "Pangea" but "Areth".

Areth was divided into 7 continents too. "Ur" as the counterpart of Eurasia. "Ifria" as a counterpart of Africa. "Jivenia" which is divided into north and south, the counterpart of north and south of America. They're are counted as two continents: "North Jivenia" and "South Jivenia". The south part is where she was currently. Following those is the "Nadir" India's counterpart, "Arcatia" Antarctica's counterpart, and lastly "Le Traius" which is Australias counterpart.

There are information about every specific countries and their cultures. It's all complied into a informative but not so thick book. Even the type of government was listed.

There's a note that the ongoing exploration outside Areth is still ongoing. That's why there's no fixed data about the world. Even how modern the equipments of this world, that they even researched about various planets. They cannot leave 100 miles away from Areth, as if theres a barrier erected to obtruct their intrusion. Though, about those things complex scientifical things, our little protagonist pay it no mind.

Just the information that the planet is still like the spherical Earth, third in the 9 solar system planet, rotating on its axis making the 24 hour with daylight cycle, and revolving around the star Lustre, 365 days a year is enough for her.

As they say, reading consumes more energy than just playing around. Thus, after an hour of reading, the foriegn entity in Areth felt a bit hungry. She felt her stomach. And as if provoking her, it even growled.

"How can I feed myself, when I don't even have any money?" She muttered. There are no people beside her, so she got no shame and said everything's troubling her mind.

"Forget food, I don't even have a place to stay. If I work, it'll take few more days before I could have my pay. If this goes on, I'll definitely starve to death."

She sighed. Thinking that the foods on the taste test corner earlier was delicious, her hunger even intesified.

"Gotta think on about how to survive. How troubling. I'm such an unfortunate person."

if her friends could hear her rambling right now, they would say that her mental state is degrading due to hunger. She chuckled on that thought.

Since latest news are accessible via computer or any handy gadgets, newspapers quite lost its popularity. Though there are still elderly people who loves reading through hard copy. Nevertheless, only few copies of newspapers are released everyday. Most of it are delivered directly to this bookstore. Which seemed to be the largest bookstore in the shopping district.

Since her gadgets just froze, never moving. (She even took it out from her pouch to check again. However, it's still hopeless.) And she doesn't have money to buy a new one. Her last resort is to choose printed copies to familiarize with norms the society have, in this parallel world.

Newspapers can provide gossip topics, information about people in the government, business circle or in entertainment circle. It can even warn danger about some natural phenomenas and such. Well, it depends on every individual on how they could utilize the information.

On her part, she just looked over it. Glancing about popular topics, reading a bit then jumping about important or headline news. But she have read cover to cover when she saw no relevant information that could greatly help her. Just some tips and common senses she can apply in her everyday life. There are some job advertisments, but most are asking for workers with experience. Since she just came in this world, she only got few hours of experience exploring around. And she can't definitely write those on her resume.

She decided not to take anything from Newspaper section. Along with a small geography book on her hand, she headed to the non-fiction area.

Non-fiction is a genre that covers a wide range of non-fiction books. Most are educational or learning materials, then following it are dictionaries, encyclopedias and other writings. There are even thesis papers, academic writings, book reviews, biographies of famous people, books about politics, economics, science, and even the unknown term for her which is "Enigma". That term caught her attention.

Picking up the book, entitled "Labyrinth". She began to read the introduction. As she continues, he brows began to furrow in confusion. Asking herself: "Are you sure this book is a non-fiction? Maybe it's a science fiction mixed in."

But other related books in the non-fiction category proved her that her thoughts are wrong.

She can feel her head aching with reading the complex hierarchy of the "Enigma" abilities written here. There is even the organization "Labyrinth" which is a government affiliated organization composed of both humans and "Enigma". They supervise the world order, using their capabilities to maintain the peace between two races.

Now that she thinks about it. It's a plausible idea that entities with supernatural powers exist in this world. Since, she herself got transportated suddenly. Maybe there are Enigmas with power to connect worlds. And also there's a possibility that a mistake was made, thus accidentally pulling her into entering this world.

She hummed affirmation and nodded. Completely convincing herself with that blatant lie to confort her worrywart inner being.