Rite of Surrogation (2/2)

Finally, after an entire day of watching over Freyya, the sick woman finally cracks open her eyes again, and she weakly called out, "H-haal…frin?"

Haalfrin squeezes her hand. "I'm here. Can you see me? Your eyes look unfocused."

"I'm… a little dizzy right now," she says with a chuckle, "but I can hear you just fine."

"…" Haalfrin pauses for a moment before suddenly saying in a quiet voice, "You didn't have to go that far.

Freyya fidgets in her recliner chair, "B-but… I didn't know the Scale was going to do that to me! I just thought… it would help connect the two Fates together if I strengthened the..." Her voice trails off, and she rolls her head weakly to the side, "You're not even listening, are you?"

"That doesn't change anything," Haalfrin sighs, "What should've happened is you slip in, we fight for a little bit, you kill me, and you flee. You took it so far, and you hurt yourself way too much."

"Heh… heh…," Freyya chuckles, "but I killed you at the end, so that makes us even."

"Nope!" Haalfrin interjects, "I'm the one who slew YOU in the first place, back when you ascended as a Death goddess. Killing me back was just breaking even."

Freyya's face goes stony still, yet Haalfrin can tell from the way her Spirit Threads are knotting that his words just now made her very happy.

Turning her head toward the window, Freyya croaks, "Can you open the curtains?"

Haalrin reaches up and does as she says

With the World Tree on full display now, Freyya says proudly, "I've been wanting to show you this view for a long time. Yes, yes, that's a very, VERY big tree. You must be feeling curious about it…"

Haalfrin goes silent and takes in the beautiful sight.

What he sees right now is that their Tree Crawler is bolted upside down on one of the World Tree branches, and they're headed down the branch toward the tree trunk. The Tree itself has an ash-grey color, and the fruits hanging on it glisten and twinkle like white stars.

"Aren't you going to ask about the Tree?" Freyya wonders aloud in an excited voice. "It's very interesting; I promise."

Haalfrin's back is turned to her, so she doesn't see him roll his eyes. At her question.

Why would he ask about the Tree? He already knows all about it… During his first trip on a Tree Crawler, Das had already explained all about the thing…

'Ah… she seems so excited to tell me,' Haalfrin winces in his heart, 'I don't want to dampen her mood, so…'

Haalfrin turns around and faces her with a smile. "I AM curious... but you need to rest. Get some sleep."

Freyya nods slowly and closes her eyes.

Just before Freyya can lay on her side and get comfortable, Haalfrin suddenly asks, "Oh, before you get back to sleep, I have a feeling that we're in some sort of trouble. Do you have anything I can use to look up information?"

"What kind of information? What do you need to know? I can tell you."

Haalfrin waves his hand at her – gesturing for her to lay back down. "Oh, I just need to read up on the legal system you gods use. I have the feeling that our trip is going to take several weeks at least, so I'll use that time to find out if there's anything I can use to… you know… I'll figure it out."

Freyya smiled weakly and comments, "You've always been pretty straightforward and in a rush to do things. Relax. Enjoy the pretty sight of the World Tree. Can't you slow down and enjoy life a little?"

The Arkin shakes his head, "Not yet."

Being too tired to really argue back, Freyya sighs in resignation and conjures a spherical, glowing yellow crystal out of thin air. She reaches her hand out and drops it into her husband's palm. "Just hold the ball thingy and think of something you want to know. There's… a mental library in there that you can browse…"

Haalfrin curls his fingers around the crystal and says softly, "Thank you Freyya. Get some sleep."

Without moving from his chair or taking his hand away from Freyya, he bends his head down and lets his mind delve into the little crystal.

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When Haalfrin first holds the crystal and runs his mana through it, the illusory image of a library appears in his mind. The bookshelves seem to stretch hundreds of feet in the air, and the columns of shelves seem to run disappear into dimness and obscurity in the distance.

The place smells of dusty pages, and there is cheerful, yellow sunlight peeking in through the windows. Looking outside, Haalfrin can even see acres of a gorgeous garden, replete with reading benches and elegant fountains.

In every way, this library feels like a real place; it's a little starting to realize that this entire thing is just an illusion in his mind.

Remembering Freyya's instructions for this thing, Haalfrin says aloud, "The god's legal rules."

Immediately a long series of yellow letters write themselves in the air – all in a language he doesn't know. 'What's it say?' Haalfrin wonders. 'I can't learn what I need if I can't read it!'

What Haalfrin doesn't know is that these yellow, ethereal letters are lists of bookshelf numbers, book titles, page numbers, and keywords. It's basically an algorithm to find books with the information he needs.

Before Haalfrin can confuse himself too much, he looks down the hall and sees… what looks like a tsunami of books tearing through the halls like a tornado. Haalfrin steps back and peeks out the window. There, he sees that the sunny sky outside has become completely darkened with clouds of… more books.

There must be a few million books there! No, a few billion! Well, who knows, but it's a lot!

As it turns out. Haalfrin's terms for search was so vague that entire sections of the library was completely emptied.

What does he mean by, "the gods' legal rules?" How may gods are with different nationalities, different codes, and different laws altogether? The World Tree is a HUGE place, and there are more gods than Haalfrin could ever count in all eternity!

Realizing a bit of his mistake, Haalfrin says firmly, "The Death Realm's legal rules."

Once he says this, about a fourth of the books fly back to their shelves and sort themselves back into place.

"The Legal rules which bind the 5 Death Reapers."

At these words, all the books return to their shelves… except for 10 books, which float over to Haalfrin's side and set themselves down neatly on a bookstand next to him.

Haalfrin reaches out and tries picking up the stack of books, but the second he tries lifting them up, he sees a flurry of yellow letters appear in front of him.

"ERROR: User 'Freyya PinkLilyDragon' is a Level 3 customer. You may only borrow up to 3 books from the Library of Alsha at a time."

"ERROR: User 'Freyya PinkLilyDragon' has 2 books leased in her name. You may only borrow up to 3 books from the Library of Alsha."

Seeing these messages, Haalfrin is speechless. 'PinkLilyDragon?'

…

Haalfrin later gets the story from Freyya, but it seems that the local god who made this library came from a culture where everyone has a last name.

When she saved up her money and bought one of these Library Keys, the system here demanded a first and last name.

Feeling frustrated at the question, she just made up some stupid sounding name and went with it.

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Once Haalfrin picks out a book and holds in in his right hand, the illusory library fades away, and he finds himself sitting down in the Tree Crawler again.

Freyya is still lying at his side… yet there is a book now lying on his lap – the book he picked up from the library.

'So that library is a real place?' Haalfrin wonders. 'That's interesting.'

He looks down and flips open the first page of the book…

---------------------

Haalfrin only makes it through the first book when he slams the thing shut in frustration and tosses it aside.

'The only thing I've learned from my research is that their legal system is pointlessly complicated.'

'Still, I found a few useful things, so mind as well keep reading…'

And that he does. For the next several days (weeks, maybe?), Haalfrin relentlessly pours through each of the 10 books he's borrowing from the Library of Alsha.

He could've read through them a lot faster, but these books can get a little wordy, and he's actually trying to memorize stuff.

Whenever Haalfrin's brain gets fried from all this reading, he leans his head back and takes a quick nap.

Then, whenever Freyya wakes up, Haalfrin always puts down his book and accompanies her until she goes to sleep again.

Later, as her health is returning, she can stay up for longer periods of time, and they chat for hours.