Chapter XII : New task

After several days of practicing, sleeping, eating, and following Zenius, finally my book ribbon glowed again.

That doesn't mean I want to quickly watch people get killed in front of my eyes, it's just that doing activities without a cell phone or Savanya feels quite boring, luckily taking part in Zenius activities is quite fun.

Looking at paintings - visiting glass rooms - standing in graves - drinking tea and eating cookies, I seem to have memorized exactly what Zenius likes to do.

This time i am standing near the entrance wearing a black shirt and black trousers that Amira bought and a long coat that Zenius bought. The Keeper is in my right hand with the Fairess on my left waist. Zenius came in full black as usual but this time there was a red jewel which was attached to the middle of his shirt collar, behind him Amira seemed to be smiling with satisfaction, it seemed like it was a gift from Amira.

Stunning beauty, matches his eyes.

"Mr Felix, use this," Amira put a thick fur hat on my head and tied the strap under my chin. "Don't forget that you are only human," I thanked and looked at Zenius, "what about him?" I pointed at him. Amira chuckled, "non-humans, especially spirits have better immunity, take care of your body's health, sir."

I nodded. "I will.."

"What did it say?"

I immediately opened Keeper.

[Farmers who died in the snowstorm]

"We have to go to the south of this area," I said, Zenius nodded and brought out his locker then when his eyes moved to read the information i could see a brief change in expression, was something going to happen?

His hand moved and the book disappeared. Zenius took out his watch, "there are still 30 minutes before the first death, more than enough to go to the location," he said then put his watch back under his long coat then looked at Amira who already immediately bowed, "be careful, sir."

Zenius then went ahead of me and came out, I smiled faintly at Amira who was still bent over then my feet moved after him.

A major incident that killed 17 old farmers are were passing through a snowstorm towards the capital of Region I who unfortunately lost their lives due to an attack by a pack of snow wolves.

My job this time is to make sure the wolf pack gets their food..? it's a bit sadistic when you think about it.

Zenius walked rather quickly, today's snow was not too heavy, perhaps because the storm that Keeper meant had not yet occurred. But it's still cold, moving under weather like this... luckily Amira gave me a fur hat which was quite warm.

"My area is the southernmost part of Region I, the incident must have been behind the hill," Zenius pointed to several hills in front of us, not too far from the city gate.

We went down the winding road with a horse-drawn carriage that being called by Amira before. This carriage quickly passed through a quite busy city. Several people who saw Zenius' face from the window immediately paid a glance of respect to their county leader. 

"How does your book actually work? It's not the same as mine, right?" i asked, Zenius glanced at me and nodded. "None of the pages in the Locker are empty, there are photos and names of people who will end their time there, from spirits, humans, to anything connected to events in the Keeper. Everything is in order from the closest, there is no definite information regarding age of death and things like that before the incident appeared in the Keeper, so if there are five people on one page i won't know whether only one or all five died in the same incident" i blinked once, a bit confused by the explanation.

"So how do you know if Orchid died at the wrong time?"

"Because his photo is on the last page of this book," i made a shocked face, "so that means your partner will die because of what will happen to his own Keeper?" he nodded. What big event will happen that will take Orchid's life... it looks like it will change drastically because that man has been killed, if that's the case, will there be someone to replace him?

"Is there a photo of me..." suddenly i was curious, how the Keeper works can be said to be secret and unpredictable, while the Locker sounds more interesting because... hello? You know who will die later or tomorrow.

"We can't reveal it even if it is the death of our lover," explained Zenius. "Huh... if Orchid is on the last page... so this book can be finished?" Zenius let out a lazy sigh, he was a little annoyed by my slur of questions. "Then what is the use of Archery and his library or the head librarian and the Recorder's library..."

"What happens when it's finished?"

"This is my second book... maybe if I die before it's finished there will be a replacement for me. Just like Orchid, it's his third book and because he died before it was finished, the book appointed a successor and that's you."

I looked at him, "then how old are you...?"

"110 years old."

I widened my eyes, damn, he looked like a 22 year old kid.

Zenius chuckled dismissively, "how old do you think the old owner of your book is?"

"Umm... around 120?"

He snorted, "156."

My jaw dropped, if a 156 year old man is on the last page of Locker, does that mean his real age could be more than 200??

The horse carriage just stopped with the sound of loud horses, it seemed like the instincts of the two horses indicated that there was a predator nearby. Zenius and i looked at each other, we were quite far from the city and it seemed like the wolves were ready to eat their meal.

We got off the carriage and the driver turned the horse-drawn carriage back to town.

Snow suddenly fell harder than before, it seemed like a fateful scenario was about to happen.

***