Chapter 3: CHAPTER 3: The Otherworldly Books? Give Me a Hundred!

What is the first thing a person would want to do after transmigrating to a fantasy world? Probably cast some fireballs, find and kill a few dragons resting nearby for an unknown reason, or even ask neko girls to stroke their fluffy ears.

 

I have always supported the statement – “Every person has their own hobbies, interests and priorities”, so I didn’t pry into others’ wishes too much, because the same goes for me. I personally always loved books, well, love is quite a light word to describe my passion for them.

 

In my previous life, during times of great personal crisis, when I was most anxious and burnt out, along with my friends, books were the things that kept me going and working hard. Fiction, romance, detectives, scientific literature, Et cetera - my bookshelves always were filled with different types of books, so anyone who entered my apartment could smell the strong and inveterate vanilla-like scent of wood. I knew that forgetting about problems while reading was escapism, but without neglecting my other duties I always tried to spare some time for books because they were more like a protective barrier, that guarded my brain against frying by stress.

 

And now, imagine a person like me having access to one of the biggest libraries in another world. ‘What are they writing here about?’, ‘Does writing style here differ from Earth?’, ‘Do they have any new genres that I have never seen before?’ – This was only a peak of the iceberg of my questions. To be honest I was almost salivating!

 

Running around and sliding on the rolling ladders like a crazy little monkey, I searched for certain types of books. And finally, after nearly twenty minutes of fanciful behaviour, for which I would be kicked out of any other library, a pile of books appeared on the nearby table.

 

Pile was divided into two categories. The first group included different encyclopedias with information about this world, collections of maps and some records of the Venet household. My reasoning for researching them was quite simple – I must confirm that the world I transmigrated to was exactly the same as the novel. Even the smallest deviations would turn my knowledge of future events into a pumpkin, you know, those butterfly effects and bluh, bluh, bluh…

 

After comparing the information that I had read in the novel with those books I sighed with relief. Judging from the first look nothing aberrated with the original plot. At the same time, I wrote down it all in an empty journal that I found after rummaging in the table’s drawer. Nothing was perfect, and the same goes for human memory.

 

To sum it all up – Planet that my soul transmigrated to is called Avriemor, it rotates around a single yellow star and also has a single moon, with the day and night cycle similar to the one on Earth. It has three big continents: Suir in the west, Keidolem occupying the middle part, and finally Ethras in the east. All of them contrasted drastically in terms of flora, fauna and race of the dominant population.

 

The Suir continent was mainly populated by humans, except for the south and south-east territories, where the tribes of beast-humans resided, and also the far west that was hoarded by terrifying monsters. The Kingdom of Eshtal which the Venet dukedom was part of and also the main scene of the novel, was established in the east, near the sea. Eshtal was the head of the ‘Eastern Commonwealth’, an economic and defensive alliance, created to stand on par with hegemon countries like the Lasure Empire and Aitanian Holy Papacy. The alliance included: principality of Nevan at the northern border of Eshtal, free town of Geil neighbouring from the west, living off everything related to banking and gambling, and lastly the republic of Breiz.

 

Prepotent religion in the human realms was Aitaizm with the main Goddess Aieta, which is said to have bestowed great knowledge and mana upon the human race to defend themselves and praise her name. The biggest exception was the Lasure empire, their church practised a protestant version. As for beast-humans, no one really knew, because every tribe had something different and they didn’t like to interact with humans too much.

 

Moving to Keidolem, you would find an absolutely new world. One-third of a continent was occupied by an elven empire combining several smaller kingdoms and ruled by high elves. Unlike humans who used mana, elves practised spiritual arts and borrowed their strength from nature. Their only sentient neighbours were dwarves living on the long mountain range. They didn’t believe in any gods, had low proficiency with mana and no other supernatural powers, but even so, they were a race to reckon with, all thanks to their brilliant genius and skills in creating machinery, which I really respected.

 

Another third part of Keidolem was a giant forest inhabited by many unknown ancient creatures. Even elves didn’t fully know the secrets of the place they deemed as sacred.

 

And the last but not least interesting was Ethras. To be more exact, interest was mainly fueled by curiosity. Up to this day, nobody knew what was happening there. Many expeditions of brave sailors tragically perished while trying to approach it. Ethras from all sides was surrounded by restless giant waves that could destroy even the most modern ships. Aerial travel also was not a variant, as it was impossible to cross the fierce fumes of wind.

 

By the way, did I say that nobody knows anything about Ethras? That was a big lie, in view of the fact that now I also resided in this world. I knew what kind of dump hole was Ethras. Thousands of active volcanoes erupted tons of black ash, covering the whole of the sky, throwing the vicinity almost in absolute darkness. The most common sight to see was the relentless demons fighting for days and nights with ones of their own kind, eating their flesh and drinking blood to satiate the eternal feeling of hunger. The only thing that distinguished them from the regular monsters was the high level of intelligence, combined with cunning and individualistic nature. Thanks to a high level of control over the demonic aura, energy similar to mana, but exuding an uncomfortable feeling of something rotten, they also were very strong.

 

During the later part of the school ark in the novel, one of those bastards awakens special power and makes all other demons kneel before him, uniting his kin and creating an army while calling himself demon lord. Somehow, they find a way to leave Ethras and soon great war with demons breaks out all over the globe, taking the lives of millions. But even knowing that, I didn’t fall into despondency. This world had a trump card, the main character! He was not mc for nothing, was he? The only thing that irritated me was that the original plot had not reached its culmination during my time on Earth, so I was not sure about the ending.

 

After some time of squeezing my brain cells, sadly, I found only one way of surviving in this world – As a person who knows the future, I need to act from the shadows and help the protagonist in defeating the demon lord. Of course, he will be quite strong even without me, and with his monstrous growth rate probably strong enough to defeat the demon lord all by himself, but I was a person who didn’t like to gamble. I also was not some goody-two-shoes who wants to save everyone or make sacrifices for the greater good. All I want to achieve is the power to protect people close to Max as payment for possessing his body and assure the original plot’s integrity, which also guaranteed my leisurely and comfortable future...

 

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Closing the journal and putting the pen aside, my attention shifted to the second group of books, that were strewn slovenly. Along with different novels that I planned to read a bit later, were the main reasons why I started to read "Legend of Unyielding Spirit" – books about magical machinery and artefact crafting.

 

In my previous life, I worked as a computer engineer, plus even though mechanical engineering was not exactly my field of play, I had also read many books on it and attended courses. In my opinion, creating interesting and useful things using only a clump of metal, tools, plastic, semiconductors and brain was also sort of an art. Well, not always were they useful, sometimes they didn’t even work… But experimenting is also an important part of the process, if a person learns from his mistakes, then with time, he will definitely arrive at his goal.

 

From the first day of studying engineering one thought never left my head – machines also were alive, not exactly the way humans usually describe life, more like flowers or trees. They consumed energy, and made certain functions they were programmed for, some machines even could create other machines. Still, they had no conscience, no ego, they only did what they were told to. Sometimes I dreamt of creating a self-aware machine, that could make its own decisions, I was curious about what choices it would make. Unfortunately, the scientific level on Earth at that time was not high enough, humanity needed at least another hundred years to achieve it. That became the reason why I enjoyed this novel.

 

Mana, a thing that you can see in almost all fantasy novels. It was abundant power that defied all the common sense of earthlings, allowing the person to manipulate his surroundings with willpower. Its second most popular use is creation of artefacts.

 

The world of "Legend of Unyielding Spirit" was not some medieval boondocks, despite the Victorian style it had many utensils that are used on modern Earth. Telephones, fridges, cars and other things were spread all around the Suir. The author did a good job of describing all this stuff, like the utilization of mana stones and the generation of electricity on a special station for the whole town, or complicated mana schemes used in the factory’s machinery. But the most exciting thing for me was golems, autonomous fruits of science that ignited the kiddish side of my personality. I thought that author should write a magic-punk novel rather than an action-adventure, but we had what we had.

 

First thing that I checked out was a magazine about news in the scientific world. The section where I took it, was filled with previous issues, it looked like the person responsible for the library updated it on a regular basis. I was triggered by a familiar name Vincent Landsly, my favourite character in the novel and the most genial magic engineer of the era. I quickly flipped through the pages stopping where the cover said. What I saw was a short interview –

You are reading story The Villain Wants a Steady Life at novel35.com

 

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Aspiring Engineer Challenges Titans Of The Industry

~Author: Nancy Morton~

These days capital is filled with gossip and speculations around a certain person, rumoured Vincent Landsly, who created an uproar in the scientific community with several bold statements and ideas regarding mana engines. Some call him a prodigy engineer while others a disgrace of a scientist. Our magazine tried to ask the head of ‘Royal Research Center’ about his opinion, but unfortunately, he refused to give any comments. So let us move to our little interview with Mr Landsly:

In your opinion, which part of your allegation was the most shocking for the scientific community?

“I think, words that old b******s can’t swallow are that they are useless. The only thing that they want nowadays is to sit on warm chairs and grab the kingdom’s money while doing nothing.”

What gives you confidence in your words? You also stated that the engine developed by you is much better than the existing ones, could you tell us why?

“The main reason for my confidence is my hard work, in which I poured sweat, blood and tons of time. As for the engine, I can’t say too much, but the project is in the final phase of testing and gives almost twice the output of other engines with the same level of energy consumption. You will get to know more when I will patent it and publish the research.”

What are your plans for the future? Will you create anything new anytime soon?

“I want to put upside down the rat den called ‘Royal Research Center’ or whatever it is called nowadays, the best way to show their real useless faces is to create innovations. Of course, I have many other projects on standby, the only thing I need is financing. Now if you will excuse me, I have many things to do so let’s stop here.”

As our interviewee said, soon we will see how backed up are his statements. Are we witnessing the rise of a new star or just a hotheaded youngster, only time will show.

***

 

‘I absolutely should meet this person. He will appear only during the demon war ark in the novel, so it will not affect the original plot too much, on the contrary, it could be very useful, and… I need to ask Alexander and Margaret about having my own laboratory’

 

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About three hours passed since I entered the library, and while I was disappointed with the lack of new genres, I still was deeply drawn to reading as they were well writen. So, when Lily suddenly informed me about the math teacher’s arrival, I almost had a heart attack.

 

While going to the classroom I asked Lily a question that concerned me for some time.

 

“Um, Lily if he is my private tutor, then why does he live outside of our mansion? Should not we give him accommodations?”

 

“Young lord, as you know mister Petrison is also representative of a noble household, he has a lower rank than the Venet dukedom, so he needs to save his dignity and not abuse your hospitality, which is an unwritten rule between nobles.”

 

“That makes sense…”

 

During my math lesson teacher was pleased with my results and even praised me, anyway, I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary to not catch unnecessary attention.

 

My other tutors lived in the residential area provided by Venets, so they came just in time as he left. And unlike him, their expressions were stiff and a bit angry, but they tried to not show it. The reason was, in geography, history, politics and the likes of them, I pretty much sucked…

 

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While having dinner with my new parents, I asked them to also provide me with a laboratory and tools. They were very surprised by my sudden request, probably thinking that it was another child’s whim, but because they always pampered Max and completed any of his wishes, they agreed. Father ordered Rodrig who again appeared like a ghost to select a spare room and organize everything, from materials to instruments.

 

Mother insisted to assign me an overview to guarantee my safety in case I did something dangerous. After a bit of bickering, she agreed that Lilyan was enough because everyone knew her cleverness.

 

Coming back to my room, I brushed my teeth and took a hot bath. Lily wanted to enter with me and help, but I absolutely refused. That caused her to be even more shocked than during the morning. It looked like she always helped original Max.

 

Leaving the bathroom, I changed into my pyjamas and said Lily good night. She also wished me sweet dreams with a smile and left for her room.

 

“Aghh, why am I so tired from just this much? In my previous life, I used to pull through all-nighters just to finish a project, but now I feel a hundred times worse. I also wanted to read more books, but there is no way I can hold any more. Don’t know what is more exhausted, my mentality or my new body. Anyways, from tomorrow onwards I need to start a workout, or I will die” lying on bed and yawning I muttered and soon passed out, joining the realm of dreams.

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