“Sigh… who decided to open Pandora's box?”

  Seriously, what in tarnation are we getting ourselves into? An A rank monster is already strong enough to do a bit of damage to a city, but an S rank is a walking catastrophe let alone an SS- rank, that one can send a damn whole country into ruins. Somehow, those monsters are being “summoned” left and right like it’s nothing. For now, I don’t have any answers for it, and the same can be said about this fantastic library, as there isn’t anything left for me to explore. With that in mind, I decided to get out of here, but unfortunately the moment I look around, it quickly put despair into my face.

  “Welp, time to go I guess-”

  I mean it, so much that I didn’t even finish my sentence. But why? Why am I making such a face? The answer is quite simple, the door is gone. Yes, the door that is supposed to be in the wall opposite to where I am, in front of me in this case, my only way out somehow is gone and I didn’t even notice it. GREAT! Curiosity took the best of me as I decided to walk forward, however, worry brought back my guard up, making me aware of my surroundings once again.

  Slowly I walk up to the place where the door was supposed to be. And after a few long steps I stopped a few meters from it. I carefully inspect the wall in an attempt of finding something, something that can explain the door disappearing or with high hopes to find the door itself. But even with the skill Magic Sense I’m unable to do so.

  “Unbelievable, am I this incompetent?”

  I say this with a disappointed look on my face and some frustration too. Seriously, how do I end up missing something like this? Upon closer inspection I noticed that the place where the door was supposed to be, there is magic in that area, illusion magic in this case. It was an illusion, a mirage, my hopes and dreams, gone the moment I wanted to achieve them. Anyway, since I was too occupied with the library view and if there was any danger at all, I’ve missed that small detail, that the door was never there and in fact, I was already trapped the moment I got in.

  “Now what? How can I leave this place? Should I do something dramatic?”

  Because of this I feel stuck in this place. Should I force my way out? Destroy anything in my path? But what if there is someone else here with me? Not in this room of course but, in the same situation as I am? Imagine me going kaboom in this place only to hurt an innocent person that happened to be stuck here just like I am. Maybe the owner of this weird place will come directly to me if I do so? Many options but none of them seem appropriated for now.

  “I think it’s better if I find other ways first. Going kaboom in this place might end badly for me. Or not, I really have no clue what will happen.”

  And so, after reaching this fantastic conclusion, I decide to look around again, but this time, to find a way out.

  “Maybe one of these books has the way out? I never bothered to look on any of them, so I would not be surprised if that was the case.”

  This is the first possibility that came across my mind, and to be honest, since this library is so mystic looking, I really wouldn’t doubt if something like that was the way out. Something that is cool, really cool, but annoying. Since I don't have any clues at all, I start to walk towards the closest book. One that is floating roughly my head height, around 1,80 centimetres from the ground to be extremely precise for some reason. Once I was close enough, I grab said book, though I do so with care, who knows, it might be a damn trap waiting to be triggered.

  “Let’s see what we have here...”

  Fortunately for me, the book is not a trap. Unfortunately for me, the contents inside of it are rather unusual.

  “Huh? It’s empty!”

  Paper noises!

  At least the very pages that are in front of me are empty, maybe I just need to check the other pages. And so, I quickly turn the pages in hope that I find something.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Paper noises!

  But page after page-

  Paper noises!

  The only thing I can see on them is the emptiness of them. Completely blank, not even a single trace of magic nor ink. I say magic because with it, you can easily hide the contents inside of it but in this case, it’s nothing of that sort.

  “No way... Do I really have to check all of them?”

  I let this out with a massive annoyed tone of voice and with another massive annoyed look on my face. All of this because I will have to look in every single book that there is here for the way out. I will have to open them one by one, then I have to see if what’s inside of it is useful for me or if it is like this one, a bust. To make things worse, I have to sense if there is magic on them, so that its contents are not possibly hidden by it. After doing that I will also have to organize them, so that I don’t end up rewatching the same ones by mistake.

  “What a pain in my beautiful Heroic rear end...”

  A complete and utterly pain in the ass in other words. Do I have any other choice? Of course not, so, without the possibility of another choice, I get my rear end moving.

  Book Noises! Paper noises!

  Then, one by one I start to check the books.

  Book Noises! Paper noises!

  One by one, my desperation grows with each book.

  Book Noises! Paper noises!

  One by one, my patient does the opposite as each book that I’ve seen in the past 15 minutes, all of them have been empty.

  “Am I missing something? All of these books later and nothing! How’s this possible?”

  I’m definitely missing something. I can’t be wasting my time going through all the books only for all of them to be empty. Because of this, I decided to switch my strategy. Instead of looking through each book individually, I will instead increase the efficiency of my Magic Sense skill so that I can find all the books with magic on them, even those with the smallest particle of magic. The idea behind this is that, if someone was to put the way out inside of a book, then said book would have magic on them. At least that’s what I think it will happen, but who knows, whoever did this, maybe they didn’t use magic at all.

  “No, that’s impossible.”

  I reach this conclusion quickly, to me it’s just impossible for such a feat. A second or so later I close my eyes, with it, I concentrate as hard as I can, increasing all my senses to the maximum, not only the magic ones, hearing, smell, touch, everything. Even the slight difference in temperature or humidity I will feel.

  ........

  ......

  ...

  “Sometimes I wonder how I got the title of Hero... How did I miss this?”

  I do say this with disappointment in myself, after all, the answer was always under my nose and I’ve missed it. But sometimes I’m a little clumsy, so this was expected to happen. I was too focused on finding something that could tell me more about this place, not only that, the library itself and its mystic looks also drew almost all of my attention towards it.

  “A lesson to be learn then!”

  I try to lift my embarrassed spirits up as I confidently say this out loud. Of course, it did not do anything, but hey, a guy needs to keep his spirits up. But enough of this charade, I did find something that will tell me what I need to do to get out of here. First of all, that door truly was an illusion, secondly, the way out is right in front of me. I walk up to the middle of the room and slowly raise my right hand at around chest height and then extend it towards the front.

  “Aaaa!”

  Magic noises! Swoosh!

  From the palm of my hand, I let magic flow from it, just enough of it to hit the invisible door in front of me. Once my magic touched said door, it revealed it in the process, leaving me with a soft smile on my face and at the same time, a relieved look on it.

  “How did I miss this? It was right in front of me for crying out loud!”

  I once again question myself and my abilities as I get closer to the door. To me this does not make any sense at all. First, I went right through this spot and consequently right through the invisible door. I did this a few times and I didn’t feel anything, no magical contact, no physical contact, nothing at all. If this only appeared with my magic or magic in general, then just me going through it, it would end up appearing thanks to my natural magic output and yet it never did. This can mean that, it wasn’t actually here all the times that I went through it. Maybe it “appeared” when I walked up to the wall that had the illusion? That area could have a trigger that would make the invisible door appear. But now that I think about it, rather than being hidden, the door simply was in a different dimension, a paralleled one I would guess. Either it was the trigger that I mentioned before that made the door switch dimensions or someone is watching me. This individual waited for me to “see” that the door was an illusion and from there, it switched dimensions with the real door and made it invisible if it wasn’t at first. This really is starting to worry me, I feel like a rat trapped in a box, being carefully watched by someone.

  “I need to get out of here, I’m starting to not like this at all.”

  As I say this, I switch my mood to a serious one, a battle ready one. My worries are growing with each passing second, it's better if I do so. I have to be ready for anything that might come from this door.

  ……..

  ……

  …