“You plan to read all three books? Even if closing time passes, I won’t wait for you, you know?”

“That’s fine. I need to leave in a couple of hours anyway.”

The old woman let out a long sigh.

Was this girl just throwing money around for fun? She couldn’t figure out what Serena was thinking, but there was nothing to lose, so she quickly stashed the gold coins in the safe.

Serena looked around at the bookshelves lining the walls, then called to the old woman in a low voice. 

Her tone was calm and even, but it carried a subtle sense of pressure, likely because she had just handed over a considerable sum without hesitation.

“By the way, the books don’t have titles. But surely a bookstore has some kind of classification system?”

“I’m not that shameless,” the old woman replied.

She fiddled with a device beneath the counter, and suddenly, category signs popped up on the bookshelves—something that hadn’t been visible before. 

Serena immediately found the category labeled ‘Southern Region/Azure/People.’ She noticed several books with matching spines lined up together.

‘Books in the same color must belong to the same family. Judging by the number of inherited titles…’

She guessed the families by the color of the books and the number of volumes in each series, then picked up two books of different colors.

“Seems like you knew exactly what you were looking for, didn’t you?”

“I did, but in the end, it’s still half a gamble. I might as well trust my luck.”

Calculating the generations of the Duke families, she chose two books that seemed likely to contain information on the current Duke. 

The other colors represented families with too few volumes to be considered. If she ended up with the wrong information, there was nothing she could do about it. Serena headed for a plush sofa in one corner of the bookstore.

“You paid for three books but only picked two?”

“I’ll choose the last one after reading these. You never said I had to pick them all at once.”

The old woman leaned back in her rocking chair, signaling that Serena could do as she pleased. She doubted Serena could finish those two books in just a couple of hours anyway. 

The old woman raised her voice, reminding Serena that there would be no refunds, then pulled a blanket over herself and closed her eyes.

Using the key the old woman had given her earlier, Serena unlocked the clasp on the book, feeling the mechanism shift inside. With a quiet click, the cover opened.

Just as she expected, the contents were information collected by Yulinus’s guild. Officially, the guild had been dissolved after Yulinus’s death, but rumors persisted that a secret information guild still operated in the shadows. Clearly, those rumors were true.

The first page of the first book bore the title ‘Licht.’

The name she had been searching for appeared right away, and a faint smile touched Serena’s lips. The phrase inscribed beneath matched the crest of the Erebos Duke family. Serena’s hands turned the pages faster and faster.

“There isn’t as much information as I thought.”

Strangely, the more she read, the more disappointed she felt. For all the secrecy of Yulinus’s guild, the content seemed oddly lacking.

The Erebos Duke family was notoriously secretive. Despite a history as long as the Imperial family and being awarded the Duke title as founding contributors, they had never tried to enter central politics.

Not only the current Duke but also his predecessors rarely appeared at official events, earning the family a reputation for mystique among the nobility. Rumors abounded, but there were no reliable portraits or even proper images of them in circulation.

“That doesn’t mean they lack influence in the Empire…”

They were quiet and discreet, but their presence was undeniable. The Duke family, which held a tight grip on Azure’s local government, owned several of the Empire’s largest merchant guilds. Not just one, but multiple. In fact, almost all trade in the Empire operated under their control.

Their absolute influence was partly due to their loyalty to the Emperor. They obediently followed the Emperor’s orders and showed no interest in politics. They worked hard and kept to themselves, so the Imperial family never felt the need to keep them in check.

Over the Empire’s long history, this attitude became so consistent that, while other nobles initially worried the Dukes might become a threat if their intentions changed, they gradually grew to trust that Erebos would never do such a thing.

“Still, you can’t say an unpredictable force is completely harmless.”

Serena had hoped to gather more reliable information. Realizing that even Yulinus’s guild hadn’t managed to uncover much about the Duke family left her feeling even more uneasy.

Still, she read the book thoroughly to the end before picking up the next one. If the first book covered the current Duke, Licht Erebos, then this one probably concerned another noble. 

It wasn’t information she needed right now, but after years at the academy, Serena had developed a mild addiction to the written word. She couldn’t resist the urge to absorb every letter in front of her.

She flipped through the pages at a speed that made it questionable whether she could actually read them, but her deep blue eyes scanned every word with precision. Like the first book, she reached the last page of the second book in no time.

Stretching slightly, Serena placed the finished book on the table and checked the time. She still had plenty of time left.

“What should I pick for the third book?”

If even the information she had chosen by luck was this sparse, it seemed unlikely she would find anything on the Duke here. In that case, it might be better to give up on the Duke for now and look for another useful topic.

As she slowly scanned the categories, a familiar word caught her eye.

‘Legends/Songs of Love’

It didn’t suit her at all, yet she felt a faint sense of longing.

She knew these stories would be unreliable, hardly worth calling information. They were probably just well-crafted lyrics made up by wandering minstrels for entertainment. 

Reading them would be a waste of time, but for some reason, she couldn’t look away.

There had been a time, back when she was young and naïve, when even such trivial tales had made her heart flutter. Her fingers, out of habit, reached for her wrist and brushed against bare skin.

“Huh?”

The bracelet she always wore was gone. An emotion she rarely showed—panic—appeared clearly on Serena’s face. 

She rolled up her sleeve to check her wrist, shook out her clothes just in case, but the black bracelet she was looking for was nowhere to be found. Her heart dropped with a cold jolt.

She completely forgot about picking her third book and began searching the bookstore, scanning the floor. She was the only customer, so she should have been able to find it if it had fallen. 

She needed to find it, but…

“It’s gone.”

No matter how hard she searched, the bracelet was nowhere to be seen. She rushed to the counter and shook the dozing old woman awake.

“Excuse me, have you seen a bracelet I was wearing? It’s made of several twisted black threads.”

The old woman mumbled sleepily, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Bracelet? I don’t think you were wearing one earlier…”

Suddenly, the old woman grew suspicious, wondering if this noble was trying to claim a refund for something she never had. She glared sharply at Serena, but Serena didn’t have time to care about the old woman’s suspicions.

‘She said I wasn’t wearing it earlier?’

She had always worn it, so she had just assumed it would be there. If she hadn’t lost it in the bookstore, it must have disappeared before she arrived. 

But where? She had visited so many shops today—where should she even start looking?

Quickly retracing her steps, Serena remembered checking her bracelet at the jewelry store just before coming here. That meant she must have lost it somewhere between the jewelry store and this bookstore.

“Hey, you still have one book left to read!”

Ignoring the old woman’s call, Serena dashed out of the bookstore.

She had always thought of the bracelet as something she simply wore out of habit, but now that it had disappeared beyond her control, an uneasy restlessness filled her chest.