一歩一歩、真実に近づく。
"William Minerva, Huh..." I said, I scratched my head
"Wait... So this Logo..." Norman mumbled
"It's called an Ex Librus!" Emma exclaimed happily but ended up getting hit on the head by Ray
"Ex Libris, you mean. The attached piece of paper that shows who owns a book" Ray explained
{The owner of the book... Before it came here.}
"This library is actually filled with his books. The ones Emma brought here are only a small portion of his collection that we have access to" Ray said
"So... What about this "secret message" you mentioned before?" Norman asked
"Look closely at all of these marks" I said
After a lot of thought, Norman Said "Wait a minute, these circles..."
"Yup!" Emma said
"They're diagrams in Morse code!" Norman said
"Correct" Ray said
I began reading some meaning of the Morse codes
"R. U. N." "D. O. U. B. T" "D. A. N. G. E. R" "T. R. U. T. H"
"But with these words we can't really..." Norman tried to disagree
"You tryna say that we can't just assume these secret messages were necessarily meant for us?" Ray questioned
"How about these then?" Emma asked showing another set of books
"H. A. R. V. E. S. T... M. O. N. S. T. E. R... And lastly... F. A. R. M!!!" Norman read
"I highly doubt this is a trap created by mom or the demons. I mean, the rules do not say to immediately proceed with the shipping... Once the cats out of the bag. At the very least, this is in fact a hidden message... Specifically directed at us" Ray explained
"At the very least?" Norman questioned
"Unlike this kid over here" Ray hit Emma on the hit "I'm a lot more skeptical by nature. Maybe this Minerva guy is really our ally. However, we have no way of knowing even whether or not he's alive. I doubt it's a great idea for us to plan in relying on someone like that" Ray explained
"Ray, you and your pessimism!" Emma complained
"But... The fact still remains that we had an ally in the outside world! Heck, we may still even have allies!" Norman said happily
"This man is someone... Who is from the "outside world", and yet knew of our existence... And even tried to save us in a roundabout way!" I said with a smile
"Exactly! Only his books contain a message like this. And we don't quite know when exactly these stickers were pasted on these books, but... See, there's even a sticker on this book from before too!" Emma said
"This is the book that was published in 2015 that Ray showed us!" Norman said noticing the book
"Anything... Anything else?! Like... Are there any notable comparisons that can be made between the content of his books?" Norman asked
"Not really. The genres publishing and dates of release all vary" Ray said
"Oh, but there's that!" Emma started looking for a certain book "Err, where did they go?"
"Under those" I answered
"Aha!" Emma found the book "These two books are the only ones with circles on the logo that don't make any sense!"
"Let's see, so one of them just doesn't have abt meaning in morse code at all... And the other says... P. R. O... M. I. S. E?" Norman said
"If I remember correctly, one is a stereotypical adventure novel... And the other was about some weird mythological story" Ray said pinching his chin
"I think there must be some deeper meaning behind these two books. The fact that only one book lacks a message in Morse code... The ripped pages... The message that reads "Promise"... It's all too different to be a coincidence" Emma explained
"So you're saying that these two special books in particular are special?" Norman asked
"Yep! I'm not sure how to put it, but... I feel like these books will somehow come to play a really important role in our journey" Emma explained
"Your basis?" Ray asked her
"My gut says so!" Emma said and Ray gave her a strange look
"Well, I do think it wouldn't hurt to look into the mystery... Of Mr. Minerva and his books" Norman said
"Ah!" Emma exclaimed as Ray showed us the time
"Let's get going" I mumbled helping Emma fix some books
"We should probably start helping with setting up for dinner too!" Norman said
Days/hours to finish: 9 hours
Number of words: 750