Chapter 23
The next morning, when Juin woke up, he was a little confused and disoriented.
"Juin!"
When Juin heard someone call his name, he blinked and looked up, only to see Wesley staring at him with a shocked expression.
For some reason, Wesley was pointing at the table, and when Juin looked down, he saw that he had spilled the milk.
"Sh*t!" Juin cursed as he quickly uprighted the carton of milk and pulled a tablecloth to wipe it.
"Are you still sick?" Wesley asked as he helped him clean up. "You were shouting last night."
Wesley was sleeping soundly when he was woken up by Juin's painful screams. However, when he checked on him, Juin seemed to be so confused by where he was at. He did not even know what he dreamed about that caused him to be so scared.
"Did you get any sleep?" Wesley asked.
"I… don't think so," Juin mumbled. He was just staring at the wall blankly ever since he woke up last night. The last memory he had was Lucifer trying to burn him with the yellow flames and the thing about Soul Fire. He could vaguely remember shouting at Lucifer for something, but the content of which came as a blur to him.
Juin glanced at Lucifer, who was floating up in the air with his eyes closed, and wondered if what he remembered was correct, given that Lucifer did not threaten him at all when he woke up this morning.
"It's a good thing that you won't start school until next Monday," Wesley remarked, feeling slightly jealous. "What are you going to do today?"
Juin shrugged as he ma.s.saged his thighs, which were still somewhat sore for some reason. He then suddenly thought of something and said, "I think I'll head to the public library in the city center today. I need to look for something."
He figured that there should be some books about demonic possession that he could find in the public library.
…
A few hours later, Juin arrived at the national public library.
"Are you sure they would have the info we need here?" Lucifer asked as he looked at the books on the shelves. "Why don't you just go on the Internet?"
"You knew about the Internet?" Juin asked in a whisper. He had borrowed Wesley's earphones for today so that he could talk properly without having to look around the whole time.
"Yeah… I saw Wesley play on that phone thing. Why is his phone so much better than yours, by the way?"
"He's a popular kid at school, and I'm not," Juin said, as if that explained everything. Mrs. Martin got some extra money from a donor last year and offered to buy him a better phone, as his birthday present, since he was always well-behaved. However, Juin declined, knowing that he could never protect his phone properly, so there was no point in getting a good one.
"I don't get it."
"Bullies will take my phone if it's too good," Juin mumbled. He then walked up to the librarian and asked, "Good afternoon, miss. I've to do research on supernatural creatures for my school paper, but I don't know where to start. May I know where I can find them?"
"Ah," the librarian looked at him, and once she confirmed that he was not here to create trouble, she said, "they are there."
She pointed to a direction.
Juin thanked her before heading to where she pointed. He had to take the stairs and go up to the second floor. He looked around the shelves, trying to narrow down
"Hey!" Lucifer suddenly called out. "Alercane! That's my country's name."
Juin turned over and saw that Lucifer was pointing at a book that was high above a shelf. He then looked around until he saw a moving ladder. When he went to push the ladder over, he saw a book with the t.i.tle "Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology", and he grabbed onto it and took it with him.
Putting the book on the floor, he then climbed the ladder to pick the book that Lucifer pointed out. Once he got the book, he picked a few other books before bringing everything to the nearest reading section, which had a bean bag area.
Sitting on a red beanbag, Juin looked at the books that he laid out on the floor. "Where should I start?"
"Let's start with that 'History of Alercane'," Lucifer said excitedly. "I wonder how humans knew about it."
Juin agreed, and he picked up the book and proceeded to read it.
The book detailed the journey of a human, who somehow transmigrated himself to a place called Alercane, a city in another world with humans, demons, shapes.h.i.+fters, angels, and many other supernatural beings.
"From what I learned over the years, this world was The Nightmare Rift. Or at least, that is what I managed to deduce from my attempt in learning their common language. And Alercane was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in this unique world that I somehow found myself in. Ruled by a demon king, Asmodeus Balthazar, the demons continued to expand their territories, slowly encroaching on the territories of the angels…"
Juin looked up and glanced at Lucifer. "Asmodeus?"
"Asmodeus. My grandfather… But this doesn't make sense. My grandfather pa.s.sed away more than a thousand years ago, in our time. This means that the author of this book, if he was serious, came into my world a long time ago."
Juin thought about it, and he looked at the date when the book was published. "The first publication was 50 years ago, and this was the third, which was published about 10 years ago."
"If he's not making this up…" Lucifer frowned and he rested his chin on his palm while sitting in midair. "This means that time doesn't move normally…"
He was slightly worried now. What if he returned to Alercane only to find that a thousand years had pa.s.sed? What about his friends? What about Izzy? Lucifer's mood took a downturn, and in his bad mood, he accidentally lost control of his aura, causing the people in the library to suddenly frozen in fear.
"Lucifer…" Juin called out, as he too was affected by Lucifer.
The demon king glanced at him, and after a few seconds, he reigned in his aura and released the pressure.
"Or maybe he returned to the wrong time when he came back?" Juin suggested.
Lucifer sighed. "Continue reading…"
Juin nodded and went back to reading. In the book, the author talked about the things that he saw in Alercane during his time as a human slave, working for a werewolf family, and how he was eventually rescued by a beautiful seer who ended up becoming his wife.
"Dear readers, The Nightmare Rift was a wonderful world to be in, but unfortunately, it was too dangerous for me or my son to remain there. Different clans and countries were hunting down seers, and our son who was born under the darkest star was destined to be extremely powerful. As part human and part seer, he was not under the protection of his mother's clan, so we had to protect him ourselves. Hence, my dear wife made the decision to sacrifice herself in order to send me and our son back to our world. Regrettably, something went wrong, and my infant son and I were separated…
"For years, I searched for him day and night, and I tried to talk to everyone who had an inkling of what The Nightmare Rift was… And I found some supernatural beings here on Earth, who were descendants of those from The Nightmare Rift. I was told that sometimes, when people transmigrated, they might end up in the same place, but at different times. Transmigration was unnatural, to begin with, and the worlds frowned upon people who tried to break this rule. This meant that my son might be here… or he might long be gone from this world…
"If he's here… I just wish him to know that I love him very much.
"Sincerely, Claude Waverly."
Juin yawned and rubbed his eyes. He then looked at the white wall clock near him and mumbled, "It's almost 6 p.m."
He then turned the book over where the author's photo was. It was probably the most recent photo of the author, as he looked like a fragile old man in the photo. His hair had turned completely white, and his face was covered with wrinkles. However, life did not seem to escape him as his bright blue eyes were still extremely lively, and extremely captivating, and for some reason, very familiar to Juin.
"Hey, kid…"
Juin looked up when he heard someone talk, and he saw a security guard staring at him.
"This section is off-limits after 6 pm. You can continue reading downstairs."
Juin blinked, and after a few seconds, he picked up the rest of the books off the floor and stood up. Because he had been sitting down for so long, the moment he stood up abruptly, he got so dizzy that he nearly fell down.
BAM!
BAM!
The books in his hands fell down on the floor.
Juin would have fallen as well if the security guard did not catch him on time.
"You alright, kid?"
Juin nodded as he got himself back on foot. "Thank you, sir."
"You're welcome," the security guard said before picking up the books. He then handed the books to Juin, but Lucifer noticed that the guard's eyes twitched slightly when he saw the "History of Alercane". "Interesting selection of books, kid…" the guard said.
Juin glanced at the books briefly before saying, "I just picked whatever caught my eyes. Anyway, thanks… I should head off now."
He then quickly jogged down the stairs and went to the librarian to check the books out.
...