The hallways I followed her down all looked the same. They were the same wood type of materials that were used in the place I woke up, but they were darker for the most part. Each hallway had at least one painting or suit of armor in it, showing off the history of Walpist, if Lucrain was to be believed.

We passed by several people as we walked down the halls; most of them were elves although I also saw some dwarves, humans, halfling, and even a minotaur at one point. Most of the people we walked by had fancy or elaborate clothing on, but we also passed by a few that had servants' clothing on.

Unfortunately, most of the people we walked by in the beginning witnessed me stumbling about like a drunk fool. My body and tail were larger, which was throwing off my sense of balance and equilibrium. It took me at least ten minutes of walking before I finally was able to walk without nearly tripping.

It wasn’t long before we reached a large room guarded by two people in red armor on either side of the door. The armor was mostly some kind of red metal, but it was forged in such a way that the metal looked like feathers. On each of their shoulders sat tiny figurines of red eagles. Both had helmets that covered all but a tiny sliver around their eyes and had small wings that started at the brow and curved back before sticking out right around where their ears would be. They both snapped to attention as they saw us approaching.

“Good morning, is the Queen in?” Lucrain kindly asked the two.

“Yes ma’am,” a polite sounding voice came from the guard on the right, “But she said to make sure she wasn’t disturbed at all.”

“Can you tell her it’s me and I am here to talk about the patient,” she motioned to me standing beside her. Almost as if they just noticed me, both of them stared intensely at me, which was a little unnerving since all I could see through their helmets were their brown eyes boring into me.

The young one on the right snapped off his almost-glare and knocked on the door before entering. Through the crack of the door, though it was for just a second, I glimpsed a huge set of bookshelves filled to the brim with books.

A few moments, which were uncomfortable for me since the remaining red armored person just kept staring as if they didn’t have any social skills, the young guard returned. He held the door open for us and motioned for us to come in, “The Queen will see you now.”

Lucrain walked into the room and I followed behind her. The room on the other side of the door was a large study. Bookshelves lined every wall except the back, which was dominated by a window. The shelves were disorderly at best, with books haphazardly slung about everywhere. In the middle of all the books were two sofas on either side of a coffee table. Back closer to the window sat a rather large desk covered in various papers.

Illway was sitting on one of the couches, looking very anxious. She was rocking a little bit as if to calm her nerves, but it didn’t look like the rocking was helping. Opposite her sat a young elf that looked like she could’ve been Illway’s sister. She had the same sparkling green eyes, but her hair was curly whereas Illway’s was straighter. The elf seemed to give off an intimidating and regal presence.

Upon noticing our arrival, Princess Illway immediately jumped up and looked like she wanted to rush and give me a hug, but she stopped herself before she could. I could see desire battling with a careful cautiousness in her eyes as she asked, “Kali? Is that you?”

“Of course Princess Illway, who else would I be?” I asked jokingly as I nodded. I could feel my tail waving happily behind me at her not being entirely clueless at who I was since I had changed so much, but I chose to ignore it. That traitorous limb didn’t deserve any attention.

Illway lept towards me and hugged me tightly as she started to sniffle. “Thank goodness! I-I walked into your room and found you surrounded by a pool of blood and completely different. If it wasn’t for your tail and ears, I would have thought you were someone else. And then you had a feral look in your eyes as you glared at me before screaming and fainting. I d-didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to lose one of my last friends...”

I patted her back as gently as I could. “I’m okay princess, it was just an… unfortunate thing I had to deal with.”

“Ahem!” I heard from in front of me. I looked up to see who I assumed was the Queen sitting there while watching us. If I didn’t see the faint smile on her lips, I would have assumed she was angry at being excluded since the rest of her face resembled a stone statue. “Daughter of mine, who is this?”

Yep, she was definitely the queen. Typically, at least in my last life, I would bow or get on a knee before royalty or other important figures. This time, however, I felt no such urge. In fact, I had a feeling that kneeling was against my nature, which was an odd thing to feel considering my forced occupation before I died.

Illway dried up her tears and grabbed my hand. She proceeded to tug me over to the couch and pull me onto it with her. She pulled me down so quickly that I didn’t have time to adjust and I sat on my tail… yeah, that hurt. That hurt quite a lot, actually. I tried not to show a hurt expression, but I definitely felt tears in my eyes.

Illway happily proclaimed to her mother, almost as if her previous crying didn’t even happen, “This is the one I told you about! The young girl that helped me escape. Her name is Kali Vexia and she is a Wolfkin or something like that. Kali,” Illway turned to me, “This is my mother, Queen Ysifel of Walpist.”

Before anyone else could say something, Lucrain spoke up from her bowing position by the door, “My Queen, may I be dismissed? I have other patients to tend to.”

“By all means. Go see your other patients,” She waited for Lucrain to leave before turning to me. As she looked at me, I noticed that most of her attention was on my ears and tail, which I was getting used to, “I must thank you for rescuing my daughter from her imprisonment. I’ve heard from my little brother that you were of great help to him.”

“I was just in the right place at the right moment to help out.” I tried to underplay my accomplishments a little bit. While I did help, I really didn’t do all that much. I just broke into a building.

“Hmmm… so you say. Now then, what is it that you want?” The Queen asked me with a deadly serious expression.

I had no clue what she was talking about, “Pardon?”

A smile was on her face, but it seemed a little too cold for me, “Well you must’ve wanted something in exchange for helping my daughter. Why else would you risk life and limb?”

“Mother! We talked about this-” Illway tried to placate her mother, but was instead cut off.

“Hush now dear. We have talked about this. I heard your side, so now I want to hear hers. So?” That last question was directed towards me.

I tried to figure out what to say, but eventually decided to go with the truth even if it seemed a little unbelievable , “Nothing. Like I said, right place and right time.”

Queen Ysifel looked unconvinced, “If you didn’t want anything, then why did you help?”

“I was once the victim of slavery… All I ever wanted was a hero to come and save me. Then he finally came and saved me, just as I hoped. It wasn’t a day later that he snapped a collar around my neck himself.” Wow, that dredged up some memories. All bad. As I thought about the past, a spiteful rage started to take root in me completely free from [Rage of the Abyss]. I would find that scumbag and make sure he wished he was never born. Just as soon as I got off of this planet.

Queen Ysifel used some kind of magic on me. It must have been a truth spell, since the Queen’s face softened a little bit as she nodded, “I can understand that… my apologies for questioning you, but I needed to make sure of your intentions.”

I felt Princess Illway’s hand on my tail as she pulled it into her lap. It was an odd feeling having my tail stroked, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant, “I’m sorry Kali, she can be a little overprotective sometimes.”

I pushed my emotions, which seemed to be a lot more liberated recently, back down inside as I shrugged off her concern, “It’s okay. I’m sure my mother would have been the same.” Except, I didn’t have a mother per say… In this life I kinda just materialized, but in the other I was made in a lab. In fact, I should have just been liberated from there if the timeline held up. Wait… was there another me right now? The artificial fallen angel me? Were there two of me? I really needed to get off this planet and investigate… It would be weird to have two of me in the same place.

“Well then, Illway tells me that you are some kind of wolf? I can see the tails and ears, but how exactly does that work? My apologies if I am being rude by asking.” The Queen tried to change the topic.

Princess Illway jumped at the chance, “Yes! And how did you change so much? I literally saw you less than seven hours before I walked into your room.”

“Where do I begin? For starters, I am a Wolfkin. I'm like a wolf given human form if that makes sense…” I continued on to tell them everything I knew about myself. Of course, I kept some things a secret such as the Shadow Realm and how I changed so much due to an evolution. While it wasn’t unusual for a monster to be sapient and friendly, it was unusual for a monster to also have a class or a person to have evolutions before level one hundred.

I got out of talking about my evolution by telling them that my body and soul had been cursed and it only partially released after I had gained my levels back. It was a bit of a terrible lie, but it worked thankfully for some reason. I got a notification right as I told the lie.

[Skill Obtained: Deception 1: Your lies are slightly more believable]

Nice! I had forgotten there for a minute, but now that I had a class again, I could start to learn more skills, such as [Deception], [Thievery], [Swordsmanship], and many more. From my understanding, the Records had it set so that unclassed people couldn’t learn the “common” skills. This was mainly so that children wouldn’t be able to become super powerful right after they were born and instead had a ‘maturing’ period until they hit level ten. Don’t let my jump in levels fool you, getting to level ten naturally was usually very difficult to do for children. I just happened to be blessed with good luck and being in the right place at the right time, just like I told Queen Ysifel.

As I was finishing up my over dramatized tale, both the elves captivated by my words, a knock came from the door. Through it a male voice called out, “My Queen, your meeting with the high nobles has come. I know you may detest dealing with them, but they are partly your responsibility!”

Queen Ysifel yelled out towards the door in an aggravated voice as she shot me an apologetic smile, “I’m coming Terrance. I'll be out in a few minutes.” She turned to me and Illway on the couch, “I’m sorry to disrupt your story Kali, but I must go with my daughter to see the high nobles, unfortunately. Here,” She reached over to her desk and pulled off a red coin. She then flicked it to me, “Show this to any of the Red Eagles, the guards in red armor, and they will help you out.”

I caught the coin and gave it a quick once over. The coin was red and had a hawk head engraved on one side. On the other sat a massive tree looming over a forest. With my new skills from becoming a mage, I could feel the slightest trickle of mana inside of the coin.

[Skill: [Mana Sense 1]: Level up!(1>2)]

The Queen stood up and walked over to the door with her daughter. She opened it up and called one of the Red Eagles to her. It was the one on the left that didn’t speak when I first entered. “Delora, take Kali Vexia,” She pointed at me on the couch, “and take her anywhere she wants to go. She has full permission to visit anywhere in the city.”

“Yes my lady,” the female guard saluted Queen Ysifel and Princess Illway as they headed towards the door.

Queen Ysifel walked out immediately, but Illway turned back to me before walking out completely. She waved and smiled brightly, “See you later Kali.” She then escaped from my vision and trotted behind her mother.

The Red Eagle turned to me and froze for a second before asking, “Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

Well, there were lots of places I wanted to go. Now that I had finally found a safe enough place, at least for now, I could stop focusing on survival needs and find things that I wanted. For example, I wanted better weaponry and some knowledge about this world. Then I could see about getting comfort items to make my time more bearable.

I thought briefly about my first priority before nodding towards the elf. As I did, my right ear flopped down and covered one of my eyes in the shadowy aura it was emitting, reminding me that I also needed to experiment with my new shadow powers and body. Knowing my body was really important. For instance, say I was in the middle of a fight and my ear flopped down like it just did, then I would be blind for a few seconds which could be devastating. All I needed to die again was a single blade to the heart while I was distracted.

“Yes, I would like to go to a library or something of the like if there is one?” My words came out as more of a question than I intended. Almost as if sensing the questioning tone, my head tilted slightly sideways without me even noticing it until it was too late.

“Wow, you really are like a wolf…” The guard mumbled quietly. If it wasn’t for my improved hearing, I wouldn’t have even heard her. I chose to ignore the content of her statement. I would have to get used to such things until I could use some kind of illusion magic. Illusion magic wouldn’t be hard since I knew a little bit in my last life, but I would need to sit down and practice it.

“Sorry, what was that?”

The guard tensed up for a second before shaking her head, “It was nothing. If you would follow me, I’ll take you to the Royal Library. It is the biggest Library on the planet aside from maybe the Great Northern Lich Siko.”

Who was the Siko person? I had never heard of them, but I had heard of what they were. A lich was an undead being. They tended to be extremely strong when it came to necromancy, but had weak bodies. In order to gain eternal life, the liches typically sacrificed their very humanity. I would love to meet whoever this Siko person is. Maybe they know something about the planet that could help me since most liches only gained the ability to gain entry into lichdom after level two hundred. I was really curious how this Siko person managed to become a lich a full one hundred levels before.

I followed along behind the Red Eagle Guard, careful to pay attention to all the turns and hallways we took. After nearly ten minutes of straight walking, we finally hit a set of large doors big enough for a giant to walk through. The doors depicted a large tree with books hanging from the limbs instead of fruits. Standing on either side of the door were two Red Eagles on guard duty.

When they saw my guide, one of them called out in a manly voice while the other stared at me, “Captain Delora! What brings you to this side? Weren’t you assigned to guard the Queen?”

“Yes Zane, but the Queen gave me a new mission to guide this wonderful young woman here,” She motioned to me standing beside her, “Commander Morris should be protecting her now since she is with the high nobles.” I had absolutely zero idea how they could tell who each other were. All of their armor looked the absolute exact same without any variation aside from the size.

“I see Captain. Wh-”

Zane was cut off mid sentence by the other guard questioning me, “Are those things real?” He was obviously talking about my tail and ears.

Both Captain Delora, my guide, and Zane, the other guard, looked sharply at the other Red Eagle. Captain Delora said in a strict voice, “How big of an idiot are you Jackil? We’ve talked about this, you can’t just go questioning people about their appearance no matter how they look unless it could potentially threaten the Queen. I'm sure that Lady Vexia is thoroughly offe-”

“It's fine Captain,” I cut off Delora. I didn’t really mind the question. In fact, it was more aggravating for Delora to assume how I felt than to have my lovely tail and ears questioned. “Yes, they are real.” I answered Jackil’s question as I lightly pulled on my right ear as if to show its realness.

After berating Jackil further even though I insisted it was fine, Captain Delora led me into the library without any hassle. Well, any more hassle. The room on the other side of the wooden door was enormous. The entire room was made of the same wooden materials, but the room was easily as big as a medium sized coliseum. There were hundreds of bookshelves that were at least two stories tall each on the first floor, and even more on the next six floors going up. Each of the bookshelves were filled to the brim with books of various sizes, colors, and even different shapes.

The air in the library, however, was the most impressive thing. Flying around the bookshelves like they owned the place, hundreds of enchanted books were going every which way. Most of them had a purplish trail following behind them, denoting the presence of magic, although there were a few of them that seemed to just freely float like they had a mind of their own.

The bookshelves and everything in the library, at least from what I could see of it, seemed to be set up completely symmetrical and radiating out from the middle of the library like some kind of lotus. Even though we were pretty far away from the middle, I could see that it was some kind of large circular desk filled to the brim with books.

“Welcome to the Royal Library of Walpist Lady Vexia,” Captain Delora said from beside me. “I don’t know where Carinus-the head librarian- is, but you can use that desk in the middle to find nearly any book here. I should warn you, this place is ancient and has all sorts of weird stuff in it, so be careful what you touch.”

“Thank you Captain, and I appreciated the warning.” I replied as I excitedly looked at all the books around me.

“Don’t mention it. I’m going to go attend to other duties now, but show that coin to the two guarding the door and they will help you with anything. If you want to leave but are lost, this library was enchanted long ago to create wisps that led people out as long as they wanted to leave.”

“Thank you.”

“Umhmm,” She hummed lightly before turning back towards the way we came and leaving me in the library. Without further adieu, I ecstatically pounced towards the center table to find the books I needed.