Meanwhile, there was an unlikely trio formed between the classmates, consisting of Ruan, XML, and Lilian.

If this were a normal labyrinth, they would make a terrible party. Lilian had a great amount of magic, but Ruan was poor at it, and XML had none of it. Both guys also relied on ranged firepower rather than close-in fighting, which was Lilian's preference.

But this was the Labyrinth of the Grand Library.

They were going to be Librarians someday, sure, but they didn't just yet know the fear of missing out on good books. There was nothing here that could tempt them away from the right path. Probably.

"What's with you two?" Lilian asked, stopping as she realized that the footsteps behind her were missing.

Ruan and XML had stopped in front of a lectern, displaying a copy of Treatise of Anti-Magician Combat, vol. 3.

The two's gazes met.

"Y-You," Ruan's voice quavered, "You—uh—you like being the underdog, too?"

For a while, XML just stared at him. Ruan thought that maybe he'd chosen the wrong dialog option. Maybe he should've stayed secluded in that blastproof tower, where stray spells couldn't reach him.

XML quietly clasped Ruan's hands between his own.

"Friend auth ask."

"What."

"I think he's asking you if you want to be friends…" Lilian offhand remarked.

"Ah? AH?" Ruan snapped towards XML. "By all means!"

The two got into a drawn-out conversation about the intricacies of interfering with a forming magic circle, especially with that one caveat about making sure that you shouldn't just blindly make the spell go unstable, or else you'd get an explosive effect, which generally wasn't good in tight spaces or underground, depending on the scenario.

Nerding out. They were nerding out.

Lilian was left to lead the group, which was fine with her, since she wanted to keep some distance from the rowdy boys. Incidentally, booklets kept popping out with titles like How to Talk to Boys and such. She made sure to burn them up before the boys would notice.

They came upon a boss door.

According to their Index Cards, their textbooks would be in the chamber directly after this one.

"Ehhh…" Ruan complained. It seemed that he was the only one complaining, though.

XML did the cool thing with pulling out his handguns and racking them, checking his bullets. Lilian started doing jumping jacks and shadow boxing for a bit, getting hyped up.

Seeing even Lilian start to prep, Ruan followed their lead and started doing some stretches.

—Aw man, she's really pretty when she's getting hyped.

Ruan shook his head of the intrusive thought. Was it an intrusive thought? Should he just accept that these were his feelings now? A man has to confront himself sooner or later, and he thought that he would rather do it sooner. His adorable younger sister, after all, chose such a difficult path of becoming a Librarian, despite having already come from a difficult life. He wanted to be reliable to her, and so, he first needed to be reliable to himself.

On the other side of the door was…

"Welcome, fool—ah, not foolish, what was it… great challengers? Ah, yes—Welcome, great challengers! I mean, you got past the Bookkeeper, right? That was my previous post, actually. The first layer's challengers are all assumed to be foolish mortals, y'see, but anyone who gets past that definitely had some grit, so it'd be a disservice to keep calling them foolish mortals. I mean, you guys are great, right? Right? Ha ha! Silly me, getting ahead of myself."

…such a type of unexpected defender.

It was a vampire Researcher with a white lab coat and pointless double monocles. He took off the retainers that exaggerated his fangs and put in a different one for combat, with much shorter fangs.

"Ha ha! I actually have sensitive fangs, y'know? The other one's just extenders for feeding. Keeps things ergonomic when the food's in a hard-to-reach place, y'know?"

"The serious atmosphere just instantly evaporated, huh," Ruan remarked.

Despite his remark, XML and Lilian were absolutely ready to duke it out right now, damn it.

"That said…" the vampire continued. He tossed a clipboard to Lilian's feet. "Please sign these waivers first!"

The first one to take mental damage was Lilian. She was just really disappointed, really.

"A waiver?!" she complained, "Who are you, anyway! I'll have you know my signature can build and raze empires!"

"Fuh, you may have heard my name before—"

""As if!"" [disagreeable handgun noises]

"—but they call me, The Labyrinth's Familiar."

At this, Ruan gasped.

"No way?! The only being that has ever contracted with a labyrinth?!"

Lilian turned her head towards Ruan with such a fiery look on her face that Ruan almost fainted.

"You! Tell me more!"

"I-It was a rumor that labyrinths could initiate contracts, but only one person has ever been confirmed to be in one!"

Everyone turned to the Researcher.

"It is as he says! Furthermore, because I am such an indispensable tool for this labyrinth, I managed to negotiate with it a way for me to not risk my life being an area boss!"

"Eh, wh—"

"You see…"

The Researcher started answering Ruan before he'd even asked anything.

"…this labyrinth, it offers knowledge to those who enter it, correct? Then, where do you think all that knowledge came from?! Who do you think spends hours slaving away cataloging and compiling things all! Day! Long! That's right—ME!"

"Buddy, you need a break," Lilian remarked.

The Researcher pointed back towards the group.

"And so! Sign the appopriate waiver! I highly encourage the one where I just give you a quiz and kick you out harmlessly if you fail!"

Two people's eyes glared.

"…has alternative? Ask return," XML asked.

"The alternative? Fuh, of course," he adjusted his monocles with two fingers. One of them fell to the side, but he just continued on bravely, "You will have to fight me."

He glared with the remaining monocle while putting the other one back on without a word.

No one really wanted to comment on it, so they just left it at that.

Ruan signed for the quiz route, while XML and Lilian signed to fight the Researcher.

Incidentally, although XML and Lilian could die, they weren't allowed to outright kill the guy. Doing so would permanently lock off the area until a new floor boss could be selected, so they were limited to beating the guy to an inch of his life.

That said, it was a complete one-sided trampling on both fronts.

The quiz was too easy for Ruan, so he cleared it within 2 minutes. He ended up just waiting off the side and watched the battle with XML and Lilian.

It started with an opening volley from XML. Of course, it was useless. The Researcher's magic focused on telekinetic effects, so physical armaments couldn't ever harm him. The bullets were either flattened against an invisible barrier, or deflected, eliciting complaints from Ruan who had to dodge the stray rounds head-over-foot.

Seeing this, XML switched to white phosphorus rounds. These burned quite fiercely, but again, it wasn't anything that could get through the Researcher's defenses.

One thing about white phosphorus, though, was that it produced quite a lot of smoke. XML incessantly peppered the Researcher until that white smoke filled half his view.

It was then that Ruan bore witness to Lilian's gallant figure arcing across the battlefield, landing behind the Researcher and sweeping him off his feet. He fell on the side of his head, and Lilian delivered the finishing slap to make sure he was defeated.

The fight was over just with that.

The Researcher was fast asleep, and Ruan realized his feelings for Lilian, but also…

…Those two were staring at each other with enflamed eyes.

"Leeet's get going!" Ruan so declared, catching the two's awkward attention.

In a way, the fight really was over with just that.

They had to split ways to get their textbooks.

Ruan ruminated on the rollercoaster ride of his feelings for the past hour. There was no way for him to get between XML and Lilian now.

Lilian was a princess of the Magilian Imperium, while XML—as he'd just recently learned—was a prince of the Kingdom of Servar, which bordered the Imperium's south. A marriage alliance between those two nations made far more sense than some random child of an eastern Family getting together with a daughter of the world's dominant superpower.

—And what was with that gaze of passion?!

When he came back to the same split in the hallway where they'd separated, he found the two chatting along quite fondly.

"You, you wish to reform your royal family too?!"

There it is. They have something inexplicably strange in common now.

They returned to the class's campsite, with Ruan reeling and dragging himself behind the new couple.