My eyes peer over to my right, in the subtle darkness of one aisle that holds scrolls and books.

Stepping as one is two slender pairs of twins, two women and two men. And from what I can tell, the pairs are identical, while they are fraternal between the two pairs. Both having fair skin, with the guy pair having colorless white hair and the girl pair equally colorless black.

With attractive faces and disaffected, but interested looks, they seem to be quite the interesting group.

But that’s not the strangest thing about them.

The air is really shimmering around them weirdly. Like waves on a beach.

It only seems to happen when I look at one pair with my scan, but not with my physical senses.

And… why is no one looking at them?

It’s like… they aren’t really there.

Once again, I’ve discovered something I’ve shouldn’t. Something hidden away.

I feel the distinct urge to look at the female pair of twins, who are smiling widely. With their smiles only growing wider still, as I refuse to do so.

Because in what world would it be a good idea to look at something, when you are getting an unnatural growing feeling to stare at it? Especially when you can just do the same thing with the scan.

Despite my action though, two girls’ grins only continue to grow, just before it stops above a comfortable size. Everything feels wrong; the air, the light, the mouths, the books, the people somany people, the mouths…

My healing aura activates, and my eyes flicker to the girls. With everything that happened in that moment, I changed my attention over to the girls, with the intuition that now was the moment to do so.

And it all returns to normal.

It’s only the women pair there now, no male pair.

One of the pair is talking again, in a bright tone. Moving towards me casually. The other librarians in the area getting back to their work.

“…I didn’t think we’d ever find someone who could understand us at a glance.

“Young Master Delinion, I presume. I see the rumors might be true, about your breadth of knowledge and wisdom.”

But the guys are actually still there. Staring and not speaking.

And now they are the blurred ones.

… it’s probably not a good idea to acknowledge them right now. Focus on the ones who are talking. Know they exist, but move on.

While I think this, the other woman in the group takes up speaking.

“My name is Luan Ling, while my sister’s is Luan Mao.” “The others are Luan Hun and Luan Zuo.”

Almost as if an echo in her words, I can see her sister’s mouth move, saying the others' names without speaking. She acts like she didn’t afterwards, but it definitely happened.

That sister, Luan Mao, now starts actually speaking.

“The information you gave turned out to be valid, greatly surprising some of us in our group. But you likely want to know how your group is doing. You’ll be glad to hear that each of them is working off your instructions and have our full support in finding those methods for them.

“We’ll let you see for yourself, though, if you’d follow us.”

She waves her hand in a direction to one path, leading deeper into the library.

Even though this whole situation is extraordinarily strange, I’m not getting the sense that this is a bad thing. It’s just… how it is.

I’ll head with them to see some of the group and go from there. There’ are a lot of places that I need to visit that would be made easier with a librarian nearby.

They simultaneously lean forward to whisper in both my ears in a seductive tone.

“With all that said, I’m looking forward to discussing your observations of us… in depth. Hopefully, you’ll be able to explore parts of us different from just our others. As most can’t even get past that.”

… I’m seriously going to consider whether it’s worth it to keep my scan on all the time and if there is a way to hide my awareness of some of these things.

Something like a subconscious filing system? But even that might not work, because I would eventually need to know what’s going on.

Definitely going to think this one out.

I’ve been lucky that with all the times this has happened, it’s turned into a positive or neutral situation.

If it happened in a demonic sect… probably would be much worse. Or remarkably better.

Either way, it’s not something to leave to chance.

In response to their clear indication of something more, I give them a smile and some words.

“We’ll have to do that. Though I definitely want to check out my group first before we get into such an extensive conversation.”

A big smile crosses both their faces, that is pretty to look at, despite their earlier distorted one.

They both nod before moving quickly in the direction of the library paths, with a clear amount of excitement in their steps.

Hmm… the creepy factor seems to have died down by a lot now. I’m not sure if that’s a component of the understanding aspect of the scan or something else.

In terms of their reaction, I guess having some type of eldritch thing going on with them would be lonely. That doesn’t even include the twin aspect, which also has its own meanings in this culture. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely something people might be superstitious of.

Lost in these thoughts, they lead me over to a curious path within the library.

Rather than being a walkway with shelves on either side, it’s more like a courtyard, where the shelves are like pillars on either side, rising into a high, misty ceiling. Luckily, like one could imagine a library of this size having, there is a key to differentiating which types of books go where for this ‘public’ section. Indicators of what can be expected when you dive in.

But that isn’t what gathers my focus. It’s the large sign at one crossroads that does.

Outer Library Transport Terminal.

… Is this a train station?

And when I arrive, that is essentially what I find.

In a way that is very reminiscent of public subways, a cart made of metallic wood slows to a stop for a few minutes before moving on. There are already some people that are getting off and on the carts, which take more than the normal time the carts would move.

Some are carrying large piles of book and scrolls, with other carrying manuscripts and bags of materials.

As if going on a long journey.

But despite the cart waiting on the loading process, this doesn’t seem to stop the other carts behind it, as they phase around it. A twisting of the space. Yet another potential indicator of the void-based origins of the sect.

Yet in this case, I quickly find that this is pretty standard for libraries of this size and type, as traveling these distances and reaching specific locations will require stops in non-normalized areas.

What is most remarkable is that the moment that a person walks up to the terminal area, a cart appears for them. A quick look reveals a line going all the way down the terminal, parallel to where the carts show up and travel. And it continues on all the way past where the terminal ends, along where the carts travel to their other locations.

The two librarian twins beside me are sneaking peeks at me to see my reactions to this. To which I don’t disappoint, as I am quite surprised to see such a thing. Luan Ling speaks up, who I could only tell was such, because I kept track of her position near me.

“This terminal allows anyone traversing the library to reach most of large sections of the outer library quickly. You can stop anywhere along this line and get back on at any point of it, making it the best way to get your bearings here. Considering the expansiveness of the sect’s public sections, this really helps us with moving stuff around.”

My sensing only proved her words that these carts are going fast. Like… extremely fast.

How the heck do they get it to go where they want to? Some many curiosities, so little time.