Lothe looked down at Seana, who was sitting on the stone floor, her chest heaving.
She had survived, and she did so without screaming for help; she had simply fought her own battle and won.
But looking at her now, pale and shivering against the massive bookshelves, her vulnerability was plain.
At the end of the day, she was still just a girl.
He hadn’t expected them to coordinate so well.
Ping!
[Survivor has killed 12 Tier 1 mutated Goliath Wasps.]
[The host must slay 8 more Tier 1 beasts to initiate System Integration.]
The flat voice echoed in his head again. Lothe pushed the thought aside; he would deal with the system later.
He walked over to Seana and offered her his hand. She looked up, her round glasses sliding slightly down her nose, and hesitated.
But after the battle they had just shared, she reached out, placing her small hand in his broader palm. Her skin was cold.
Lothe pulled her up.
"Thank you," she said. Her voice was quiet, lacking any polite embellishment.
For a split second, Lothe felt a mild, dry disappointment.
"No need," he said, letting go of her hand. He hadn’t expected her small body to be quite so sharp, but he kept that thought to himself.
He cleared his throat. "If you don’t mind me asking... how did you know their weak point was the underbelly?"
Seeing that he was only interested in the mechanics of the fight, Seana looked visibly relieved. "I’m an anatomy major."
Lothe nodded. Her answer was simple, but executing those movements under pressure required more than just book knowledge.
He usually prided himself on reading people, but this girl kept proving his initial impressions wrong.
"You must be top of your class," Lothe murmured as she walked toward one of the wasp carcasses.
"Yeah," was her only reply. Her eyes were already fixed on the dead creature.
Lothe watched her, shaking his head. He remembered the desperate look in her eyes when she had been searching for the traditional medicine textbook.
Wait. Old B.
Lothe scanned the room, but there was no exit in sight. The upper archive was tightly secured, and the terminal where he usually accessed the bypass protocols was on the floor below.
He could only hope Old B had noticed he hadn’t come down and would override the door from the outside.
"Did you find anything?" Lothe asked, coming closer. She was so engrossed in her examination she looked like a scholar in a private laboratory.
"No," Seana said after a long silence. She touched the hard, segmented shell.
"Without proper equipment, I can only guess. But whatever filled the air during the blackout must have triggered this. It’s a rapid, forced mutation."
Her serious tone made Lothe feel as though he were speaking to a professional researcher.
Seana looked around the dark archive, her eyes narrowing as she spotted something in the far corner.
She pointed her hand. "Look up there."
Lothe turned. In the high crevice of the ceiling, fine sand and plaster were trickling down. The wasps hadn’t broken in from the outside, they had nested in the rafters of the old building long before this happened.
The mutation had simply made them too large for their hives.
"You seem remarkably calm about all of this," Lothe noted, his voice quiet.
Seana paused.
She looked at him, her eyes guarded behind her glasses. Is he testing me?
"I just want to live," she said. "Don’t you?"
"That’s not what I meant—"
"Then stop probing," Seana cut him off, her voice rising, losing its clinical coldness.
"I don’t care what you think of me or why you’re asking so many questions. I was terrified when I woke up. A monster almost took my life, and I had to fight with everything I had just to stand here. Do you think I’m made of stone?"
Her voice broke, dropping to a tight whisper. She pressed her hand over her mouth, her shoulders trembling.
She had forced herself to stay strong, but the weight of almost dying was too terrifying.
Tears finally spilled over her lashes, tracing clean lines through the dust on her cheeks. She leaned against a shelf, her frame shaking.
"I’m sorry," Lothe said. He felt a dull knot of regret in his chest. His habit of analyzing people had crossed a line.
Looking at her now, she didn’t look like a cold genius or a fierce survivor.
She was just a girl who had barely escaped a nightmare.
He didn’t know how to comfort people, so he just stood there guarding her.
Seana wiped her face with her sleeve, nodding silently. She steeled herself, her breathing gradually slowing.
"Since you’re the head librarian," Seana said, her voice still thick, "don’t you have a manual override device?"
"No," Lothe said. "Every password is sent to the main terminal in the lower hall, which connects directly to the school’s security network."
Seana’s face fell.
"Wait," Lothe said, his eyes widening. "Since the doors use biometric locks, there has to be a local backup node on this floor."
He didn’t wait to hear what she said. He turned and ran toward the iron spiral staircase at the back of the room, his boots clattering against the metal.
"Hey, wait up!" Seana called, scrambling to follow him.
They reached the small iron door at the top of the stairs. Lothe swiped his master card.
The lock hissed, and the door swung open.
Inside was a narrow, windowless room containing only a single, heavy stone desk and an active, glowing server terminal.
Lothe sat down, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard in a rapid, rhythmic clatter.
Only Old B knew Lothe was a prodigy with computers. He didn’t brag about it, well, there was simply no one he cared to impress.
He bypassed the local security loop, entering the emergency override commands. Line after line of green text scrolled across the dark monitor.
Seana stood behind him, staring at the screen, then at his hands.
"You can bypass the Academy’s main security?" she asked, her voice hushed. From her own knowledge, The Crowns Academy used military-grade encryption, yet this student was dismantling it like a walk in the park.
"We just have to wait for the local node to sync," Lothe said, his eyes fixed on the progress bar.
Seana took a breath, trying to calm her racing thoughts.
"Alright, Head Lib—"
"Lothe," he corrected, not looking back. "My name is Lothe."
She paused, the name sounding foreign but soft in her throat. "Alright... Lothe."
"The node synced," Lothe said as a six-digit code flashed on the screen. He copied it onto his card. "Let’s go."
They hurried back down the spiral stairs to the main exit. Lothe swiped his card and entered the bypass code on the keypad.
The heavy brass gears inside the oak door groaned, and the door began to slide open.
But before the gap was wide enough to step through, a dark, heavy shape thrust itself through the opening.
"Watch out!" Lothe yelled.
He shoved Seana back, throwing his shoulder into the doorframe.
The wasp lunged, its mandibles snapping inches from his face. Lothe swung his wooden club downward with raw force, shattering its head against the stone floor.
The creature thrashed, clearly stunned.
Seana didn’t hesitate. She stepped forward, her face grim, and drove her brass rod deep into its exposed underbelly.
The wasp shrieked, its legs curling inward as it died.
"Thanks," Seana panted, pulling her rod free.
Lothe nodded, his eyes already looking past the threshold.
As they stepped onto the balcony overlooking the lower floor, a massive, deafening hum filled the air. Thousands of wings vibrated, the sound echoing off the high domed ceiling.
Lothe looked down.
The main hall of the library was swarming with giant wasps. Tables were overturned, papers scattered like snow. But there was no sign of the old man.
"Old B!" Lothe shouted, his voice cracking with sudden panic.
The moment the words left his mouth, he froze.
The buzzing stopped.
Down below, hundreds of compound eyes turned upward, locking onto the balcony.
"Shit," Lothe cursed.