Chapter 253: When a Book Falls on Your Head
"Haha! You're asking me why I attacked you?"
A man in a full black outfit laughed softly. His face was hidden by his black top hat. They could clearly hear the contempt in his voice toward Lin Sanjiu's question.
"If five teams have to vie for the same set of books, don't you think fighting is inevitable?" When the man with the top hat spoke, his white, narrow chin seemed to grow sharper. Lin Sanjiu stared at his lower jaw, his only facial feature which was exposed, and sighed inwardly. She stabilized her higher consciousness which had become chaotic after that sudden attack. She had no chance of dodging that previous unexpected attack.
—
It was already too late when she realized that someone was beside her. The white light was already at the tip of her nose bone. At that moment, it was impossible for her to evade the attack no matter what she did. Lin Sanjiu gritted her teeth and gathered and concentrated her higher consciousness in her face. She had just compressed her higher consciousness when she was violently hit by that light.
Her higher consciousness did not allow her to feel physical pain. Furthermore, after being mentally tortured by [Mankind's Bane], she only felt that her nose bone had been instantly erased. However, her higher consciousness was ultimately stronger than the white light so she was only pushed off the bookshelf. She floated gently to the ground.
Lin Sanjiu's attacker noticed that she appeared fine after he had attacked her directly. He saw her nose which had turned to smoke suddenly returning to it previous bone form and he was stunned for half a second. Almost as if remembering something, he yelled out loudly, "They're here!"
The remaining five members of the enemy team were already heading in Lin Sanjiu's direction when they saw the white light. When the siblings were ready to fight, their six enemies had also gotten close to them. This time, they were truly surrounded.
As the bookshelves were arranged in vertical rows, some of the members of the enemy team were just a bookshelf away from them. Two men, with threatening glares, were standing behind them, blocking their escape route. The person who had attacked Lin Sanjiu suddenly was one of them. Meanwhile, a man with a top hat and black suit walked toward them from the bookshelves in front of them.
—
When Lin Sanjiu heard the man's reply, a few thoughts raced through her mind, she immediately eyed the man and muttered, "We haven't even found a single book."
"I know." Unexpectedly, the man's white narrow chin moved and he revealed a smile, "We are not here to snatch books from you."
"Then, why did you guys want to ambush us?" Rena's crisp voice rang out furiously from the top of a bookshelf.
As the space between the bookshelves was too narrow, being only one man's width, the siblings did not go down to join Lin Sanjiu but supported her from above.
The man in the top hat snapped his fingers and the other five members in his team simultaneously took out their weapons and Special Items noisily. They had a machete, a crystal ball, a feather duster, a black lightning… A sweeping glance revealed quite a terrifying sight.
"You're all so stupid," the man with the white chin and a top hat laughed again. "I have already thought of the correct strategy to deal with this situation here at Kisaragi Library. And it isn't about finding those five books."
Startled by his answer, Lin Sanjiu was just about to question him further when the man waved his hand. The two men who had been waiting for his command immediately charged at them. Meanwhile, three other members aimed attacks at the siblings at the top of the bookshelves.
Lin Sanjiu heard a whooshing sound from her back, she stooped forward evading the machete that swept past her head. With a forward momentum, the machete instantly struck and broke the wood from one of the middle tiers in the bookshelf. Nearly a hundred books fell from the shelves like water bursting from a dam.
As the books fell to the ground with muffled thuds, the man in the top hat folded his arms and said with a clear but drawn-out voice, "The teams that came later really have a disadvantage. It isn't written in the 'notice' so you guys don't know this… When the lives of the other readers from the other teams fall to zero, the survivors can leave this place even if they couldn't find the books.
"That is to say, this library is simply a Colosseum. The way to get more lives is to attack other readers," the man's sharp, long chin moved. He let out a cold laugh, "I can't believe it. You guys, in these small teams, didn't even think of this… and you honestly tried to look for those books."
Even though she had her misgivings, Lin Sanjiu did not have the time to chat. She could barely defend herself as she had to deal with the attacks from the two men and even guard against the man with the top hat.
The noise from the fight at the W section quickly filled the library. The noise bounced off the ceiling, echoing through the library. It certainly alerted the members from the other teams as they could hear the faint voices from their discussions. Amidst the loud and intermittent shouting, Lin Sanjiu heard someone vaguely shouting "north wing".
The white light that had attacked her previous seemed to be a white scarf-like thing. However, it was certainly not as soft as a normal scarf since it created a shallow dent on the ground each time it struck. Lin Sanjiu was flanked by attacks. She was barely keeping up. Yet, she noticed that the black shadow of the man in a top hat at the corner of her eyes. He was charging toward them—
Lamenting her bad luck silently, she wanted to leap into the air to avoid the attacks as she didn't dare to take on a direct hit. Just then, the handle of a long feather duster peeked out from one of the tiers. Lin Sanjiu was caught unprepared. She tried her best to swerve in another direction but she still touched the tip of the feather duster. For a split second, she lost control of her body and she was swept to one side.
The feather duster wasn't that powerful but Lin Sanjiu felt like she had been swept away like dust. Once she was swept aside, her body became rigid and she could not change her direction. She tried to hold on to the shelves to regain control over her body but it was futile, she only managed to pull down many books from the shelves.
Her higher consciousness body seemed to be following a planned trajectory, she was flying in the one straight rigid direction. Her three attackers, including the man in the top hat, raced toward where she was going to land as if cats who had caught the scent of a fish.
"Damn it!" Lin Sanjiu cursed inwardly. She knew that this was the effect of a Special Item. After pulling down quite a number of books in succession, she finally stopped struggling. She was sure that she would lose quite a number of lives this time!
Just then, a book from the top tier fell due to the tremor. It fell on Lin Sanjiu. When she wore her current clothes in the department store, she used a belt to secure her shorts to her pelvis bone. The belt buckle was made of metal. When the book touched the belt buckle, it disappeared into countless white light and integrated itself into the metal buckle.