Daphne turned around and stared at Hana, deep into her Soul that she doesn't have. The first time, the woman told her that she was not supposed to exist. The second time, the librarian said it.

  Though she wasn't seemingly conscious for the first time, a single time was enough to make Daphne and Ren question what Hana really was.

  However, Hana was as perplexed as the other two people in front of her. She is living and breathing, albeit with a defect but that still doesn't mean she was less alive.

  What was this even about?

  Hana walked up to the librarian, standing just 5 feet away and a little to the right. She took her blindfold off, revealing blue eyes that pierced through the luminescent, bright lights of the library, almost turning it into an ocean blue.

  “I know of what you seek, troubled one. You ask why you are unable to perceive the wonders of the world with eyes so wonderful; it illuminates the environment around your being.”

  “...”

  She wasn't one to take his flattery, shrugging it off as some word play she thought was useless. She knew exactly what she came here for and it was better that the librarian knew.

  She wanted to cut to the chase.

  “Where is it?”

  “Hm?” The librarian needed specifics.

  “The Magna Historia. Where is it? Where can I understand this?” She pointed to her eyes before scratching her arm until it bled. There was no reaction from her.

  “Does the non-existent one search for what is naught?”

  “... What?”

  The question wasn't rhetorical, but for the librarian to think of. Though he couldn't ask someone why they'd go for it.

  This was Hana Zurgen.

  He knew that she is indeed one to not ask for guidance but for answers.

  The librarian laughed before walking to the left. He looked at the shelves consisting of small books. They weren't in the Magna Historia. They were just a couple passages away from it.

  This, the main room of the library, hosted all the information about the world itself.

  The Soul, it's Soul-Energy, the planets, suns, moons and stars.

  It was a compendium of the structure of the universe.

  “The answer you seek lies not in the room you are standing. It is further away. However,” He turned around to face Hana again.

  “...You must ask yourself one thing: Are you certain you wish to learn your nature? The Magna Historia does not bestow answers; it reflects truths, and not all truths can be stomached. To know is to be unmade, and remade.”

  Ren wasn't really paying attention to the conversation, not even acknowledging the librarian that stood before them. He was tapping his foot, taking in the amazing structure of the library. There was only one thought lingering in his mind.

  .:. If I can find my book then I can understand my own weaknesses... Oh shit, will I also find out how I die? But that's not in the book, right? .:.

  Ren was walking in circles.

  .:. The past, present and the future... it's all in the Hall of Memories. Does it make me relive my past, live my future and show me how I die? Moreover, why is the present important, it's like happening right now, right? .:.

  Ren sighed, watching Daphne doing the same thing. Even she was deep in thought, trying to formulate a plan for herself to find what she couldn't find in her first time being here.

  .:. Bringing my own book wouldn't be a good idea. My ability makes it so that my book is misleading by default. Even I don't understand the true extent of this Heavenly Attribute I possess. I live on even after I'm apparently killed. .:.

  Daphne stared at the ceiling that stretched out into infinity, pondering.

  .:. I've passed through Purgatory before, having died about a thousand times before being able to read my book in the Hall of Memories. However, it was misleading. It was misleading because it only showed me how many times I would die. My permanent death is never written so my future can't be read... My book had infinite pages... .:.

  Daphne blinked a couple of times before realigning herself with reality. She realized that Hana was finished speaking with the librarian.

  “Hey, numbskulls.” Hana beckoned. “Dei's bringing us to the Magna Historia.” Her tone was sharp, devoid of the existential dread that the librarian's words might have instilled in another. She was all business now.

  “...”

  “Ren!”

  “Ah- I'm coming.” Ren said before putting the small book back to the shelf.

  -

  As the trio followed the enigmatic librarian, their footsteps echoing in the silence, Daphne finally turned to Hana, her curiosity overpowering her usual smugness.

  “This “non-existent” talk must get to you. Not that I'm that curious about it, I know what you are after all.”

  “His words are a means to an end,” Hana replied, her blindfold still hanging loosely around her neck. “If the Magna Historia calls me an anomaly, I am an anomaly. If it calls me a divine mistake, so be it. I came for an explanation, not for validation.”

  The walkway stretched on for miles on end, until they reach a staircase that also stretched on for miles on end. But that wasn't their path, which the librarian made known by turning away from the stairs.

  “...Huh?”

  The librarian then spoke a foreign, archaic language.

  “W'ghan'alaal t'yha'Xhul'khi Net'hayly'a...”

  The walls started to deform into an aisle. The path that they needed. From there on, it was another mile of walking.

  The new aisle was narrow, lined with shelves that hummed with a strange energy. The books here were different. Some seemed to breathe with a soft, pulsating light, while others were bound in what looked like starlight.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  They were here.

  The Magna Historia.

  They then made their way to the center of the Magna Historia.

  With aisles that towered about 100 meters in height and a mile in width. A library of knowledge about souls, life, and death.

  “You will seek all your answers here, but you may fear that destiny does not provide all-knowing answers to the void of all. For you, Hana Zurgen... your book shall speak to you. For you Ren... your book will be within your sight if you wish. And Daphne...-”

  “I know where it is.” Daphne immediately went off without Dei, leaving the two behind.

  “...I'll be back.” Ren followed behind Daphne to go to the Soul-Wielder section. There were books of deceased Soul-Wielders, still present in the library for people to read about. But what made it interesting for him is that there were also living Soul-Wielders who have their books in the library.

  There were also books about the Souls itself. What Soul-Type they were, what they were good for... and if they were ancient or not.

  Ren wasted no time and immediately made way to the living Soul-Wielders section. There were so many of them... millions of them, all waiting to be read. But there was no sign of his book. Dei said it would be within his sight if he wished for it... Was he being literal?

  It confused him.

  Hana was now left alone with the librarian in the vast expanse of the Magna Historia.

  The thought of her being a 'being that was not supposed to exist' sent an incredible number of chills down her spine in approximate increments as well. She had a lot of questions.

  At the woman and even at Dei.

  What is this non-existent bullshit they were spitting nonsense about?

  Her lack of sight and her lack of touch, was it a foreshadowing of her supposed non-existence? It can't be, right?

  .:. What do you mean; I'm not supposed to exist? I'm breathing and thinking right now... Unless it's something else that I'm not aware about... Maybe this non-existence thing is tied to my deformity. But I also exist... so it doesn't make any sense. .:.

  “I know your questions, Hana Zurgen. But not all can be answered by me. Your questions, your being... It's tied to an anomaly much more profound than the concept of the Soul itself” Dei said, answering her thoughts. He read her like an open book.

  “...An anomaly?” Hana looked up at him. She needed to know.

  Dei looked at her for a brief moment, before slowly turning back.

  “The answer you've sought after for so long... may be the one that will unmake you. An insight into destiny, a piece of your true self is a thought far scarier than the concept of life. Especially when the Soul is not even there to bear the weight.”

  “...” Hana turned to the librarian. “... Am I supposed to be scared of what I will find out?”

  “It is not the horror of your discovery. It is the truth of your supposed non-existence. You will find out what makes you an aberration. I will leave you to find your book.” Dei said, leaving the young woman alone.

  “You have been brave for most of your life, Hana Zurgen... I advise you to stay brave.”

  -

  Hana has been walking around the aisle. For her, it was a maze. She constantly tapped the metal casing of her heel to map her surroundings. Every echo of her step against the floor was like a sonar ping in the dark.

  Ping... Ping... Ping... Ding... Ding... Ding...

  The shelves were endless. Each one could be the source of her very being.

  “Come on...” she muttered, her frustration mounting. How was she supposed to find a single book in this... this infinity? Not to mention that she can't see and feel. There can't magically appear a book that 'speaks' to her, even if Dei said so.

  “This is fucking bullshit. How the hell am I meant to find my book? He's playing games with me, I swear. If this book will speak to me, will I be able to... wait.”

  .:. Speak to me. .:.

  Maybe he wasn't being metaphorical. Perhaps she was supposed to hear it.

  She stopped walking. She stood in the center of the aisle, forcing her breathing to slow, to quiet the frantic rhythm of her own heart. She needed to listen. Not just for footsteps or echoes, but for... something else. A whisper, a hum, a vibration that was different from the energy of the library.

  Nothing.

  Silence.

  “Fuck this shit.” she cursed under her breath. The library felt like a joke, gatekeeping an answer with no way to access them. She kicked a nearby shelf, the metal ringing out in the emptiness.

  The books dropped from the shelf like a heavy rain, falling onto the floor and Hana. She didn't react to the pain; she was used to it.

  Each one was a life story.

  Each crash a fate sealed.

  A particular one made a sound that cut through the noise of the other falling books. A high-pitched, metallic shriiiing, a sound that buzzed in Hana's head.

  “...”

  A book was floating right before her face, opening up. It played a sound indicating that it was just in front of her face. Intrigued, she touched it, her lack of touch turning into hum that sounded good to her ear, not the excruciating sound of buzzing that displeased her that she associated with pain.

  “It's... not even in text...” she muttered, as she heard a strange, ancient, feminine language in her head, but not by her head. It was a spoken word, in her own voice. It was like Hana was speaking to herself. She could “see” the letters with her mind, though not in a shape, but as a feeling, an understanding. The script wasn't made of ink, but of the very silence that she perceived. Each syllable was an emptiness filled with meaning, each sentence a void containing a universe of information.

  “...”

  She was learning things about herself that she didn't know in just a fraction of a second, but it wasn't agonizing.

  “...”

  What made her lose the sense of sight? What made her lose the sense of touch? Her personal information, her family tree, it all didn't matter. All that it mattered is why she didn't have Soul-Energy, something that powered all beings, even the ones without a Soul.

  “...”

  “Ah... Ahh-h-hh-h-h...”

  Then, a phrase echoed in her mind repeatedly.

  “...You...”

  “...Are...”

  “...Not...”

  “...Supposed...”

  “...To...”

  E

  X

  I

  S

  T

  “...”

  “...”

  ...

  . . .

  . . . . . .

  . . . . . . . .

  Hhhh... h-h-h...hh-hhh...

  The book was a mind eater.

  Hana grabbed her head with two hands and stumbled back, banging against the shelf behind her.

  She felt fear.

  Fear that she never felt before.

  Fear that fears never feared before.

  A fear that feared the fears that were never feared before.

  An existential dread, spiralling into an existential crisis.

  She found her answers.

  It was displeasing.

  Unpleasant.

  It was killing her.

  It was murdering her.

  It was detestable. Horrible, terrifying, abhorrent, cathartic, morbid, despicable, foul, putrid, odious, repulsive.

  The book told her that she shouldn't exist. It was written to be, for the lack of better word... a glitch. It told her about the things that made her a being that should've been not existing.

  The “condition” that she has, that Serith told her once.

  A “condition” that was meaningless to understand.

  A “condition” that was meaningless by default.

  A “condition” that fundamentally changed the way freedom was perceived.

  A “condition” that made a living being... seem like a zombie.

  A being with no Soul, among the normies.

  But also, as a being with no Soul-Energy, among those that should not exist, but yet exists.

  A pact established by the gods to the mortal that wanted to live more than any living being ever.

  An unborn Soul, a rejected purity.

  “Roselka Eria...”

  “A Rati-Pact.”

  Rati-Pacts, like Serith and Hana, are people that have been bestowed life under a condition that to pay the price for being born without a Soul and Soul-Energy, they must lose their most valuable thing in life. With that, they are also granted a gift. Superhuman speed, agility, power and strength. A power so strong that it could even rival the strongest Soul-Wielders.

  That was the true meaning of existence for Hana Zurgen.

  An unborn being that wanted to live more than any other life form in the world, was eventually granted a life that they could only take for granted. With it, she carried a lack of sight and a lack of touch for the entirety of her life but was granted superhuman agility and power to make up for it.

  For her, eyes and feeling were the most valuable thing to her, what made her born.

  It was a curse disguised as a blessing.

  All this time, she said that Soul-Wielders were slaves to their curses.. but she too is a slave to her curse.

  A slave to her existence, and a slave to her Rati-Pact.

  She wasn't Born Free or Made Free.

  She was meaningless.

  Serith was right.

  Freedom was meaningless.

  The pact was meaningless.

  She was meaningless.

  Her existence was meaningless.

  Her non-existence is her freedom.

  .:. “Why spend a lifetime dedicating and enslaving yourself to a goal that will zero out in the end? .:.

  .:. “Why can't you see?” .:.

  .:. “Why can't you feel?” .:.

  .:. “You are frivolous, Hana. What you are is cursed to the one's at the top.” .:.

  .:. “No merit in your existence.” .:.

  .:. “You will die either with what you've lost or without it... so die free, Hana.” .:.

  ...

  ...