For Iris

Chapter 1 - The Master Of Bets (1)

The Master Of Bets (1)

Come to think of it, I was out of my mind, too.

If a strange and suspicious man was hanging around at my workplace, I should have called the security guard to ask why he was here and asking for the purpose of his visit.

I had no force to overpower a man. Even if there was, the chances of me winning would have been slim, considering his size and job.

But I stood in front of him and let him in. To make an excuse, it was because the man opened his mouth belatedly.

“I’m Werner Gottlief. The purpose of my visit is… I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can tell you.”

Werner, the man who erased the previous ambiguous expression, smiled lightly.

His smile and the sentences he came up with were strangely awkward, but what is important here is his affiliation, not anything else.

Gottlief.

A surname is usually inherited from a family, but in this country, it also represents a group with certain characteristics.

A typical example is a descendant of Aurel like me and a Gottlief unit like him, but these two groups are not on good terms.

So, it is said that once upon a time, a long time ago, my ancestor Aurel saved the world that was on the verge of collapse through a contract with a superior being called Ruera.

Instead of sacrificing himself, he allowed him to reap the disaster that fell on the world.

And the promise was carried on through those who inherited Aurel’s blood and power, but a problem arises here.

One day, he suddenly sacrificed himself. 

I’m just disappointed.

Aurel made that promise, not his descendants, right? 

Did I choose to be a descendant? I was born a descendant, and it’s unfair. Giving a public office to an adult descendant is… 

The country says it’s a privilege, but you all know, right? 

If you can’t figure out what we are, you can’t use it as a sacrifice when the same thing happens later, so you just put us in an easy place to manage. I’ve also benefited from my abilities.

It was Aurel who proposed the first promise. Just by looking at it, it can be said that Aurel was arbitrarily sacrificed.

However, his descendants had no choice. It was because the promise had ended on the line of Aurel, and it was Ruera who chose the sacrifice from the promise.

There is no reason to want to do a difficult task voluntarily. Aurel and Ruera, who were chosen as sacrifices out of unwillingness, protested violently, and the state created a new Gottlief unit to manage them and those who might become like them in the future.

That was 824 years ago from now.

I sighed spontaneously.

I was compiling a collection list at the librarian’s desk, but I couldn’t quite catch the letters.

A person under surveillance, an observer. 

It was for that reason that Aurel’s descendants and Gottlief’s unit had no choice but to find each other uncomfortable.

Even now, 380 years after the last disaster, no people dismiss sacrifices and disasters as old stories, but this is not a universal opinion. 

Isn’t that the case when we look at the fact that an adult descendant is given a public office, and held in the state?

In that sense, Werner’s appearance was enough to scratch my nerves. Because the people, in an awkward relationship with each other, are even suspicious.

So I brought him into the library and asked again. 

“Have you ever visited as a descendant?”

“It’s not like that.”

But unfortunately, there was no meaningful answer. 

It wasn’t ‘I don’t want to say it’, it was ‘I don’t think I could say it’, so I thought it might be a military-secret issue, but if that was the case, he would have refrained from doing anything conspicuous.

Werner has answered my questions regularly since he opened his mouth, but most of them were “difficult to tell,” which did not help answer my questions.

It was such a frustrating time. 

I gave up trying to figure something out from Werner Gottlief. Once the identity is clear, grab the military and stretch out if there is a problem.

We don’t get to see each other often anyway.

People often make silly judgments. Looking back now, I was just like that at the time.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then at least this.”

I raise my head. 

Except for the closed day, the man, who has already appeared for a week, took candy out of his pocket and put it on my desk.

It was really a ‘candy’.

A man named ‘Werner Gottlief’ has visited the 14th library every day since that day.

A gritty man adds gritty behaviour. 

The suspicious man felt suspicious day by day. 

When I think of the contents of the conversation we sometimes had, I feel goodwill rather than hostility, but even that was strange.

Why? 

When did you see me? 

For what reason?

The visitor of the 14th library was like a shipwreck that got lost in a storm. 

They never come because they want it in the first place, but once they are sent back on the right path, there is no need to see them again.

But Werner was not lost. He came on his own. 

Then, what’s the reason?

The candy, which looked very small when it was in his hand, returned to its normal size on the desk.

Looking at me with a light smile, he went into the library and took out a book and appeared again. And yes, he sits in a place he has become accustomed to in a few days.

Admittedly, it was clear that Werner Gottlief had no interest in books.

He was like a 12-year-old boy who takes out one book every day and looks at it, but has given up his studies.

He looked out the window rather than the book, stood more than the window, and looked inside. Because of that, the daily life of the past week is that even if we make eye contact, we can have a nonsensical conversation.

“Excuse me, Mr Werner.”

I was displeased with it, so I opened my mouth first.

A very sunny place. 

Werner, sitting opposite my favourite seat, looked at me.

“What’s wrong?”

“It is possible to borrow the book you are looking at. It’s basically two weeks, and if you’re slow to read, you can extend it for two more weeks and borrow it for up to a month.”

What I meant is there was no need to come every day. 

He doesn’t seem interested in books, but he pretends to read them.

He asked with a light smile.

“You don’t want me to visit you?”

“For now, I can’t say that because I’m a librarian.”

“I will be quiet. If you need a helping hand, I can do it.”

That’s why it’s burdensome.

There’s a lot of work to do as I have to do everything by myself, but I’m not too thoughtless to borrow a visitor’s hand. Moreover, favours for which the reason is unknown are not desirable. Even if there is a reason, I don’t want to receive it.

I shouldn’t approach it this way. Let me choose my words again.

“Mr Werner, isn’t it difficult for you to come here?”

A lot of it was abbreviated sounds. The relationship between Aurel and Gottlief. 

…And the current situation resulting from it.

I wanted to ask from the beginning, but I swallowed it because I didn’t know he would come every day. When I thought we weren’t seeing each other often, I was less interested than now.

However, after watching him for a week, I changed my mind.

Words continued for a week, every day, and if this continues, we’ll see each other a few more times. I can’t openly express my discomfort in the name of the librarian, so I’ll have to make a point here.

“Aurel and Gottlieb. A historic dog and a cat. I don’t know if you’re forced to come because of your descendants’ work, but you said it wasn’t.

“Even if there are people who think that way, it has nothing to do with me.”

“Werner, do you think the sacrifice or disaster is a lame old story?”

After a moment of silence, Werner opened his mouth, covering the bookshelf.

“It’s not some old-fashioned tale.”

Werner, who said so, was still smiling, but he didn’t look as good as before.

I touched it wrong.

Due to the absence of a disaster for a long time, the present Gottliefs are used as a group of powerful men within the military, but their origins were not.

But I said something that denied the origin itself, so if you have affection for the group, you may feel bad.

Wrinkles cast on the beautiful forehead. Light from the window flowed down with a smooth trimmed nose and chin.

At the height of contemplating whether to apologize or pretend not to know while watching a rather picturesque scene, an old door opened and a young man with grey hair and orange eyes pushed himself.

“Iris, hello! I’m here!”

Smiling as brightly as his loud greeting, he was a mailman belonging to the library, and his name was Alvin. He is in charge of liaison between the library and the main building.

[T/N: Liaison – communication or cooperation which facilitates a close working relationship between people or organizations.]

As such, Alvin, who had entered the reading room vigorously, opened his eyes wide as soon as he found Werner.

“What is it? A visitor? Are you really a visitor?”

“Lower your voice. Let’s go out and talk. Werner, I’m sorry. I’ll be away for a second.”

“Okay.”

I pulled Alvin out of the reading room and asked.

“What’s going on?”

“Wow, I’ve seen that uniform before. He’s a soldier, right? What’s going on here? Iris, did you do anything wrong?”

“What’s going on?”

“Ah, please don’t be so cold-hearted and answer me.”

“So, what’s going on?”

Even if Alvin kept standing and glancing inside, I had no intention of answering his question. If you don’t cut it off, things get more troublesome.

Sources working in a closed space are the main culprits in spreading distorted rumours. Giving an excuse is not enough.

When I didn’t respond, Alvin eventually pouted his lips.

“It’s a message from the library’s main building. By 6 o’clock, we will pick one person from each library and gather in the conference room in the main building. It’s a festival soon, and I guess that’s why they have something to announce.”

Alvin, who threw up his not-so-long main topic, still grumbled as if he was dissatisfied. 

Anyway, it’s a festival.

“Are you talking about the time of liberation?”

Alvin nodded. I almost looked in the direction of Werner for a moment. 

Yes, it was.

Time of liberation.

This was also a festival to honour Aurel, who was well known and masked. The period from when the disaster appeared and Aurel was chosen as a sacrifice and offered to Ruera was held as a festival.

Although the date varies from year to year due to the use of a unique calculation method, it is always the day that this festival begins when a disaster appears, and one of the descendants is chosen as a sacrifice. It is said that the descendants chosen as sacrifices have red eyes instead of golden eyes.

But let me tell you, even that was hundreds of years ago. Even with the solemn name of the time of liberation, it was possible to enjoy it as a festival, thanks to the absence of disasters or sacrifices for a very long time.

But the Gottlief unit is moving again.

It’s not that there’s no possibility at all. But…

“Come to think of it, Iris is also a descendant, right? Aren’t you worried?”

Alvin, who became slightly serious, asked if he had even thought of the connection between the time of liveration and Aurel’s descendants.

I answered without sincerity.

“Nothing has happened in the past hundreds of years, will there be a problem?”

“That’s right, though, you could know the date and time of the catastrophe, but you couldn’t always tell the year. Don’t you think that what used to come once in decades could come once in hundreds of years?”

It’s not a problem that can be solved just by worrying.

Needless to say, I am overly optimistic, but it was the truth. Worrying about it isn’t going to solve it. The choice was for Ruera, not for the descendants.

I sent back Alvin, who was making more fuss than me, and I went back to the reading room.

After that, I tried to resume the story, but the thick hour hand was approaching six. It seems that a mailman who visited a while ago chatted for a long time in another library.

I don’t want the story to end like this. 

There is nothing I can do.

“I’m sorry, Mr Werner. I have to go to the library’s main building, so I think we’ll have to talk about it later.”

“Then I’ll be waiting.”

“I don’t know when it will end. I’ll just leave today and see you later. If you leave the book as it is, I’ll organize it when I get back.”

I apologized to Werner and headed to the library’s main building. 

Apart from the nickname of ‘A librarian’s exile’, my job satisfaction was not very low, but considering the distance when I was called to the main building like this, there is no sense of injustice given to the name.

I quickly walked through the forest path, still lit by bright light. 

Fortunately, I was able to arrive on time.