Shoujo Hater

"Ok, let's start the final trial."

Luis Hermes muttered as he removed his baggy upper clothes and put on a white shirt.

Then he began climbing the stairs until he stood before a mysterious blue portal embedded in the ground.

He muttered the keyword.

"A reader without his book is a man without his symphony. Memora, open the gate of wisdom please."

As Luis finished his last words, a sudden blue light glowed and he disappeared, reappearing inside a long, dark gray labyrinth.

He fell on his small ass as it hit the ground.

"Ahhhh!!!

This isn't good. Why is my mum urging me to finish this trial so fast?

I have a bad feeling about it, but I don't have proof yet."

Slowly, Luis stood up and wiped the dust from his ass.

Check!

A sharp sound escaped from his left thumb snapping against his middle finger. A magic circle appeared and a yellow Grimoire materialized.

A yellow glow burst outward, illuminating everything around him.

Luis took a long breath and started walking slowly, as the smell of dust and old age began to fill his lungs.

He quickly activated a light mana glow around himself.

As he continued moving through the mysterious labyrinth, his blue eyes glowed and his blond hair shimmered in the light.

After a few hours, he entered a zone with five paths branching in different directions.

A strange feeling suddenly clung to him, warning him that there was a trap ahead.

Usually, a labyrinth trial followed a series of tests involving history, chemistry, knowledge, and many other subjects.

Luis had passed all of them except the final trial, which remained a mystery to all challengers.

It could not be defined by anything.

Some people were lucky and faced an easy trial. Others ended up in terrifying disasters.

Luis began to think about why there were so many roads at the center.

But as his thoughts drifted, a sudden earthquake struck.

Monsters poured out from four of the roads. Only one road remained silent.

Luis found himself surrounded by low level monsters.

Usually, the logical choice would be to run into the empty road.

But that was not the logical choice in Luis's way of thinking.

Since someone had created this trial and it existed within a Knowledge Library, it was likely a trap designed to force challengers down that specific road.

That meant you would simply be following the threads already laid out for you.

Luis chose to keep his back facing the open road.

As he drew a sword from his Grimoire, three monsters suddenly lunged at him.

Luis used his light enhancement and launched forward.

A mysterious shadow knight appeared behind him, her blond hair flowing. Borrowing her power, he cut down all three monsters in a single strike.

His hand trembled as blood poured from their bodies and they collapsed.

Then a wave of twenty monsters charged at him, moving in a strange pattern.

As Luis prepared to attack the front line, a sudden punch struck from behind and shook his shield.

That was when Luis began to understand what was happening.

The monsters attacked again.

He raised his right hand and took flight using air magic.

"Arrows of Orpheus."

The air around him transformed into countless arrows that pierced through the monsters.

The battle continued as more and more monsters appeared.

As he killed them, their levels began rising. Soon, they even started using fire magic.

"Damn it!

I get it now.

The more monsters I kill, the more monsters the roads send. As my kill count increases, their strength rises by more than double."

That was how Luis realized that the other roads were only generating more monsters.

He cut apart two large stone blocks, embedding one into the wall and using it as a high stand, since these monsters could not fly.

It was simply his way of applying critical thinking.

Once he was sure of his safety, he closed his eyes and stopped the light growing from his Grimoire.

Everything became dark.

He charged the floating stone block and launched it into one of the monster roads.

As he sensed another aura, he suddenly accelerated the block and hurled it toward the highly concentrated mana source he had detected and crashed its source.

Luis had two plans.

He chose this one because the second plan, although effective, would have caused a disaster.

For example, he could have created multiple mana blocks, one yellow and one white, and launched them in opposite directions so the monsters would attack each other.

Using only one mana type would be pointless. The labyrinth was already saturated with it, and monsters of the same energy source would never fight each other. That itself was proof that their sources were identical.

And If he used two blocks containing the same mana, nothing would change because this place was already saturated with that mana.

The monsters had not even tried to damage the walls, and that was what supported his main theory. After all, Luis had realized just how deep the roads extended.

If they were that deep, they should have been completely dark.

But the problem was that if the monsters kept fighting each other, their levels would continue increasing, and eventually they would become strong enough to kill him.

That was why he had to go with the main plan, which was to destroy every source of mana hidden within the four roads.

After finishing his main plan, Luis descended from his position.

His Grimoire glowed once more, illuminating the entire area.

He stepped forward with his left leg and took a deep breath.

His body stretched back as he gripped his glowing sword.

The same yellow haired woman suddenly appeared behind him, her eyes glowing bright yellow.

In an instant, a thin line of light swept across the battlefield.

More than one hundred heads fell simultaneously.

Luis left only three monsters alive.

As they tried to run away, he repeatedly appeared in front of them, guiding them toward the road that had sent no monsters.

Nothing happened to them.

Luis stared in confusion.

He then rushed forward and killed the three monsters.

He started taking long, exhausted breaths.

"How could this be?

This isn't logical."

As Luis began doubting his own intelligence,

"Freeeeedoooommmm!!!"

A sudden voice echoed from nowhere.

Luis looked up.

A golden light appeared.

For a rebellious soul, a legendary soul had joined the library.

The Eagle of the Golden Era, a being of wrath and freedom.

Suddenly, everything disappeared.

The world turned green and sunny, filled with a beautiful warmth.

"Congratulations, kid, on finishing the first exam.

You still have two more exams before completing the final trial.

As a reward, you may ask one question."

A question?

"Can I get the record of the person who made this exam?"

The golden eagle frowned.

He had expected the kid to ask something important.

At the very least, a hint about the next exam.

Instead, he wanted the record of that bastard.

And somehow he had even guessed that a recording existed.

Still, it was his reward, and the eagle only had one job.

A screen suddenly appeared.

It showed a man wearing a monocle.

He had a calm and goofy demeanor.

"Yooo, stupid genius.

I am lumian.

If you're watching this record, that means you surpassed my tests.

You're probably wondering why the last exam was so simple and why you ended up fighting so many monsters.

I built all the exams around a chain of logical thinking.

As for the last one, it was a trick designed specifically to fool smart people.

Because it's funny.

I love making smart people feel stupid.

Heeeeeheeeee.

Anyway, remember this lesson.

Overthinking is usually not a good thing.

Sometimes the answer is right in front of you, but your brain and heart are blind to it.

That is why the most important thing for survival is instinct, not intelligence.

People with terrifying instincts are the worst kind of monsters."

As the man finished speaking, three names surfaced in Luis's mind.

Lin.

Jester.

Adrian Law.

They were all recorded within the library's archives.

One of them had a surname that had disappeared.

Adrian still possessed his.

Lin, however, had never possessed a surname to begin with.

That was absurd.

There was no recorded case of someone being archived without a second name.

Usually, when a person's second name disappeared, it meant they had destroyed their fate and become free from its restraints, capable of shaping their own destiny.

It was an extremely rare occurrence.

Those who achieved it were often insane beyond measure.

As for people recorded without a surname at all, it indicated that their origin was unknown.

The archive had recently begun recording some of Lin's movements and combat techniques.

As for Jester, all recordings had mysteriously stopped two years ago.

The only thing known about him was his ideology, Jesterism, and his strange martial art.

"Ahem, ahem."

The voice from the recording pulled Luis out of his thoughts.

"I wouldn't recommend fighting someone like that.

Bye bye.

Hope you survive the other two exams.

You got lucky because the previous owner before the current one was a good person.

Sorry, that's me.

Haaa, haaa.

See you later."

After getting his answer, Luis turned toward the golden eagle.

"What did he mean by that?"

"There are libraries filled with evil knowledge.

They have no morals.

They force people to do things they hate and make them suffer.

Sometimes a bad library can become good.

The opposite is also true.

Anyway, enough of that.

Give me a quote that reflects your first exam.

It will be recorded for future generations.

Then you may begin your next exam."

A quote?

"A blind eye can guide you more than an open heart."

"That's a good one."

The golden eagle nodded.

"Time for your next exam.

I will send you there now.

It is called:

Guiding a Soul."

—

Reader's Archive by Luis:

Adrian was born with the Eyes of the Reader's Archive, eyes that allow him to perceive reality as a collection of laws rather than matter or energy.

Every flame burns bec

ause of a law. Every life exists because of a law. Even fate, time, and death are bound by them.

Adrian has the potential to read, alter, and absorb these laws, granting him authority over the very foundations of existence.

As one of the Archive's most remarkable records, he possesses the potential to reshape nature and time.