The queen of darkness grows in power, surrounded by countless books.
She shall soon depart, on a journey to spread terror through the world.

Demons and dragons shall bow before her might.
Heroes and kings will submit to her in fear.

As she commands her army, her hand shall cover the world in shadow.
But a silver knight, wielding a sword of light, will be able to oppose her.

When the day of fire arrives, death and despair will rule.
Unless the knight points her blade at the true enemy of the world.

"Wow, it seems like a really scary villain is going to appear soon"

The emerald oracle has made a prophecy for the first time in ten years, following the usual protocol it has been sent to everyone in the kingdom who has a device capable of receiving official messages, such as this enchanted mirror we have at the library.

"Well, it's not like this is something that should concern a normal girl like me"

The prophecy even mentions the one who is supposedly destined to deal with the problem, a 'silver knight', so there's probably nothing to worry about.

"Still... this is a very unusual prophecy"

Normally, prophecies tend to be full of metaphors and riddles so that there's no way to know for sure what it is that they are referring to until it happens, but this one is clearly a warning about a villain, there's even an image of the 'queen of darkness' in question.

At a glance her appearance is quite intimidating, she seems to be an elf with a face that looks beautiful in a scary way, her long black hair reaches all the way down to her legs, her eyes are the same shade of purple as my own and she's wearing a purple outfit very similar to the one I'm wearing right now, on her neck, there's a necklace with a crescent moon that looks exactly like mine...

"No... it can't be"

While doing my best to keep calm, I look for the normal mirror on the other side of the room, after taking a good look at myself, I go back to the enchanted mirror and compare the two.

Yeah, that's definitely me...

But that can't be! I'm just a regular librarian who's only interested in reading books and researching magic, I'm not a queen of darkness or of anything else!

"Luna, are you in there?"

I hear the voice of the head librarian calling out to me from outside the room, I erase the message on the mirror in a hurry with a wave of my hand just before he opens the door.

"I'm here! Do you need anything?"

The old man looks up at me with a tired expression, the top of his head barely reaches the height of my breasts, not because he's short, I'm the one who's really tall.

"What did you do to those two students that just left to scare them so much? They looked like they were on the verge of tears"

"Eeeh? I just told them that we were about to close the library and that they should leave"

"Is that so..." He says, not sounding very convinced.

Well, they didn't want to leave at first so I had to raise my voice a little, then, when they turned around and saw me, they suddenly went pale and started apologizing like crazy. Really, if you get scared so easily, you should just listen to what people tell you in the first place.

"Is something wrong? You seem nervous"

Of course I'm nervous after reading such an outlandish prophecy about myself! But I can't let him know about that...

"I'm fine, I think I'll go back to my room for today"

His eyes open in surprise at my words.

"Are you sure you're fine? Normally you spend at least an hour making sure everything is in place after we close, even if I keep telling you that nobody else does that..."

Just because other people do not take their work seriously does not mean that I should be lazy too! But today I have other things to worry about.

"Yes, don't worry, I'll see you tomorrow"

Since I don't have a home, I was given a room on the top floor of the library, because of that, I don't often go outside and interact with other people, which is probably for the best since most of my social interactions tend to go like the one with those students from before.

In any case, now that I'm here I can relax and think rationally about that prophecy. First of all, it's obvious that anyone who listens to it is going to think that I'm secretly planning to take over the world or something, that's of course completely ridiculous, there's no way that a weak and gentle girl like myself could do something like 'spread terror through the world' or any of that other stuff.

"It does seem too silly to be true, will anyone actually believe it?"

But the prophecies from the emerald oracle are always taken very seriously by the higher-ups of the kingdom, maybe they will realize that it was a misunderstanding when they actually meet me, but at the very least, they are going to launch an investigation into me.

That could be a problem, I've been researching dark magic since darkness is my main attribute, and some of the fields I've studied are... technically illegal if you apply a strict reading of the law. I'm not trying to do anything bad of course, it's just that there are many forms of magic that have been given a bad name after having been used for evil in the past, so they have not been given a proper chance by other mages. I just want to study their beneficial applications and prove that all forms of magic can be used for good.

So what should I do? Should I just get rid of all of my research? That would be too much of a waste... Maybe I should hide everything somewhere until everything clears up? But I have no place to leave everything at other than this library.

"Uh, I can't believe this, what have I ever done to get into so much trouble?"

Now that I think about it, am I even sure that the prophecy was really talking about me? The emerald oracle is supposed to be very accurate, which means that everything on it is probably true, but that is completely absurd if the 'queen of darkness' is supposed to be me.

In reality, the only reason I thought that it was me is that I saw an image of myself, but I saw it while looking at the enchanted mirror which is, in fact, still a mirror.

And that first line, which supposedly talks about what the 'queen of darkness' is currently doing does not fit me at all! I'm certainly not 'growing in power' and I'm not surrounded by 'countless books', there's 324611 books on this library, I counted them.

Could it be that the enchantment on the mirror was malfunctioning and what I saw was my actual reflection? Well, the reflection was not following my movements at all... I guess the mirror was malfunctioning too, yeah, that's probably it.

"Now I feel like an idiot for worrying so much..."

I mean, the 'queen of darkness'? me? I can't help but laugh at myself for believing any of that.

I need to get my mind on something else, maybe I should go back and check the library after all? No, I already said that I would not be doing that today.

I guess I'll continue with the novel that I've been reading, 'The adventures of the crimson slayers', it's a typical story about a group of heroes going on a journey to fight against evil.

This type of tale makes for great escapism, after all, who would not want to be a hero? They are loved by everyone and people praise them instead of being afraid of them, they travel across the world instead of spending each of their days alone inside of a library, in short, they are the exact opposite of me.

But there's no way I could ever become a hero, heroes are supposed to be brave and strong while I have not been in a single fight in my life. If I ever run into a monster in the wild I'll probably get killed immediately.

That does not mean that I'm planning on staying a librarian my entire life, as much as I like books, I want to become a magic researcher full time someday.

...

"Well that was a good read"

After I finish the book I go down to the first floor to put it back in its place, when I'm about to go back to my room, I hear some voices on the other side of the hallway.

'That's strange, why are people here this late in the night?'

I take a peek around the corner and see the head librarian talking to a group of people that appear to be knights.

'Isn't that the uniform of the royal knights?'

The royal knights are an elite force that works directly for the king, I heard that most of their members are above level 100. What could they be possibly doing at the library? There's no way that they're here because of the prophecy right?

"We're looking for a female elf with black hair and purple eyes that should be living here"

They are looking for me!!! And now they are showing the head librarian something, I think it's the prophecy. Good, now he should explain to them how ridiculous all of this is.

"Yes, this is Luna... I always knew that there was something wrong with that girl, but I never would have imagined something like this..."

Why are you believing it so easily!? You have known me for years! Shouldn't you be a little doubtful?

"Her room is on the top floor, follow me"

And why are you handing over your subordinate so quickly!? At least ask a few questions first!

And now they're all coming this way.

I think I might be in trouble.

forli

After being here reading stories for some time now, and now that I'm quarantined, I finally decided to give it a try to publish one myself, since English is not my first language and I've got no experience writing at all I'm expecting this to go rather poorly but you never know until you try.

Please let me know what you think