I finish skimming through the last book and put it back onto the pile. An exhausted sigh escapes my mouth. That was a lot of information to take in. Sunlight blares through the window and I squint. 

It’s sunset already?! Even though I skimmed through most of them? Suddenly, I recall the guards standing outside. Poor them. They must have been standing in front of the surrounding bookshelves for hours now. I put the rest of the laid books into a neat pile and stretch.

“Okay, Cynthia,” I say, taking a bite out of the last snack. “Here’s what I found- Huh? Cynthia?” I look around the small reading area. She’s… gone? Where did she-

I notice a figure looming over Herman on the ground floor. Cynthia’s sitting on his shoulders, her elbows supporting her head as she looks down and reads whatever Herman is reading. Why is she sitting on everyone?! I never did that as a spirit because I knew that it was disrespectful, so why wouldn’t she do the same? 

I know it’s nice to have the freedom of no one knowing what you’re doing, but did she lose all of her respect? I gesture at her to come back over, in which she looks up at me and gives me a playful look.

“Get. Back. Here.” I whisper loudly through gritted teeth. She rolls her eyes and floats back over. 

“Come on, Adeelliiaaaaaaa.” She whines. “Herman was reading this super-duper interesting book called Creation and Demise! It’s about the creation of humans and stuff and how-”

“Cynthia, not now. We don’t have time to summarize fantasy books. I’ve read all the books and I’m going to tell you what I found out.” I pick up the first book I read and start skimming to the page I mentally marked. Ah, here it is. I open my mouth to read the information when Cynthia interrupts me.

“Wait, wait, wait. How are you even able to read that?” She questions, pointing at it with a confused yet impressed tone in her voice.

“What do you mean?” I look down. Even if it was formatted in tiny letters, the contents were rather simple…

“No, look! This isn’t English. I should have noticed sooner, but the characters are totally different and… Well, like, softer! Smoother? Urgh, you get it!”

I tilt my head and take a closer look at it. She’s right. They’re in a completely different form than English writing. And like Cynthia says, they look like fancy little squiggles, all connected to one another. Still, I’m able to translate what it says in my head. This isn’t really even close to English, so it’s definitely not from the same language family… Or maybe it is? Just different branches? I had no idea. Really… How far back in time have we gone? 

“Wait, you’re right. What language is this?” I ask as a rhetorical question. Cynthia shakes her head, shrugging. I should’ve read that section about languages better, but since I didn’t really know it wasn’t English, I just thought it would all be obvious stuff… Ugh, I don’t want to go through all those books to find it again… 

Maybe this is just some sort of thing inherited from the transition to Adeline’s body. Wait a minute…

“Cynthia, now that I think about it, how were you able to read the book Herman was reading if all the books here are in another language?” If she can’t read what I’m reading, then maybe… Hm… None of my theories make sense!

“I don’t know. For some reason, that book was in a language I could read. Since I could read it, it’s also probably English. Wait. Is it? Should I go check?” She shrugs while asking.

Okay, that’s weird. First, if it really was English, how could it be in the book? And how could Mr. Herman be reading it? I don’t get it! Okay, never mind. We’ll think about that another time. Right now let’s focus on the information I found.

I drew in a sharp breath to calm my running thoughts and pat the books on the coffee table next to me. “Anyways, I found some information about this world that might be useful. I’ll just do a quick summary because it’s getting late. I found some records about some more recent things, like the ongoing civil war.”

“CIVIL WAR?!” Cynthia shouted. I covered my ears. “There’s a war going on?! Isn’t that dangerous?!”

“Well yeah, obviously. It’s a war.” I say as a witty remark while rolling my eyes.

“Well! You know what I mean! Is the war going to affect us? Are we going to be attacked?”

“Probably not. Anyways, about the war-”

“But it-”

 “ABOUT THE WAR,” I say sternly, glaring at Cynthia. She quickly shuts up and backs away. “Let me explain how it started.”

The Kingdom of Vaarsela was run by a benevolent king, His Majesty Norith. Dramatic improvement in technology, education, and arts rose throughout his reign and even the nobles and commoners somewhat lived in harmony. That is, until the king became mortally ill. The queen, having limited experience, was incapable of running the kingdom as well as the new land they had conquered a little time before. As a result, the king decided to rush his decision on picking an heir and promoted the first prince, his highness Rowland, to crown prince. 

The kingdom quickly prepared a ceremony, but before all the rights could be handed over to the crown prince through the ceremony, the king died. Still, the first prince argued that he held the future rights to the throne. The second prince found this unfair. In addition to both princes being the same age, the first prince was running the kingdom poorly along with the queen. 

The nobles became more arrogant as they doused themselves in luxurious goods. The commoners fell further into poverty. The prince and queen were running the kingdom to fit their own benefits, and as long as the people who had the most power were on their side, they didn’t care about anything else. The second prince decided that if he were crown prince, he would run the kingdom for his people instead of for selfish reasons. 

He gathered up the commoners to form a rebellion against the crown prince and the queen, but the idea slowly fell apart and failed as more and more people fell into poverty and didn’t have the time or money. 

As a last resort, he decided to reveal his rebellion and plan to split the kingdom in two to achieve freedom for his people. There were more commoners than nobles since only the richest were allowed to have the title of a noble, and even if they were rich, the ones who worked under them were severely underpaid, making for an easy rebellion and many people quitting their jobs to join the second prince’s force.

The second prince had been waiting for this moment and had saved up a lot of money so that he could support his people when the Queen inevitably cut him off from the treasury and other resources in the palace.

That’s when the civil war truly started. The crown prince was battling for command over all of Vaarsela, whereas the second prince was revolting to overthrow the current ruler and even create a separate country where his citizens could live freely. The kingdom has been at war ever since.

“That sounds like something straight out of a fairytale! Or a historical horror movie. Yeah, that.” Cynthia exclaimed, grabbing her head in both shock and confusion. “Except, it’s actually happening. Like right now. Urgh, I don’t remember this event too well from school. This is the biggest piece of drama I’ve ever heard happen in real life!”

“Cynthia, you’re a high school student. You’ve constantly been seeing huge amounts of drama, both in T.V. and in real life.” I replied. She rolled her eyes.

“Well, I don’t think that random divorce cases and crush drama compares to HECKING CIVIL WARS! There’s a huge difference you know-”

I jump and stop my sentence from the shouting coming from the opposite side of the library. I turn my head around to identify the commotion. 

One of the library assistants was holding two kids by the back of their shirts. Judging from what they were wearing and from the fact that they had dirt all over their faces, I could guess that the kids were both commoners. It was quite a sight to see the lanky assistant hold up two scrawny kids as if they weighed nothing, especially when they were trying to kick their way free of the librarian’s grasp.

“Trying to steal books, weren't you?! I’ll have you know this is a library for the nobles only! Filthy rats like you are forbidden to even touch one of these books!” The assistant shouted loud and clear so that all corners of the library could hear. Everyone turned their heads to look.

“I swear we weren’t stealing the books! We just-” One of the boys tries to justify himself.

“You’re lucky I didn’t call the guards to arrest and execute you both! Never set foot in here again you hear me!?” The assistant throws both boys out of the library in a manner that could certainly not be called gentle. As the assistant slams the doors shut, everyone seems to be whispering in concern, or maybe they’re enjoying the new gossip material. 

“Apologies dear patrons. Just… a minor inconvenience.” He says as an attempt to diffuse the situation. Everyone slowly gets back to doing their own things, although multiple whispers remain. I sneak a glance at Cynthia. 

She looks livid. 

“Cynthia? What is it?” There’s no aggressiveness behind my question. Just concern. I haven’t seen her this mad since that child neglect case we watched on television. 

“What the hell was that?!” She turns around and plants her foot down with a stomp and paces back and forth. “Why would he call them filthy rats?! They’re just children! God, even if they were an adult that would be unfair! Why does he get to act all high and mighty just because he has more money than them?! This is-”

“Cynthia, calm down,” I say before she can start a full-on rant. “This is a result of the war going on. Nobles have always been considered more important than commoners, but now since there’s more of a huge wealth gap, the commoners are treated worse these days.”

“But that’s-”

“That’s just how it is. It’s just how places with social hierarchies work, especially in a monarchy in the older years. There’s not really anything we can do to change that.” It was just how it was back in the days. Adeline didn’t feel too bad about it, and after thinking about it logically, neither did I. I start picking up the books and get ready to leave until I hear a small whisper from behind me.

“Not if I can do anything about it!”

I whip my head around. Cynthia’s nowhere to be seen. Darn it! Where did she go? I notice part of her bright pink hair floating behind a bookshelf. Stop wandering off! I say internally. I storm over to behind the bookshelf to fetch her, and-

“Oomph!” I ran into someone.

As my eyesight’s still a little blurred, I can hear the person in front of me yelp. “Lady Adeline?! My humblest apologies. Do you need anything?” I look up to see who it is. 

It’s the library assistant.