Arknights: When Hunters Meet (A Tacet x Projekt Red novel)

Chapter 18 - Passion and Blade Matching - Projekt Red Route

It would be almost a week since I would see her again.

It was a hurried operator exiting the library as I went in that should have been the first clue. It was eerily empty though it was usually well-used on most hours. All those that were still present were the librarian in charge and Istina standing further away on a table with several books about her. She regarded me with a curiosity as if a mouse entered a predator's den and went back to her study. I had decided not to inquire of the strange situation and went about my business. I frequented the library quite often. Both to catch up on the history of Terra but also to discover more of the written art of the many nations and generations before. As easily as I could have found that information on the intranet I had a passion for reading actual books. To feel them in my hands and peruse one's pages. To smell its paper. It was just such a human experience for me that I could never replace. I was already carrying a book and was perusing for the next one. Just as I found my query and gripped my next choice I heard her voice.

-Red has need of that.

A man of weaker heart would have flinched, yet I was only surprised for her to have sneaked besides me in such a hushed place. Perhaps I was too laid back with my sharpness that day. And there was Red, looking at me, serious and expressionless. Save for her ever present aura of imminent danger that sent fellow lupos of her race into a near state of terrified delirium.

-''I have need of it too.'' I retorted serious and to the point.

A silence stretched between us as neither of us backed down.

-I won't give it to you. If you really have need of it then we can share it and study together.

She didn't respond immediately.

-''Okay.'' She relented.

We both sat in front of a heavy wooden table in the library together, taking seats close to each other as I opened the book for us to study. The book was a very recently published study into various new applied Arts that were practiced on the field. Defensively and offensively. Explanations on methods of different applications and functionality. And most importantly, ways to understand, anticipate and counteract such forms of Arts to one's advantage on the battlefield. The book itself had many subjects that I already had read of on the intranet. And many things from it I already had a base understanding of thanks to my never ending hunger for knowledge that had seen me spend almost entire nights awake. In the end I spent most of the time explaining the subjects to Red and highlighting more important points of interest in between. Several times I couldn't help but catch Istina giving us inconspicuous glances now and then. Soon two hours already passed that we decided to wrap it up and leave our separate ways to have a meal.

-Thank you. Not many have patience to stay and explain for me.

It was a sort of sad statement I realised. But she didn't need pity. I believed she deserved more respect than that.

-Think nothing of it. Take the book. Now that I explained the gist of it you will pick up fast the rest of it.

She nodded and we parted after that. It was later at a food stand when I was savouring a wrapped bundle of sargonian vegetables with meat that I heard it.

-In the library? Did he carry her out the same way he did last time by the thighs??
-I don't know, but they were mostly alone in there, maybe they made out in the furthest section!

I chocked on my damn shaorma. God damn these rumours. There would be no escape from them even if one of us died. Even other lupo operators started eyeing me strangely since then. For what reason I couldn't tell exactly though I've read many things in their gazes. Curiosity and fear, and maybe more, desire? As weird as that was. They thought I was hitting on the fiercest lupo in all of Rhodes Island! Somehow that caught their attention or interest. And not soon after I met a troublemaker.