{Chapter: 230: Weird Books II}
What he didn't know—what none of them knew—was that the book in Dex's hands was actually tame compared to some of the bizarre tomes he had studied now.
Titles like:
[How to See with the Left and Right Eyes], [Symphony of Knife and Fork], [The Girlfriend of a Good Sister], [The Domineering Dwarf Loves the Dragon] [Can a Dragon female Mate With A Male Donkey], [Various Safe Positions In Which Male Can Have Sex With An¡m@ls], [Various Safe Positions In Which Female Can Have Sex With An¡m@ls], [Are Green-skinned Orcs Ordinary People], [How to Milk a Minotaur Without Dying], [Seducing the Swamp Hag: A Guide to Moist Encounters], [I Married My Chimera and We Had Tentacle Babies], [Fifty Shades of Fey: Consent Is Optional in the Fae Courts], [The Necromancer's Guide to Romantic Resurrection], [Old Enough to Count, Old Enough to Mount], [Riding the Centaur: Saddle Optional], [The Elf Who Cried D@ddy: F*rb¡dd€n Forest Fantasies], [When the Griffin Moans: Positions That Shouldn't Work (But Do)], [Lube, Love, and Lycans: Full Moon Erotica], [Spells, Chains, and Dragon Tails], [How to P€g a Paladin Without Losing Your Soul], [Goblins in Heat: A Br€€d¡ng Season Survival Guide], [Touched by a Troll: Why My Cave Smells Like Lust], [She Was a Slime Girl, I Was Just a Farmer], [Angels Fall Too: Holy Orgies of the Celestial Choir], [The Satyr's Secret: A Diary of Endless Org¡€s], [The Cursed Diblo of Dungeon #13] [My Step-Dragon is Also My Ride] [Donkey D@dd¡es and Unicorn Queens], [One Night in the Brothel of the Nine Hells], [Can You Get Pregnant from Shadow Possession?], [Can a Halfling Survive a Night with a Giantess?], [How Many Orcs Can Fit in One Elf (Asking for Magic)], [The Philosopher's Guide to Dating the D€@d], [Do Fairies Fart During Sex?], [Why My Dragon Has a Fetish for Castles], [The Cook, the Witch, and the Thrice-Pregnant Broomstick], [Why Demons, Dragons, Devils, and Vampires Prefer Virgins (And Other Culinary Myths)], [The Secret Language of Orgasming Ogres], [Can a Vampire Survive on Werewolf Milk Alone?], [Do Goblins Dream of Shaved Elves?], [A Gentle Guide to Being R@p€d by Unicorns (and Enjoying It)], [The Bunny Girl Manual: High-Stamina Positions for Hyper-Fertile Mates] [Claws, Cocks, and Consent: Taming the Beastman Between the Sheets], [Fur and Flesh: Interbreeding Compatibility Charts for Humanoids and Beast folk], [Physiology of Beast-People and How They Breed: All the Positions for the Ultimate Experience! Vol. 2]...
That was the title Dex was calmly reading in broad daylight.
Not under a blanket. Not hidden in a corner. Right out in the open, with the kind of unshakable composure normally reserved for people analyzing ancient magical theories or researching interdimensional travel.
It was simply beyond reason.
A case of killing all sense of normalcy—and refusing to bury it.
Absolutely insane.
And yet, he read it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if this volume—part two of a series, mind you—deserved academic scrutiny.
Even culture books like that could be read with Zen-like calm?
Was there nothing that could rattle this man?
---
Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers away from the city of Augustus...
Deep in the heart of an uncharted forest, beneath a thick canopy of twisting branches and vines, a bald, muscle-bound man trudged forward through the wilderness. He carried over his shoulder one of the two noble brothers who had been captured not long ago. The captured noble, thin and pale, looked terrified beyond reason—his eyes flicking back and forth, sweat dripping from his temple.
Eventually, the group arrived at the mouth of a moss-covered cave. There, the bald man stopped and glanced at the stone wall ahead. His tone turned cold and deadly serious.
"You're sure the treasure is hidden in here?"
"I-I'm sure! Absolutely sure!" the noble stammered, nearly choking on his own fear. "How would I dare lie to you?!"
His tone was shaky and submissive, making it obvious he was the more cowardly of the two brothers.
The bald man gave a satisfied nod, cracking a grin that didn't reach his eyes.
"Good. In that case, you'll be our guide. And if you don't want to go join your brother in the afterlife, then don't try anything clever."
The coward visibly trembled. Thoughts of his brother's gruesome death—and the bloody massacre of the mercenaries who had accompanied them—flooded his mind. Swallowing hard, he raised his hands and tried to explain in a panicked voice, "S-sir, it's not that I'm unwilling! It's just… this place was enchanted generations ago by my ancestors! Anyone who tries to enter without passing the trial will die! If I go in and fail, I might die instantly!"
He shivered and added weakly, "My death doesn't matter, but if I drag you down with me, wouldn't that be a disaster?"
The bald man didn't say a word. He simply raised a hand and slapped the noble across the face with a loud crack.
"Idiot!" he barked. "After you ran off, we searched your estate and found records about this so-called treasure! The legendary 'erasure mechanism' your family speaks of? It's nothing but a scare tactic! A test of courage passed down to keep weaklings like you from squandering your inheritance!"
"W-what…?" the noble stuttered, dazed from the slap. His mind went blank for a moment before a light of realization flickered in his eyes.
Now that he thought about it… it did make some twisted sense. What kind of ancestor would be so deranged as to install a real death trap just to test their descendants? Wouldn't that defeat the whole point of leaving behind a legacy?
Feeling shame rise in his gut, the noble straightened his back, trying his best to act courageous. He walked forward, drew a knife from his sleeve with trembling fingers, and cut a shallow wound into his palm. With gritted teeth, he flung his blood against the stone wall.
"Buzz…"
A low hum echoed through the cave as a ripple of energy passed across the surface. Slowly, a hidden door materialized in the rock like a mirage fading into clarity.
The bald man's eyes lit up instantly.
"There it is."
He waved his companions forward and pushed the door open, still carrying the noble like a sack of grain under his arm. He wasn't about to let the brat out of his sight. More importantly—he knew there was a talisman inside that was key to the treasure.
He was not letting that slip away.
As they stepped through the door, a sudden blast of heat engulfed them. An overwhelming wave of flame surged toward them like a roaring dragon.
Instead of panicking, the bald man simply laughed.
"Hah! What a joke," he said as he lifted the noble higher, using him like a human shield. "According to the ancestral notes, this barrier is only meant to test pain tolerance—it won't actually kill the inheritor. So if I just use him as cover, we'll breeze right through."
But just as he stepped forward, smug and confident, the searing heat intensified.
In the next instant, the noble in his grasp let out a bloodcurdling scream as his body was engulfed in fire. The smell of burning flesh filled the air as the man's body went rigid—then limp.
The bald man stared in shock as the corpse he was holding became a charred husk—blackened, limbs twisted, steam rising.
Eight-tenths cooked. Practically ready for serving.
His confident grin froze.
The flames didn't stop.
Instead, they surged forward like a living creature with a thirst for vengeance, surrounding him from all sides with terrifying intensity.
"Oh no…"
That was all he managed to say before the fire swallowed everything in its path.
---
It had taken Dex over a month—an excruciatingly long and mind-numbing thirty-three days—to finally collect all the knowledge contained in the first level of the archive.
Even with his brain repeatedly strengthened through countless modifications, abilities and magical enhancements, Dex still felt a lingering dizziness, as if his thoughts were swimming through syrup.
Though he hadn't begun to fully analyze or absorb the material yet, just scanning the surface-level content was enough to make him shake his head in disbelief. The sheer volume and variety of knowledge stored here was staggering, and even more baffling was the nature of some of the subjects.
He muttered to himself, "These people really do have the wildest interests..."
Not only were the research topics diverse, they were disturbingly twisted—so much so that even Dex, a literal demon with a flexible moral compass and a stomach hardened by centuries of eldritch horror, found himself disturbed.
There were titles that seemed more like deranged fever dreams than actual magical research:
[What does it feel like to fuck your own clone], [Whispers Beneath the Altar: The Priestess Who Kneels for Sin], [Masquerade of Moans: The House Where No One Says No], [Bound by Lust Runes: When Magic Circles Do More Than Summon], [The Noble's Plaything: Sold, Sealed, and Sinned], [My Master, My Shadow, My Lover: A Dark Pact of Pleasure], [My Tentacle Boyfriend and the Seven Holes of Pleasure], [The Moaning Mouth in the Wall], [The Hive That Hungers: Rituals of Flesh, Brood, and Bliss Beneath the Skin], [Whispers Beneath the Altar: The Priestess Who Kneels for Sin], [Womb of the Witch-Queen: A Diary of Holy Defilement]...
It was said there are all kinds of birds in a big forest—and in this case, the forest was made of madness.
Dex couldn't help but wonder what kind of minds had come together to record this information without any moral filters. It was as if, in their pursuit of understanding, these people had discarded the concepts of "right" and "wrong" entirely. They didn't seem to care whether their discoveries were beneficial to society, or even remotely sane. As long as it expanded the boundaries of knowledge, it was accepted and archived.
The library didn't just include arcane erotica and taboo magic. Its collection was wider, weirder, and wildly more chaotic than anything he had encountered before:
From [How to cook soil], to [Assembling a movable chariot with chicken skeletons], to [Detailed instructions on how to quickly slit the throats of various creatures], [Egg-Laying Ceremony in the Incest Chambers] the scope is so wide that it is a bit difficult to understand.
There were so many bizarre and unsettling entries that Dex wondered whether this archive had once been a dumping ground for the mad, the exiled, or the utterly unhinged.
And yet, he had to admit—this place possessed knowledge he'd never seen, not even while stealing secrets from the arcane towers of the wizarding world. The sheer creativity, both horrifying and fascinating, made him reconsider what counted as 'intelligence.'