The Bread Archive

“Okay, then I would like to begin the first Bread Archive Brain Conference. Applause, please.”

“Don’t call it the Bread Archive.”

Snap.

A blazing fire burned red in the fireplace, and sparks slowly danced within the hearth.

A candle chandelier flickered from the high ceiling, and the warm yet faint light of several lanterns hanging on the walls illuminated the bookshelves towering like walls.

This was Tooyama Naruhito’s dream. An adventurer’s dream, and the official archive of Harvey, familiar of knowledge.

No, now it was already the Bread Archive.

“Shut up. Where’s the applause, gloomy pseudo-vampire?”

Tooyama directed a thorny voice toward the gray-haired woman leaning deeply back in an armchair.

Red-rimmed glasses and a beret with a feather ornament.

A beauty with white skin and a small face, one in whom childishness and bewitching allure coexisted, sighed languidly.

“Hah, I don’t get it. What part of me is gloomy? Besides, why are you showing up here with such a carefree face?”

Harvey’s words were reasonable. The memory of their last contact had probably ended with him fleeing as she tried to suck his blood, leaving the matter unresolved.

“How should I know? I went to sleep and ended up here. I was busy just now, serving the dragons as a host and making deals with the money-grubbing woman. If I get a sleep disorder, seriously, take responsibility.”

However, Tooyama Naruhito, who had just become a host moments earlier, now had nothing to fear.

If vampires were creatures of the night, then hosts were kings of the night. In other words, he was stronger.

Affected by dragon pressure, made drunk by alcohol, and also suffering from dungeon intoxication caused by excitement, Tooyama had fallen asleep with his head in a nice state, and even in the dream, he was still high.

“That won’t happen. Your body and brain are properly resting, after all. Anyway, you’re pretty thick-skinned yourself. …You seem awfully composed in front of a woman you parted from like that.”

The woman’s lips curved into a grin. From them peeked fangs far too sharp to be called canine teeth.

After surviving that party night at Rain Inn and finishing all the aftermath, Tooyama Naruhito had arrived once more in the dream Bread Archive, thanks to a bedding arrangement made only of sheets and straw.

“Well, yeah. You seem like an ally in one way or another.”

“Huh?”

To the threatening Harvey, Tooyama answered casually.

Without asking permission, he picked up a piece of firewood placed beside the fireplace and inserted it into the hearth. In the blink of an eye, flames licked the surface of the dry firewood.

The sight of the frayed wood fibers glowing red dimly reflected in Tooyama’s chestnut-colored eyes.

“Ah, a fireplace is nice…”

“Sorry to interrupt your carefree mood, but tell me. What changed your mind?”

Harvey addressed Tooyama as he sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace. The armchair she sat shallowly in creaked quietly.

“The hints. The hints. What are those? You know, Speech Challenges. There are times when my tension goes weirdly high and my mouth starts running, right? Even tonight, with Drako and the Dragon of Human Knowledge, you probably helped me, didn’t you?”

Tooyama, who was chilling in front of the fireplace, turned back toward Harvey.

“…It wasn’t for you. As another woman, I just felt a little sympathy for those girls.”

Playing with the braid hanging from under her gray hair and beret, Harvey looked away.

“Is that so? Well, even so, thanks.”

“Huh?”

The familiar of knowledge opened her mouth blankly.

“What’s with that reaction?”

“No, I’m a little surprised. Were you that kind of person? Weren’t you relationship-numb?”

“What the hell do you think I am…? Well, fine. Ah, I reflected a little. Recently, I was too blessed with people around me and got carried away. There are lots of pieces of shit in the world, so I want to properly be grateful to the few good people around me.”

Tooyama looked back on the mistake he had made right before becoming a host. He had lacked too much consideration toward Drako, the Dragon of Human Knowledge, and those different living beings.

Getting too emotionally attached was no good, but pushing them away too much was also no good. Even if they were different living beings, he should show gratitude for favors. The lesson Tooyama had gained was a very simple one.

“Oh, so I’m a good person.”

“I don’t understand you, same as that Dragon of Human Knowledge. But even until now, you’ve given me hints several times, right? So, um, what was your name again?”

“…Harvey. Call me that for now.”

“Yeah, Harvey. Thanks. I’ll be in your care from now on too.”

He would not forget that lesson. Tooyama began chilling in front of the fireplace again.

“…Hey, so, after all, won’t you let me suck just one mouthful? Just the tip is fine.”

Suddenly, he felt the warmth of human skin against his back. There had been no sound or presence.

The familiar of knowledge was leaning against Tooyama’s back.

Slender arms wrapped around his neck. Long fingers gently embraced Tooyama’s neck and stroked his cheek with just enough strength to almost, but not quite, touch.

The fireplace flames reflected in her glossy nails.

“Since the beginning of human history, across all times and places, no one who said ‘just the tip is fine’ has ever stopped at just the tip.”

A vampire.

A higher being that treated humans as prey. Its function of charming humanity as a living creature’s feature, however, was not very effective on a man with a broken head.

Tooyama flicked her hand away with his finger and refused the vampire’s offer.

“May I suck blood?”

Harvey whispered by his ear in a teasing tone, chuckling.

“See! That’s exactly what I mean! I know you’d definitely end with something like, ‘Ah… full-body blood-sucking complete’!”

Tooyama raised his voice, spitting as he shouted.

“Tch, stingy.”

Harvey seemed sulky, yet amused, and continued hugging Tooyama from behind without letting go.

“You really don’t let your guard down. Wait, why is there a vampire living in my dream…? No, wait. Why do you know that kind of joke?”

While exchanging banter, Tooyama suddenly felt a chill down his spine. Harvey’s words just now had clearly been strange.

“Hm?”

“Don’t play dumb. That stupid joke just now, you understood it and used it, didn’t you? That is internet slang. There’s no way you would know it.”

It was a trivial conversation. Rearranging internet slang and tossing it out as banter. It should have been nothing more than that.

If this had not been another world, and if the one saying it had not been an existence from that world.

“Fuhi. I believe I told you I was the familiar of knowledge.”

Harvey laughed as she answered, while staying firmly pressed against Tooyama’s body.

“Don’t dodge the question. Where did you learn that?”

A strange existence living in his dream. Even if he could not fully understand her, he wanted to narrow down what kind of being she was to some extent.

Tooyama asked in a low voice.

“…Hmm. Then this knowledge really isn’t from this world after all.”

“Huh?”

“Do you remember what I talked about before? My objective.”

Harvey’s question.

Tooyama closed his eyes. He felt Harvey’s cold hand stroke his cheek, and the fire in the fireplace slowly warm it.

After those became the only things in the world, Tooyama’s brain properly drew out the memory.

“…D’où venons-nous? ‘Where do we come from?’ Que sommes-nous? ‘What are we?’ Où allons-nous? ‘Where are we going?’”

Those were words he had heard when he first met her.

The familiar of knowledge did not know them. Therefore, she sought them.

“Right. You remember it well. As expected of someone whose head turns pointlessly well.”

“Pointlessly was unnecessary.”

“Fuhi. Well, that’s how it is. I am Harvey, familiar of knowledge. An existence whose role and existence were decided by angels in this world. The symbol of all knowledge and one who lives on the reverse side of the world… That is all I should be.”

“Should?”

“Right, should. But inside me, there is knowledge and memory I do not know. It feels like only notes I do not know when or why I wrote have been scrawled all over a calendar.”

“But the handwriting on that calendar is unmistakably mine, and I think it must be something I did not want to forget.”

Ping.

A message flowed. Even in the dream world, the hidden marks within Tooyama became a signpost for his adventure.

“…Gauguin.”

Tooyama murmured.

His student life had no friends, and since he also had no money, textbooks and the library were the perfect playgrounds. Partway through, several people who came to bother him appeared, but even so, the memories from that time still firmly remained as part of Tooyama’s flesh and blood.

“Hm?”

“A French painter. Your words are the title of his work. It was in an art textbook I read in high school.”

Again.

Harvey’s words were not something a person in another world should know.

She possessed knowledge from the modern world where Tooyama had been. It was safe to think that.

“Oh. Then these words are also knowledge that I, Harvey, should not know. Fuhi, it hurts that the Dragon of Human Knowledge rejected me. That seeker might know something, but well, it is too late now.”

Whether she was aware of it or not, this woman was strange.

It was a different kind of abnormality from Drako or the Dragon of Human Knowledge.

Tooyama turned his head a little and recalled Harvey’s words from when they first met.

“…Back then, when we first met here, you called me a ‘high-ranking explorer,’ didn’t you? Why did you know that?”

High-ranking explorer.

That was a phrase only someone living in the modern era should know.

It should have been words from someone who knew the common sense of the world where the modern dungeon, the Great Hole of Babel, existed.

“…The reason I knew you were an explorer was…”

Tooyama could tell that Harvey swallowed.

Her cold fingertips moved from his cheek to the side of his neck.

As if searching for an artery, Harvey’s fingertips crawled across Tooyama’s body.

“Because I had read your memories to some extent. …Well, now only bread books remain, so I can’t read them anymore. Tooyama Naruhito, you have walked a fairly interesting life. It was unusually non-boring reading.”

“What a nasty hobby. Are you saying human observation is your hobby? You shouldn’t say that in front of people too much.”

“It’s inside a dream, so it doesn’t count, right? Well, there’s a separate reason too.”

“Huh?”

“It’s strange, but the moment I saw you, the word explorer came out. Eyes fascinated by something you don’t even know whether you can obtain, dark eyes that in the depths of their heart trust no one but themselves, yet also arrogant and selfish-looking eyes that seem to stir up and change someone’s heart. I wonder if you felt similar to someone I had seen somewhere.”

Harvey, who spoke as if remembering something, no, someone, stopped moving.

Snap. The surface of the firewood in the fireplace cracked slightly.

“Ugh, that guy definitely doesn’t sound decent. He’s the embodiment of selfishness.”

“…………”

At Tooyama’s words, Harvey fell silent. She looked at him with an indescribable expression.

“What? Why are you suddenly shutting up?”

“No, I was wondering if you had ever looked in a mirror. The Hoarding Dragon’s house had full-length mirrors, didn’t it?”

“Eh, why?”

“…Sorry, I’m tired, so I’ll rest a little. Please feel free to use the books in the Bread Archive. Ah, but if you leave a book face-down on a desk while open, I’ll kill you. Take your time, master of our dream.”

Harvey slipped away from Tooyama’s back. Like a cat that had grown tired of bothering its owner, she walked beyond the bookshelves and then disappeared from sight.

“What a weirdo. People like that probably end up going hard into philosophy. Now then, time to start working.”

Snap. Burning flames and red firewood. Fireplaces were nice. He could stare at one forever.

Tooyama stood up with renewed motivation, deciding that the sauna he would build in his own house definitely had to be a wood-fired sauna.

While he was at it, he wanted a fireplace in the living room too. Splitting wood, slowly raising a fire, and eating while gazing at it. Good. Too good.

Imagining the scenery of desire, the place he would reach, Tooyama approached the layered rows of bookshelves.

“Let’s see. This, this, and this. Hmm, libraries really are nice. It’s like coming to a theme park.”

When he inhaled slowly, for some reason, a faintly fragrant scent of bread tickled his nose.

The designs of the books in this archive had already changed into normal books. They no longer had the round, circular design from when he had first visited.

Holding several thickly bound books with pictures of bread drawn on them under his arm, Tooyama continued browsing through his own Bread Archive.

Whoosh.

Suddenly, a draft.

He felt the flow of air.

“Hm, what is this? Is there still more in the back? Whoa, what a huge door…”

When he walked through the valley of bookshelves, at the corner of the room, half-hidden by the bookshelves, a large door appeared.

It was a double door. However, strangely, the door had no sharp angles.

It had a round shape, and the doorknobs were also round, a strange design.

For some reason, Tooyama could not take his eyes off it. He placed the books on a nearby table and staggered toward the door.

Unconsciously, he pressed tightly around his own chest.

Nostalgic, he thought.

He reached his hand toward that door—

“You had best not open that yet.”

At the stretched voice from behind him, Tooyama stopped moving with a start. At the same time, his thoughts returned.

Before he noticed, mist had filled the area around his feet. After looking down at the white haze Hoarding at his feet, Tooyama sighed.

“…Yo, paper charm macho. Man, my dreams have way too many weirdos.”

“Well, the master of the dream is you, so… it cannot be helped.”

Scratch, scratch.

The half-naked Japanese-clothed macho man with a paper charm stuck to his face scratched his own face with his index finger while looking down at Tooyama and muttered.