I did not sleep well that night.

  Apart from the very frustrating issue of my imperishable arousal, I wasn’t used to sleeping directly on the floor, and this was an entirely different room than the staff dormitory that I had grown comfortable with over the years. The architects of the royal pace had put in very little consideration towards comfort in the sves’ quarters, and nobody had installed a magical radiator or air conditioner. At this time of the year, the nights were already quite cold, and there was no central heating. Every room intended for ‘human’ habitation had a built-in radiator supplied by magic crystals. Other rooms relied on ambient heat that transmitted via conduction from the warmer areas.

  For example, the east wall in this space was adjacent to a guest room, which meant that the east side of the room was significantly warmer than the west side. I had originally set up my bedroll in the southwest corner of the room, but the temperature dropped so much in the middle of the night that I eventually decided to get up and move all of my things to a warmer spot next to the east wall.

  The air circution was not good, and I could only imagine that this space would get too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. I kept rummaging in my supplies for thicker yers, and I couldn’t imagine what I would have done if I hadn’t been allowed to take any of my old belongings with me.

  These types of small details made a big difference, but I ordinarily never thought about these technicalities.

  Later in the night, since I was still fighting intractable restlessness, I climbed out of bed and re-wrote my letter to my sister, and then I tried to go back to sleep again. I even spent more time re-examining the tattered documents that I had fished out of the garden pond in a valiant attempt to take my mind off of the discomfort between my legs, and after that I made a detailed budget of every single thing that I pnned to purchase in the future.

  Overall, I probably only slept two or three hours.

  + + +

  By the time morning arrived, Yuko still had not returned to our shared quarters.

  I started my day early regardless, since I couldn’t bear to stay inside any longer. While the hot steam inside the metaphorical pressure cooker had dissipated significantly overnight — to the point that it wasn’t nearly so bothersome anymore — the sve quarters definitely was not a pleasant environment for leisurely activity.

  Since it was before the hour when most servants woke up, none of the pace facilities would be occupied right now.

  Obviously, it would be too early to go shopping in the city market.

  After putting on a heavy cloak and wrapping some cloth around my left hand — covering the silver mark that Kang Jiesu had pced on me — I decided to head to the Royal Library. The unpleasant experience from the previous night had made it abundantly clear that my basic knowledge about Obedience Crests was cking, and I didn’t want to be caught off guard by another surprise that came out of nowhere.

  As Sun Tzu once said, one must “know thyself” or thou shalt succumb in every battle.

  + + +

  The Royal Library was surrounded by several static barriers that divided various sections of the royal collection. Unlike modern-day Earth, there was no such thing as ‘public libraries’ in the Kingdom of Galuterica that were freely accessible to everyone. In fact, books and knowledge were a priceless commodity that was carefully reguted among the aristocracy. Ordinary visitors weren’t allowed to access anything beyond the library’s front desk (which was currently unstaffed at this hour), and royal maids could only access a very limited selection of books. Sves couldn’t even pass through the outermost barrier, which meant that they couldn’t even get within 100 meters of the main entrance.

  I held my breath as I approached the first exterior barrier.

  I extended my hand cautiously.

  Fortunately, just as Kang Jiesu had promised, his magical seal was sufficient to get me through the first barrier without any problems. Even though I had become a sve, it seemed like the barrier automatically reacted to the silver stamp that was on my left hand.

  I continued walking forward and tested barriers in different sections of the library. To my surprise, I quickly discovered that I was able to pass much further than I originally expected. At a certain point, I reached an invisible wall that I couldn’t cross, but I was so deep inside of the Royal Library that wasn’t quite sure exactly which section that I had reached.

  I had never been this far inside of the library in my entire life.

  I could still see many more forbidden rooms and shelves that were ahead of me, so if I had to make an educated guess, this level of access might have been equivalent to that of a minor noble — a baron or marquis.

  From what my cssmates had mentioned, the King wanted to grant the Otherworlders the status of nobility. Therefore, I could infer that my current location corresponded to Kang Jiesu’s intended rank. That being said, I couldn’t imagine why the royal officials would give access to cssified government information to Otherworlders who couldn’t be considered fully trustworthy. It must have been an oversight — they might have assumed there was no major issue since none of my cssmates could read. Furthermore, the Otherworlders were nearly always accompanied by a staff escort.

  Ordinarily, it would have been impossible for a sve to waltz all the way in here, but Kang Jiesu had effectively granted me unconditional rights to act as his full legal proxy.

  Not a single sensible person in Galuterica would even think to grant their sves such a ridiculous privilege, so this was likely a major blind spot beyond anything that the Archbishop and his staff could have possibly imagined.

  It was completely unprecedented.

  The potential ramifications were enormous, and I couldn’t let the royal officials realize that they had overlooked this loophole. It would be best if I could fly under the radar as long as possible.

  + + +

  I left the cssified area retively quickly. Even though it was an ungodly hour in the early morning, there was still a small but nonzero risk that I would encounter another patron in the Royal Library. In that situation, I would have difficulty expining myself and it would potentially precipitate a huge mess.

  To begin with, I didn’t know how the books were arranged in this section of the library. If I rummaged aimlessly through the shelves, I would just be wasting my time while needlessly increasing the risk that I cross paths with someone dangerous.

  It was better if I stuck to somewhere safer.

  Ultimately, I returned to outermost section of the library where “basic knowledge” reference books were kept. All of the maids who trained at the Royal Pace were taught how to read and write, and I used to visit this section frequently when I was first learning my letters. This was the only part of the library that maids were allowed to access, and if someone walked by, I would have an easier time blending in given that I was still wearing a maid uniform.

  It only took a few minutes until I found the appropriate volume of a reputable Galuterican encyclopedia.

  I flipped to the entry on Obedience Crests.

  There were only two pages of text.

  The article wasn’t written in any more detail than anything that you might find on Simple Wikipedia, but I still skimmed through the entry in order to refresh myself on the basics.

  Most of the information was fairly obvious, such as the fact that there were many different types of Obedience Crests that were used on different kinds of sves. For example, a mining sve would have an entirely different crest than a battle sve.

  Each Obedience Crest had a ‘core’ or ‘immutable’ component that couldn’t be altered or removed after it was pced. In addition, there were peripheral ‘accessory’ marks that could be customized and modified by a sorcerer with the permission of the owner. It consisted of high-level contract magic that bound two people together.

  There was a bibliography and list of references at the bottom of the entry, so I took out a sheet of paper of jotted down a handful of authors and titles in case I wanted to look for the primary sources in deeper sections of the library.

  + + +

  I spent close to a half-hour flipping through the encyclopedia and taking notes on several different topics that I thought could be potentially useful. I never had access to the inner sections of the Royal Library before, so I was suddenly quite interested in taking a deeper dive into the encyclopedia’s numerous citations.

  Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be too much longer until people started waking up in the royal pace. The servants would likely start their morning routine soon, so there definitely wasn’t enough time to go back to the forbidden section in order to search for individual books.

  That being said, I could always come back tomorrow.

  Before departing for the day, I flipped past an encyclopedia entry on Hiora, which was one of the many colloquial terms for a ‘sex sve’ in Galuterican society.

  Just like how the Inuit nguage had over fifty different words to describe snow, there were several dozen Galuterican words to describe different kinds of sves. Since I happened to have some additional time, I continued to read more of the article that was open in front of me.

  The etymology of the term “Hiora” stemmed from the fact that it historically used to refer to female sves who were captured as part of the spoils of war. In that context, Hiora were ordinary women who were ripped away from their lives in their conquered homend. Compared to other sex sves, they were completely untrained and inexperienced.

  Traditionally, a special type of magic crest was used to ‘tame’ Hiora who might otherwise be rebellious, reluctant, or recalcitrant. Some ancient king from several hundred years ago had apparently discovered that using a woman’s own bodily desires against herself yielded incredibly effective results, and it had famously turned the Philosopher-Queen of Neobacticria into a sex-starved puddle of brainless mush who couldn’t even remember how to perform basic multiplication or division.

  The encyclopedia did not go into explicit details, but there was a crude illustration on the next page.

  It depicted a sve kneeling on the ground, begging her master for permission to orgasm.

  I immediately smmed the the encyclopedia shut.

  …I really did not see that.

  This was probably more than enough research for one day…

  ?