Book Restoration System: Savior Of The Forsaken Legends [BL]

Morning came in with a symphony of unrelenting raindrops pattering outside his bedroom window.

Auri groaned, stretching his sore limbs like a lazy feline before burrowing deeper into the mattress. The gloomy weather outside blanketed him with a comforting feeling that made him want to lie in bed all day. Even the way his pillow cradled his head felt like he was floating on clouds.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Auri! Until what time are you planning to sleep? It's almost noon! Get up already!"

Auri buried his face in his pillow to muffle his groan.

"How late did you stay up last night? Don't tell me you were working on that stupid game again?" His mother let out a dramatic sigh. "I thought we've already talked about this? I told you not to waste your time on useless stuff. Your grandfather needs you at the shop."

Auri kicked the blanket off his feet and jostled violently on the bed like a mosquito larva on a sewer.

"Aurelius!"

"I'm up! I'm up! God, stop banging on my door!"

"Then get going already! What kind of apprentice are you to sleep in until noon? You should be at the shop before your grandfather does!"

Auri forced himself to sit and sighed in defeat.

Six months ago, his life wasn't like this. He could sleep in until the afternoon and his mother wouldn't even bother to check if he was still alive. He was fine with that.

As an indie game developer, Auri spent most of his time at his computer desk, lost in world-building, working on character animations, refining combat mechanics, or writing story dialogues. Oftentimes, he would encounter annoying bugs and had to pull an all-nighter hopping between debugging, coding, and testing. It was a chaotic life, but he was happy with what he was doing.

Until his idiot of a brother ran away from home.

They didn't see it coming because Lucius had never acted out of the ordinary. The day before his brother disappeared, he came to their grandfather's shop as usual. He even checked in on him to ask how his game was going while praising the meal their mother prepared for dinner.

Then morning came, and he was gone.

They had reported his disappearance to the police, but they had concluded that his brother had run away from home.

With his brother gone, his grandfather lost a handy apprentice who was supposed to inherit the shop one day. And so his mother pestered him to take over instead. Every day, she would criticize his work—his game—telling him it was a waste of time. With nothing to show for it, no finished game, and no profit, he had no choice but to take a break and help out a little in his grandfather's shop.

If only the first game he released wasn't botched...

After putting on a fresh set of clothes, Auri stomped out of his room with a heavy heart. The floorboards creaked in his every step, leaving a trail of resentment as he marched down the stairs. When he reached the kitchen, however, the scent of simmering meat and spices that filled his nostrils made it difficult for him to stay disgruntled.

The rhythmic chopping sound of a knife against the cutting board filled the space as his mother prepared for lunch. Her earlier scolding still lingered in the air. Though she had her attention on cooking at the moment, the deep scowl on her aging face made it clear she hadn't let it go yet.

"What's on the menu for today?" Auri asked through a stifled yawn while rubbing his stomach.

"It's beef curry," she said without looking up from the chopping board. "There's still bacon and egg on the table. Eat it and go to the workshop as soon as you finish. Your grandfather is expecting you."

Auri grunted as he navigated his way through the dining room. He didn't have the energy to deal with her nagging, so he simply took a seat, grabbed the plate of food, and started stuffing his mouth with what was leftover from the breakfast that he missed.

Unfortunately, his mother had a different thing in mind.

"What have you been doing for you to wake up this late?" she started, her voice as sharp as the knife she was holding. "You're not a kid anymore, Auri. Have some sense of responsibility and wake up in time. How are you going to take over the shop if you can't do something as simple as being punctual?"

'It's not like I wanted it,' Auri wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut, knowing full well that any further comment would only turn her reprimands into another lengthy lecture.

"Are you working on that game again? I told you before—"

"I'm not working on anything, Mom." Auri sighed. "Stop bringing up my games every time you want to lecture me. I beg you, please."

"I'm just trying to remind you. You have real work now."

"Game development is real work too, just so you know. I know someone who already made millions by creating games."

His mother scoffed. "Of course, they'd make millions. The game they made must be so addicting that it rots the brains of children. Look at what happened to your cousin, Jeremy. He quits college and plays video games all day. That's all he does!"

"Jeremy is a professional game vlogger, Mom. Playing games is his job."

"Oh, so even playing games is a job now, huh?" She shook her head as if she were some goddess of mockery. "Time sure is changing. I'm worried what the future may bring if kids like you keep having this kind of mindset."

"You're just scared of change. Most boomers are."

The chopping sound of her knife stopped. She put the knife down, rested both hands on her hips, and gave him an open-mouthed stare that translated to: how dare you say that to your mother?

Auri finished his plate, chugged a mouthful of water, then hurried out of the kitchen to avoid further discussion. He doubted his mother would make another game-related comment for a while, though he was sure she'd find another way to discourage him from further pursuing a career in game development.

If only his brother didn't run away from home, she wouldn't be pestering him like she did just now. She never cared what he did before. It was only after her favorite son disappeared that she started nitpicking at his career choices.

Auri shook his head as he charged into the rain with an umbrella in hand. He was doing just fine living under his brother's shadow. But now that the spotlight had shifted onto him, the sudden weight of their expectations became a shackle that bound him to the spot his brother had left behind.

'I don't like this. Do I have to do this my whole life?'

Auri shook the droplets off the umbrella before hanging it on a rack in front of the shop.

The Books' Savior shop had been around for four generations, first established by his great-grandfather, who had a deep adoration for books. It had gone through two world wars, seven fires, and twelve robberies (he found the robbery part a bit preposterous because who in their right mind would rob a restoration shop?) but it still managed to survive the test of time.

As usual, the library was empty. The dim lighting whispered warmth and a cozy ambiance, but the unrelenting rain outside made it feel emptier. The rescued books they had spent weeks repairing were stacked on towering wooden shelves—just so they could gather more dust in them. All their effort was wasted on something no one even bothered to read.

Seriously, who would still be interested in old books nowadays? Without customers, the space felt like a forgotten museum filled with decaying pages, waiting for an audience that would never come.

Okay, sure. Once in a while, they would get customers such as book collectors and self-proclaimed bibliophiles who were looking for hard-to-find, limited-edition books that had gone out of print for decades since its publication. They would buy books in bulk, filling the almost always empty register with a little cash, but even that can hardly be considered as a profit.

With a forlorn sigh, Auri made his way to the back of the shop where the book restoration takes place. He pushed the door lightly, trying not to make a sound, but the old hinges creaked anyway, announcing his arrival to the old man hunched over the workbench.

The distinct smell of old parchment and dried glue hit him the moment he stepped inside; it was a scent he had grown accustomed to after spending endless hours repairing books. The gentle scraping sound of the knife against hard paper tickled his ears—scritch, scritch, it's a monotonous melody in his grandfather's shop.

His grandfather didn't look up even as he approached. He just continued scraping away the remnants of old glue on the old book's brittle spine. Despite his age, his worn hands still moved with practiced precision—measured, never rushed, his fingers working with the patience of someone who had restored books for a thousandth time.

"Don't just stand there, boy. Grab your knife and make yourself useful," his grandfather grunted, making him jump.

Auri did as he was told. After taking out his scalpel from the toolkit, he started working on the book that he found easiest to fix.

Deconstructing a book was such a tedious but delicate process. Depending on the severity of its damage, it could take eight to twelve hours for just one book. Sometimes, more. It was akin to surgery, but instead of cutting through human bones and flesh, he was slicing between leather and sheets of old paper.

Well, it wasn't as grotesque as that, but a man holding a scalpel could use some form of entertainment.

Auri tried imitating the way his grandfather handled a damaged book, careful and unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world. But not even half an hour had passed and he could already feel himself growing frustrated.

How can his grandfather make it look so effortless?

"Don't rush," his grandfather said. "You always rush. This isn't a race, boy."

"But I won't be able to finish anything with this! Ugh, I hate doing this kind of work."

His grandfather scoffed. "All you do is complain."

"Who wouldn't complain, Grandpa? After removing the old cover, I'll scrape the old glue, then I'll patch up the torn pages, then I'll stitch it back, glue it, then press it. It's such a tedious work. I'll end up stuck here again until dawn, just like yesterday!"

"You were stuck here because you do poor work. You do poor work because you see this as a chore."

Auri rolled his eyes. "How else am I supposed to see this? A life-changing work?"

His grandfather shook his head, but he didn't scold him for his sarcasm. For a moment, there was silence, until he spoke again. "Why do you think we repair books, Aurelius?"

At the mention of his full name, Auri's hand stopped moving across the book's spine. The old man never called him by his nickname, always addressing him as 'boy'. So when the name 'Aurelius' rolled out of the man's tongue who had a measured silence, he knew something was coming.

"What do you think book restoration truly means?"

Auri frowned, thinking. "We fix books so uhh... people can still read them? Or hoard them? I mean, we get customers who hoard books, but they don't really read them."

The old man let out a small chuckle. "Is that how you think it is?"

"Did you expect I'd give you an answer with a deeper meaning?"

"Didn't say you have to give one."

Auri paused as his grandfather pushed himself up and ambled to a shelf filled with books he kept hidden, separated from the books they displayed outside—his archive.

"But someday, you will get your hands on books that you will come to cherish," his grandfather continued, staring at the books behind the glass. "When time starts eroding their pages, you will do everything possible to keep them from falling apart. Only then will you realize why the books are worth saving. Why we are called... the Books' Savior."