As soon as they walked into the room, Assad quickly realized that it looked more like a mess than an office.
Everywhere there were piles of books. Papers were strewn about on all of the desks, chairs, and even on parts of the floor. There were strange sketches and notes tacked to the walls, and many glass jars filled with various things cluttered almost every shelf.
This place definitely had more of a feel to it as though it was a research lab rather than a work office. Shuren chose one of the empty chairs and sat down.
Assad stood still while his eyes wandered around the room.
In the middle of the room was the young man who had opened the door earlier. He was currently writing something down in a notebook while books were piled up around him.
Shuren crossed one leg on top of the other.
"I see you've been busy, Mo Ming."
Mo Ming looked up from his notebook.
"Not busy at all, just another day of research for me," he replied.
Shuren looked over at Mo Ming, who was surrounded by a huge pile of books.
"Are you still researching that ancient book?"
Mo Ming is upset and defensive.
"Of course I still am! Why would I ever stop? Just in case you don't know, only two people have ever been able to decipher parts of that book, and one of them was yours truly."
Assad raised an eyebrow at Mo Ming's self-aggrandizement.
"What book are you talking about?"
Mo Ming points directly at a large black book laying on a nearby table.
"The Diary of the Founding Emperor - Shim Ju-Won."
Assad looked down where Mo Ming pointed, and he saw that the book really did look extremely old. Its cover appears to be completely worn away from use and was already starting to disintegrate into dust.
Mo Ming tilted his head slightly, as if trying to make sure he was placing the right accusation.
"Who are you, anyway?"
Shuren answered before Assad could say anything.
"Assad Amore, new member of the Sweepers Agency. "
"Okay, that makes sense."
"Why do I have a last name?"
Shuren took a drag from her cigarette, then replied,
"Because I gave you one."
Both Assad and Mo Ming stared at Shuren.
"Wait a minute; what'd you just say?"
"I said I gave you a last name."
"You can't just give somebody a last name."
"Well, I just did."
Shuren rolled her eyes.
"You didn't have one."
"So your answer was to come up with one?"
"Yeah."
Mo Ming just listened at the weird argument about a surname, questioning himself if it was that serious.
Assad rubbed his head because that really sounded like something Shuren would do then another thought popped into his head.
'The real Assad never had a last name, as far as I could tell from his memories.'
It made his chest feel funny to realize that whoever went through this body now made even less sense.
Assad let out a long sigh.
At this point, arguing with Shuren seemed completely pointless.
"Can I check that book out for just a minute?"
Mo Ming blinked.
"The book?"
He looked back at the really old diary that was sitting on the table where it sat.
"You're kidding?"
Assad just shrugged.
"I just want to check it out."
Mo Ming looked at him like he wanted to kill him for asking to remotely use the book, which was like asking him to use a royal treasure.
"The book was written in an entirely different language, and you're going to try and read that?"
"Yeah."
After staring for some time, Mo Ming finally picked up the diary and handed it to Assad.
"Whatever, go ahead. But remember: don't come crying to me when you fry your brain trying to figure it out."
Assad took the diary from him and opened to the first page. It looked just like any typical teenage diary. But it felt different. As he continued to read, his mouth opened wide in shock. Every single word, every single line, every single odd word for describing something was familiar to him. The language that Mo Ming spoke, which was so different from the way people talk in English, was actually Dutch, the same language that the founder of this empire used in his diary.
Mo Ming saw the expression on Assad's face and exclaimed, "See? I told you."
Shuren stood staring at his face with confusion and concern, "Assad?" she asked.
Assad barely heard Shuren because he was so focused on the pages of the diary.
'Why is the diary of the Founding Emperor written in Dutch?'
Assad was standing there quietly.
Mo Ming and Shuren looked at each other.
Neither had ever seen any person staring at the journal like this. Usually, people had given up and handed it back after a couple of seconds.
Assad did not do either.
His eyes travelled up and down from one line of text to another.
From one page of text to another, the more he read, the less he appeared to notice the surroundings in the room.
"...."
As time passed, Assad solely remained focused on the journal's aged pages. The journal was not written like one would find in a book of great chronicles. The journal gave the feeling that it was written very personally, like it hurt the writer to write it.
The early entries of the journal talked about mistakes.
Mistakes upon mistakes.
The emperor explained his childhood and all of how he was oblivious to understanding how to live in the world he was brought into. He wrote of his fear, confusion, and many, many ways he had failed while attempting to survive in the world he had come into.
Because of this unknown knowledge that he came into, the emperor created something that was un-imaginable.
He created an empire out of nothing.
However, as he continued reading, the entries became more and more strange. The Emperor's speech lacked a sense of pride but was full of feeling regret over building an Empire, having never realized it would be the worst decision he ever made.
The first entry describes the hope he used to have for not getting old by having a lot of knowledge.
"Having something bigger or even stronger would save me from death."
"I was wrong on both counts."
The second entry describes watching his friends grow old.
The first entry describes his experience watching young men die.
The first entry describes generations dying with no hope of ever living again while he spends his life looking for answers to questions he will never find an answer to. A feeling of hopefulness was lost in these entries, and a sense of worry was evident in the change toward a woman. An average woman not the queen, nor nobility.
"When I met her, I knew how small I was."
"Her eyes had stars in them."
"The night sky was envious of her beauty."
"Looking at her was like gazing into the universe."
Assad was speechless.
As he flips through the pages, he finds himself reading about this woman more often. He could not help but feel warm towards her when he would read something about her.
"Without her, I would have ended my life long ago."
"Without her, I would have welcomed death."
"She had given me my life back."
As he turned the page, the emperor's voice grew soft and light with a sense of romance as he spoke of moonlit strolls in the garden, quiet conversations that stretched until dawn, and dancing so energetically that time stood still.
"We danced as if there was no tomorrow."
"As if it was the first time we had danced or the last time."
"Neither of us wanted the music to end."
He wrote of how the feelings she gave him were so intense that he had difficulty expressing them in words.
Writing of her laughter.
Her resting her head on his shoulder, of how just being with him would quiet his fears.
"For those few seconds, I forgot I had to carry an empire on my shoulders."
"The feelings she gave me cannot be explained in words."
"Even now, hundreds of years later, I am unable to find the words."
"It was like a story I came up with not long ago."
"Two people madly in love with each other who came from families who hated each other."
"While their families were at war, these two were trying to find peace."
"It was almost as if fate was doing everything it could to keep them apart."
"Yet fate lost in the end."
"They chose to die together rather than live apart."
"I felt the same thing for her."
"Not quite the same kind of thing."
"But enough to warrant my thoughts about that past event."
"But at least unlike those two dolts we've had time together instead of waiting forever."
There was an uncanny similarity and even with those remaining memories there was no denying that what would have once been considered a once orderly diary had large portions of its order breaking down along with the mess of the Emperor's writings as they continually became less orderly. The happy days became fewer in number and farther and farther apart to the point where the days of regret became in aggregate hundreds;
"I've saved nations but couldn't save those I loved."
"I built up a community of people who I would forget within a century."
"Every promise is likely broken."
"Every grave, some thousands upon thousands a record of my failures."
The handwriting was getting worse as well, words were crossed out/missed altogether, entire pages had been ripped out and many more were severely marred with ink.
He sounded as if he were utterly exhausted, unable to move forward, unable to escape the centuries of sadness.
"I've watched my children die."
"I've watched their children die."
"I've watched their children's, children die."
"Life went on."
"I am standing still."
Assad had goosebumps all over; he flipped several more pages back in the journal, the penmanship getting worse still with each page that he inverted. The etched letters appear as if they have been etched into the surface of the page instead of written.
As if the Emperor was putting so much pressure on the pen he was using, it punctured through the page.
Assad finished the last entry.
The last two pages are not stories but an obsessive writing of an identical sentence in a variety of forms. Some letters are massive, others small. Some lines have been crossed out with such intensity they come close to puncturing through the page entirely. The appearance of those last two pages resembles more someone losing a battle in their own mind than anything else.
"I WISH TO DIE,"
"I WISH TO DIE,"
"I WISH TO DIE."
"KILL ME."
"PLEASE."
"KILL ME."
"I BEGGING YOU."
"KILL ME."
The last sentence was so severe that the page was almost completely torn from the book. The Founding Emperor of the most powerful empire was not finishing with a victory.
He was finishing with a plea.
Assad kept staring at the diary when Mo Ming waved his hand in front of the guy's face.
"Hello? Are you just going to stand there for the rest of your life?"
Assad blinked at that.
"..."
"You are just standing there looking at that book, for like... forever."
Assad looked down at the book he was holding.
"Oh,sorry about that."
Mo Ming crossed his arms.
"It's fine, but really....the way you flipped through all of those pages, I was starting to think that you could read it."
Assad's heart raced. He scratched his head and laughed, but nervously.
"Nah, that is not a possibility. The language was just interesting to me."
"Interesting?" Mo Ming said.
"Yeah."
"You just looked at that for 2 minutes."
"...did I?"
"You did."
Assad looked away.
"Guess that means that old things are interesting."
"That is possibly the worst excuse I could think of."
Shuren, from her chair, snorted.
"I told you he was a weirdo."
"How am I a weirdo?" Assad fired at her.
"Because I think you are."
"Then how about you - you are smoking in a room full of old books."
"True."
"...You do not make a valid point."
Mo Ming could still feel the headache from all of this.
"I see now why my studies cannot progress while you are here."
Assad carefully returned the book to Mo Ming.
"Again though, that is quite impressive."
Without saying anything else, Mo Ming grabbed the book and pulled it into his chest as if being reunited with his long lost son. He carefully returned the diary/book to the desk.
"Enough with the diary topic okay? Why did you bring him here?"
Shuren slouched in her chair, blew smoke upward, and then looked at Mo Ming.
"This is our rookie."
Mo Ming nodded his head.
"Yes, I have already been informed."
"And he wants to be a Sionel. So, I will need you to make him some Reisu."
Mo Ming blinked three times in confusion.
"Excuse me?"
Shuren pointed to Assad. Mo Ming looked from Assad back to Shuren.
"...You have to be kidding."
"No."
"You are."
"I am not."
Mo Ming rubbed his forehead in disbelief. He moved in closer to Shuren's left ear.
"I have no problem making it for him but in case you forgot, there is a danger of injecting that in him and it could cause him to die," Ming whispered.
Shuren gave him a dirty look and said nothing. Ming got the picture right away and went to work. Assad on the other hand was puzzled and could only watch.
Mo Ming took out a glass container and began to create a potion. He placed approximately 10ml of water in the container, cut a Horned Berry in half and put two drops of the Heavenly Demoness's blood in the container. Mo Ming used a stirring stick to combine the ingredients then gestured for Assad to come closer. Assad followed his lead.
"Put some of your blood in the container," Ming said.
"Why?"
"Just put it there. I don't want to get in trouble so just do it."
Mo Ming nervously looked at Shuren, a bead of perspiration began to run down his face. Assad could see this and realised that Shuren was really scary at times when he looked at her. Assad, therefore, bit into his finger then bled drop of his blood into the container. Ming mixed it up again and the colours turned red then black After that, Ming was a little surprised.
Absorbing the variation in color intrigued Shuren, who had stood to view from a closer distance. Assad was thoroughly impressed at how 'Reisu' came into being. Mo Ming pulled a syringe out, inserting it into the fluid against the container. When he withdrew the water, the fluid was also removed from the vessel.
"All right, we're finished, here's the syringe," Mo Ming said to Assad.
Assad was apprehensive about taking the fluid into his body through a syringe. Every time he even saw a syringe, it evoked vivid memories from the past that ensured his hatred of syringes.
Nevertheless he took the syringe from Mo Ming's hand.
"Now just inject yourself," he said to Assad.
"That's it? Okay."
Although the sight of the syringe made his stomach tighten with injecting himself, he had come to this conclusion based on Shuren, that if he wanted to return to Earth, this was his only method of doing so. Assad lifted his right arm and prepared to inject himself with fluid.
Mo Ming stopped him in midmotion.
"Assad?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm injecting myself."
"Dummy, you don't inject yourself there; you gotta do it at a vital organ."
Assad just stared at Mo Ming, not a word coming out of his mouth.