RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE - The House of Dimitrescu

Chapter 12 - Watchful Eyes

Once he was a safe distance away from the dining hall, Y/N let out an explosive breath of pent-up tension. Standing before four vampiric women and staring them dead in the eye after they had spent days trying to kill him had to have been the most daring act he had ever performed, and it left him slightly shaken. 

Once he had his racing heart more or less under control, Y/N headed upstairs in the direction of the library. He had a very specific reason for wanting to go there.

For now, he was "relatively" safe from harm. As long as he stayed on neutral terms with Lady Dimitrescu and remained within the boundaries of her estate, he doubted that the Lords of this village or their minions were much of a threat to him. However, once the snows melted, he would need to leave, the sooner the better, and Y/N felt that he was the sort of man who preferred to be well-warned of any oncoming dangers. 

He reached the library moments later, and pushing open the door, he found the room in a much cleaner state than he had left it. The shattered armchairs from his fight with Bela had vanished, and the books collected from around the floor. A large desk held several wobbling stacks of books on its surface at one side of the room, no doubt where some unfortunate maid had been given the task of re-shelving the entire library.

Y/N closed the door quietly behind him, then absentmindedly moved towards the fire and tossed an extra log onto the flaming hearth. Normally, he rather enjoyed the cold, now more than ever, given the circumstances, but Y/N liked to read with nimble fingertips, and the numbness hanging upon his hands like rubber gloves wasn't helping him. 

After a few moments of carefully scanning the shelves, Y/N pulled a book from the shelf and began to read, his eyes scanning for the information he required. 

If he was to escape this village, it would need to be meticulously planned. His route would need to be pre-determined, his supplies ready, and his adversaries well-known to him. This meant maps, journals, or documents detailing the creatures around the village borders. 

For the next half an hour or so, Y/N sped through the books at a ferocious pace. He had always been a fast reader, and he was determined to make the most of the opportunity in his hands. However, as the minutes raced past him, Y/N discovered that most of the books in the library were relatively useless to him at present. Large tomes on medieval history, winemaking techniques and secrets, and for some reason, many biographies or historical novels depicting the lives of dozens of kings, queens and nobles of Europe.  

'These girls certainly have a niche for non-fiction.' Y/N muttered to himself, pushing the most recent book back onto the shelf, before realizing that it was probably the Countess herself who had selected the tomes to entertain herself and her daughters, and to educate or remind them of the virtues of nobility. Y/N couldn't explain it, but recently he had begun to think that Lady Dimitrescu seemed much more eager to maintain her face of nobility than a true noble would be.

Of course, this was her house, the Dimitrescu family crest and its estate had to run back centuries, but for some reason it seemed to Y/N that the Countess herself had... adopted the fashion rather than being born into it, and now tried very hard to enforce the idea to others that she was nobility. Perhaps she had belonged to a distant branch and inherited the title when she was already grown? But that wasn't important...

After almost a full ten minutes more of searching through the books, Y/N finally struck gold. A large, battered tome with a ratty leather cover containing a study of the village and its geography. It didn't include much information on the inhabitants, but the descriptions of the mountains and topography were exactly what he was looking for. More importantly, it came with a map.