Chapter 80 - Getting Back to Work

"Neana?"

Rynold said as he knocked on the door. Careful to not startle her, Rynold decided to ask how she was doing first. After all, what had just occurred wasn't something one would see every day.

The young girl looked at Rynold who was waiting by the door. As both of them locked eyes for a single second, it was then that Rynold realized he made a terrible mistake.

Neana's face was covered in tears. It was an unspoken rule to never ask somebody if they were alright when they clearly aren't. It just wasn't mindful of the other's condition. And, in Rynold's experience, they could lash out. He would often be in the midst of conflict even if he meant well.

Immediately turning around, Rynold decided that maybe this might not be the best thing to do right now.

"Uh... I guess I'll see you later, then. Heh," Rynold shakily recovered his words.

"N-no, no," Neana's voice slightly trembled. "I'm fine."

Rynold unintentionally shivered.

"I- I see," he replied with his back still facing Neana. "I'll come back later then."

It was clear that Rynold didn't want anything to do with this. Out of fear, perhaps, but Rynold didn't think that he would be able to help a person that's crying. Apart from his clever intuition and ridiculous overanalysis of things, Rynold had a particular weakness.

He had no filter.

By that, it meant that Rynold had trouble keeping things to himself. Rynold had no idea when to stop talking. He was particularly bad at keeping insults from coming out of his mouth. Comforting someone, though, was a different thing altogether.

Rynold had no trouble comforting someone and, in fact, had helped a few people in his past. The only problem was that his advice reflected his own personality. That meant every piece of advice he had given out was constantly based on the context of life and death.

He often said things along the lines of "you really want to waste your time on this thing?" or "do you think it matters what they think?" Granted, Rynold said these things to himself constantly when he was in the middle of a dilemma, but others tended to have a different opinion than he did. However, they seemed to have the same consensus.

Nobody wanted to hear that.

The truth was that nobody really wanted to hear an opinion from an overly blunt realist. Most people wanted to deal with problems by fighting back. Rynold often thought of it as pointless, but it didn't matter what he thought because nobody would listen.

"Hey!" Neana suddenly called out, much to Rynold's surprise. "Don't run away like a coward! Get over here!"

For a second, Rynold forgot that Neana was the arrogant and overly hard-headed type. Well, not that he minded it.

Rynold decided to follow what the girl was saying first. After all, he was too lazy to argue over simple things.

He walked into the room with his eyes focused on the ground. Not that he was afraid of Neana, but Rynold decided that avoiding eye contact might be the right way to go.

But, boy, was he wrong.

Without even a second to spare, Rynold reflexively stepped back. It was no mistake that the girl had other plans in mind, but to kick him in the crotch? Wasn't that going a bit too far?

From outside the room, X saw Neana attack Rynold all so suddenly. To which, the Mech Knight suddenly barged into the room to defend his Master. Well, he squeezed through the door and struggled to get in, but the sentiment to defend his Master was there.

"X, calm down. I'm fine," Rynold spoke calmly as he stared at Neana. "What the hell was that for?!"

Neana stared daggers at Rynold.

"You... I thought you were supposed to take care of this place! But how come these monsters attacked out of nowhere?! I almost died, you idiot!"

"What in the absolute fuck are you talking about?!" Rynold immediately retorted before calming down once more. "The monsters don't attack humans or anything that would move unless you actively fight against them. There is no way that these monsters would fight against you if you'd just stayed still!"

Speechless, Neana suddenly shrank back. She didn't expect Rynold to suddenly yell out in rage like that. What's more, Neana sensed that Rynold was ready to kill her at that short spurt of anger. It was like going straight into the lion's den.

With an exasperated sigh, Rynold shook his head.

"Look," he continued. "I apologize for raising my voice like that. Just... just try to think next time. As a self-proclaimed Summoner, you should know how powerful tactics and strategy could be. You can single-handedly turn the tides of war if you know what you're doing."

Not bothering to wait for a response, Rynold headed out the door.

"Master? Are you alright?" X asked out of concern for Rynold.

Rynold patted the Mech Knight on the back and nodded. "I'm fine, buddy. Come on, let's get going."

The two set out for the Library once more. They continued on the same path going higher up on the Tree. There really wasn't anything interesting going on, but Rynold felt as if someone was following them.

Glancing back, Rynold saw Neana who was walking a couple of feet behind the two of them.

Rynold stopped dead in his tracks and called on Neana who was following them. "Come on, don't be a stranger," he said with a friendly smile.

The girl was hesitant to get closer to Rynold after the whole fiasco that happened. But, knowing that he won't cause any more trouble, she accepted and walked along with the two.

"Sorry again for yelling at you," Rynold broke the silence as they continued up the Tree. "I get carried away sometimes..." Pausing to read her reaction, Rynold noticed that she lowered her guard a bit. Knowing that he was somewhat recovering from the damage he caused, Rynold continued to speak.

"You know... you're right. I should've been able to protect the Tree better. Some Lord I turned out to be, huh?" Rynold said with a joking smile. "Those things that attacked the Tree was something unexpected for everyone here. Luckily, there were no serious casualties."

Rynold deeply sighed. The statements that he was saying didn't necessarily come from nowhere. These were his thoughts on the chain of events that happened. Truthfully, Rynold admitted that he could've done more to reduce the damage.

No matter what, lives were no joke. He couldn't easily take a life, much less willingly give one. But, he was somewhat satisfied with the outcome overall. Nobody died and they could live on for another day. That was as much as anyone could ever ask for.

"Ah, we're here!" Rynold called out as soon as he saw the Library door up ahead.

He opened the door to the Library as they approached. But, unlike last time, a completely different phenomenon greeted Rynold.

Rynold saw Jack and Margareth working... together?

It was hard to believe that the two weren't at each other's throats now. And to see them working together as a team was even harder to believe.

He knocked on the door to make them aware of his presence. As much as he didn't want to disrupt their workflow, he had to do something to help out.

"Hey, anything I can do to help?" Rynold asked as he entered the room.

Margareth didn't bother looking up at him as she seemed to be busy with something. Jack, on the other hand, greeted Rynold with a high five.

"We're about almost done here," Jack said as he stacked a pile of documents and moved it to the side. "Just makes yourselves at home. We're going to give you a detailed report of the damages as soon as we're done."

Rynold decided to look around the Library while waiting for Margareth and Jack to finish up. He wasn't one for sitting around and doing nothing while others did some work. So, he thought that maybe he could grab some information from the books that were neatly placed in the bookshelves.

It didn't take long for him to realize that what he was doing maybe a fool's errand.

Most of the books were in Elvish, a language that he couldn't even understand. Some are what Rynold assumed to be ancient text, in which case, it was a language that he still couldn't read.

But, Rynold still decided to give it a shot.

He grabbed one of the books that he assumed to explain Augment-related spells. Even though Rynold couldn't understand a lick of what the book was saying, he just tried to base everything in context.

With his intuition as a guide, Rynold considered what the images and text meant. The words were foreign to him, but he could tell some words contained great wisdom and knowledge.

As he turned each page, trying to absorb whatever information he could get, Rynold soon reached a page where it depicted a man of immense power.