Chapter 124: Fast Forward Pt.2
Last Night Lake had eventually given up on looking through the entire library on floor 49 because he wanted to watch the fight that pretty much started at the same time every night. There were fights during the day as well but for whatever reason they never got as heated as the ones during the night.
His look through the library hadn't been a complete waste though Lake now knew where he could find books about curses which was something he wanted to know more about for a while. It would be a good thing for him to do every night if he had some spare time after work and such.
Stepping out onto the balcony, Lake saw no one was outside at the moment. This meant there was no fight happening in town which was a good thing, but it wasn't like there was that much of a difference there would be at some point in the day.
Heading upstairs for work, Lake wondered if he and Nancom would be able to get the time even lower than 4 and a half hours today. He was pretty sure they were getting close to the max speed they could reach and at most he could only shave a few minutes off of each round of brewing.
...
He had been right about not making much improvement to the time today. The difference ended up being less than ten minutes. This meant from now until whenever they were told to stop he would be spending about 4 hours at work meaning he had about 16 hours a day that he didn't really have any plans for.
He had things to do like look around the library for Cascading Alchemy or watch the fight that happened for around five or six hours a night but he didn't have to do them if he didn't want to. He wondered if he should ask Lucas to give him another job because this amount of free time was a real bore.
He guessed there was no reason to ask Lucas he should just start up his magic training again. He needed to start to master a few more principles if he wanted to make custom spells any time soon. From what he knew about magic training he could easily spend his whole day doing it with it being such a tedious process.
Seeing he was at the 49th floor Lake stepped into the Library to continue his search for Cascading Alchemy. He had a little over half the library to look through but right when he was about to start he remembered he had a skill that was perfect for something Like this. Activating Detector It wasn't long before Lake finished checking the whole library.
He didn't find the book which meant someone had the book out of the library at the moment. This made him wonder if you could just take any book you wanted from the library and return it after you were done. No one had ever told him what the process to check out a book was so he had just assumed you were supposed to read inside the library, but it was possible you could just take whatever you wanted and there was no need to check them out.
This was probably one of those times knowledge from his world had made him make an assumption that was wrong. A few minutes later Lake was walking out with two books one about fire training and another about curses. Lake had just grabbed a small book about curses because all the books in this library seemed to assume you weren't a beginner like he was and most of them would take forever to read with how long they were.
Lake was starting to see why there hadn't been any books about curses in the beginner library; it seemed it was a complicated subject. It was fine, Lake wasn't trying to become an expert, he just wanted to learn the basics, so he wasn't completely in the dark if he ever encountered them.
Stopping by his room only long enough to set the two books down on his desk, Lake headed for the cafeteria. He wasn't quite hungry yet but it wouldn't be long and he had gotten in the habit of listening to people talk while they were eating. Most of the things they said were useless opinions, but every now and then he could get some nice information from someone who held a position somewhere important in the guild.
...
Nothing had really happened while he ate, but the food had been incredible. It was good Millie had been able to refocus herself and get back to work. Riding the elevator straight up to Lucas's office, Lake got off to see Lucas had a lot of company. He hadn't planned to stop, but this made it seem like there was something important happening.
Standing out of the way Lake started to listen to what Lucas was saying. "Did you see any large groups leave out of this hole in the wall, or did they all move in the same direction?"
"No sir, they all left together in the same group a few hours after the last fight happened. It took us a few hours to confirm, but it seems less than 10% of what was in the city is still here."
It seemed Lake was right to stop and listen, it seemed one of the larger groups that had been occupying the city had picked up and left. Now he just needed to figure out which group they were talking about. He just hoped it wasn't the Light temple because if it was the city was done for.
"Has anyone figured out why they fell back, or if they plan to return?" It seemed he had missed the part about who they were talking about because Lucas was already on the part where they were trying to figure out why it had happened. Lake thought he could probably still figure it out as long as he kept listening.
"No sir, we're pretty sure none of them were even expecting to get the retreat order because they had been setting up for the attack tonight when they dropped everything and left."
"Did you send anyone to follow them?" Lake was starting to think Lucas was talking in a way that the identity of who they were talking about wouldn't be revealed just to annoy him. "Yes Sir, I told them to report back every few hours until they run out of people to send so we can expect a report for the next few days as long as nothing happens to them."
It seemed Lucas was out of questions for them because he sat down and pulled out his mirror. Lake knew this meant Lucas was about to give orders to the guild, so he got his ears ready because Lucas talked kind of fast when he used the mirror. "Send two groups of scouts to make contact with the Light Temple to see if they know why the Demon Worshipers evacuated."
This gave Lake his answer, the Demon Worshipers had left all of a sudden and while the people in the city probably saw this as a good thing there was no way they had just given up. It did give him a small window to go outside though. The only thing was he didn't really have anything he needed to do out there.
He was a little bored staying inside all the time, but it wasn't enough that he thought it was worth risking his life. He did want to finish his mission to gather a million gold but what were the odds he could do that in the amount of time it would be peaceful. The Demon Worshipers could be back at any time, and he was sure they would be bringing reinforcements when they did come back.
Making up his mind to stay inside the guild, Lake went back to listening to Lucas who had been talking this whole time he had been thinking. "Rush as many shipments as you can. This might be the last time we can get resources into the guild for a while." It seemed Lucas wasn't happy with the massive amounts of everything they already had stored away inside the guild.
It would be stupid not to use this opportunity though, so he couldn't really fault the decision and maybe there were things they really needed already, he wasn't exactly privy to all the things the guild used on a daily basis. Seeing Lucas was putting the mirror back where he kept it, Lake was expecting the orders to be over but Lucas looked at all the people in his office and said.
"Get back out there, and identify the best paths in and out of the guild for the carts to take." After Lucas said this all the people Lake knew where scouts rushed out leaving them alone. Lucas was looking directly at him but Lake didn't really have anything to say so he waved bye, and headed for the stairwell.
"Lake, I need you for a second." Lake turned around and sat down in the chair in front of Lucas's desk. "What do you need, Guild Master Lucas?" Lucas didn't seem to like the fact that Lake used his full title for no reason but he just said what he was going to without acknowledging it.
"I'm going to be leaving the guild tomorrow for important business, and I need you to tell me if you can use that skill you used on me the other day on anyone." Lake new Lucas was talking about Treasured so he nodded and said. "I can." Lucas looked happy to hear this and said. "In that case you will be coming with me. I'll need you ready and in my office before the sun rises, and don't worry about work, I'll tell Nancom you'll be with me."
Lake nodded, and stood up. He could tell Lucas was done with him by the way he had started to read one of the many documents on the desk. On his way towards his room, Lake started to think what they could be doing tomorrow that would need Lucas to go, and the use of his skill.
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