Chapter 168: Settled In
It was a short walk back to the fighters guild and an even shorter one to Masters office. Once they were there Lake watched as Peter gave Masters the piece of paper that said they had three days. "I'll get to the matter of your payment later, go ahead and head back to the Barracks for now."
Lake hadn't expected for them to be dismissed with no questions but it seemed Masters had something he needed to do with this information that was urgent. Once they were back in the hallway Peter said to the others. "I'm hungry, so do you guys want to get some food?" Lake didn't really want to eat anything other than the stuff in his bag but he figured if he ate it all now he would regret it.
"I think Masters might not like it if we were to go out now so we should eat here." This was the first time he had heard Julie say anything so he looked directly at her and he could tell she didn't like it when he made eye contact. It didn't surprise him that she was the embarrassed type because of the way she had been acting up until now but he felt like this was a weird profession for a person like her.
"I don't want to eat here because I won't be able to get a drink." Lake looked down to Grendia as she said this and could tell she meant she wanted alcohol and didn't just mean she was thirsty. It wouldn't make sense that the guild wouldn't allow someone to drink water. "I don't want to eat here either but I think Julie is right and we should stay in the guild just in case Master wants to call a meeting."
Lake had stayed quiet the whole conversation because he truly didn't care what they were going to eat because no matter what it was it would probably taste like trash to him. Thankfully he would only need a few bites to last the day.
Walking into a small room Lake saw there were a few chairs and a table with some bread on it. This was the worst cafeteria he had ever seen but he had realized that people in this world ate to survive and didn't care about the flair part of the eating experience like the people in his last world had.
Grabbing one of the free breads off of the table, Lake tore a part of it off and took a bite to find he couldn't even taste it. He guessed this was to be expected so he just quickly ate the rest of it and sat down to wait for the others to finish. As he was waiting he did notice that there actually wasn't a place to get water and it was possible Grendia had actually meant she was just thirsty.
Looking at her eating the dry bread he couldn't really tell if that was the truth or not but he was sure he would find out in the coming days if they spent any amount of time together. Once they were all done Lake followed them to where he had first met them and followed them back to the same bed.
He wondered if this was where one of them lived or if they had just gotten into the habit of sitting here while they weren't working. "So Lake, how long have you been in the guild?" Looking at Freed Lake thought about lying but in the end thought it would be stupid to do something pointless that could blow up on him later.
"About two days." Lake knew this would make them think he was weak but he didn't care because he was so strong that how they saw him couldn't affect what would happen if there was a fight. "I'm surprised you're here in that case. Are you from here?"
"No I'm not." Lake was hoping they wouldn't ask where he was from because he really didn't know the answer because he had never really found out what the last place he was was called and he didn't have to say far away. "Oh, so where are you from?"
"I'm from far away." Lake wished he had done a better job at finding out what the last territory was called as he said this but he hadn't so there was nothing he could do. "Do you mean like from the Water Domain?" Lake nodded and made his face look like he was surprised they had guessed from the minimal information he had given them.
"What's it like there?" Lake didn't know so he fell back to his story of being an orphan and said. 'I'm not sure it's just where I was born. I didn't grow up there." Lake could tell the way he had said this made it clear that he had a sad past and didn't want to talk about it but Peter didn't seem to be smart enough to pick up on context.
"Is that why your name is Lake?" Lake and everyone else looked at Peter like he was the biggest idiot in the world and Julie quickly did her best to change the subject by saying. "Were you guys scared when the informant jumped out the window?" Lake knew he had been and was about to chime in so this new conversation topic would take hold but Peter once again beat him to it.
"Why were you scared?" Lake had already come to the realization that Peter was kind of stupid even though he seemed to be the Leader of this group as well but Lake thought it was a testament to how good they all were at their jobs since they were all still alive. Right after he thought this he remembered he was actually replacing someone and while he hadn't really thought about it till now that might be because they had died on one of their missions.
If that was the case Lake might want to figure out if Peter was actually in charge or was just the most eager so it came off that way because Lake didn't want to have to take orders from someone he couldn't count on. "Peter, are you in charge of the team?" Lake knew he was kind of cutting off Julie's question from actually being answered but he felt this was more important than a hastily thought up question designed to change the subject.
After a few seconds of silence Lake was about to ask what was wrong with his question but was stopped by Grendia and Freed laughing. While they continued to laugh at his question Julie took the opportunity to answer him. "Freed is technically the leader but it's rare that he'll give an order. It usually only happens if there's a need to retreat."
Lake nodded and thought back to when Peter had told Freed to go get their mission from Masters. This had kind of made Lake think Freed was the least likely person to be in charge of the group. He guessed it was only like this because these people seemed to be friends because of how long they had been together so rank wasn't really involved in their interaction.
After a while Freed finally stopped laughing and said. "Tell me are you relieved?" Lake just nodded he didn't want to go into too much detail because he was sure Peter wouldn't like being called an idiot but Lake was in fact very relieved. Lake didn't want to ask the next question because he knew it could have a bad effect since everyone seemed to be having a good time but he still asked. "What happened to the person I'm replacing?"
Lake took it as a good sign that Grendia didn't stop laughing as soon as he said this and Freed answered him. "Jeppy retired. He said he was getting too old to be worried about something like this and he didn't want to be stuck here because he killed Demon Worshipers because he has family in the Earth Domain."
Lake found it odd how much the world had seemed to open up in just the last few hours but he guessed he had just been in a place that was only worried about what was going on where they were. It made sense with something like a war that could end with them all dying, they weren't really thinking about the other territories unless they were thinking about running away.
And it seemed a lot of people didn't have the option of going to another place to run from the war because while he was at the gate he had seen the guards checking people's papers that proved they had the right to enter the Metal Domain. "Masters Just came into the room." Lake heard what Grendia said and looked up to see Masters had just come into the barracks.
Seeing the others stand up, Lake followed suit and stood. He guessed it was something people did out of respect so he didn't want to be the only one not doing it. "Ok, line up. New mandatory assignments for everyone here." Lake didn't like the word mandatory but he was fine with it in this case because he didn't want to just sit here for the rest of the day.
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