“I don’t think it is a good idea to make ourselves known to the knights, when we just got here, Justin.” Ray retorted as he scratched his hair in frustration.

{Is he trying to get a rise out of me? If he starts the mission earlier than we are supposed to, Master Senya is going to be mad. I gotta try to convince him not to go to church.}

“I disagree, I only want to go to get to know the knights, like you said the more information we have, the better we can do our mission, right?”

{Really, he is really going to use my own words against me? It is risky, but it could help with information, we could both go our separate ways.}

“Fine, just please be careful we can’t start this mission until the end of the month, I am not trying to get into trouble with my master.”

Justin beamed up, “Thank you, what would you be doing in the meantime, if you want I can tag along with you until we find a place?” Justin suggested.

“No, I’ll be fine, just go, if anything when I do come back, and if you are not here I’ll head towards the church, since you plan on making friends you’ll be there for some time right?” Ray asked.

“Sounds good, I’ll get a change of clothes and head off, what about you?” Justin started going through his bag.

“I am going to head out already, I’ll see what is around besides the church, I might find out something from looking around. I’ll take the key since most likely I’ll be back sooner.” Ray held out his hand, Justin threw him the keys. “Just don’t forget to lock the door on your way out.”

“I know, I know.” Justin reassured him.

Ray went out the door, and headed back downstairs, he saw the same man who helped them to their rooms, Ray decided to talk to him.

“Hello, um sorry I didn’t actually get your name?” Ray asked.

“Oh, I am Mike,”

“Well hello, Mr. Mike I am Ray, do you know any place I can visit in the town besides the church?” Ray tried his best to sound normal, but he could even hear his voice sounded forced.

“Well,” Mike looked at Ray confused. “Umm we also have a library that you could see, also we have some shops, we really don’t have much here, Oh! that’s right I almost forgot we are having our yearly festival in three weeks, everyone is encouraged to join even strangers. Both of you should join, since you will be staying here that long.” Mike happily explained.

“...”

{He must be talking about that same holiday Justin mentioned.}

“If you don’t mind me asking what are you guys celebrating, it must be something important if the whole village is taking part in it?”

“Of course, we are celebrating the defeat of a devastating hybrid attack on our town forty years ago, the brave knight manage to force away that horrible coward hybrid, I still remembered the attack, even though it was long ago, he was wearing a mask, with two green lines going through it, he had dark blonde hair, and his hateful eyes, if it wasn’t for that knight I would have actually died that night too.” Mike revealed.

“Oh wow, you are lucky to survive that,” Ray remarked. Though he was eager to leave already, he didn’t want to appear rude.

“Exactly.” Mike stood proud, “Not everyone can say they survive a face-to-face encounter with a hybrid.” Mike was beaming.

{It's not like you did anything to help defeat that hybrid. How old are you anyways?}

“You said, it happened forty years ago, you must have been pretty young during the attack?” Ray asked.

“Correct, I was just a lad, eleven years old to be exact, right now I am fifty one, time sure does fly by when you remember the past.” Mike explained.

“Did the knight that saved the village survived?”

“He survived the village, and actually went on to become a commander on the knights, his name is Miles, we always tried to invite him back, but since his status and power he is not allowed to leave the holy cities, which is a shame I am sure he will be happy with how the village is doing since he saved it.” Mike wistfully said.

{A commander huh? Vincent told me they are under the orders of the three lieutenants. I wonder what would happen if a commander, and a lead actually fought, what kind of damage could they do?}

“Well it sounds like it's going to be fun, Justin and I will probably join it, but in the meantime you said there is a library I can visit?” Ray reminded Mike.

“Right, when you go out the door, head left, when you find the shop that sells shoes, turn right, and the library should be at the end of that route, if you like I can write down the direction.” Mike offered.

“Thank you, but that is fine, I’ll be ok. Plus I need to know the surrounding area.” Ray explained.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“...Why do you need to know the surrounding area?” Mike was confused.

“Oh, well I meant like in case I get lost, so I know my way back you see, I am kinda clumsy, You see I got lost on my way from the Alton” Ray quickly said.

“Alton?”

{Dammit.}

“Well, I gotta go, it was nice talking to you Mike.”

“Wait,”

Ray went out the door, and started walking toward the left of the pathway he could at the end of the pathway the shoe store Mike told him about.

{Dammit, now I have to explain this to Justin, hopefully Justin doesn’t say anything that contradicts what I said to Mike. Alright he said when I got here to turn right, the library should be at the end of this pathway, yeah I think I see it.}

Ray tried his best to look normal to the people he passed by, until finally he reached the library, the library was a stone building, with just one floor, it had a wooden door, right in the middle, with a window next to the door, on each side.

Ray saw inside the window, and saw shelves filled with books, Ray entered the library, The wooden door making a high screech sound. Instantly he was welcome by the librarian.

“Hello there, I am Martin, how may I help you today?” The librarian was a thin young man, he seemed to be in his late fifties, with short brown hair, he was wearing a gray apron, and underneath it he was wearing a black shirt, he was standing behind a desk, he seemed to be reading a book.

“Hello, I just wanted to take a look around. I just arrived at the village. Is it alright for me to check some of the books?” Ray politely asked.

Ray looked at the library, it was quite small, the library only had one big room, with four shelves in the middle, the walls were also surrounded by bookshelves. There were also two tables with seats, no one else seemed to be in the library.

“Yes of course,”

“Do you guys get many visitors here?” Ray asked, wanting to make sure it was just him in the building.

“Not really, despite the frequent visit from one of the knights we tend to be mostly empty here.”

“I see.”

“But just so you know, we only allow the villagers to take the books with them outside the building, since you are a visitor I have to ask you to put every book you used back to its place.” Martin explains, though he seems tired, as if he said those lines over and over again.

“I understand, is there anything I could do so I can take a book?” Ray asked, in case he found a book he wanted to take back to the inn.

“Well if you can get a recommendation from a knight, we would allow you to take a book with you. After all it is because of them we have this” Martin explained.

{Yeah like that is ever going to happen.}

“I see, ok thank you, also what time do you close the building?”

“We close at four in the evening.”

“Hmm, so I have three hours left.” Ray quietly said to himself.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Uhh, nevermind that, one last thing, by any chance do you…” Ray thought it over before completing the sentence. “Do you have a section for um hybrids, I would like to know more about them?” Ray made sure to keep eye contact so he wouldn’t appear suspicious.

“...Well I wouldn’t call it a section, but it can be found on the left side of the library, it should be on the wall shelves at the very bottom. though we have a very small selection of it please help yourself,” Martin, sat back on his chair, and started reading his book again.

Ray went to the left side of the corner, looking for the section of the hybrid, he looked at the bottom of the shelf and found three scrolls.

{Damn, only three scrolls, he wasn’t lying when he said they had a small section, I guess an outskirt village wouldn’t have much information on hybrids, I wonder what kind of knowledge the church has on us, I wonder if they ever did experiments on hybrids before?}

Ray unscroll the first scroll, he quickly read through it, it was the story about the hybrid attack on the village forty years ago, Ray quickly read through it, how a single blessed knight managed to make a destructive hybrid leave the village, and from then on they yearly celebrate it, to spite the hybrids.

Ray grabbed the second scroll and the top of the scroll caught his interest.

[History of the Hybrids]

[It seems that the first appearance of the humans who undergo the transformation known as Hybrid, first appeared around four-hundred years ago, around the fall of the first pillar. After the complete destruction of Azure, hybrids haven’t been recorded until one hundred years ago, when a destruction of a village was announced to be the cause of a hybrid that called himself Samuel.]

{So the first hybrid recorded was around the time of the first pillar, knowing how the first pillar was completely destroyed, I am sure the church put the blame on us again, though they can be right, after we were first documented, Azure fell, but still how did we become to be, what exactly are we, what are the knights?} Ray thought to himself, but couldn’t come to any conclusion.

Ray put down the scroll, and grabbed the last one. The last scroll was different; it had an illustration of the autonomy of a hybrid, with little notes, around the body. Ray carefully read through them, but most of them were hard to make out, Ray put down the scrolls in frustration.

The door of the library was open, Ray got up from his seat, then a knight was walking in the middle of the room, the knight look at Ray, The knight had on usual clothes, but he was carrying a scarf with the mark of Sez in the middle of his chest, he had a sword on his hip. He had dark hair, he seemed to be older than Ray.

Ray pretended to stretch to keep his eye away from the knight, when the knight went into the shelves on the right side of the library Ray sat back down and considered his options.

{Dammit, did Mike say something? No, no calm down, Justin would have been attacked by now if anything like that were to happen, and I am not that far from the inn that I wouldn’t have heard anything, he is just probably just some knight looking around, it would be suspicious of me if I just left right away, I just need to think things carefully, I’ll put these back, and get something else to read.}

Ray put back all three of the scrolls, carefully looking around so the knight didn't sneak up on him. After placing down the scrolls, Ray went to the other aisle and grabbed a random book from the shelves, and went to a table to read it. Ray was only through a couple pages of the book, before he was interrupted by a knocking on the table, Ray looked up, and saw the knight, right in front of him.

“Hi there!”