As Tibaut was unpacking in his room (well, unpacking was being a bit generous), and looked to be winded from doing something and was wiping sweat from his brow.

"I really am her whipping boy." He said as something caught his eye.

Laid out on the bed next to the three sets of clothing he brought with was the book he had been ducking ever since Elizabeth had handed him the two books.

"Defensive magic… I suppose it's about time I read this."

He opened the book and nervously read the first page. Surprised at how easy to understand it was, he continued reading it.

After reading the book for about an hour he closed and put it down.

"I didn't understand a single part of that other than the first page."

Thinking he wasn't paying enough attention, he opened the book again and read through the first five pages.

It took another five hours but after enough he finally understood what it was trying to say.

"Fucking hell, is this a college textbook?"

The first five pages of the book dealt solely with the theoretical aspects of a single type of defensive magic and showed various equations he assumed were involved in the creation of this magic most of which he didn't recognize. Not recognizing what most of the symbols represented didn't help either.

"I can't do this. This is like dropping someone who did middle school math into a calculus course. I'm missing too much information!"

He started flicking through the pages hoping there was something he could gain from this.

There was nothing of use he could gleam. He hadn't felt this out of his depth before since he had decided to ask some graduates for help with a topic he was struggling with. Why the hell was this book so much more complicated than the other two?

"Man, I give up. I'll see what the others are up to."

As soon as he opened the door he was greeted by a spear heading for his stomach. He quickly dodged, having it graze his side and quickly ran along the shaft to strike back at his attacker. It sent them into the wall of the hallway but she had a smirk on her face.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"This should be fine since we're not in the town anymore, right?" Tina said while readying her spear.

"Can't we at least do this outside?"

"Have you seen this place?"

Despite the outside looking well-kept and the rooms they chose having no issues the rest of the building was far from ideal.

The building had ten rooms and 5 of them were incredibly dirty with holes head-sized to the size of something reasonable like a grape, in the walls with the remaining 5 needing a bit of elbow grease to be cleaned to a satisfactory state. This of course fell on Tibaut. The rest of the building wasn't much better with damage, the floor had some cracks and stains on it and various rooms like the kitchen looked like they hadn't been cleaned in years. Thankfully for him, they didn't ask him to clean those as well. The whole reason he stayed inside and decided to try and read the defence magic book was because he didn't want to risk them asking him to clean after he left his room.

The place also had what Tina referred to as 'battle scars'. Various walls inside looked like they had been damaged with blunt weapons or sliced with blades.

"Come on, can't we at least go outside? With this type of atmosphere, I feel like I'm fighting for my life."

"(Tch, I was hoping to give him a shallow stab to even my odds but he dodged it anyway.) Whatever, just don't make any excuses for when I win. I don't want you complaining about the night darkness causing you to lose."

"Can't I set up some torches at least?"

Tibaut looked at the wound on his side and touched it. He slightly winced and Tina looked at him with her eyes squinted.

"Sure. If you can evade me for long enough."

Tibaut frowned when she said this and started walking towards the outside.

As they walked through the building that looked like it had been through a war they stumbled into Elizabeth who was looking at a room in disappointment.

"Oh, you two." She said,

"Quite the place isn't it?" Tibaut responded.

"I should have known we were gonna get stuck with a place like this," Tina said.

"At least there's a roof above our heads," Elizabeth said, trying to force herself to be optimistic.

Tibaut looked up.

"Huh, I think I can see some stars through a hole."

"Let's hope it doesn't rain," Elizabeth said dejectedly. "Also." She put her hand on Tibaut's side and healed it enough for it to stop bleeding.

"Can this wait until tomorrow? If you two fight, I'm certain one of you will accidentally kill the other in the dark."

"Fine by me," Tibaut said.

Tina clicked her tongue and shrugged her shoulders. "Since I was the only one to land a hit, I suppose I'll accept this win."

Tibaut glared at her but she didn't let it bother her and walked away.

"Tibaut, we will be meeting with the lord tomorrow so make sure you don't oversleep."

"Why do I have to go? Isn't he fine just meeting with our leader?"

"With Jake in our group, I'm not presumptuous enough to declare myself the leader. Besides, even if I were, you would have to come with us anyway. How are we supposed to guard him if he doesn't even know our faces?"

"Fine. I can't guarantee it since sleeping in the carriage was so rough on me."

"Don't worry, I'll wake you up if I have to."

("Like hell, I'll allow that to happen!")