As Tibaut walked back to his room, he noticed someone walking down the hallway. This in itself wasn't unusual but…

(“Do I know her?”)

The unusual thing was, he couldn't for the life of him recall who she was.

She held a book in her hands as she walked down the hallway and Tibaut couldn't help but wonder who this woman was.

She had purple hair alongside a thick pair of glasses. She wore black robes that covered her head, with green accents and designs over it.

And she jumped back like she saw a ghost when she noticed Tibaut walking beside her.

“w-w-w-w-w-w-w-”

“Sorry if we've met before but who are you?” Tibaut asked the stuttering woman.

She looked like a cornered animal and Tibaut slowly backed away.

“w-who are you? how did you get in here? you're not gonna harm me r-r-right?” She asked as she tried to reach for something at her side.

Tibaut only found himself confused at her words. “That's a funny thing for someone who doesn't live here to say.” His gaze grew increasingly more suspicious and the woman crumpled under his gaze.

“i do live here!” She softly responded.

“Really? You don't look like Bailey, and she's the only one here that wears glasses.”

The girl looked more and more uncomfortable as Tibaut questioned her, soon falling to her knees in a deep sweat.

“Woah, are you okay?”

“p-please don't hurt me…”

(“What an odd girl. I guess I'll go wake up Elizabeth.”)

“merrill… my name is merrill…” She softly stated as she tried to calm herself down. “you're that man right?”

“Merrill… that's you!?”

----------------------------------------

The poor girl looked nervous as Tibaut sat across from her.

They were in the, until seen now, library. And it certainly lived up to its name. The room was larger than the only library he'd been in in his old life, his college library. There were at least 10 rows of bookshelves around 4 meters tall that were around half the room's length.

The room even extended to the next floor with a door you could enter from a set of stairs.

“You don't leave this room often, do you?” Tibaut asked.

She shook her head while doing her best to avoid his eyes.

“...”

“...”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Tibaut honestly had no idea why he came up here. It was an interesting room but it seems she claimed for herself.

He got up from the chair and slowly headed to the exit.

“w-wait!”

Tibaut stopped and turned around. Well, it wasn't as if he had anything important planned so he returned back to the table.

“um, congratulations on recovering. elizabeth and vanessa seemed really worried.”

“Thanks.”

The silence grew between them once again. The woman across from him began tapping her finger on the table as if waiting on something while looking down.

“So you're friends with the other two?” He asked.

“yeah.” She softly answered.

“Huh, do you leave the library often? I mean, this is the first time I've seen you. I can't imagine you not coming out for food and baths.”

She started coughing like something was stuck in her throat and she gained a light blush on her cheeks. She quickly composed herself and answered.

“i do.”

“...(She's not really giving me much material to work with here. Should I just go? I mean it's not like we can't talk to each other some other time, she doesn't really seem like she's in the mood.) I guess we just miss each other.”

“uh-huh.”

The mood of the room was getting unbearable for Tibaut.

“That's right. Vanessa's a blacksmith, Elizabeth’s our leader, what do you do here, Merrill?”

“uh… manage the library?”

“Really? That's it?” Tibaut asked. He was expecting something unique from her robes but a plain old librarian? She looked like she had Cthulhu on speed dial.

She looked away shyly and started playing with her hair, looking nervous.

“Well, to be fair this is a large library so I'm sure it's hard work. And with just you alone, I'm sure it's tough, isn't it?”

“not really.” She answered with the smallest, tiniest, most microscopic signs of a smile.

(“That's it? No expounding on that point? Ah whatever, there's no point forcing it, she obviously doesn't want to talk.”)

He got up once more and she raised her voice, though in her case all it did was bring her voice to a more normal volume, and stopped him again.

“wait here.”

She quickly got up and nearly tripped on her robe as she ran towards a nearby bookcase. She climbed one of the ladders and pulled out a book before slowly climbing down.

She jogged back to Tibaut and handed him a book with a bookmark left on a certain page.

He took it from her hands and read it.

“Oh, it's that ritual that helped me gain back my weight.”

“r-right.” She answered.

“Wait, so you're the one who found it? I don't imagine Elizabeth would have an idea of every book in here.”

She nodded her head. But as she nodded it seemed like she realised something. “you can read that?” She asked.

“Come on, I know Elizabeth brought me here to fight and that some people in this parish have a certain idea of me,” He said that second part in a far more bitter tone than the first and had Merrill slink back.

“Sorry, I'm not trying to scare you or anything. But Merrill, this isn't a complex text, it's pretty easy to read.”

“really?”

“(Are literacy rates in this time period that bad?) Do you want me to read you a paragraph?”

“n-no.” She turned and headed back to the bookshelves, this time walking past them to the end of the room. There seemed to be a large amount of books stacked up on one another there. She pulled out and made her way back.

“c-c-can you read this?”

She handed him a book that looked quite worn out, compared to the others and he gave it a gander.

“Come on Merrill, I already told you I can read.”

“!” (“Elizabeth was right!”)