Creak...

"...Rusty? The Smith? Anyone?"

Glenn hesitantly pushed the Armory's door open further, stepping inside the shop with muffled steps. There was a strange sense of stillness he wasn't used to coming off the silent shelves and the weapons lying on them.

It was decided that the "Gang", as appropriately named by Diamanes — a moniker that Nelg first validated — would leave the Northern Town for the Eastern One at nightfall by use of the Magi Brotherhood teleportation setups. Sahro prepared a few things he didn't care to share with the group, while Milena chose to try and contact the Restoration Operator from the Seekers she knew. Javier... Well, Glenn didn't bother even asking the pale hunter what he was going to do, since it was guaranteed he wouldn't answer, only stare back emptily, his lack of emotion his only reply.

'Is it just me who finds the place quite dusty?' Diamanes muttered from within Glenn's mind.

"Can't tell, never been there. Oh, wait, actually, I did, back when I was Glenn—"

"Don't even start, Nelg," Glenn muttered, teeth clenched, as he approached one of the shelves. He drew a line through the dust on the lacquered wood, squinting in awe at how thick the layer was.

"...Did Rusty leave the shop like this? It's not even locked; he sure isn't worried." Glenn dusted his hands off, frowning. He glanced at the door leading to the reserve, hesitating for a second before walking up to it and pushing it open. The dark hallway with its stupid amount of doors opened up to him, strange noises coming out of the locked-out rooms sending shivers down his spine—

"Yeah, shut the fuck up narrator."

"Why are we here again?"

"For the blob. Hey, it's fine if I speak aloud as long as no one is around, right?"

Glenn ignored both of the voices, slowly but surely building mental resistance to their strong capacity to annoy him to no end.

"...What was its —no, his name again? Blob, blob, blob..." The young man scratched the top of his head, biting down on his lips before smiling.

"Ayo, Bob?" Glenn's voice echoed in the dark hallway, the light coming from the torches hanging off the wall trembling slightly as a small breeze of wind swept through the corridor. The young man waited silently for a few seconds, before sighing and entering the hallway.

"...Is it really necessary to intrude into our dear friend Rusty's home? Wait, he is a friend, right? And all that to meet a blob?" Nelg questioned with a strangely nervous voice. Nash glanced at the longsword hanging off his belt, before shaking his head slightly.

"Did you inherit some kind of weird fears as well, but not the courage to brave them?" He taunted before being cut off by a voice even more mocking than his.

"Bravery? More like stupidity."

Glenn pulled on his face tiredly, before abruptly stopping dead in his tracks. He slowly turned his head to the side toward a dark ebony door, squinting at the green, goo-like liquid coming out of the keyhole.

"...Bob?" He hesitantly asked, taking a step back when he saw a jolt going through the green slime oozing out. The green goo busted out of the keyhole in the nastiest manner possible, splashing bits here and there with sticky noises, before shaping into a large, green figure in the form of a triangle with one large hole in its center. Glenn's eyebrows couldn't help but be raised at the sight out of confusion, Bob's current form much less intimidating than the one he was first confronted with.

"Well, hello Bob. You're Bob, right, not..." Glenn gestured in the air randomly, searching for his words, "...a family member or something, right?"

A green light lit up in the hole in the green mushy triangle, a round ball of light that stared down at Glenn with indecipherable emotions. The young man forced an awkward smile as he rubbed the back of his head, his nose creased.

"Well, uhm, Bob — I'll assume you are Bob — I just had a quick question about your..." He moistened his lips before grimacing, "...healing capabilities."

Bob's green, bubbly, and glowing eye blinked as it gazed down on Glenn, the young man grinning with all his teeth.

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

"...Well, this could have gone worse, I suppose?" Glenn stumbled out of the Armory wearing a disgusted grimace, before muttering a quick Mundare to get rid of all the green goo covering his body.

"This was horrifying. As a newborn child, I feel truly traumatized," Nelg whispered with an awed, trembling voice.

"I wouldn't go as far as calling it horrifying, but it was certainly...special. What did he say his specie was?" Diamanes asked with a steady voice, not the least disturbed by the events that just happened. Glenn smacked his lips, his nose creased.

"A Dolr-something, it doesn't matter, I have the answer I was searching for. Anyway, let's please abide by his terms and keep what happened inside the Armory where it belongs starting now," The young man shivered and glanced back at the shop and the door leading to the reserve,

"...In the damned Armory."

After this short but most traumatizing eventful stop, Glenn decided on his next stop, the Northern Branch of the Maron Company. He had a few questions to ask Maron, and it would do him no harm to try and get some more information from the merchant.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"If I remember correctly, the Northern Branch should be a dozen minutes away on foot," Glenn rubbed his chin as he navigated the Cleaner's Workshop hallways with wobbly steps, heading for the Main Hall and eventually the exit. It was hard to admit, but this place was starting to grow on him. How could he dislike a place that fed him for having fun?

"...I'm not sure fighting eldritch creatures, forlorn entities, and monsters are classified as "having fun", for normal people," Nelg commented quietly, earning himself a sneer.

'Good fucking job, you realized Glenn is all but normal. Wait, if a part of your soul can realize that, won't you be able to do so as well?' Diamanes added while laughing at Glenn's longsword. Nelg pouted and went back inside a corner of Glenn's mind, far away from the vexing, talking hand. The host of all these discussions suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and looked at his left hand curiously.

"Wait a minute. I have the Silence curse, right?" Glenn muttered curiously. Diamanes didn't dare to comment, in fear of ruining his host's enlightenment. The young man summoned his Mana, summoning the power of the Silence Curse, before aiming it at his head, killing every sound entering Glenn's ears.

The young man looked around for a few seconds, before sighing with a relieved grin.

'Hah, finally I found a way to shut these fuckers up...' He thought when he noticed a mouth opening up in his left, purple palm. It was grinning with a peerlessly white smile, mocking him in all his splendor.

'Well, that was a nice try, but I'm still in your head, you dumbass.'

"I can't believe you tried that. I know that you're at the end of your rope, but still, it's crazy that you would think this would work."

Glenn's smile melted away and he dismissed the magic, sighing desperately. As if to take him out of his despair, his stomach grumbled hungrily, taking away his focus on something much more important: getting some food. And not something from the Dining Hall this time, he wanted something more...normal.

"I'd love myself a meat skewer...no, sausages would be nice...shit, I need a fucking barbecue and a goddamned coke..." Glenn sighed, speaking aloud without a care for the glares of the other Fixers crossing his path.

"Damned freak..!"

Glenn froze in his steps, woken up from his thoughts of barbecue and soda, realizing he was already in the Main Hall. His stomach grumbled once more, making him wince unpleasantly before he turned to find the one who cussed him out. His arms crossed as he leaned against the wall was a new bastard someone he had never met before, a bald guy with the stature of a gorilla and the muscles to contribute to that image. He was bare-chested, shamelessly showing to anyone brave enough to take a glance the might of his curly chest hair.

The gorilla spat to the side, his eyes glued to Glenn's left, purple arm.

"I've heard of you, freak. I'm gone for a few months, and now you try and take my spot for the Northern Town strongest Fixer?" The gorilla flexed his pectoral muscles, veins bulging out of them. Glenn blinked before moistening his lips. He opened his mouth to reply to the gorilla, but a new grumble from his stomach changed his mind over his priority, and he chose to ignore the gorilla.

'For good measure, how strong is this guy, Diamanes?' asked Glenn cautiously, finding it hard to believe that he wouldn't find himself in another bizarre turmoil just because he'd blown some idiot's head off. He'd much rather go eat a steak of unidentified origin but with an excellent pepper sauce, instead of fighting Gorilla-man over there.

'Tsk,' Diamanes sneered, '...just figure it out yourself. I'm not a fucking threat scanner, figure out by yourself whether that guy is dangerous. One thing is for sure, your life ain't in danger, as far as I can guess. Oh, and that's by taking out your thought process of the equation.'

Glenn pressed both of his lips together and walked away, ignoring the whispers of the nearby Fixers, the dead but happy gaze of the pretty, robotic waitresses, and the gorilla's irritating laugh.

'Keep your priorities straight, Glenn. First, you need to get some roasted meat, wait, no,' Glenn shook his head with a sigh, '...Taking care of Redan's mess is the priority. Let's go to Maron, get as much intel as I can, all that so I can fuck off to the Eastern Town with peace of mind. Great, that's a nice, perfect plan without a single flaw—'

Thunk!

Glenn stopped in his steps once again and looked back at the sheathed dagger that had hit the back of his head. It was the same copy as the one he was holding in his soul, the Black Gold Identification dagger served to every Dark Gold Fixers of the Cleaner's Workshop. The gorilla pointed at Glenn with a wicked grin.

"You damned coward, fleeing away from ME? Well, nothing surprising considering how you left those defenseless people to die...What were their names already?" The Gorilla rubbed his chin with a faked wonder, before smacking his opened palm with his fist, a wide grin decorating his ugly face. Glenn's blood ran cold in his veins as he felt his face harden, his fists clenching so hard the joints of his fingers whitened.

"There was that farmer, then the innkeeper, as well as that baker woman...All fools that deserved their ends considering they tried to befriend a freak like you—"

Snap!

"Huh?" The Gorilla's eyebrows rose in confusion as he witnessed his Black Gold Identification dagger being snapped in two under Glenn's boot, the blade cleanly separated from the handle. As soon as the rupture was made, a flow of Mana noticeably escaped from the dagger, disappearing into nothingness as everything that made the dagger special faded away. Glenn looked down at his foot with puzzlement, before making an exaggeratedly shocked face, both of his hands pressed on each of his cheeks.

"Oh, man, I am so sorry, I sure hope this wasn't yours!" Glenn crouched down a little too fast, his knee colliding against the dagger's blade, bending it outwardly and ruining it even further. Glenn's expression of shock deepened further and he hurriedly gathered the dagger's fragments under the Gorilla's and the rest of the present Fixers shocked gaze.

"I, uh, my savings...?" The Gorilla muttered in disbelief while holding out his hand toward what remained of the daggers. Glenn grimaced while looking at the fragments, before shrugging and summoning a Black Hole to swallow the remains, crushing them to dust.

"Well, it's broken, so I'll just dispose of it for you. It's my way to make myself forgiven," Glenn smiled innocently, before waving away at the Gorilla.

"Anyway, see you around," he said casually before leaving the Cleaner's Workshop hastily.

The Gorilla was so shocked he was still locked in his position staring at the spot where he had thrown his precious and expensive dagger.

'...That's disappointing. I had hoped you would freeze that guy alive, or fly him around with a nice Gravity Manipulation, but no, you had to go with the boring emotional damages,' Diamanes grunted in displeasure, while Nelg's laughs echoed in Glenn's mind.

"That bastard was so shocked he couldn't even utter a word! Haha, definitely worth it!"

Glenn smiled weakly as he looked at his palms, finding them slightly bleeding from how hard he had clenched his hands.

"Yeah..."

He drew a deep breath and headed out for the Northern Town's alleyways, hoping to use the walk to calm himself. How could he handle himself in the future if the first idiot's words made him lose control of his emotions? He had to rein that hatred in and keep it warm for the one who truly deserved it, the fucking Baron.

"I talk with Maron, then we go save Redan, I level up Nelg, and then I go kill the Baron and bring back Giselle's grandchild," Glenn sighed deeply as he glanced at the blue sky, before shaking his head slightly.

"All things considered, it should be pretty simple, right?"