After a meal and a bath, I fed Mezu once again and sat in my new room. Apparently after the thirtieth floor we had gotten an upgrade to the house. There were now four rooms. We split them up only slightly differently than when we had two rooms.

Last time we had split into sleeping habits, so Lefty, Sailhin, Paeris, and Brick slept in a room together, and me, Dot, Dodger and Mezu shared a room. Apparently, we all snored to some extent and after one night of Paeris sleeping in our room so that the other room wasn’t overcrowded (Mezu slept on me so all the beds in the room weren’t used), he moved to the other one.

Now I was alone in a room with Mezu. Dot and Dodger shared a room. Lefty and Sailhin shared a room and Paeris shared his with Brick.

The bath, that was now an open-air bath, had an entrance on the ground floor, and the sparring room was larger, not that we really used it.

Since I was alone in my room now, I just fed him there instead of in the basement. And since Alcoroth could make it so we weren’t overheard we were able to have a conversation. It’d felt like a while since we last had one uninterrupted. The only time we’d been alone was on floors, or at night in the training hall.

“Have you given it any thought?”

I looked at him as I straightened out Mezu’s clothes.

“Given what thought?”

“What your blessing could be?”

“Well, it probably has to do something with the monarch that chose me right?”

He nodded.

“So, the others will get blessings too?”

“Yes, if chosen they will be given a blessing.”

“Will they each get a person like you?”

He looked at me.

He really did think of me as an idiot. The bare minimum I could figure out about the whole thing was that Alcoroth was similar to my monarch. And since they used the term monarch, Alcoroth was probably like an assistant of sorts. He probably worked for the monarch and was in charge of managing me. I didn’t know the extent of their control over the system but other than helping to take care of Mezu, and teaching me, there must have been another reason for him being around me all the time.

If my monarch had him, then it probably meant that when the others were selected, they would have a monarch’s assistant with them too. But then would they each slowly know? Wouldn’t that cause problems?

“I know I have considered you stupid in the past and have recently only slightly corrected that opinion I’m glad you’ve exceeded my new expectation. And since you’ve guessed on your own let’s see how much I can explain. I am essentially his assistant. Once the others are selected, an assistant will be sent to accompany us.”

“But won’t that be an issue? I mean I can see you, and if they can see their person but no one else can won’t it cause problems? I mean I’ve gotten used to things but we’re already almost at the thirty second floor, won’t it be happening quickly. And won’t it be annoying to give explanations to each of them instead of all at once?”

Alcoroth laughed, “You’re right, it would be annoying. Do not worry though, that will be dealt with. You’ve figured this out, now how about your blessing?”

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“You said I’ll figure it out, but have I not received it yet?”

“You haven’t, the best you could probably do is figure out what it is most likely related to. But I care more about knowing if you’ve figured out what my master represents.”

I tilted my head, “what do you mean?”

“Consider why they are called monarchs?”

“Oh… you mean that they each govern something specifically.”

He nodded.

The answer was in what he and the monarch had in common. But I hadn’t met the monarch, right? How could I compare the two if I know knew one of them?

I hadn’t met them… right?

I couldn’t stop thinking about that night that Alcoroth disappeared. The person I spoke with then, he treated Mezu a lot differently than Alcoroth did. I mean I assumed he was more powerful than Alcoroth but what if I had met my monarch?

If that was him, then I had met him, and I should be able to figure it out. But that wasn’t the other time that Alcoroth hadn’t been around for a while. Actually, there were two other times, aside from the brief time on the guild’s floor. Those times were when I met with Mypheryn.

Alcoroth didn’t even enter the library floor, and he left before Mypheryn was summoned to the waiting room for floor twenty. If Mypheryn was related to my monarch and Alcoroth and not specifically Mezu then the one thing they had in common was their interest in knowledge.

And the reason I was picked… Alcoroth never confirmed that it wasn’t just because Mezu liked the taste of me. The other reason was because I was interesting. There were things to learn from following me, and at least Alcoroth seemed just as interested in my memories if not more than I was.

But these Monarchs were basically gods, weren’t they? Shouldn’t they know everything? Why would there be a god of knowledge if they knew everything? But if they were so interested in me, they must not know everything.

I looked at him and saw a small smile creep onto Alcoroth’s face. It wasn’t one I’d seen before, it felt similar to what I’d seen on the monarch.

“Is it knowledge or something like that?”

“Correct, would you share with me how you figured it out?”

“You didn’t meet with Mypheryn, so they probably had something to do with you and you didn’t want to reveal it. And the monarch, he also seemed like someone really interested in learning things.”

Alcoroth laughed, “You figured it out so quickly. Well done, so what do you think your blessing would be related to?”

I shrugged, “probably has to do something with getting my memories back. I mean I don’t know how powerful Kusho is, but would he really be able to fix things on his own?”

“I guess you’ll just have to see. The beings in your world have attempted to study the mana associated with one’s memories for many years. It is a difficult subject to discuss, but the bare minimum that Kusho had done on his floor at his weakest, is the highest level anyone mortal has attempted. They haven’t been successful, and in most cases even if they were successful in their intent, the draw backs of performing the spell usually overshadowed their benefits.”

“So are you saying that someone tried to do something to my memories, succeeded but it wasn’t in the way they wanted?”

Alcoroth’s eyebrows rose slightly, “That is possible, but I was more trying to give you an understanding of Kusho’s strength. If someone was to have messed with things and the intent was to have a small impact, but instead it messed with your entire library, that could explain things. We could call him now if you wanted?”

“Should I?”

Alcoroth squinted his eyes at me slightly, “I thought you wanted to know?”

He was right, I did want to know, and we were now high enough for me to know. And just a few floors ago I was so desperate to know, why was I instinctively hesitant?

He said I should trust my instincts, if I didn’t want to think about things but this should be an easy thing to figure out. We weren’t alone now, how was I supposed to explain things to the others? I’d probably be incapacitated for a while, and it’s not like Mezu could communicate with them, Kusho would be with me in my own head so he couldn’t talk with them. Dodger would probably attack Kusho thinking it’d help things.

“I don’t think I should find out now when you can’t explain things to the others. We don’t know what’s going to happen, and I don’t really want to try and explain Kusho to them. So, it can really wait. Once they’re all picked, and the quest is explained to them, then you can explain Kusho to them and not me.”

“I don’t believe you’ll have to wait too long then. There are only seven to pick from, and we aren’t far from the fortieth floor. I assume they’ll all be chosen before then.”

“I’d rather skip that floor completely.”

Alcoroth laughed, “don’t be like that, there are most certainly interesting things to discover there. Why on earth should we skip it?”