"Urgh! Let me go!" The librarian demanded, "You guys are so dead!"

"Dude, you're the one that cuffed us without thinking." Lemmy clicked his tongue, "And to think, I imagined the scholars here would at least have some level of common sense..."

"Now now, Lemmy, it is important to remember that this man had no prior experience with scuffles." I defended the inexperienced librarian, "In other words, this man is so sheltered that he did not have the critical thinking required for him to do his job."

"You're not helping my case!" The librarian's Eyes watered, "And besides, there's no use in going through all this trouble. I remember your faces clearly, and it's only a matter of time before they catch your one Eyed accomplice as well!"

"You underestimate Lee's abilities." I chuckled, "That man has gone through hell and highwater to get to here, and of all the people in this world, he is most certainly the last one to ever get caught by your ranks."

Well, that is actually highly improbable, as there are certainly more skilled people for the job. Still, I wanted to bluff him a bit, not to mention that I wasn't really lying all that much. The librarian's here are all quite unskilled when it comes to combat due to their scholarly and peaceful nature. Lee will surely escape unscathed. Even still, we need to figure out what to do with this guy here. It's as he said, he knows our faces, so if we let him roam free, we're as good as expelled.

"I say we cut his tongue off." Lemmy cut to the chase all too quickly, "Can't rat us out if he can't talk, now can he?"

"Eep!"

"Come now, Lemmy, even you know that he can always write if he cannot speak." I shook my head, "What even gave you such a barbaric idea?"

"That's how we did it back in the bandit camp." He looked a bit nostalgic as he spoke, "Alright then, just cut his tongue and fingers off. Problem solved."

"At that point we should just put him out of his misery." I figured, "We are scholars first and foremost, Lemmy. Torturing someone like this is something only done in a war."

"How would you know? Did someone you know get tortured or something?"

"Well, more like the opposite..." I recalled Edward's harsh actions, "He tortured the princesses of Carmen before killing them in an equally gruesome manner."

"Phah! What a chad! The dude killed two girls? The hell did they do to him? Oh, I bet he tried something with the both of them and got denied or something! Hahaha!"

"The older sister killed his best friend before betraying all of us." I looked down, my fist tightly clenched, "Though the younger sister was dangerous in her own sense, she was still sort of collateral damage. He had no reason to kill her, other than a twisted sense of justice and revenge. Last I heard of him, he's getting his head sorted out with his family and close friends."

"A-Ah." Lemmy quickly stopped laughing, "Is that so... Sorry, I jumped to conclusions."

"Do not apologize to me." I smiled warmly, "Apologize to Edward when you see him."

"Edward, huh." He noted, "I know a guy named Edward."

Just as we had concluded our talk, the librarian spoke up with an annoyed "Ahem". He seemed to be quite fidgety, eagerly waiting for a chance to make a break for it, though it's not like it'd ever work, as I can always just Go Solipsistic and catch up to him easily. Wait a second, that's it! How coud I have forgotten about our most important weapons - Iro Abilities!

"Lemmy, use Command and make him forget about this entire day!" I turned to him.

"Urk, no can do." He sat down tired, "I mean I can, but the moment I blink, Command will immediately disperse, and the memories will come flooding back to him in no time. Those are the conditions of my Iro Ability."

"Huh, so wait..." I then thought about the Command he placed on me, "If your Command disperses once you blink, and you Commanded me to be quiet at noon, and I could not yell even as Aguilar's men cornered me in the evening..."

"Yeah, I didn't blink once during the entire day." He shrugged, "I figured my Iro Ability would require me to learn to live without blinking, so I learned the skill pretty early on."

"That is incredibly smart on your part!" I grabbed him by the shoulders as my face gleamed from excitement, "Oh, but I guess we cannot have you not blink for the rest of our lives, huh?"

"No duh. I wouldn't do it even if I could." He rubbed his Eyes just thinking about it, "Even from just today my Eyes are all sore. Any more days than this would most certainly lead to blindness."

"Then, have you tried something along the lines of "I Command you to listen to me even when I close my Eyes"?" I thought to ask, just in case.

"Yeah, though it doesn't work." He slouched his shoulders, "I can only make smaller Commands, and one at a time, no less. For example, "doing the dishes" is fine, but "doing all of my homework even though you've never been to University and don't know how to" does not. Also, you need to be super clear with your words - No double meanings."

"Such as?" I tilted my head.

"S-Stuff like "follow me to the back" and "help me alleviate some stress" don't do anything..." He looked away, briefly blushing as he spoke.

"You did not try any of these on the mademoiselle, did you?" I glared down at him.

"...I wish to remain silent on that."

"Uhh, guys...?" The librarian spoke up.

"Not now!" We both yelled in unison.

***

So, we still don't know what to make of this situation. Lee is off running away from the librarians and hiding the book away to a safe place, and yet we still can't even begin to imagine what we'll do with this guy. We also can't even uncuff ourselves either, as we're serving as the only tether keeping this guy from bolting. I don't want to have to kill this guy just for being annoyingly righteous.

"Ugh, there wasn't anything in that damned storeroom..." Mademoiselle could be heard entering our dorm.

"Yeah, just those male porn mags." Kevin scoffed.

"Y-You found the porn mags!?"

"Huh? You know about them too?"

"I-I just happened to spot them whilst I was locked in!" She darted her Eyes all over the place, "D-Don't misunderstand! I-I just hid them under the pile of trash when I found it! Nothing more!"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Kevin looked at the very nervous mademoiselle for a moment, before chuckling with a smug grin and giving her a couple of light nudges to the shoulder. She seemed even more scared for her life once he did that, though she quickly loosened up once he spoke.

"Heh, I getcha'!" He looked satisfied once he cracked the case, "You were always super innocent, so I wouldn't expect anything less from the goddess Kiria."

"D-Deification is considered an international offense!" She quickly pulled out her knowledge of the law before stopping, "Hold on, y-you really believe me?"

"Of course!" He was taken aback by the surprising question, "We've known each other since we were in diapers! Of all the women in the world, you're the one I'd least expect to do anything else but get embarrassed and throw it away. Besides, your tone and the way you're acting now is giving you away all too easily. I mean, come on! You're blushing just thinking about it!"

"Y-Yeah, ha-ha..." She looked away as she scratched her bright red cheek, "R-Right, t-thanks..."

"For what?"

"For... b-believing in me so easily! Yeah, that's it." She quickly thought up a reason before looking over to us, the three cuffed men sitting around in the living room and watching their conversation the whole time, "Y-You guys are back!?"

"Duh, we got here a while ago." Lemmy pattes the librarian harshly on the back, "We got into quite the predicament thanks to this guy here, so we're kind of in a pickle as to what to do."

"Elaborate." Kevin sat down with us, "Oh, Kiria. Could you pour us some milk? Straight from the tap, please."

"T-The tap!?" She blushed, "Just what are you saying, Kevin!?"

"Haha, silly Kiria, did you really think for a second that our tap produced milk?" He laughed at his successful prank, "Sorry to disappoint, but our tap only gives water."

"R-Right, y-you got me..." She sighed in relief as she rushed to the fridge.

Pouring all of us, including the librarian, some cold milk, Lemmy and I had begun explaining everything that happened on our end. From finding the book, to Aguilar's group, and even to the misunderstanding we had with the librarians, which in the end all culminated into this very predicament - the three of us cuffed to each other, our hands literally tied as we desperately try to think of the perfect way to get out of this.

"Damn, you guys really went through a ton of trouble." Kevin noted, "The only thing we did was fuck around all day in the shed."

"F-Fuck around!?" Lemmy choked on his milk.

"Kevin, don't swear around Lemmy! He's still a kid!" Mademoiselle reprimanded him.

"H-Hold on a sec, it's not that!" Lemmy collected himself, "Please explain EXACTLY what it is you were up to in there."

"Huh? Well, it's basically as Kevin said." Mademoiselle explained as Lemmy held his breath, "We turned the entire place upside down, but to no avail. We didn't find anything, so we came back empty handed."

"And you did nothing else in there, right!?" Lemmy sounded desperate to get his question answered.

"Uhh, yeah?" She tilted her head, an imaginary question mark forming next to her, "Should we have done something?"

"Hell no!"

Just then, we had all quieted down to a deathly silence as we heard some of the librarians walking to our dorm room, presumably searching for their coworker. We all immediately turned to the cuffed librarian, who donned a shit-eating grin before loudly banging on the wall behind him with the back of his head. Desperately seeking help, we had failed to detain him in time, and just as we thought it was over, we had gotten saved by the Holy Relic once again.

Namely, mademoiselle's framed panties that were located directly above the librarian's head had slipped off of the nail in the wall and hit him on the head, instantly knocking him out. We checked to make sure he was alive and quickly stuffed him into the sofa as we heard the doors to our dorm getting knocked on.

"What do you want?" Kevin answered.

"Open up, we believe you are hiding a coworker of ours inside of this dormitory!" The voice outside answered.

"Dude, do I let them in?" Kevin turned to me, unsure of what to do.

"No!" I stopped him from reaching for the doorknob, "Just say exactly what I tell you and we should be fine!"

Alright, this is gonna be tough, but it's now or never. If I recall correctly, I once wrote a book about international laws. There aren't many of them, but there exist some laws that are the same no matter where you are in the world. One you might've heard of is that deification of a person or thing is forbidden. It's kind of like that. Basically, no one can search your place unless you are either a deserter of the ITA or a wanted criminal. And if you're neither, yet someone still insists they can search your place, all you have to do is say this one simple line.

"This is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed!" Kevin shouted behind the closed doors what I had told him to shout, "Bitch!"

"You did not have to add that last part..." I whispered.

"It just kinda came out." He chuckled, "Felt really natural, like it rolled off the tongue."

"Tch! We'll be back with a warrant!" The librarian yelled.

Running off, it appears we were safe for now. Quietly yet excitedly celebrating our small victory today, the four of us raised our glasses of milk as if it were alcohol and toasted, not even bothering to take the cuffed librarian out of the sofa.

"So wait, if you can just control the dude, why not just say something like "You're our friend now." and be done with it?" Kevin offhandedly remarked, "I mean, it's concise and simple, and by the time you have to blink, he'll have already listened intently to our side of the story and will be willing to let us go. Hell, it'd be good if we got another member on the team, too."

"...Eh?" We all turned to him before turning to the equally as confused Lemmy, "Could that... work?"

"...Librarian dude! Wake up!" Lemmy's Eyes shone a bright topaz Yellow, "Librarian dude, become our friend!"

"Sure, but call me Javi." He said as he happily got out of the sofa and drank his milk, "It's short for Javier, my name. Nice to meet you all."

"Dude, that actually freaking worked..." Kevin seemed to be the most surprised one out of all of us.