“Quick question, Mr. Sol!” Apollo immediately hopped on the bandwagon, “Are you really the inventor of the energy drink? How did you come up with the idea? Please tell us!”

“H-Heh… A-A foreign friend of mine gave me the idea.” Lune chuckled nervously, trying his hardest to not sound anxious as he answered.

“Who cares about that, you damned addict!” Another coworker bashed Apollo’s priorities, “Mr. Sol, I recently installed a tatami mat flooring into my house and it’s really doing its job! Thank you so much for the detailed instruction booklet that came with it, I would’ve been so lost without it!”

“A-Ah, instruction booklet? T-That was the manufacturer’s doing, I had nothing to do with that…”

“Oh, piss off!” Apollo shot back at the tatami coworker, “You and your damned flooring! This guy singlehandedly modernized our entire quik and you focus on the damned floor of your house? Energy drinks are far more important! Nay, they’re THE MOST important invention known to man!”

“H-Hey, let’s all just calm down here! No need to fight, right? Why don’t we all just get along?”

It seemed like Lune was getting overwhelmed. The fake smile he adorned for his audience quickly turned stale, and his eyes kind of started twitching the moment someone mentioned a specific rumor that was floating around him.

“Are you really married to the wife of a Grys maid?” Someone shouted out.

“I am indeed.” Lune spoke with a strong voice that quieted everyone down in an instant, “She is the love of my life, and I can’t wait to see her again. The wedding was amazing, and…”

While he was starting to talk about his wedding day, I had but only one thought on my mind. Love of your life? Poppycock! This guy literally just told me he cheated on his wife with another woman! But wait, which wife is he talking about? Plus, what did he mean by “I can’t wait to see her again”, anyway? Your wife’s dead, dude, you can’t see her ever again.

“And what about your second wife? You cheating bastard!” Someone from the back jeered before blending into the crowd.

Ah, what a heartless thing to say. I need to reprimand whoever said that! Lune’s our guest, and more importantly my tutor! I can’t be letting you get away with saying such a thing! But wait, because of the crowd and overall ruckus, I can’t tell who said that! Well, Lune’s a pretty peaceful guy, so I’m sure he wouldn’t let something like that get to him.

“…Who said that?” Lune’s eyes suddenly shone red, “Who the fuck said that?”

Everyone that was pestering him immediately knew something was amiss, and promptly stepped away from him, thus forming a path directly to the perpetrator. The poor worker probably just wanted to make an ill-willed joke at Lune’s expense, so he was trying his best to run away as quickly as possible. That being the case, every one of his coworkers knew better than to let him leave, so they forbade him from passing through to the back, and some even held him in place.

“You.” Lune slowly approached him as he fiddled with his right hand’s fingers, “Usually I don’t let these kind of jeers make me look like a fool, but I’m feeling quite… foolish today.”

The employee was scared to death. He started crying, pleading, praying, you name it! Anything just to get out of the situation scot-free, but Lune wasn’t having it.

“I see. So you make fun of my deceased wife, as well as my alive wife all in one fell swoop and expect to not get burned?”

“G-Gulp, b-burned?” The employee asked.

In the very next moment, Lune’s hand made a sparking sound, and from the tips of his ring and pinkie finger popped out a small little flame. Nothing too dangerous, you could probably only light a match with it at best, but it was still enough to give the perp a shock. Without ever breaking eye contact, he put the fire right under the perp’s chin, effectively burning the employee’s goat-like beard off completely.

“There.” Lune chuckled, “Eye for an eye, you insult my love life, I insult your face. I’d say it’s a fair trade!”

At this, the entire room burst into a fit of laughter. Looks like Lune wasn’t really going to do anything serious to the now crying employee, and instead just wanted to teach him a lesson about not making fun of others based on your limited knowledge of them. I should be angry at him for nearly seriously injuring my employee, but honestly I’d rather thank him for doing my job for me.

“Sol! Sol!” The questions once again started back up, “What was that fire just now!? Are you hiding a lighter somewhere under your sleeves?!”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Sol! Did your eyes just turn red for a moment?! Did anyone else see that?! I can’t be the only one!”

Lune finally got back to his senses and realized that his actions only amplified his reputation here, which only lead to him reverting back into his socially awkward state. He tried answering everyone’s questions as honestly and friendly as possible, but after a while he just gave up and grabbed me by the wrist. Seriously? This guy’s so scrawny, and yet he expects to drag me off to somewhere? W-Whoa?! He’s surprisingly strong, too strong for his body size! I mean I get there’s a size difference between us, but I’m the strongest guy in the quik!

“H-Hey! Where are you taking me, Lune?!” I tried struggling, only to then get lifted up over his shoulder like a bag of flour, “O-Oi! Put me down right now!”

“Calm down!” Lune said with a shaky voice, “I-I just need to take a breather! This is kind of getting to be too much for me!”

You’re the one that needs to calm down, you strongman stickman! You’re the famed inventor, yet you get flustered by a room of like twenty people in it?! Even putting that aside, if you really want to take a breather outside, then what the heck do you even need me for!?

***

“Phaaah!” He let out a sigh of relief after plopping me back down to the ground, “It was getting quite hectic in there! Heh, you really should teach your employees some basic manners. I almost lost my cool there!”

Almost lost… your cool? ALMOST?! So you’re saying that that was you holding back?! Well, then again, I’m willing to believe it. If you hadn’t lifted me up in front of all of my employees and ran full-speed to the other side of the quik, I’d be calling you full of yourself, but given what you’ve just displayed for all of us in this short time span, I’m honestly inclined to think you’re telling the truth!

“That being the case, there’s a reason I took you with me, Meil.”

“Oh really? And here I thought you were just panicking for no reason.”

“Well, there’s that…” He scratched his cheek with a bashful expression, “But I also wanted to thank you for teaching me about Iro Abilities.”

Iro abilities? Is that what was happening back over at the company? But wait, what even is an Iro ability? And what does he mean by me teaching him? I’ve never even heard of that term, nor have I ever met this guy, so what the hell is he spouting?

“I know you’re confused and all,” he continued, “But as you can see, I am able to freely manipulate flames and sparks to do my bidding if I position my fingers as such and focus. This is something that I first did when I was fourteen, but it happened on complete accident, and I couldn’t replicate it no matter how hard I tried.”

“Mhm…” I nodded whilst listening.

“I couldn’t replicate it, until I read your book about the theory of Iros pertaining certain perks.”

Wait, that old book? I wrote it when I was thirteen! It was meant to be read as a satire based on the traditions of Entropic peoples, but this guy took it as a scientific paper? Much less, it was true?! What the hell?

“That being the case, I’m excited to be working with you. Since we need to present a paper based on some kind of thesis to the officials, I’d suggest our theme be ‘The Various Uses and Applications of Iro Abilities’. How’s that sound?”

“Uhh, sure. Sounds like a plan, heheh…”

“Great! That being said,” He asked, “Show me all of your Iro Abilities! I imagine Spark was a cinch for someone as great as you, but did you know that cutting off your pinkie allowed you to shoot off a strong Fireball instead?”

At these words, I couldn’t help but look at both of his hands. Sure enough, his left hand was missing a pinkie. What’s more, his left ring finger had a really nasty scar on it, but it was kind of getting covered by his wedding ring.

“I don’t have any… Hold on, did you seriously cut your pinkie off just to prove this?”

“A-Ah!” He twitched, “No, I’m not that crazy yet! An Old Man chopped it off in an icy cave is all.”

He said ‘not that crazy yet’, which is worrying. And also, that explanation sounds even worse than if you just said you cut it off yourself! What the hell kind of life did you live thus far?! Lune Grimheart, just who in the world are you?

“But wait, did you want to say you don’t have any Iro Abilities?” He surmised what I wanted to say before asking again, “You sure? You’ve never Gone Solipsistic? Or at least used Materialize? And wait, what was the Base Use of Brown again? Argh, Ed told me about it in his letters, but the name always escapes me! Something to do with Anna…”

Ed, Anna? Who the heck are these people? This guy is spouting some really out there words and names and is really overestimating my ability (and willingness) to keep up. Listen dude, your little ember display here is interesting and all, but I genuinely couldn’t care less about neither Anna nor Ed, because I’ve never even heard of them. Unless of course, that is, they can help me win the Mobius Award.

“Lune, I don’t know what you’re talking about. If all you’re gonna do is act like a lunatic, then I’ll look for another person to be an assistant for.” I said as I turned to go back home, “Thanks for coming here and all, but I’m afraid you’re simply too incapable to be my tutor. I’m a man of science, after all. I don’t want my thesis to be based on spewing fire out of my hands.”

Just then, he stepped in front of me and showed me his empty hands. After that he made another weird hand symbol with his fingers, and in the very next moment…!

“Presto! Flowers for the lovely Meilly!”

“W-What?!” I jumped at his sudden act, “D-Did you just create flowers out of thin air?!”

“Yep!” He cheekily looked down at me with his eyes glimmering Blue, “But you’re a guy, right? Flowers don’t fit you. You’d probably want a weapon more, no?”

Again, his eyes flickered Blue as the bouquet of flowers in his hands suddenly popped out of existence and in their place, a titanium longsword could be seen. Now there’s no doubt, he’s not making this up! He’s really manipulating the world around us! Could this be a dream or something? Is he the Reincarnation of a God or something?!

“And what’s a knight without some armor to go with it?” He once again crossed his right hand’s thumb and pinkie before a Grys issued helmet was plopped on my head, “So? What do you say? Still don’t wanna partner up with me?”

Standing in front of me was either some kind of wizard or a man with a really good sleight of hand. Either way, he's being too cocky with it! I guess I have no choice but to go with him for now, but only because I'm on a tight schedule!