Chapter 118 - Long Forgotten

Things were awkward when they finally got to the guild. Everybody got paid extra but it was only natural that some of the independent mercenaries would be angry about the incident caused by one of the FMC's members. "I'm thankful that you paid extra this time but I can't risk my team like that again. If you have an escort request or want us to go talk to people like you had us doing yesterday then that's fine but don't come to us for another request like this one." The man seemed like he was done talking but decided to add something extra after a short pause. "You should really fire that dragon lady; her stupidity could have gotten us killed." The leader of one of the independent mercenary teams--a small group of mercenaries with three men and two women--decided to voice their complaints. Their group was comprised of five archers so they called themselves the Five Rangers but since they weren't registered as a guild they didn't have any official title.

"I completely understand your decision and we will try our best to make sure something like this doesn't happen again." Gren was struggling to be diplomatic since the guy was telling him to fire his own wife. "We still have requests from other people on the board. We're not involved with those so things like healing and bonuses for unknown risks aren't included. You need to negotiate for those on your own. However, if you do find yourself injured then we'll be willing to heal you if you ever decide to join us on a future request."

The man left along with his team, leaving the armor behind. There was the option of buying it at a discounted price but they had only done two requests for the FMC so the discount wasn't that high. "That's the last of the independent mercenaries. Now that you've wrapped this up, what do you think about watching the kids for a while?" Estella didn't have much to do with the guild so she waited for him to finish up with his business.

Although Gren was mentally exhausted, playing with the kids was always a good way for him to deal with his stress. "The mission today wasn't that bad. I can watch over them if you need a break."

"It's not me that needs a break." Estella led Gren to the playroom where the kids were. They were sitting down and listening to Jessica as she told them a story. "They don't like it when I read to them so Jessica has been helping me. If they just wanted to play then I'd be able to watch them on my own." Although Estella could read, she was slow at it. She was smart for a hobgoblin from a goblin tribe but her reading skills were on par with someone that attended a village school.

"Which books have they heard today?" Gren knew that if he started reading one that they had just heard then there'd be a small riot until he found something new.

"They've heard the fairy one and the one about the egg with legs. They're currently listening to the one with the adopted little girl getting into mischief." There were only a few stories to pick from that Gren knew that they liked and Estella had just listed them all.

"I guess I'll have to try finding a different book that I can read to them. Do you have any suggestions? I'm not sure what other books you all bought for them." Although Gren was hoping for a miracle, Estella didn't have any suggestions. Due to her limited reading abilities she would barely ever pick up a book in her spare time and the kids kept her so busy that she had almost none of that to begin with. Gren needed to head to the FMC's little library and see what they had. The librarian, Antoinette, was given a small budget to keep the library stocked with anything she found interesting so he wasn't really familiar with what they had.

The reason for Antoinette being given the duty of librarian would be obvious to anybody that knew her; she had many arms and knew how to read well enough to keep them in order. It wasn't much but, out of the women that had nothing to do, she fit the position best. Increasing the budget wouldn't fix the problem of people being bored, unfortunately, since not enough women in the guild knew how to read. That was another problem that had to be fixed but Gren didn't know where to go in order to find someone capable of teaching others how to read; Rumi had tried, unsuccessfully, but quickly learned that adults were harder to teach than the kids were. It didn't help that she didn't have the proper tools to teach them and then found out that she was pregnant less than two months after the classes began, leading her to take a break from teaching.

The library was not far from the playroom as they were both common rooms. Most of the common rooms were located away from the lobby since Gren prioritized bedrooms first when digging out new rooms. Inside of the library were a few shelves that had a decent number of books on them but it was nothing compared to Bradley and Janet's collection that Gren had seen earlier. "Good evening, Antoinette. Do you mind if I take a moment of your time?" Antoinette was sitting down and reading which made Gren a bit reluctant to bother her but he didn't know where to start so he wasn't really given a choice in the matter.

"Not at all, Master. What are you looking for?" Antoinette's way of addressing Gren was something that he was initially against but convincing her to stop seemed impossible so he was forced to accept it. Her reasoning behind calling him master was that he was still her boss even after he freed her despite Gren disagreeing with this. To him, Jessica was supposed to be everybody's boss since it was her name on the place.

Gren explained that he was looking for something to read to the kids but there were no suitable books in stock. The short stories were all signed out and the remaining ones were boring or smut. He didn't realize how much the women in the guild liked smut but that helped answer a question Gren never thought of; why didn't Rodge just read books if he was so bored? It seemed like it'd be hard for men of any era to place themselves into the positions of the female protagonists in erotic novels.

With no proper books in the library, Gren went somewhere private and turned to his pocket dimension.

{Deploy all of the books from my pocket dimension in neat stacks.}

<Deploying all items matching the keyword: Book>

Gren was only expecting a couple dozen books but was in for an odd surprise as the space in front of him was filled with piles of books. He recognized the ones that he bought but they were outnumbered by the mysterious hardcover books. Even the sizes were incomparable; the largest book he bought--the Book of Spells--was still smaller than these books that were in a unified size and shape. There were a few differences between them like the number of pages they had but it was hard to tell them apart without looking at the titles.

The titles themselves were bland with words like Fire, Earth, and Water being on their covers but Gren couldn't help himself from being intrigued. Opening up the nearest book revealed that even the contents were an anomaly in this world. English. It had been a while since he saw them but the familiar Roman characters making up the words he was reading was a welcome sight. It was difficult for Gren since he was someone that had reincarnated; after a while he started to question whether or not those memories that he had were fake but this was evidence that he wasn't just insane. However, this did raise a very important question.

{Where did these books come from?}

<Master's pocket dimension>

That much was obvious. {How did these books get into my pocket dimension?}

<The books were there from the beginning>

From the beginning of what? {Can you elaborate on that?}

<The books were in the ring's pocket dimension when it was absorbed>

"Ah." Gren realized something very important. Although he had intended to look at the original content that was within the ring, he never did get around to it. His life became too busy after that and he eventually just forgot about it.

{Was this all that was in the ring when it was absorbed?}

<Negative>

{Can you show me what else was in the ring?}

Using the system's visualization feature, Gren was able to look at the items he specified. However, there wasn't much there to look at. A set of clothes, an envelope, some sort of stamp, and a crown. The crown didn't seem to be complete with there being a hole in the front; most likely for some jewel that he either didn't have or was lost in his growing mess of things in his pocket dimension. It wasn't really important since Gren didn't really care much about wearing things on his head, especially something that looked so uncomfortable. Even if he didn't have it, he could just make something to fit in that slot.

The clothes looked nice but seemed like they'd be difficult to put on with how many layers they had. There was even a cloak to go along with it but the colors were in a dark purple and black which didn't really fit Gren's tastes. It was likely that they had belonged to a king or some other male member of a royal or noble family since they matched the crown and would be a bit large even on Gren. The treasure that Gren found probably belonged to the same person that the clothes did and the statue of his mother suggested that they were a worshiper of hers. He was just speculating but he couldn't think of any other possibilities that would be as likely.

The stamp was a solid piece of metal with a large crystal in the shape of an eye embedded in the center. At first, Gren actually thought it was an eyeball with the pattern on the crystal itself but that's probably what the creator was aiming for. On the bottom was a bunch of symbols that Gren didn't recognize but the design itself would make it a good decoration to go on a desk if he ever got himself a proper study.

The envelope was saved for last for a very good reason. Just like the books, it had English writing on it. There were only three words on the envelope but they made it hard to open it. "To my son. That's not talking about me, is it?"