Chapter 69 - Sudden Crisis

Rynold sighed.

He had to get these people to work together but he didn't know how to especially with Margareth hating on Jack a lot.

Critically, though, the Librarian Elf should at least be dependable in times of great crisis. It's just that the way she treats other people might need some working on.

Jack managed to clean up his mess and recover from his sudden daze. He slowly shifted his gaze to the book where he had learned the Enchant spell from and noticed that it might be a little out of his wheelhouse. His excitement has gotten the better of him because it was only now that he had noticed the spell had another page.

Eager to try again, Rynold stopped Jack before he even made a move. It wasn't really urgent to have him leave at this very second with Rynold but his practice of Enchant spells could wait. What's more, Jack didn't actually have enough Mana to give it another shot, so he was forced to wait it out anyway.

"Come on, let's go," Rynold said.

Rynold soon headed towards the door and Jack, defeatedly, gave in and followed him soon after. Before leaving, though, Rynold had to first do something.

He headed towards the door but suddenly moving back from it and headed towards where Margareth was sitting instead. Rynold slammed the desk that Margareth was using to study the book to grab her attention. It wasn't meant to be a rude thing but it was the only way he could make the elf look up.

"Wanna come with us?" Rynold asked Margareth who had an expression filled with anger.

The elf was pissed.

The last time a person interrupted her concentration failed to live to tell the tale. It was unacceptable but for this new Lord, she had no choice but to give in and consider the request.

Noticing that she wasn't responding, Rynold prodded on.

"It's nothing much," he explained with calm nonchalance, "we're all just going to hang out and relax up on the top floor. Don't worry, I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to. Just thought that including you would be better."

With a smile on his face, Rynold expressed a sense of compassion and friendliness — two things that Margareth seemed to lack appreciation for.

"Whatever," Margareth said with complete disdain as she stood up from her desk and walked towards Rynold.

Satisfied, he walked out the door and claimed onto the platform. The three of them including X floated their way towards the penthouse area where they left Oliver and Eileen.

Despite the time that he spent getting Jack and Margareth here, Rynold soon found that both Oliver and Eileen were nowhere to be seen.

'Weird,' he thought as he continued to look around.

It was dead silent.

Although the wind sprites didn't make much noise, there was the occasional buzzing here and there. But now, though, it was as if there was nothing.

Margareth was the first to move. She raised a hand as a warning as she continued to look around, scouting. The elf traced the ambient Mana in the environment to come up with an explanation but the absence thereof indicated something else entirely.

The lights flickered dotted around the area flickered, giving Rynold a headache. He caught on to what Margareth was trying to do and tried to do the same. Although not as refined as the elf's, he could still tell that something was definitely amiss.

Using his intuition, Rynold noticed that the lights were made entirely of runes that are powered by Mana. Naturally, the lights shouldn't be doing that at all unless something attacked the very Mana in the Tree itself.

The very foundation of the Tree of In-Between was standing on was in question here.

Although the Mana might've been a means to an end for whoever was attacking, Rynold knew that he had to move and intercept. There was simply no time to waste.

"Get ready to move," Margareth ordered before Rynold could even react.

It took a full second before Rynold registered what Margareth said but, with a smile on his face, he soon responded.

"You don't have to tell me twice," he snickered with great anticipation of the battle that's to come. "X, you stick with Jack and support us from behind. Margareth, you're with me."

Dazed and confused, Jack drew his weapon with a wide arc and readied his position.

Rynold extended his gauntlets into their full glory and ran straight forward into the garden. It was as if without a care in the world as he brazenly ran. Margareth, surprised by the sudden act of carelessness, followed soon after.

The lights repeatedly dimmed and flickered until the darkness ensued. Unable to rely on his vision to defend himself, Rynold activated [Formless Mana Defense] as an extra layer of protection.

The sound of wind suddenly moved past him as Rynold tried to sense his surroundings once more. He was currently tingling with great anticipation as he unintentionally clenched his fist. There was no way for him to see what was going on until it was up close.

Clink!

The sound of metal clashed against Rynold's gauntlets as he held his hands up to defend himself from the attack.

"What the hell are you doing, man!" Rynold yelled out to the attacker.

Oliver jumped back to create some distance and removed his darkened cowl from covering his face. He smiled cheerfully and said, "Sorry, sorry. Heh. The lights just suddenly flickered and the wind sprites kind of disappeared so I thought we were being attacked."

"We are being attacked. Geez, you would think that you'd look before attacking but look at what happened. I would've died if I didn't defend on time!" Rynold berated.

"Excuse me! We have other matters at hand here!" Margareth interjected, "if you boys are done bickering, can we get to work now?"

"You're right," Rynold admitted, "where's Eileen?"

Oliver pointed to Rynold's room before answering, "Up there. She's with Strider so she should be safe here."

Rynold nodded in response. He looked around and found no other presence other than that of Oliver in the area.

He had to admit it, though, that he mistook Oliver for an enemy. Even though the aura wasn't there now, Rynold seriously considered that the guy should be killed on sight. A menacing aura took over whenever Oliver had thirst for blood so it was either kill or be killed.

"Good," Rynold then moved his gaze onto Margareth, "what's the plan now? We can't really go check every corner of the Tree. That'll take forever."

Margareth nodded. She understood what the task at hand was and had countermeasures in place in case things ever go wrong. Now that it did, though, the elf probably had elaborate plans but didn't consider Rynold and the group in mind.

"My Lord," she said respectfully but with a tinge of urgency in her voice, "I will find the perpetrators who might have done this using the Mana Channels that are inlaid in the Tree. For now, you must stay here and be safe."

Without even waiting for a response, she teleported away.

"Wha- What?" Rynold's brain was seriously lagging at this point. "Screw that! I'm going to go find whoever did this and beat the living daylights out of them."

He ran towards his room with Oliver not far behind and kicked open the door. It was just the emergency lights from here on out as someone was probably sucking the living Mana out of the Tree itself. So, Rynold had to do what he can with the things that he had on hand.

"Eileen," he called out into the room to have the little girl hear his reassurance, "Stay here for a while, okay? I'm going to find out who's doing all of this."

Oliver came up from behind and patted him on the shoulder. "Dude, bad time to say this but she's asleep right now."

Rynold inadvertently clicked his tongue and shut the door gently.

"Let's get going."

He moved towards where X and Jack were, rounding up the group together to form a plan. Strategy and tactics were key when they were dealing with unknown enemies of a significantly higher caliber than that of their own.

"What's the plan here, boss?"

Jack's question kicked Rynold's brain into overdrive.

Although his knowledge of the Tree was limited, Rynold had to guess based on his intuition and develop a plan along the way. That was the only thing that they could do, a play-by-play scenario wherein the conditions and circumstances change as time went on.

"Dude."

Oliver nudged Rynold's shoulder as he had stood silently without responding for a few seconds now.

"I don't think there is a plan to stick to here," Rynold answered while looking down the corridor that now looked like a tunnel. "We just gotta get moving and hopefully find something interesting when we get down there. The first place I had in mind was the Rogue Elves Division."