Rey was in the infirmary not far from the library, lying on a bed with bandage wrapped around his stab wound.
"Ow... ow...ow! How long have I been lying here?" Rey tried to sit up but his pain wasn't making it any more easier.
"For some two hours or so." an unknown voice startled him as he didn't sense anyone coming, "Need any help?"
"No I'm fine! Who are you?" Rey managed to steady himself against the bedrest as he looked at the man.
The man was wearing almost the same outfit as the guards who came to the shed except for the jewel studded hilt of the sword he had and the aura he gave off was not what any ordinary guard could exude.
"That's not how you thank someone who saved you now, do you?"
"Well that was impolite of me. Allow me to thank you captain of the guards!" Rey was now pleased as he got back at the man for surprising him.
" You've got quite the eye, young man!" the man was surprised as he didn't expect Rey to know his identity without his robe. "So why be impolite when you knew my identity?"
"Well, there has to be a reason for the captain to remove his robe which is considered as a matter of their pride and sit like a common guard in front of me."
"If you can guess this much then you surely can guess my reason for coming here to see you." the man now sitting straight with legs crossed, one above the other, donning the robe of the captain, gave off an immense pressure.
'So this is the pressure of the captain of a big town? It is not much compared to gramps but it is more than what the captain of Rosewood could exude.'
"I have a general idea. It is regarding my stab wound, is it?"
Rey wanted to act like his idiotic self but he found it counterproductive against someone like him.
" Well it is related to your stab wound but most importantly, what were you doing in the shed?"
The captain was serious, the secret basement of the library was only known to the emperor, 12 sapiens, the noble governing the town and him and that too after signing a non disclosure agreement. Rey knowing the secret was something the captain could not afford and he'll have to kill him if things come to that.
Rey knew the fact that he couldn't talk about the basement unless he wanted to live a headless life, so he lied.
"You see captain, I had some time before the library was closed for the day, so I decided to take a look at the garden.
And when I saw that one part was trampled on, I decided to fix it myself as I couldn't bear to see a poorly maintained garden as a gardening enthusiast myself."
'Gardening enthusiast my ass. I only trampled that part, what were those monkey faced flowers. Who knew they'd save my life?'
Rey lied with a plain face and even the captain couldn't find anything wrong.
"So I went to the shed to grab some tools and seeds and that's when a hooded man stabbed me and ran away and you know the rest."
The captain looked at Rey trying to match the legitimacy of his story with what he knew. There was indeed a part of the garden which was trampled and some of his guards also reported seeing a hooded man coming from the direction of the garden, holding a book. But, he still had his doubts about Rey.
"Very well, that's all I needed to know." the captain got up extending his right hand towards Rey, "Ross Kemp, captain of the guards!"
Rey grabbed his hand, giving him a firm handshake, "Rey Shelding, Rosewood!"
The captain started to leave before stopping at the door, "No offence Rey but, the man must have been a rookie. I mean, how bad does one have to be to miss the vitals in the stomach."
Rey was caught off guard by the remark, "Haha! None taken, captain."
The captain left and soon a doctor entered the room who told Rey that he could leave after one last check up.
*30 minutes later*
Rey was walking in the streets of Birchwood trying to find a suitable place to rest.
"Man, the captain almost got me in the end. I didn't know that trying to not harm myself will be so dangerous. I better not repeat such mistakes."
Rey had scoured the areas where most of the guesthouses and inns were and not finding anything decided to just roam around the town.
*45 minutes later*
Rey had two meat skewers in both of his hands, a couple of garlands and some hats. In the 45 minutes of him walking around the town, many shop owners/saleswoman were charmed by his looks and gave them as gifts.
He looked at the timer while eating a pork skewer and seeing that there were less than 20 minutes left in the scanning, hurried his search for a place to stay.
He was now far away from the main streets, near the noble's residence where the footfall was low when he noticed an inn 'The Healing Touch'.
'The Healing Touch' was a chain of premium inns for the rich with a branch in Rosewood too. They were famous for their hospitality and were mostly used by people of eminence. He had stayed in one when he went to the capital with Ed and the experience was so good that he wasn't content with anything else for a couple of days. Remembering his experience, he decided to stay there for the night.
He was denied at first but when he brought out the seal of the Mayor of Rosewood, he was given a room to rest. Being Ed's friend had many benefits and one of them was this. the Mayor considered Rey as his son and didn't mind him using his name.
Rey went to his room which screamed luxury in everything, even the view outside the window was gorgeous. He just lay on the bed waiting for the scanning to be completed.
10... 9... 8
3..... 2.... 1..... 0
The timer turned 0 and a notification telling the successful completion of the task appeared.
"Hey system, you missed so many things while you were scanning." Rey was eager to talk to his system about the things it analysed and discuss some important things.
[.....]
"I went to the basement of the library... stabbed myself when..... captain of the guards... Hey are you even listening?" Rey narrated the whole incident before realising that his system has been quiet the whole time.
[I don't care what happened!]
"That's mean you know, I just got stabbed and you are being indifferent and why do you sound feminine? "
Rey was surprised at the change in his system's voice which was like a teenage girl's.
[I....I..... just forget about that!]
Rey sensed something was wrong and after thinking something called up the list of books he had scanned. A list of tens of thousands of books appeared in front of him.
Going through all of them would have taken him hours so he asked his system to sort them according to their genres.
[I won't do it, idiot master!]
"It is an order and you sound so funny in a girl's voice." even though the system has sentience and could take some decisions on its own, it couldn't do anything if it was an order from the user.
He looked at the list which appeared shortly.
1. History
2. Biographies
3. Guides
.
.
.
.
.
11. Romance
"...."
[....]
"I knew something bad will happen when i saw history and romance together. Now care to explain what happened exactly."
[Maybe while scanning, you scanned a few romance titles and when I analysed then, I randomly got a personality.]
"Personality?"
"And why don't I know about the romance books."
[It's because you asked for history books you idiot master, hmph!!]
"So as I was getting accustomed to your sentience, this author randomly gives you a personality and that too a tsundere. Just what I needed *sigh*.
Now I regret not going to the erotic section, maybe you could've gotten a m.. "
[Stop it, you perverted master!]
"We'll discuss the details but before that, call my mother. I have to tell her about my stay in the town."
The next moment a system notification appeared displaying
______________________
Function does not exist
______________________
" What?" Rey shouted and got up from his bed, his tiredness all gone.
[What are you shouting for?]
"Technically I should be cursing and why wouldn't I? You are telling me, I can't even call with this."
Rey's anxiousness about his system was coming back.
[Why are you so shocked about it?]
"Because everyone has the option to call each other via their system. It is a system to system communication, so you can call anyone as long as you know their system model."
[You know after analysing the books, I came to know about a lot of things and discovered many new features.]
"So what?"
[So I might have something, let me check.]
As the time passed, Rey's hopes for his future were also diminishing and he started mumbling.
"What do I do?... should I change my identity?..... what will people say?... should I go the extreme like gramps said?"
After 20 minutes or so Rey's system spoke up.
[Stop talking, you jerk! I have found something.]