Clearing Yun's Office

*clang* *clang*

The sounds of swords clashing can be heard. Roland and Morty are sparring on the Floor of General Works.

"Come on! Put more effort into your swings! Stop attacking from the same direction! Mix it up!"

It has been a few days, and Morty has improved a lot. While the books gave the boy combat knowledge of the foes they defeated, knowing how to fight is different than putting that knowledge in practice.

Morty's performance starts to improve, forcing Roland to start backfooting to avoid being overwhelmed.

"Good! Good! Don't let up! Keep the pressure!"

The foes they've defeated are honestly not that good or tough, so sparring and simulation training is beneficial for growth of people like Morty and Finn.

*snap*

Roland and Morty stop their sparring when they hear the iconic snap amd find Angela.

"Good morning, you two."

"Good morning, miss Angela." "Mornin' ma'am."

Angela examines the state of the two librarians.

"Sparring?"

"Yep. Even with the books power, kid's still a greenhorn. Need to sharpen his skills so he wouldn't get himself killed over some rookie mistake. Even if it's not permanent, dying still hurts."

Roland puts his arm over Morty's shoulder and presents him proudly to Angela.

"So far, he's been doing quite well. Barely needs me to watch his back."

"T-Thanks for the compliment, sir."

Morty shyly looks down to avoid eye contacy, not use to Roland's complements.

"Is that so? Good, because he'll need it."

"Why? Something special today?"

Roland is curious on what Angela wants to tell them about.

"Remember Yun's Office from before?"

"Yeah. We're progressing with that?"

"Yes."

Angela then presents a red invitation to the two of them, showing that they've made another significant step in their progress.

"Hopefully Yun himself or that Eri person will show up. I believe that the books we'll get from them is much more than mere Rats or low level Fixers. Let's watch."

She snaps her fingers and teleports the three of them down to send the invitation.

******

At Yun's Office

Yun is in his office, sitting on his chair. Another person is with him, leaning on the walls of the room. The other person is a short girl, wearing a grey buttoned coat. To contrast with her looks, besides her is a massive chainsaw weapon meant to be wielded with two hands, judge by its long handle. This girl is Eri.

Yun finishes smoking and puts down his cigar, he looks at Eri to tell the situation.

"Finn has failed as expected. Tch."

He had hoped that Finn might've gotten lost or escaped and is recuperating. But days of no contact has proven otherwise. While he didn't have high expectations, Yun hoped that Finn would come back and bring back any sort of information about the Library.

"He wasn't going to last too long anyway. He was just mediocre. He should have gotten a decent modification surgery, or had enough talent to make up for his lack of experience. But he didn't have any of that. He was nothing more than an overconfident brat."

Overall, the boy wasn't important in the grand scheme of things. His contributions to the Office was doing menial tasks and scoping out danger.

"Too bad, I kinda liked his affable amd cutesy attitude. Though I agree, he was bound to die sooner or later."

Eri agrees with Yun's opinion. When she met Finn, she thought he was meant to be the Office's mascot meant to act cute, not an actual Fixer under Yun.

"Congratulations, by the way. You must have more options now that you're a Grade 8 Fixer."

"Yep! So you'd better be careful. If you don't pay me well enough, I might just move to another Office that will. I heard that you're barely covering your own taxes these days, let alone the monthly rent for this Office space, am I wrong?"

Looking at Eri's cheeky grin as she talks about his situation, Yun's eye twitches in frustration.

'Breath in, breath out Yun. You still need her.'

Despite her personality, Eri is still the best Fixer under him. He needs her strength for the Library. He calms himself down and gets down to business.

" *sigh* I believe the case I had Finn handle could make a breakthrough."

"You mean the Library and the invitation you talked about earlier. But you said that the invitation appears randomly, no? How are you going to get another one?"

In response to Eri, Yun shakes his head to refute her words.

"I wouldn't have called you if I didn't have certainty."

He pulls out the invitation and shows it to her as proof to his decision.

"I recently received another invitation."

"Wow. That's neat. So this whole Library stuff is the real deal, huh?"

"The existance of our Office depends on this case. Something like the Library is sure to be profitable. I have a hunch. So we're giving it everything we have. I've assembled my best Fixers for support."

'If we fail this. I won't just die, my whole Office will be done for.'

This entire ordeal is Yun betting everything for this chance to rise.

"Aight! Let's roll in some dough! I just bought this lovely thing here from a workshop, too."

She caresses her weapon as if it was her beloved. Granted, with how much of her salary she spent to get it, it might as well be.

*******

In the Library

"These guests seem quite determined. We should prepare accordingly."

'With this Office, significant progress shall be made.'

Roland and Angela watched as Yun's Office ready themselves for the assult.

"A whole Office coming at us, huh."

Roland begins counting the Fixers he will fight.

'One, two, three... And if you include Yun and Eri... Eight Fixers are coming. All way stronger than every other guest we've had so far. How bothersome.'

"It may be a small and insignificant one, but it could prove to be a little tough for the Library right now."

'Especially when we're outnumbered 4 to 1. Wait...'

A thought comes into Roland's mind. He turns to Angela and looks at her with concern.

"What if they make it all the way to your room?"

Angela seems surprised at this, but she quickly returns to her normal look before Roland notices.

"The guests cannot act outside of the space we've prepared for them. It's how this place works. After all, this space is created with limitless power."

Angela turns to Roland with a scrutinize gaze.

"And yet you somehow jumped right into my room, when you weren't even invited..."

Roland shrugs to show that he still doesn't know how he first came here, causing Angela to drop her question.

"Anyways, I am capable of protecting myself as you experienced before, so there's nothing for you to worry about."

"Yeah, you're capable alright..."

Roland rubs his arms as memories of what happened cause him to feel the pain he did back then.

******

Yun enters alongside with his Fixers. They stare in awe at the Library, examining its potential worth for their Office.

*snap*

Soon, Angela appears to greet them.

"Greetings, dear guests."

The group looks wary at her, checking if Angela might pull something. Although, one of them whistles at her when seeing how she looks.

Yun examines her.

"So you must be the owner of this place."

Eri also examines Angela.

"Eh? She doesn't even look that strong."

Her experience as a Fixer tells her that the woman in front of her has not fought at all in her life. She seems more fitting for a job as a model with her looks.

"Finn must have been here earlier. What happened to him?" Asked Yun. He was wondering whatever happened so that he may prepare himself.

"The boy named Finn has become a book, as per written in the invitation."

"I see. So the invitation didn't lie..."

Angela notices Yun thinking to himself. She wonders why.

"Acting all sentimental when you were the one who sent him here, knowing he'd fail?"

Eri hears her and snickers at Yun.

"Yeah Yun, hypocrite much?"

Yun is annoyed at how the situation is occuring.

"Tch. Shut up. We all get exploited and abandoned at some point in our lives. Focus on the task at hand."

Hearing Yun's words, Angela reminisces on past events in her life.

'Isn't that the truth.'

Yun turns back to Angela.

"Just sends us to our ordeal."

"May you find your book in this place."

*snap*

Angela sends to Roland's Floor. Thinking back to Yun's words, she reaches into her pocket and brings out a bracelet. It's terribly made, clearly creates by an amateur. Despite its looks, to Angela its value might as well be more than the City itself.

"X..."

******

At the Floor of General Works

Yun's group soon meets Roland Morty. Seeing their numbers, Eri smirks and brags.

"Just two chumps? This'll be easy! Let's have some fun!"

"Wait, stop!"

Despite Yun's protests, Eri and some of the Fixers ignore him and charge to overwhelm the Librarians.

Seeing the  group come at them, Morty starts shaking, so Roland grabs his shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Keep your cool kid. No matter how strong your body is, it means nothing if you're spirit is weak. Keep calm and focus."

"Y-Yes sir!"

Roland and Morty charge to clash with their opponents. The two Librarians cut down a Fixer each before splitting up. Roland heads to fight Yun and the rest while Morty deals with Eri and another Fixer with her.

"Tch, greedy fools."

Seeing them lose two of their group so quickly while the fight just began, Yun tries to take command.

"Don't split up, fight together. One of you come with me, the rest stay as reserves."

Yun charges Roland alongside another Fixer. Roland dodges Yun's punch and swings at the other Fixer. He dodges in time, losing only his sword. One of the two staying as reserve attacks Roland to take the heat away from his teammate. Roland blocks the attack and dodges two more from Yun and the other reserve Fixer.

"Whew, close call."

"Tch. Wipe that smirk off your face."

Meanwhile, Morty has his hands full with Eri and her partner. Despite this, it is clear that he's handling it just fine. The power of the books, alongside the training under Roland, has improved him considerably.

"Just hold still, dammit!" Shoutes Eri in frustration.

Eri is a very prideful person, preferring to work alone out of the belief that others will slow her down. This mindset is now showing its faults, as she has no coordination with her fellow Fixer whatsoever, allowing Morty to dodge and block their attacks just fine.

"Die!"

"Agh!"

Just as Eri swung, Morty vaulted over the other Fixer. Surprised by the maneuver, he was killed via friendly fire as Eri's swing was too fast for her to change course.

"Raagh! Useless! These assholes aren't helpful at all!"

Seeing how she cut her own teammate in half, instead of feeling distraught she instead felt frustration at how they couldn't help at all. Not only that, killing a friendly will certainly give Yun good reason to not only cut off some of her payment, but even ask for her demotion back to Grade 9 .She decide to vent her frustration on Morty, wildly swinging at him.

"I've worked my ass off to get promoted! I'm not going to lose it just because some wuss got in the way!"

Her attacks have no technique or skill, she's just bashing her wealon against Morty's to try and break his guard

"I feel like that's more of your fault than his."

"Shut up!"

Yun's situation isn't any better. Roland killed his partner and caused the two reserves to kill each other via dodging their attack and causing them to stab each other.

"Dammit! This wasn't how it was suppose to go!"

"Hey, a Fixer who can run an Office should know that losing your cool in a fight is just amateurish."

Seeing Yun's state, Roland tries to aggravate him more.

"Tch. I'll kill you, your partner, and take all the valuable books you have!"

Yun knew that it's a lost cause. Even so, he keeps fighting in an attempt to try and turn things around.

"Gotcha!"

"Oof!"

Unfortunately for Yun, his fate was ealed when Morty found an opening and landed the killing blow on Eri. Pulling out his sword, he watches Eri fall the ground while clutching her wound. Blood flows from her mouth as the light in her eyed slowly fade.

"Fuck... sorry... sis... Tama..."

She turns into a book before she can utter the name.

"Nonononono..."

Watching Eri die, Yun tries to deny the fact that despite everything he's done, his entire Office is done for.

"Ugh!"

"Curtain call."

With a swing of his blade, Roland kills Yun. The man's body turns into a book like the rest of his fixers.

******

Roland and Morty are back down. Angela appears in front of them with the newly collected books, inspecting them on their quality and content.

"Good job kid, you did great work on your first job."

"Thanks sir!"

"Go rest, I've gotta chat with our Head Librarian."

Sending Morty off, he approaches Angela and chats with her.

"So how's our performance, ma'am?"

"Excellent. This guest named Yun could make an especially valuable book for us."

"They're all like moths diving into flames. That Yun guy seemed like a clever sort, but even he ended up blindly jumping into the fire to get what he wanted."

Roland thinks back to Yun's slow breakdown earlier.

'Dude just wanted to pay his rent, and look what happened.'

Angela hears Roland's words, and remembers something from the past.

" "Once you've had a taste of desire, it comes like an unstoppable wave." It's a quote I heard a long time ago."

Saying those words, Angela began to look back on what happened back down 'there', and 'his' fate.

"But is that desire true to one's heart..."

" *snicker* "

Hearing Roland snickering at her, Angela turns amd glares at him.

"Anything funny?"

"Yeah, well... You said you despise roundabout speech, and now you're being all poetic. Ten out of ten delivery, a  certain head librarian would have taken an arm and a leg off if she heard that."

Roland even claps as he sarcastically praises her.

Hearing his words, Angela pinches her forehead in annoyance as she has no comeback to his words.

'Those two have rubbed off too much on me.'

"Just get back to sorting books."

"Sure thing."

Saluting Angela, Roland walks off with a smirk on his face

'One point for me.'

This interaction was the first they talked to each other not as master and servant, but as just two people. And it won't be the last between the two.