Chapter 43: The Fiery Girl, Scarlet

"Wha—elder brother!" The youngest of the monkey brothers went to the elder brother.

But Gerald faced the fiery girl as he said, "You dare kick my elder brother!? Take this!"

He did a roundhouse kick, aiming for the fiery girl's head, only to get his leg stopped by her hand. Using both of her hands, she broke the leg with little to no effort.

A violent crack ensued, followed with the monkey demi-human falling down and screaming while clutching his mangled leg.

The fiery girl didn't stop there. She kicked his face, almost breaking his neck, and the monkey was shot towards the exit of the library!

She turned to the two brothers, and pointed at them as she said, "Talk to my Alice again, and I'll kill every single one of you!"

I felt like a side-character as the two monkey brothers left the library, scared of the red-haired girl.

She turned to Alice, who has been holding a book this whole time, and said, "Are you okay? Did those bastards hurt you?"

'N-No, Auguste c-came by." Alice replied, still stuttering.

I tugged on her pants, and she looked down, only to see me; a toddler.

She squatted, and said, pretending to speak baby language, "Oooh, so wittle boy here pwotected his ewder sister. Good, good." She patted me two times.

Feeling a bit insulted, I said, "Don't use that baby way of speaking on me, I can perfectly understand you without you speaking to me that way."

She stood up, and whispered to Alice, "I didn't know your little brother was such a brat."

"H-He and I a-aren't blood-related, s-so we're not e-exactly siblings." Alice said.

"Eeeh!? But you look the same! Black eyes and black hair! How can you two not be blood-related!? Look," She picked me up, which earned her a tick-mark from me, "He is so cute! His black hair is so similar to yours! If you don't want him as your little brother, then he'll be my little brother! Kyaa!"

Getting a bit of a creepy vibe off of her, I pushed myself away from her, landing on the ground softly.

"Don't touch me ever again." I said, annoyed at her.

"Oh, look at him! He's pouting! So cute!" She said, squealing a bit.

I decided to ignore her, and turned to Alice, saying, "As I said before, Alice, can you join my team for the upcoming rank battles? I need a team of three to join the competition. With my abilities, I can easily win against all of them. You know that since you've seen me use my powers."

Alice was a bit surprised. She never thought that Auguste would ever talk to her since, most of the time, he would just ignore her for some reason.

She would've declined his request because she's not that good with people, but she really needs to rank up since a lot of C-Ranks are continuously hitting on her every single time she went to the library. If she becomes a C-Rank herself, maybe a lot of them won't hit on her anymore. Most of the time, those boys just thought that since they were C-Ranks, every D-Class girl would flock around them. Not thinking otherwise.

She nodded, "I-I'll join. Who are you g-going to recruit n-next?" She asked.

"Waah! You're a D-Class disciple also!? Me too! Let me join your team!" The red haired girl said, joyfully might I add, to me.

"No." I declined almost instantly.

She's creepy when she gets too close to me.

*Sniff*

Teary-eyed, the red haired girl said, "B-But I'm a foundation establishment cultivator! Grandfather said that everyone would want me in their team if I cultivate hard!"

A bit surprised, I said, "A foundation establishment cultivator? You?"

"Mhm!"

"Then I'll think about it. If you can bring another foundation establishment cultivator in the D-Class, to me I'll accept you into my team." I said as my lazy side was slowly showing up.

"Really!?" She said, her enthusiasm rapidly growing.

"Yes, really." I replied.

She disappeared in a flash, and I saw her at the exit as she yelled, "Don't worry! I'll be back here in a few minutes!"

Wow, she's fast.

The tables around the library were aligned together, with long benches to sit on. The bookshelves were behind us, where thousands of books were lined with each other.

A few minutes passed, and the red-haired girl hasn't come back.

So I sat by Alice's side, who is currently reading some book, and asked, "So, what's that book about?"

She then replied, "It's a book about racism. Typical, I guess. The majority of books in this place are about racism, which is just annoying in the long run. They are pushing for equality this and equality that, not knowing that acceptance is the key. If we accept that we are different, then we could be less different. I hate how they preach about equality, when there is no equality within the sect. It's kind of hypocrital, really. It's just like how it is in the outside world; it depends on how rich you are to be deemed successful in life."

I was surprised since I didn't hear any stuttering from her as she spoke.

Realizing what she just said, Alice was red in embarrassment as she said, "O-Oh, s-sorry i-if I ranted a b-bit!"

"No, no, it's okay. I'm just surprised that you could speak so clearly."

"Y-Yeah, I always s-speak like t-that whenever I talk a-about the things I am i-interested in." She said, further widening my views towards her.

So she's like that, huh. Something must've happened to her in the past to be this way. Just like Vane, Flare, and Flame, I don't know her past. They haven't opened up to me to talk about their past yet, and that makes me a bit sad but I respect their privacy. I'll let them talk to me about it when they are ready.

"Hmm, then let's talk about the things you are interested in. Maybe if we do this, we can fix your stuttering." I said, genuinely trying to help her.

"E-Eeeh? W-What topic s-should we t-talk about?" She asked.

"How about your views about racial discrimination? I am kind of interested, actually."

She thought about it, and then finally spoke, "R-Racism is a bit weird, in my opinion. Why would a certain race try to oppress another race, all for the sake of their skin color or because they are demi-humans? I figured that it's just because we don't know much about the other race, and little things breeds fear and fear breeds hatred. The sect is doing good if we're talking about their ways of suppressing racism, but in their preach about equality, they are doing quite bad. I don't hate the sect, I am just criticizing the way they do things. In my opinion, the sect is kind enough to give strangers a roof over their head, can eat three times a day, and be able to c-cultivate."

She took a deep breath, and said, "D-Did I look w-weird while t-talking like that?"

I shook my head, "No, you looked great. It's not that bad listening to your views. You should talk more about your interests from time to time, it might help you stop your stuttering."

"T-Thanks, I j-just appreciate that y-you listened t-to me." She said.

"No problem, I'll listen to you anytime you need me to."

We continued to chat for half-an-hour, though I weirdly noticed that the librarian hadn't berated us for being so loud, until I noticed that she was asleep on her desk.

Soon, the red-haired girl came back while dragging a brown haired individual, wearing a white coat and sporting red glasses. He looked a bit tired, as if he was so used to this that he just wanted to die.

"Auguste, Alice! I brought another foundation establishment cultivator with me!" She said while walking towards us, dragging the poor guy.

"How many times have I told you, Scarlet, not to disturb me when I'm doing my experiments? You almost cost my entire house to be destroyed because you just had to barge in at the right time when I was creating my greatest bomb, yet!" The browned haired teen complained.

"Oh, shut up. I don't care about your bombs, because, guess what, we're going to participate in the battle ranks next week!" Scarlet, as I heard the guy earlier said, said as she dragged the poor guy towards us.

"What!?"

I sweatdrop at this scene. I am even feeling quite nervous because the librarian might wake up and scold us for being too noisy.

Scarlet sat down with us, pulling the guy to forcefully make him sit beside her.

"Hey, I can join now, right?" She asked me.

I replied, "Yeah, sure. Just make sure that he is good at martial arts or magic, since, even though I'm the one who's going to do all the work, I still don't want weak teammates that can't even survive a jab."

"Welp, goodbye then! I haven't learned any martial arts or magic spells, and I don't plan to! My art is more than enough for me!" The brown haired guy tried to stand up, but failed when Scarlet forcefully dragged him down using his collar.

Scarlet smiled at me, "He says yes."

I feel like this is going to be a disastrous team.