Project: iaseki

Chapter 9: Attack on Elle

Lu followed the blonde lady into an unoccupied music booth. He closed the door assuming that whatever they were going to discuss was supposed to be between them and only them.

The woman looked into the window and crossed her arms. Then without facing him, she spoke, "I'm not going to deny it. I'm the owner of this book".

Lu shook his head in confusion. Lacking words for the many questions in his mind, he fell silent for a time.

Noticing this, she looked aside to take a side glance at him. "Go on, what are your demands? If it means I can keep this Elle's peace... I'll do anything"

Still perplexed by the situation he's in, Lu couldn't help but keep quiet, matched with a curious look.

After she heard nothing from him for a long period, she decided to finally face his way and asked, "Do you not get it? The book is my own, and the author's last codename is Rema".

Once more, Lu said nothing at all. She asked him a barrage of questions that might ring a bell to him, but he replied to all of them with but an indifferent response -- shaking his head.

"What's with the codenames?", he thought to himself. "I'm going to have to find that out too when I can"

"Rema? One of the six great kingdoms in conflict?? Having a kingdom name attatched to your codename tells if you are from a kingdom and where??? A lot of hatred between their folk????" The lady asked, each question becoming more specific than the last, and less formal.

"Kingdom? Conflict? Codename? I'm sorry, I really don't get it" he revealed.

Upon hearing this, she tried her best to hide her laughter through a smile distorted by half-puffed cheeks.

"I've seen that same look yesterday. You're not joking. You really don't know what having this book means, don't you?" she said.

Lu could only maintain a straight face, feeling that he is yet again an object of idiocy without meaning to.

"Ahem. I could just leave you here and move on with my life safely, but if you really are that oblivious of things it would feel wrong to do as such" she told him and sat on a chair, making a gesture for him to do the same, and Lu in response took a seat at the opposite side of the room.

"This is supposed to be common knowledge and I don't understand why you don't know, but being from a kingdom... can mean a lot. Especially because I'm the governess. One could only imagine the uneasiness it would cause if this gets out"

Lu almost jumped from his seat. "You're the governess!?" he exclaimed.

She tilted her head with a curious look, "Did you think I was just another tavern maid, or something of the like?".

A bead of sweat slid down Lu's cheek as his thoughts were guessed correctly, and there was a short delay before he could put up his obvious lie.

"No, maam!" he sat up straight.

The governess sighed, "Moving on, my code is Chrio (cra-yo) Cybel. Call me Chrio. Only those from the six great kingdoms have last names. As I've already mentioned, the inhabitants aren't exactly the best of friends. They harbor heavy hate and discrimination towards each other. So much that they started hating all outsiders even those not from the cities."

"Sick and tired of that same old unchangeable tradition, I founded this town to build a community that accepts and welcomes everyone from anywhere. So far it's been running smoothly. Though there are ten of us from kingdoms, they've all been playing nice with everyone. In fact, it saddened me when one of them told me that they were leaving soon"