While this meeting took place, Merissa was currently at her home looking at the projection screen in front of him. There was a person displayed in that screen.
“Was this really necessary?” The person in the projection asked.
“Then do you think revealing his full information would help that kid in anyway?” Merissa asked looking at Clare.
Clare sighed before agreeing. “You’re right it wouldn’t. Anyways, did you know that this kid, Alex held the stone? And was that why you told me to send some help before?”
When Alex had talked to Merissa on call about the stone and that he wanted to come and meet her about it, Merissa had told him that she’d try to get him some security or assistance. In order to provide that, Merissa had contacted Clare about it. But due to the various protocols to be followed for people to travel from one world to the other, even Clare holding one of the highest positions in the Council can send it immediately.
It was later that her disciple, who had gone to attend Green Tales happened to sense the presence of the stone.
Merissa, “I only talked to him on the phone. So, I had only a rough idea. But after hearing that the soul stone has been stolen, my suspicions grew. And with the involvement of the Black Cloud…”
“Then about the info that Alex has the stone—
“I want to keep to your disciple only. It’s best that she can retrieve it first and come up with a cover story as to how she founded it. The team the Council’s going to send… you know we can’t trust anyone with this info. If we do…” Merissa’s words trailed off.
“Then the traitor might take advantage of this information and get to Alex first.” Clare spoke Merissa’s thoughts. The latter gave a nod in agreement.
"What about the guardian?" Merissa asked.
Clare, "It'll still take him a while, the special ops will have to handle this alone."
…
“Whew! it’s almost complete, just a bit more finer details. I’ll take care of this; you can start looking for some material to write for your thesis.” Nina said as she helped with Rose’s science project.
“Yeah, I’ll look for it now.” Rose replied as she exited the work room. It was a specially allocated room in the library building for the students to work on their projects. It was currently evening and the only people present now were the two of them and Alex on the third floor of the library.
As Rose began to look for her project related books, she noticed that there was another section on the third floor aside from the science one. It was relatively small as compared to all the others throughout the building but the area it covered was rather big as compared to in a normal library. This was another perk of Green Tales, which sported one of the biggest libraries in the state.
The section didn’t have any particular name and was disjointed to the science section as there were rows of chairs and tables in between them. None of the students ever went there, since all the books there were considered outdated and irrelevant. It asked the question of what was the point of this section still remaining here, but none really dwelled upon it. Alex who was in the corner sitting on one of the chairs noticed Rose going there.
He checked the time on the large clock hanging on one of the pillars in the hall and realized that he had been reading since 4:00 p.m. and that roughly three hours had passed by. He decided to stretch a little bit and to go over and talk to Rose. After a little searching, he found her reading the titles of the books arranged in one of the shelves. He decided to tip toe behind her and give her a slight scare.
“Hey Rose—
Just as Alex was about to tap on her shoulder, he felt his arm gripped, his body being lifted and the world turning upside down. Rose had thrown him over her shoulder. But just before he hit the ground, he concentrated mana in his left hand and used it as support to soften the impact before his whole body hit the floor.
*THUD*
A loud noise reverberated through the empty library. The girl realized what she had done and quickly helped Alex up.
“Ow! OW!” Alex cried in pain. Although he had used his hand to soften the blow, it didn’t lessen the pain much.
“It’s me! It’s me Alex! You don’t have to treat me to lunch, I’ll make all your future projects for you, spare my life!!” Alex yelled backing away.
“Shit… I am sorry Alex, that was a reflex…”
Alex blinked in confusion wondering whether he did anything dangerous to trigger such a reflexive action that might’ve smashed his head open.
“It’s a childhood problem. I don’t really do well with surprise approaches.” Rose explained as she waved her hands.
“You sure, this isn’t about the treat?” Alex asked putting his hands up in defense like a weird karate pose. Rose nodded aggressively to convince him.
Some 2 minutes later when Alex was finally convinced and managed to stop Rose from apologizing continuously, he asked. “So, what brings you here?”
Alex asked glancing around at the books.
“Well, you know, curiosity got the better of me.” Rose replied.
Alex nodded. “Um… is that a book from here too?” Rose asked noticing the book in his hand.
“Um… yeah…”
“What’s it about?” Rose asked curiously.
Alex paused a little, unsure as to how to answer her. The book he was holding contained the history of Green Tales. Not the school but rather the man after whom the school was named. Earlier during his talk with Merissa, she told him to check some books out about soul stone in school’s library in this particular section. Alex asked how she knew about this only to be left with a promise that she’ll explain later.
“You see, it’s about a person named, Green Tales, it seems the school was named after him. It’s just some fantasy novel. Many of these books here are similar. I found it a bit interesting so decided to read a little.” Alex said brushing it off as some odd story. It was unlikely that anyone would accept what’s written here in this book except him. Since it was likely the record of the events experienced by the man named Green Tales who had supposedly somehow found his way to the other world, Emerald.
Alex had more questions than answers but decided this could wait till later and decided to head out, since it was nearing dinner time. As they exited the section, they met with Nina arranging her bag on one of the tables.
“Oh, found the material?” Nina asked.
Rose showed her the books she had earlier picked up. “Okay they’ll do. By the way, did you two heard a loud noise a while back? It seemed like something fell?” Nina asked trying to recall it when she was leaving the work room.
Rose glanced towards Alex wondering what he’ll say or whether she’ll have to say the truth.
“Nothing really. I mean me and Rose were right here and we didn’t hear anything right?” Alex asked Looking at Rose casually as if the previous incident never happened.
“Y-Yeah we didn’t.” Rose nodded.
“I see… then had I imagined it?” Nina began to wonder.
“Or maybe you need food or more precisely treat me to something.” Alex said in a cocky manner as he began to walk forward.
“Huh? Hey I thought we agreed that Rose would…” Nina began to walk after him with Rose closely following.
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