Stella, Brad, and Mauve all stiffened.
They had gone through a great deal of trouble in order to get their Quest. Finding a Holy Item, especially after Grey snatched their easiest path, had been a nightmare. But the process had become even worse after the fact.
It felt like Giyoto was always dragging his feet, always pushing off the time for them to complete their task over and over again.
They were already nearing the fourth day since they landed in this godforsaken game, and it was nearly the third day since they finally managed to get Giyoto to take them in and give them the quest, and now Grey was trying to strong-arm the Baron into getting rid of them.
And the worst part was that they had known this might happen from the very start.
The fact Giyoto kept stalling, and the fact they had sat around waiting for Grey for two days, went to show that Grey was far more important to this operation than they were.
What they didn’t understand was why. Their services were needed to clear the instance. Why did they keep stalling for someone who shouldn’t have anything to do with any of this?
Giyoto frowned, his hand remaining frozen in the air, the rental agreement hovering between them.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"OPEN UP!" the voice boomed.
"Mm, we should probably go get that." Grey said. "COMING!"
Grey took a step around Baron Giyoto and began walking toward the door again. There was nothing too slow nor too fast about his steps, the general air of ’I really don’t give a fuck’ around him was practically oozing out into its own thickness that left Stella and the others suffocating on their own rage.
Giyoto looked up and met their gazes. Then he looked toward Silva before he sighed lightly.
"You can have what you want, Sir Temolt."
Grey didn’t look back, but he grinned ear to ear.
Stella paled as though her entire body had been drained of blood.
**
Rattling keys shook in Grey’s hands as he circled around a chain trying to find the right one. Giyoto had just dropped these on him, and though he had sent Silva to follow after him and be his chauffeur back, the silver-haired man didn’t seem to care to help at all.
It was clear Silva didn’t like Grey much at all, but that much was fine because Grey couldn’t stand any of their guts anyway.
Eventually, Grey found the key he was looking for and the doors clicked open.
The shop was in the very same state Grey had last seen it in. This time, though, when Grey moved to the crowded shelves and tried to pluck something off, it moved with ease.
Whatever restrictions were in place before were clearly not active anymore, but Grey also wasn’t nearly as desperate now as he had been in the past. Even now he still had a ton of raw materials from Esmeralda he hadn’t managed to find a chance to sell yet.
Grey’s eye for parts was still far better now than it had been in the past, though. He could see the lineup of failures and almost feel where Globb had gone wrong with many of them.
’He was trying to recreate the Mechanical Jaw without the tome...’
Grey’s fingers grazed some of the incomplete mechs on the shelves before he shook his head and moved on.
There was an annoying prodding at his chest whenever he thought about Globb. The gnome didn’t deserve what happened to him.
Grey’s jaw set. ’I’m going to kill that bastard soon.’
Taking a breath, Grey continued on ahead until he slipped into the backroom.
This place was even less organized than the front of the shop. The ceilings were so low he had to duck—probably because Globb had only designed it for himself to be able to stand comfortably—and scraps of parts, wires, and raw materials lay strewn around.
Silva stood just outside, holding the separating curtain to the back room open.
"You’re saying the parts you’re looking for are in here?" Grey asked.
"Yes. However, we cannot tell what is what, that is why we need you in part." Silva responded professionally.
Grey raised an eyebrow. That was weird. Why wouldn’t they know what raw materials Globb was working with on their behalf?
After a moment, Grey began to move again, touching everything one by one and then chucking them over his shoulder back toward Silva who had to duck and dodge out of the way.
Everything he touched, he scanned into his Cyber Space, forming one natural link with them after another until he had thrown everything out of the room into a messy, disorganized pile.
Ironically enough, this left the back room in a cleaner state than it had ever been in before, and that was despite the thick layer of hidden dust that had been sitting under all the items.
’This inventory is better than I thought,’ Grey mused.
Globb’s stuff didn’t look that good from the outside, but a lot of them were Established Class materials, and there were even quite a few Vector Class things mixed in there.
But there was still nothing that the likes of Baron Giyoto should have been so interested in.
’Something is off about all of this.’
There were too many oddities starting to stack up. Yet, he still moved his hand across the thick dust on the ground until he felt a jolt of electricity. Only then did he pause.
’Another one, huh?’
Grey resonated with the air around him, his Neural Frame tapping into its Resonant Type and pouring forward.
A gentle golden glow formed around him that had never appeared before—at least not so prominently.
Silva’s pupils constricted into pinholes, but Grey didn’t seem to notice.
’This must be what they’re looking for.’
At this point, Grey had already pushed Baron Giyoto into a corner. So he might as well take a dip and see how far the man’s schemes went.
Click.
A hidden trap door opened up.