Lisa stretched her body, hands upward as flexing her tired muscles. She looked to the left; the day had turned dark. She'd had too much fun reading the new materials that just came in this morning.
While she's a member of the knight order in Mondstadt, she's also acting as the Librarian inside the Knight headquarters. It is no strange that no one seldom saw her as she would hole up every day inside the library. The only thing that makes her move from her post is an emergency from Jean, the acting knight captain, or when the library is about to close.
The woman, often known as Purple Rose Witch Lisa, walked off from her desk about to rearrange a few returned books and then close the library, but she realized that there's a lamp still on the far-side of the room.
Is anyone still here? That's quite odd… usually no one would bother to read inside here except a few academically-minded knights. Still, she had the duty to notify them since she wanted to go outside as soon as possible.
"Hey you over the- ara…"
Lisa stopped at her track, seeing the heated gaze of the man to the book in his hand. He'd quite a large build, rippling scarred muscle which was impossible to hide beneath the plain linen cloth he wore, and well, she took a little bit liking to his rugged face.
No, no. It's not the time to go to trance like a pubescent girl, Lisa chided herself.
"Ehem."
Lisa coughed. The effect was quite instantaneous; maybe he didn't notice her presence until too late, as he jolted and was about to move his hand in what she inferred as combat stance.
"…Ah… I apologized for that." He retracted his hand, uttering the word with a wry smile as if to hide his embarrassment.
"No, it's my fault to surprise you like that."
"Anyway, what do you want, miss?"
"I'm here to inform you that the library is about to close. If you're still not finished you can lend the book, you know." Lisa said.
"Eh is that so? I think I'm done, anyway. If so, please excuse-"
Lisa glanced at the stack of books which were arranged on the table, most pertaining to historical text, documentation, and so on, the topic stays on ancient civilization and ruins. Despite the outward appearance of a warrior, she didn't take him as the academic type. Most people she met were rather stereotypical to the letter.
"If I may ask, what would you do with all of that?" Lisa implied the materials he'd read.
"Huh? Oh this? Originally, I wanted to know the mechanism behind the ruin guard that often patrols in an old ruin. How to dismantle them for materials, what's their good for, stuff like that, if you know what I mean. But to think they were pretty much undocumented had left me with a bitter feeling."
Lisa let out a little bit of laugh, "And that's why you look so vexed reading the book?"
"Y-yes…" He deflated, like a child finding their mascot bear is just a man clothed in costume.
"Fufufu, you're quite cute…"
"C-cute… I'm just an old man you know?" In any world no one would say that to an old man. Terrifying, scary, is what people would describe him as, and that's the reason he was overjoyed to have a girlfriend in his old life but only for her to deceive him.
Lisa can feel the man is quite strong, the wind when he was about to strike her in defense was something not to trifle about, but still, to find him to be someone who was quite vulnerable, clumsy, and not to mention academically minded makes him a good target in her mind.
"Hey, want to tag along for a drink?"
The man blinked twice as surprised by her offer, before abashedly composing himself, "If you don't mind. Sure."
"Ehm that's good." Lisa smiled before shooing the man away out of the library as she needed to close it.
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.
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"So, what's your name?" Lisa said as walking beside him on the night street. They were heading into Angel's Share. "I'm Lisa."
"It's Rin."
"Rin? Are you from Inazuma by chance? Your face looks like it belongs to that land."
"No, you're mistaken. Honestly, I don't even understand how I got in here." Rin shook his head.
"What do you mean?"
"I have said this to the acting grandmaster but I had similar circumstances as the Traveler, what was her name again, Lumine."
"Ara Otherworlder then. That's quite rare. I've never a pleasure to meet one and Lumine is a quiet girl too, so it's very hard to coax things out of her." Lisa said in a tone of disappointment but Rin felt that he was just about to be served a piece of meat for Lisa's empty plate.
"Hey~ can you tell me about it, please?"
He knew that her breast was rather large that it would pop out any time, and he felt like he was about to go into a trance when the Librarian pushed them into his arms as she interlinked their hand unless he did something about it.
NO. STOP. Don't you have enough fraternizing with a woman, think about the last time it happened. But this is a different world right, they might still have traditional value the earth had lost in their women. No, no. It's not about that, women everywhere are the same. But he needs to settle down because his old age, divine he maybe, he wouldn't know if it applies to his mortal and fleshy body. Plus, he wanted children, think of the children. AHHHH. This is rather embarrassing for an old man, what a shameful display. What should he do!?
Such a vortex is brewing inside Rin's mind, elicited from a simple gesture from the Librarian who was quite amused by his reaction.
Then all of the gears stopped functioning. No, wait a minute. He was missing something here. Something crucial even a teenager in their heat-phase would understand fundamentally.
She- She's just teasing him right. How desperate he is to interpret a simple gesture from the Librarian as a sign she's romantically interested in him. Pathetic, he would shout! This is the first time they met, and she only does that to coax information from him.
He's just jumping conclusion that's all. He hopes there's a brothel somewhere, god, he knows he needs it if he would spend the evening with the flirty Librarian.
"Ehem, how about we talk about this once we have our drink?" Rin relented.
"That's the answer I wanted to hear, Rin, ufufu~"
God damnit woman you'll regret this.
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.
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"Heeh~ So such contraption is common in your world, Rin. But is there any reason you never mention magic? Does it even exist there?" Lisa leaned on her arm as she held onto the glass with another.
"Hmm? Master, I need another glass here, pour it to your largest yet!" Rin didn't hear Lisa in his half-drunken stupor. The man holds his liquor as natural as he was breathing, and it didn't help that he tasted the tavern specialty wolf-hook wine.
It was fine and all, but the drink in her opinion should be savored like a fine wine, but Rin couldn't careless, and chug it like a barbarian would with a barrel of cheap mead. She could feel a few knights in the back jesting with a bet about how much he could take a drink before going limp.
Wolf-hook berries are rather different than ordinary grapes would. It has a strong pungent smell when fermented, tastes overly sweet, but is very hard to swallow due to an obnoxiously high alcohol content and utterly bitter aftertaste and hangover even with the smallest glass. It's not really popular for common people outside compared to its juice counterpart.
"Hey Rin, are you listening to me?"
Rin placed his glass back on the table, thinking about how to answer her question. "I'm listening. So, magic huh… There's none. Everything is made through the application of machinery and science. If spoken properly, they're fairly common in olden times, but you won't see a witch casting fireball in the open. They're far more subtle and conducted in secrecy. That's why the art is considered a myth when science took over."
Of course he made it up. While he was fine revealing his origin, he can't be sure to reveal the god that sent him and gave him power in the first place.
He continued, "Why would you need to cast fireball to harm your opponent when you can do so with much more efficiency and lethality with a firearm? Why waste a lot of energy when you can send a missile to level a whole city or country for that matter? Of course, there's more wonderful thing than horrid application of science, like a device you called computer."
"Computer?"
"I dreamed to recreate it someday. It's a device that, if advanced enough, you can say, able to send messages across the world almost instantaneously -contained inside you can have a whole library of books, music, contemporary arts, and many others. It's convenient device that I dare to say that I missed it dearly."
"That sounds nice, I would love to have a hand in one."
"You have no idea." Rin chugged the last of his glass empty. He shook it as felt something was wrong. "Master!"
"No! This is the last one in stock! Order something else!" Come a shout followed by a boisterous laugh from other patrons. The master is quite puzzled about how the man is still standing.
"Is there anything else you want, Lisa?"
"Oh~ I have no idea that you will treat me tonight."
Rin half-heartedly opened his eye, "Sure. I need a reason to go to work again tomorrow."
"Then I'll take that on that offer, don't say you'll regret it."