Luke, Leon and Lala stood in front of the reception desk.
Marvin, as a matter of course, greeted them.
But when his eyes met with Luke's, his face twitched.
After exchanging greetings, Leon decided that there was no reason to beat around the bush.
"Marvin, do you mind explaining what you did to our guest last night?"
While Leon was saying 'our guest', he looked over at Luke.
At that question, Marvin nervously chuckled and avoided eye contact.
"Ha… ha… Well, you see, um… I-it is a simple matter…"
He was a stuttering mess.
Leon wouldn't be able to get any information out of Marvin if he were to keep acting like this.
Leon narrowed his eyes.
"Marvin!"
At that, Marvin's body shook for a second.
Seeing that there would be no way out of this, the avoidant smile that was on Marvin's face crumpled.
It was replaced with a sharp glare aimed towards Luke.
"Director, my intentions were obvious enough! He came here with our young lady from who knows where! I obviously needed to question him about who he was, where he was from, and what his intentions towards the young lady were!! Also, as a matter of fact, about what their relationship was!"
At that last bit, Lala abashedly looked away from Marvin.
Luke noticed her reaction and couldn't believe his eyes.
'I've gotta be overthinking stuff again…'
Seeing Lala's reaction to what he had said, Marvin grew even angrier.
"See! He's tainting our young lady's mind!"
If it wasn't for Leon, he already would've leapt at Luke and locked him up again, even more securely this time around.
Leon sighed.
"I understand how you feel Marvin, but this is not the way to protect Lala. She is not a child anymore. You need to let her live her own life. Being overprotective to this extent is only going to harm her, whether you realize that or not."
Marvin still wouldn't yield and kept pleading with Leon, trying to convince him that he was the one who was in the right in this situation.
"Of course not! But, if we just let her be-"
Leon raised his palm towards Marvin, motioning him to stop, and shook his head.
"Enough, Marvin. Apologize to our guest. And this better be the last time you pulled something like this. I will overlook it just this once because of your long service to us. Even though I understand that you feel like your intentions were justified, I won't let you off the hook if something similar were to reoccur once more."
Marvin grinded his teeth.
"Fine, so be it!"
Turning away from Leon, he tried looking at Luke without glaring.
Marvin crossed his arms and looked away from Luke as he hesitatingly apologized.
"…I-I'm sorry."
Luke was still angry at Marvin for what he did, but he realized that not much good would come from holding onto this grudge for too long.
'He doesn't seem like a bad man. It seems to me that he is a very passionate and emotional man. This time around though, those emotions were misguided.'
The Water Temple seemed like a faction that Luke would be able to work together with in the future, should he need allies.
He should strive to be wiser than to let the whims of a single man ruin a potentially useful relationship.
Luke sighed and nodded.
"I accept the apology."
Marvin then looked at Leon.
"Hmph. There, he accepted. It's fine now, right?"
Lala then cut in.
"Marvin. I think that I also deserve an apology from you."
The expression on Marvin's face crumpled once more.
"W-what do you mean, young lady?"
Lala stared daggers at Marvin.
"You lied to me about where Luke was."
Marvin apologetically lowered his head and scratched one of his cheeks, before slowly replying.
"I, um… I did it to protect you!"
Lala shook her head.
"I never asked for such protection. You should know better than that, Marvin."
Marvin closed his eyes and slowly nodded.
"…You're correct. I apologize…"
Leon sighed and looked at Marvin with a serious expression.
"Keep what I've told you in mind and act accordingly in the future, Marvin."
Marvin looked back at Leon.
"Yes, director, I'll keep it in mind."
Leon nodded.
"Alright then. Let's go."
This time, Luke cut in.
"Before that, Marvin, return the things that you've taken from me."
Leon raised an eyebrow and eyed Marvin with disappointment.
Marvin's expression crumpled for the third time in the span of ten minutes.
His shoulders and head dropped, and he replied with barely any energy.
"…Yes, I'll bring over the items right away."
And once Luke recovered what was taken from him, he nodded to Leon.
"Follow me."
Leon headed back upstairs, with Luke and Lala in tow.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As it turned out, the room that Luke saw Lala and Leon exit from was Leon's room.
Leon had arrived early in the morning and had to rest before meeting up with Lala.
And just as they met and were about to go into a larger, more formal room, Luke ran into them.
After Luke's rage that ensued, and after resolving the whole Marvin situation, they went up to the fourth floor, where a large meeting room was.
The room was almost as big as the reception area of the building, but instead of having a large semi-circle shaped desk, there was a long and oval meeting table, with many wooden chairs surrounding it.
These wooden chairs weren't the standard, run of the mill chairs, but were instead cushioned and decorated with simple patterns.
At the head of the table was an even fancier wooden chair, separating itself from the other chairs, with its many small and intricate carvings coming together to form a single, complex design, and there was also the fact that this chair even included armrests.
And on that chair, sat Leon.
Luke and Lala sat on the regular, albeit still somewhat fancy, chairs, on either side of Leon.
Luke was staring up at the ceiling absent-mindedly.
'These Water Temple guys, they really love chandeliers, huh?'
He was looking at the chandelier that was centered right above the long table.
Leon then clasped his hands, interrupting Luke's thoughts.
"Well then. Lala has only lightly touched upon the topic of this discussion. I would now like to hear about the situation in more detail."
Lala nodded, but Luke was still in a daze and kept looking around the various things that were present in the meeting room.
"Ahem!"
Leon loudly cleared his throat, causing Luke to sit up from his slumped position, and actually start paying attention to the discussion at hand.
"Haha… Sorry, I'm still a bit out of it."
Aside from thinking about nonsensical things, such as the Water Temple's affinity for chandeliers, Luke kept thinking back on what he talked about with Wilfed.
'I wanted to ask him more about the soul space. Even though I've learned the basics of it now, I'm still unsure of how I'd be able to enter that space at will. Once I'm able to do that, I'm sure that he'd be able to help me with many things, including getting stronger… Anyways, I'm getting too ahead of myself again…'
Shaking those final, stray thoughts away, Luke could now focus on the conversation at hand.
Luke decided to speak up first.
"Leon, before we start, I'm sure that you know that, considering your position, this will not be an equal partnership. We are merely here to one-sidedly ask you for your help. I'm not sure what else we could offer to you besides our gratitude, and the gratification that comes with getting rid of a certain piece of shit person."
Luke smirked and raised a finger up.
"But keep in mind, if we succeed, we will owe you one."
Leon smiled.
"Luke, if I was expecting anything from you in the first place, I would've made it clear. You'll soon find out that not everything is black and white."
Luke was left a bit confused by Leon's words but nodded nevertheless.
He then continued talking.
"I'm guessing that Lala had at least told you who we're dealing with?"
Leon nodded.
"She indeed has. Which is precisely why I wanted this whole mess explained to me in detail. Why would you be targeting the head of the Millef's Bounty Hunter Association branch?"
Lala then joined the conversation.
"Leon, I know that you've been away for the last couple of days, but I'm sure that you have heard about it by now. The destruction of Obron village."
Leon nodded, his expression grave and disgusted.
"From what I've heard from the reports, the village had been completely destroyed, with most of its population decimated. Even the few people that survived are still in a grave condition. The cause of this was a fight between a local inn-keeper and an unknown party, both of which were elementalists."
Luke sat with his arms crossed while he listened to Leon and Lala.
'Obron village… I didn't even know what it was called until now. That aside, I'm still feeling guilty about not being able to save Boldee. He was a good man, but there was really nothing I could've done for him. If I was able to go back in time without dying, it may've been different…'
Leaving his regrets aside, Luke's ears perked up at what Leon had to say next.
"It is said that a few people were witnessed running away from the village by some of the wounded villagers. We couldn't get a physical description, but we do know that they were heading west. Three people in total."
'Me and Lala, with Joseph chasing us. Makes sense. They probably weren't able to get a good look at us amidst all the chaos and the speed that we were moving at.'
Luke chuckled.
"Correct. Out of those three, two of them were Lala and me. The third one was Joseph."
Leon furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head.
"That's impossible."
Luke was confused.
Leon seemed completely confident in what he was saying.
"How so?"
"He was attending a meeting during the time that the village incident occurred."
Luke was perplexed.
"No! He was the one who intentionally destroyed most of the village during the fight! He wanted to kill us as well, but we managed to escape."
Luke looked at Lala, and she nodded at what he was saying.
Leon scratched his chin.
"Luke, I'd really like to believe the two of you. But, there's a problem with what you're telling me…"
"…A problem?"
"You see, last night… I was also participating in that very same meeting that Joseph was attending."