Chapter 44. Polish a Turd
Two weeks until the guest teacher arrived. Rhys took a deep breath. He looked around him. This was the Schoolmaster’s house. It was the obvious place the guest teacher would go when he arrived here. In other words, it was the first place he had to clean.
Rhys looked at Az. “Can you archive faster?”
“I was going slow for your sake,” Az replied. “Do you not wish to know how to archive properly?”
“No, I do, but we’re on a time crunch here. If you can speed it up, I’ll bring you papers as quickly as I can.”
The Schoolmaster’s manor was full of papers. Rhys wanted the trash, but he had no use for the useful papers. On top of that, the last thing he wanted to do was throw away a useful paper that the Schoolmaster needed, when he misunderstood it as useless. If he just burned everything, he risked not only pissing off Aquari and closing off his access to the upper peak, but also potentially completely ruining the school’s chances of surviving regardless of how well he did when the guest teacher came. The fastest way to separate the wheat from the chaff was to rely on Az’s high-tier archiving skills. Az knew far better than him (and, Rhys was willing to bet, Aquari herself) which of these papers were necessary, and which were nothing but burnable garbage.
Az considered for a moment, then nodded. “You’re worried about the guest teacher?”
“Yeah. I know his type. He’s going to tear this school apart if we give him the slightest opening.”
“And you’re that loyal to this school?”
“I’m loyal to my own freedom.”
Az chuckled. “I can appreciate that. I’ll teach you the mysteries of archiving another time, then. Bring me all the papers you can find, as rapidly as you can find them. We’ll archive this manor, whether Aquari wants it or not.”
“That’s right. I’m taking all her trash, no matter what she wants!” Rhys agreed.
The two of them shared a grin. They’d come to the same place via different routes. Their paths might differ, but they converged at the same point in this moment.