“Think there’s gonna be anything good?”

“Good? Good to what, steal? It’s a bookshop, dickweed. There’s just books.”

“Yeah, but I mean, they gotta have some money, right?”

Higg groaned and struggled to hold himself back from smashing Sten over the head with his club.

“And if there is any, we’ll take it, alright? Would you just shut the fuck up and do your job?”

“Hey man, I’m just askin’. Bosses said we could keep whatever we wanted, didn’t they? I don't wanna miss out.”

Higg ignored the response and shifted his attention to Fulko at the front of the group.

“It’s coming up on this street, innit?”

“Should be, yeah. Should be woodland, eh? Right there.” Fulko pointed with his axe towards a quiet little shop at the end of the street.

“Perfect, let’s break some shit.” Higg shot back, passing Fulko as the group came upon the shop.

***

Lillian leaned back in her chair and flipped through pages of a book.

What book, she didn't know. She couldn’t read after all.

But it was a nice book.

The neatly trimmed pages, well bound with thick, brown leather.

Every page was filled with perfectly uniform characters, inked in an even black on each white page. Each and every book was the same, at least in appearance, and she couldn’t help but guess at how they were made.

Suddenly, The shop’s bell cut her daydreaming short, snapping her forward and up. Laying the book down gently on the glass counter, ready to greet her new customers.

A group of burly men walked through the door wielding an assortment of weapons, Axe’s and clubs, in a mish-mash of dirty rags and leather armor. At the head, a man with a thick, brown beard, with a thick scar extending from beneath, extending across his cheek, culminating in a gash that jutted into the bridge of his nose.

“W-welcome…” Lillian hesitated. “…Can I help you all in finding anything?”

The group was silent save for a few stifled chuckles. They continued to file into the shop, with the scarred man waltzing up to the counter as Lilly shuffled back toward the wall.

“Sorry about this, lady,” The Large man spoke with a quiet laugh. In a single, fluid instant, he reached across the counter, grabbing onto Lillian’s hair, his nails tearing into her scalp as his fist closed. Then, With a grunt, he slammed her face into the counter, shattering the glass with a tremendous crack.

Lillian screamed in pain. The man lifted her face and shoved her into the back wall. Lillian collapsed to the floor, sobbing, her hands covering her face with shards of glass jutting out from between her fingers as blood dripped down her arms. The burly man turned around and lifted his axe up in triumph.

“Let's get to work, boys!”

***

Nicholas carefully itemized each book before placing them into crates destined for the shop. Production went well. At this rate, the supply problem would be solved in no time–much to the delight of the entire group.

That was when Grant slammed open the front door and rushed into the workshop.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! Nick, something happened a-at the store. Ah, shit.” Grant panted, still recovering from the almost cross-city marathon.

“Calm down, Grant. What happened?”

“The shop! The shop was–the shop was attacked by thugs.”

“The shop was what?” Nicholas responded, Dropping the book in hand onto the stone floor, and stood, eyes wide.

***

It looked like a bomb went off in the middle of the store.

If Nicholas hadn’t known better about the technology of this world that’s what he would have guessed at first.

Books littered the store and hundreds of torn pages were strewn about. Glass cases were shattered, windows were destroyed and anything even remotely of material value was nowhere to be found. Neither were the city guards that so frequently patrolled the area either, come to think of it.

Lillian sat against the wall next to the entrance. Next to her was Nigel, who tended to Lillian with healing magic. Her body was covered by an assortment of bruises, cuts, and abrasions. According to Lillian, a group of bandits walked into the store and attacked the store unprovoked — a series of events that even Nigel, with his more in-depth knowledge of how the world’s bandits worked, found weird.

As Nicholas tried to find a single reason for why this happened to their store specifically, Grant arrived with the rest of the group.

“What the absolute fuck is this?” Jack exclaimed, his tone louder than usual. “Who’s the piece-of-shit that’s responsible for all this?”

“Um, Grant, you were overseeing the store’s operations, yes?” Helmut asked. “Did you see anything suspicious before this happened?”

Grant scratched his head. “Well, now that you mention it, there was that one person who tried to buy the store off of us. He said something about an association of bookmakers? The man didn’t exactly seem disappointed when I rejected the offer.”

“I see. Anything el-”

“Well, I think we should go over to their ‘bookmaker association’ and give them a piece of my fucking mind. Right. Now,” Jack interjected. “Which direction did that son of a bitch go?”

“Calm down, Jack. We’re all as upset as you, but that doesn’t mean we get to storm the headquarters of any random group that wants to buy the store,” Helmut responded,

“Well, who else could it be? Or are we just gonna let them walk over us?”

“Of course not, but we need to find something more than that to go off of first. And that aside, it's not like we have any way of fighting back right now,” Helmut snapped back

Before Jack could counter again, Nicholas stepped in.

“Well… that's not entirely true…”

Helmut raised an eyebrow, turning to Nick as he scratched his head hesitantly.

***

Hitomi panted as she lugged the excrement-filled bucket the last few steps to the pit, dumping the contents in before she tossed the bucket aside and collapsed onto her back, arms spread wide.

The smell didn't bother her so much anymore. In fact, if she looked away from the literal pile of shit and rotting pigs she almost couldn’t smell it at all!

Nonetheless, her arms ached. No one ever bothered to mention during her studies that she may be called upon for grueling manual labor. Noooo, it was nothing but exciting adventures! Killing mythical creatures rarely seen! Helping her young heroes to grow!

What a load of crap.

A few moments later, Hitomi picked herself up, rising to her feet before walking to the dirt pile. She grabbed the shovel and fought through the soft screaming of her muscles as she filled the pit.

All the while she wondered what she should do when she got home.

Should she pray some more?

Pausing with the shovel for a moment, she looked down at her clothes, stained and covered in unspeakable brown and black matter and shook her head at the thought: A bath.

A long, hot, bath.

Being pulled out of her daydream by the filth, she frowned to herself.

After all,

God clearly wasn't listening.