The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

The shop was about thrice as big as Lauren's, and while it obviously showed off the human-style architecture that was preferred in Arconia, what stood out the most to differentiate it from a lizardman shop was a statue of the Goddess Serragnin placed near the entrance. A plaque had something written on it beneath her, though I couldn't make out much of what it said.

There were other people within the reception of the shop - it looked quite a lot like the storefront where we would sell things back in Lauren's shop except slightly fancier.

It was my first time being in a human bookstore, though I had to note that it wasn't that much different from a lizardman one, save for the large statue of the Goddess Serragnin placed in the interior, closely mirroring its counterpart placed outside. The one inside depicted her hands folded rather than holding a book as the one outside did - I didn't know if that was just by chance or there was a deeper reason behind that.

Many lizardmen acknowledged Serragnin's existence and importance, and some of them prayed to her, but they had their own religion with multiple deities unlike the humans here who saw Serragnin as the 'one above all.' Because the lizardmen religion was polytheistic, they did not seem to have much of a problem adding Serragnin to their own pantheon, though they also did not hold her in as high regard as the humans did.

I also saw a large painting of Serragnin hung up on the wall as well - it depicted her sitting upon a golden throne, analyzing a sheet of paper that was delivered to her by her vessel, the four-headed owl she was almost always shown associated with.

Whenever one wrote out a text with mana in an attempt to make a grimoire, who was it that judged whether or not it was 'worthy' enough to become a grimoire? Those who worshiped Serragnin as the 'one above all' said that all grimoires were sent to her after her apotheosis, and it was she who judged which were worthy or not. That was likely what the painting was trying to portray - the goddess in the process of judging whether a text was worthy or not. Quite fitting for a bookstore.

This theory had several holes in it though - the main one being who had judged Serragnin's grimoires when she had started writing them? Or did she have a hundred percent success rate at the time? Not to mention that there were other Liberomancers around when she hadn't 'ascended' to heaven yet, so who judged theirs?

Others thought there was some sort of mystical 'magic force' that judged grimoires - but what criteria did it use anyway? I had a vague idea from trial and error, but there were a lot of inconsistencies in what was allowed to be a grimoire or not - if there was a precise formula to making a successful grimoire, no one had discovered it yet.

I shook those thoughts away for now, because this was not the time to delve into the mysteries behind Liberomancy - I had a job to do.

I saw some people who were likely scribes and other shop employees. "I'm here for the meeting of Rank Three Liberomancers - ah, would one of you be so kind as to point me in the direction of such?"

"That way, Master Liberomancer," one of them said. They all gave me odd looks. It was as if they were more perturbed by my appearance as a foreigner than the lizardmen were at me being human - though this was likely only because I still couldn't fully register the subtleties of lizardmen facial expressions.

Still, none of them even questioned my appearance and the fact that I was headed towards the meeting. The sash did all the talking for me.

There was only one guard near the door, and I asked him to introduce myself before I entered.

He was gone for a minute, during which I tapped my foot nervously. I was not actually expected - would they turn me away? Should I have handed the guard the letter first? I cursed Zeke again for not giving me an opportunity to change my robes before coming here. But it would have taken too long to go to Granny Qi's house and then to here - and lizardmen robes would not have fit me even if I had asked to borrow a set.

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Before my thoughts ran any further amok the guard returned, and said I was free to go in.

The interior of the room was smaller than the one I'd just recently been in, though it was almost as richly decorated. There was another statue of the Goddess Serragnin, and portraits of people who were likely Zie family members.

However, though it was smaller, it had about the same number of people in it.

Despite the fact that the humans were outnumbered several times over in Arconia, they had almost the same number of Rank Three Liberomancers as the lizardmen. That was why Lance had been so adamant that they were needed - Arconia would be losing half of its battle strength if the humans did not cooperate. No matter how strong Lance was, he was only one person who knew only one Rank Four spell, he could not cover the entire city. I also saw two people, one of whom was Jiah Pei, wearing purple sashes. The lizardmen only had one - well there could be more on their side, but I doubted that every single Rank Three Liberomancer had made it to that meeting.

As I entered, all eyes were upon me.

The meeting couldn't have started much earlier judging from the nearby incense stick, but being the last to arrive was never a good thing.

"I apologize for my tardiness," I said. "And I wish a good evening to you all. I was late because I was just at the governor's palace for another meeting, but I also come here on official business." I pulled out the letter Zeke had given me, and handed it to the nearest person there, who passed it to the man who was at the head of the table. He was probably the head of the Zie family - Granny Qi had told me his first name, but for the life of me I couldn't remember it at that moment. He did not have a purple sash though, so it made me wonder why it was they had decided to hold this meeting here rather than in one of the other family's shops. Maybe the three families took turns hosting these kinds of meetings?

Once he had the letter, he read out the main section for everyone to hear. I couldn't read either of those scripts, so it was actually the first time I got to know its contents.

"Why is this person allowed in here?" someone said, pointing at me once the contents of the letter had been read out. He was a young man, probably no older than I was. "He is not one of us and a servant of the lizardmen we shou-" he got no further as Jiah Pei, who was sitting next to him, tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a disapproving shake of the head.

The man shut up, and Jiah Pei stood up, cupping his hands and bowing slightly, to the astonishment of many people there. "Fellow Master Liberomancer, allow me to apologize on behalf of my nephew. I hope you can overlook his outburst given his youth and inexperience?" There was a huge emphasis on the words 'Master Liberomancer' when he spoke.

I likewise cupped my hands and also lowered my head. "It is not a problem, Master Jiah Pei. I am not as a matter of fact here on behalf of the lizardmen, I am here as a neutral arbiter to try to smooth things out between us and the lizardmen. Things have been very frosty as of late, and I know many of you have your grievances with the lizardmen, but the fact remains that all of us are in danger right now. We won't survive the dryad invasion without each other's help, and the lizardmen felt that I would listen to their concerns as a third party without my own biases. I hope that you can feel the same- so that cooperation is easier."

There were a lot of murmurs at that, though Jiah Pei's voice cut through all of them. "I think we would all like to hear what you have to say- though, Chang Zie, we should certainly first get our guest a chair?"

The man at the head of the table nodded. There wasn't a chair prepared for me - because unlike with the lizardmen, my presence had not been expected.

They called for the guard, who brought in a chair, and room was made for me opposite Chang Zie.

"So, Master Liberomancer," Chang Zie said once I was seated. "We were discussing the upcoming invasion just as you arrived - and part of our deliberation was on sending an envoy of sorts to the lizardmen, though your presence makes something such as that superfluous. Could you enlighten us on what the governor's plan currently is?"

I began talking about the general strategy for the defense of the city. They had some concerns and questions, some of which I wrote down to ask Zeke to clarify later.

Still, they mostly agreed with Lance's plan, probably meaning it was quite a good one. No one officially accepted me as a go-between for the two groups, but none of them outright rejected me either.

They seemed to be talking as if they had already accepted me in that role - so I never brought it up again.

The meeting went on nearly as long as the lizardmen's, and occasionally they would ask for my input or mention something like leather which they were in short supply of and requested from the lizardmen.

I had a list of all of these things which I tucked into my sleeve as the meeting ended.