Eleanor.

  On his first night in this world, Zack Adder had discovered a hole in the wall in his room, an acoustic listening setup that funneled sound from his room into the next room over. And when he had burst into that room, he had discovered Emma, a maid, spying on him.

  And Emma had inadvertently named her supervisor during his interrogation.

  Eleanor.

  And here she was now in the flesh, already aware of who he was.

  They eyed each other coolly.

  Zack was here in the castle’s book room to gather what information he could, and Rosimund had already agreed to it. All he had to do was play it cool, because he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  And yet, he felt like he had been caught in something.

  Eleanor turned to Barclay and bowed slightly. “Good day, Sir Barclay. What brings you and the [Hero’s] companion… here?”

  “Hm? Sir Zack has a bit of a stomachache after lunch, so we’re looking for books about Scouting while his stomach settles.”

  The elder maid’s eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch.

  “I see.” She clapped her hands. “Move your hands, girls, you’re delaying a member of the [Hero’s Party]!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” The younger girls all responded with military-like precision and immediately returned to dusting books and boxes.

  Eleanor turned back to Zack and gave him a look.

  “Sir Zack, please don’t tease my girls when they’re supposed to be working.”

  A statement potentially loaded with double meaning.

  Was she referring to Emma?

  He would play dumb.

  “Aw, I was just asking questions, Eleanor!”

  “And that’s [Maid] Eleanor to you, young man.” She raised an eyebrow, and the corners of her mouth tugged upwards.

  “Fiiine…”

  Barclay sighed, and the head [Maid] chuckled.

  And so while the younger girls worked, Eleanor heroically distracted the curious [Otherworlder] by answering his questions, even if that meant she was unable to work herself.

  Or, that was how Knight Barclay saw it.

  “My, but aren’t you just so inquisitive, sir Zack?”

  “Is there something wrong with that?”

  “Not at all, but what a curious place to come to gather information.”

  Spy vs. Spy.

  That was how it felt.

  “Why should the castle book room be a curious place to gather information?”

  Eleanor’s eyes flickered to Barclay, who was sorting through the dusted and stacked books. None of the younger maids had proven able to read, and Eleanor showed no inclination to involve herself in their work.

  “The book room, hm? I see. I can only wonder what game you’re playing.”

  Zack felt a minor twinge of frustration at the evasive answer.

  What did she mean by that?

  Eleanor lowered her voice then, to a level such that Zack could just barely hear what she was saying even as they stood next to each other watching the maids and the knight work.

  “Still, I must praise your sense of discretion. It is most appreciated.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he answered, matching her volume.

  “Exactly.” She paused a moment. “Should you need any assistance, whatsoever it may be, my maids and I will be standing by to return the favor. You need merely let us know.”

  Favor.

  The preferred currency of secret agents back on Earth; the only currency that really mattered in a world where yesterday’s ally could be tomorrow’s enemy, and vice versa. The equivalent of a blank check. Good for anything, but only once.

  “Any maid?”

  “No, but mention my name and word will reach me.”

  So not every maid was part of her little spy ring, directly.

  “What about the knights?”

  Eleanor was silent, and so Zack turned slightly to look at her out of the corner of his eye, and cocked an eyebrow. She merely closed her eyes and shook her head.

  So the knights weren’t with her, then.

  Zack wanted to ask more questions, gather more information from Eleanor, but all too soon the room and its contents were dusted. The maids arranged themselves and bowed in formation.

  “Will there be anything else, milords?”

  “No, you’re dismissed,” Barclay said.

  “Bye, maids!” Zack waved and smiled, and a few blushed.

  Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Alright, back to work, girls! To the main hall!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Sir Zack…”

  “Hm?”

  Barclay was giving him a look.

  “No, never mind. Let’s just see if there are any books related to scouting…”

  He felt it was the [Otherworlder]’s business if he was… interested in the maids.

  The books had been dusted, and Barclay had sorted them somewhat, separating out the books that seemed like they might be useful from those that clearly weren’t.

  Next would be skimming the books’ interiors. Barclay took half the books, and Zack took the other half. He picked up several and read their titles.

  Report of the Activities of the Knights of the Holy Church 3621-3623

  Expenditure Report 3608

  Training Manual for Apprentice Knights

  Principles of Shield Use

  Small Unit Tactics Volume 3

  “What year is it here, anyway?”

  “It’s the year of the Goddess 3672.”

  “And is it summer?”

  “Oh no, it’s going to get hotter yet; the spring equinox just passed last week.”

  In the end, of some hundred books Barclay had set aside, there were only two even close to the topic of scouting: Expedition Manual Volume 2 and a book with a damaged cover and completely illegible title, but it seemed to cover foraging and edible plants. Both were handwritten manuscripts.

  “All the books are copied by hand, huh?”

  “Hm? Of course. How else would a book be copied? Well, perhaps there’s a cantrip for such a thing…”

  Earth’s God had been right. This other world was rather primitive.

  Supposing this whole [Hero’s Party] business didn’t work out, and nobody had come up with the idea of a printing press already, that was one avenue to incredible wealth.

  It didn’t look like he would have to worry about money, too much.

  He tucked that away in the back of his mind, for later.

  For right now, he was going to give this job a fair shake.

  Besides which, he still had another job.

  The job that had brought him to this world in the first place.

  The Earth God’s investigation into the Goddess and the summoning ritual.

  He kept an eye out for any relevant information in the books he was skimming, but found nothing.

  In the end, only the title-less book was really useful. Expedition Manual Volume 2 covered how to plan for an expedition of knights away from the capital and the bureaucratic procedures that needed to be followed. That is, followed in the year 3588.

  Barclay sighed and apologized. “Sorry for the dearth of books, Sir Zack. Most of our recruits don’t know how to read, anyway, so books aren’t part of our training curriculum… Once the [Trainer] from the Hunters’ Guild arrives, you can learn from him. Now, once you grow bored of reading, come back to the courtyard and we can run some more laps—improve that [Running] skill.”

  With that, he left Zack to his book and went back to the courtyard.

  Zack Adder got as comfortable as he could, sitting on one of the crates and leaning against the freshly cleaned stone wall—finally alone—and he smiled nostalgically as he remembered SERE school.

  Or, more accurately, how he had prepared for SERE school.

  Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. SERE.

  It wasn’t explicitly an Army training course, and he had only been assigned to attend the school when the CIA had headhunted him away from the NSA and they were preparing him to work as a double agent.

  One of the challenges was supposed to be the wilderness survival portion, particularly the hunting and foraging parts. It was a bit of a stretch to imagine that a network administrator would need to escape into the wilderness rather than just disappear into a city, but orders were orders. So, Zack had prepared.

  It turns out, you can learn a lot about wilderness survival from watching online videos for a week, especially when you’ve hacked the Army network and know precisely where your training is going to take place.

  Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

  But, sadly…

  There was no internet, no video sites; there weren’t videos at all in this other world.

  And this was the state of the Royal Castle’s book room. The seat of government let things get this dusty, disorganized, and this out of date?

  Truly, primitive.

  He would have to adjust his plans for gathering information going forward. Less on books and more on cultivating human sources.

  And if their information storage was this primitive, it was likely other aspects of this society were similarly medieval. Though at least they didn’t seem to be drinking from lead cups.

  Who knew how far behind their food safety standards were...

  So it was worth Zack Adder’s full attention to learn this world’s foraging techniques and which local plants were edible, and which were not.

  At first, it was slow going.

  The book was handwritten in rather cramped script, and deciphering each word was a bit of a struggle. But, as he continued, and got used to it…

  *ding!* The skill [Reading] has been acquired.

  Reading was a skill here?

  When he turned back to the book, he found it much easier to decipher, and was able to read at a more natural pace.

  The book jumped straight into descriptions of herbs that could be found in the wild, how to find them, and where they typically grew. It was very information dense. At first, Zack Adder skimmed through, planning to read more closely on a second pass, but a description of symptoms caught his eye.

  ...may cause loss of appetite, nausea, weakness, stomach pain, reddened tongue, and death.

  ...What?

  He went back a few paragraphs to the beginning of the section. “Pale Snakeleaf, a most useful poison, need not be directly fed to victims. By feeding the plant to livestock, food made from that livestock such as meat or milk can become poisonous. After several weeks of consistent feeding, the livestock will die. The plant itself has a bitter taste…” The book went on to describe the plant, where it grows, and how to identify its toxins in foods as well as how to mask the flavor and odor, and signs that someone has attempted to do so…

  After some more skimming, Zack Adder reached his conclusion.

  This wasn’t a foraging handbook.

  This was a poisoner’s handbook.

  Maybe that was scouting-type stuff? Possibly?

  Definitely the kind of thing worth committing to memory, however.

  Initially, Zack had been planning to skim the book, then wander off to explore the castle and meet more of the people who lived and worked here. And when he was inevitably caught, he would return to training with Barclay. The man was incredibly fast: possibly faster than an Olympic sprinter back on Earth.

  And Rosimund had managed to put him on the ground before he could react.

  Zack felt torn in two directions: the desire to train and grow more powerful, and the need to get his bearings properly, to learn more about his situation and what was going on.

  Studying won out.

  So, instead of skimming and moving on, he found himself reading the book very closely, and committing as much as he could to memory.

  Perhaps he could get a skill out of it, as his [Trainer] had mentioned.

  Time passed quickly, and eventually Barclay came to find him.

  “Sir Zack? Still studying? It’s nearly time for supper, and Sir Northcourt has requested your attendance.”

  “Eh? Oh, that time already?” His training tunic, soiled by sweat and dust, was apparently inappropriate attire for dinner in the nice part of the castle, so they returned to his room where he changed into his Earth clothes and casually tossed the title-less book into his trunk.

  When he emerged from his room, Barclay had gone and [Maid] Eleanor stood primly waiting, hands clasped in front of her waist and her professional mask firmly in place and completely unreadable.

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