"Welcome, Zeke," Lance said. I expected him to greet Zeke, his own son, of course, but was a bit taken aback when he offered to shake my hand. "Master Liberomancer! Thank you for joining us this evening - I trust that you have been well?"

I found myself a bit tongue-tied by his sudden enthusiasm and welcoming nature, but I managed to blurt out, "It's all been good - circumstances considered, of course."

"Yes, yes," he said. "That's excellent - I had always intended to meet with you in person one day, by inviting you to one of my banquets at some time - it is unfortunate that we are meeting in such dire circumstances, but certainly once this is all done, we can find a time then?"

"Of course."

"I have been the governor of Arconia for many years," he continued. "My duty and responsibilities extend to all of my subjects - humans and lizardmen included, as well as any other intelligent races within the city. The altercations that have occurred were isolated incidents, though emotions have unfortunately, it seems, gotten heated and out of hand. I would've preferred to deal with this issue as soon as it struck, but the incoming dryad invasion has kept me occupied. Still, we need to cooperate if we are to survive - and it is much appreciated that you accepted Zeke's offer to assist us with the same. Please come, sit."

A seat had been reserved for me, it seemed, right next to Drake. The lizardman greeted me like we were total strangers, which, given the brief but somewhat unpleasant history between us was quite welcome.

Lance began detailing what was going on with the incoming dryad invasion - parts of it I already knew, though I wasn't aware of the scale of destruction that they were causing until I heard the numbers.

I glanced at everyone else in the room who were all also listening to Lance intently - with the exception of one person.

Lauren - my former employer, who was giving what I thought were nervous glances my way.

I had gotten somewhat better at recognizing some lizardmen expressions, and I thought that I could see the fear written on her face.

I put the pieces together and tried to think of things from her perspective, assuming that what I was seeing was real and not just wishful projection on my part.

She had fired me - well, not technically, but it had been for all practical purposes kicking me out without any real justification regardless of what the official story was.

Now, she saw me sitting here as a Master Liberomancer. That likely had surprised her quite a bit; she would not have even assumed that I could have reached Rank Three so fast. The gap between Rank Two and Rank Three was huge and many people were stuck at that bottleneck for months if not years - I had been lucky enough to soar across it with ease thanks to my knowledge from Earth, but if Charlotte's Web hadn't panned out like it had, I might've still been at Rank Two right now. However, Rank Two or Rank Three, from her perspective that was still fine, even if I had gotten this title, there was little in the way that she would have to fear from me.

The title was valuable in the sense of having a lot of 'soft power', but it wasn't like I had the ability to lock her shop down or whatever. I had, after all, left willingly as far as anyone knew, and even if I told them what had actually happened - I had a feeling that many people would've agreed with her decision.

Pragmatism trumped nearly everything else in this world when it came down to it, and the only reason that some may have sided with me on the matter was because of my current title. If I was still just a Rank Two Liberomancer, they would not have even cared.

Regardless, if she had been worried about something along those lines, she would've reached out to me sooner to apologize or smooth things over. There was no way that she had not heard of me becoming a Master Liberomancer given it had been the recent talk of the city until the dryad threat appeared, and there had been ample time to make up if that had been her concern.

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She had likely thought that the 'severance' I had gotten at the time was enough to smooth things over, and there was nothing further to do.

No, she was likely shaking in her boots because she saw me seated so close to the governor. This was what was really bothering her.

It was like a low-level manager firing an employee unfairly, only to see that employee on the Board of Directors of that company a few months later.

Now, if I brought this fact up to the governor that I had been treated unfairly - it was a different ball game entirely. At least, in her head that must've seemed catastrophic.

She was likely worried that it might affect her shop or her standing in society, or both.

Currently, she had no idea how close I was to the governor, only that he seemed to be friendly enough and had asked me to sit close to him. In other words - she was unaware that I really didn't have any real connection with the governor. But that sense of not knowing for sure what was happening was what really terrified her, I thought. In a lot of horror movies, the monster or creature in question was usually scarier the less of it the audience saw most of the time, simply because what you could imagine was typically far scarier than almost anything a filmmaker could actually show you. If she had been human; sweat would have already coated her forehead as the gears within grinded against each other at record speed.

With that said, she had no actual reason to be worried.

For one, I did not have the pull to do anything to her that would seriously give her trouble. Neither Zeke nor Lance would risk offending one of their own in order to moderately appease me, I was sure of that.

Secondly, even if I could, I had no desire to take revenge on her.

The reason was that even if I still had bitter feelings about what she had done, I understood why she had done it. This was not modern Earth after all, and if I had remained in the shop it likely would have impacted sales majorly in some way or the other. It probably already had, otherwise she wouldn't have let me go. Why would she sacrifice the well-being of her collective lizardmen employees over the case of one human?

The only issue I had is that I felt like she should've come out and told me why she was firing me in the first place rather than having Mark do it in her stead. I felt that I was owed that much after the months I had worked under her and the profits I had generated for her.

Still, there was little reason to carry resentment over such a thing.

I likely would've been far angrier at her right now if I had been unsuccessful in reaching Rank Three and becoming a Master Liberomancer, but if that were the case, I would not be sitting here in the first place, now then would I?

However, in a 'all's well that end's well' sort of sense, I had little reason to complain given that her firing me had, as a silver lining, given me more free time to work on my own grimoires and it had all ultimately worked out for me.

Also, there was no real way that I could dish out any kind of punishment against her without it also impacting my old friends back in her store - I did not want to see the likes of Rose or even Mark suffer because of my hurt feelings. If people stopped going to her shop, she would close it down and find another business to go into, but those people would just be fired. And I had no desire to see them caught in the crossfire.

Plus, ultimately, I intended to leave Arconia. I was only here and cooperating with all of them so readily because I had no other choice other than dying to dryad hands, but after that, I would leave and wouldn't have to ever think of her again. So what did revenge matter anyway?

I had no desire to seek revenge against her.

I had no ability to seek revenge against her even if I wanted to.

And still…

There was no need for me to openly say those things, now then was there?

Back when I was a Rank One Liberomancer, I had nearly gotten into a bar fight. I would certainly have been beaten to a pulp were it not for the fact that I was a Liberomancer causing them to back off. I couldn't have actually done anything to them at the time if they had decided to knock my lights out, but the mere implication of that fact that I might have been able to was enough to get them to not only back off, but also apologize to me.

It was the same situation here.

Lauren had no idea what was going on between the governor and I, so naturally her mind was thinking of some of the worst possible scenarios! Her brain must've been doing a hundred calculations at once, most of which were incorrect as she didn't know the full details of what was going on.

I smirked inwardly. No, I was not going to take any direct action against her, but I did get quite a bit of schadenfreude imagining how she must be squirming and torturing herself.

Yup, that would be my revenge. It was perfect as it was all Lauren's own guilt and worry that was causing her so much distress as she was basically tormenting herself - all of that without me even needing to raise a finger. I also had complete plausible deniability if she were to ever confront me in the future about this, and I had a bit of leverage over her so long as I didn't reveal my hand. Lauren was definitely smart, or at least, moderately business-savvy, but that was coming to bite her back in this situation because that was what was causing her to worry so much. Someone who was dumber wouldn't have even begun to consider the implications, and in this one situation, would've been fine.

Even as I inwardly rejoiced, I turned my head to give my full attention to Lance.

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