It took Linda Lysandra just under an hour to get there.
She entered with the confidence of someone who had made a decision and was committed to following through rather than second-guessing herself. The fact that she had eaten was evident in her posture, and her ears were pointed forward.
She looked at Marceline across the common room.
Marceline looked at her.
The apology that followed was brief and direct, carrying the essence of something carefully crafted during the hour between the embankment and the innâs front door. Linda recounted her actions, expressed her uncertainties, and shared what she would have done differently had she known everything.
She presented her thoughts without soliciting a specific response.
"Iâm sorry... I didnât mean to be his affair because I just thought that he was single and wanted to pay me as his maid."
"But it turns out that every payment he gave me just led to me doing some strange things for him, and I learned from one of his other affairs that he was already married."
Marceline listened attentively to everything Linda shared. Once Linda finished speaking, Marceline set aside what she was holding and walked around the bar.
In a surprising gesture, she hugged Linda briefly, offering the warmth that Marceline reserved for moments when she felt she had made a positive decision about someone.
"Poor girl... that bastard almost stole your innocence." Marceline patted her head as one would do to a child.
Rex started at them with a blank expression. âYeah... innocence... with a massive badonkers like that.â
"You didnât do anything that needs my forgiveness," Marceline said. "But Iâll give it anyway if it helps."
"He didnât take..." Marceline whispered close. "...your virginity, right?"
"No! Of course not!" Linda shook her head. "But he once showed me his thing, and it was so disgustingly small!"
"And what I mean is, I donât want to be with someone like him!"
"My body is not something he could buy!"
They both stepped back and looked at each other with the interest of two people who had been brought together by a situation and were now deciding whether there was something worth building on from that connection.
Marceline held her own cheek. "Good to hear it then... many women are stupid enough to grab that money just so that they can satisfy his desire, knowing that he doesnât have anything thatâs worth worshipping."
"H-Huh...?" Linda looked confused.
"Anyway, she needs a job so that her stomach canât make a loud noise," Rex said from his table, where he had been eating breakfast and not paying attention to them.
"R-Rex...!" Linda shouted at him.
Marceline stared at him.
"The inn needs staff," Rex said, still occupied with his breakfast. "You said so yourself."
"I did say that," Marceline said. "With Maraâs situation, I will be running the evening service alone."
She stared at Linda.
"Do you have household experience?" Marceline asked.
"Three years in the eastern provinces," Linda said. "Kitchen and general service."
Marceline nodded, as if she were finishing an evaluation that had come to the right conclusion.
"The room rate is covered by the position," Marceline said. "The pay is weekly."
"The hours are variable during reconstruction, but theyâll settle when the city does."
Linda looked at her, and the look she gave Marceline was like something that had been tightly wound for three months and was just now allowed to loosen a little.
"Yes..." Linda said. "Thank you so much, maâam."
"Just call me Marceline."
Marceline looked like she was doing a practical task, which was how she dealt with things she felt strongly about but chose to do so through efficiency rather than expression.
"However, I still believe you need to earn this job by doing me a favor."
"Sure. I will do anything to pay for all my guilt."
After that, she leaned slightly toward Linda and whispered something that wasnât meant for the common room.
Rex noticed Lindaâs reaction from the corner of his eye. She froze immediately, her ears twitching to gauge the situation before slowly turning to face him.
"I want you to help me teach my husband a lesson..." Marceline whispered to Linda, her gaze fixed on Rex. "I canât forgive him for his actions... especially since heâs gone so far as to spend all of our savings."
"I want to divorce him tonight, but I want it to be the most excruciating divorce he has ever experienced... and that charming guy right there is going to help me." Marceline turned back to Linda, sensing her intimidation. "Youâre in on this too, right...?"
"Y-y-y-y-yes...!" Linda nodded as fast as she could, where the fur from her ears and tail started to get tensed up.
Rex looked her in the eye and smiled a little, as if to say that he had been in on the plan from the start and wasnât going to act like he hadnât.
"Oh yeah... sheâs fucking dangerous alright, and itâs because I train her enough."
Linda glanced at him, then at Marceline, and finally at the common room as a whole, as if to confirm the details of the place she had just agreed to live in.
Her ears went back to the front.
She nodded very slowly and very clearly until Marceline backed off so she wouldnât get scared.
Rex went back to eating breakfast with a satisfied smile. âJust you fucking wait, Bryan...â
âYouâre fucked for sure.â
Then Marceline said to Linda with a motherly smile, "Welcome to the Silver Rest, Linda."
"Weâre going to spend a lot of fun times together~!"
...
The night proceeded as usual at the Silver Rest: it was warm, well-organized, and exuded the competence that Marceline and Mara had instilled through their relentless hard work, which had become almost invisible once firmly established.
Linda navigated the service rotation swiftly and efficiently, like someone who had extensive experience in this line of work. She didnât need to learn anything new; the familiar environment made it all second nature to her.
Her ears followed the sounds in the common room like cat types do when theyâre learning about a space. By the second hour, she had the layout memorized in the way she movedâdirect paths instead of learning paths.
Garrett was in great shape, in the state of mind of someone who had just heard great news and was three hours into not being able to stop thinking about it. This made him both easier and harder to deal with as a kitchen staff member.
Mara took care of him with the patient warmth she brought to everything she did. Maraâs movements throughout the evening had a distinct quality, different from her usual manner, reflecting the way she carried information in her body that altered the meaning of her actions.
Bryan Bancey spent most of the night in the private dining room, working on what he said were supply chain accounts. Rexâs Foresight confirmed that he was writing letters, putting them aside, and then writing them again.
Rex took note of this and went on with his night.
Around the ninth hour, he went upstairs, washed, and changed. He had been lying down for approximately twelve minutes when he heard footsteps in the hallway.
Three sets of footsteps were moving in a coordinated manner, indicating that they had discussed their approach beforehand.
The first set was the heavier one, Bryanâs, moving from the private dining room toward the coupleâs quarters, which was the room at the end of the corridor.
The second set was much lighter and faster. It came in behind Bryanâs with the precision of someone who had been waiting for this exact moment.
The sound that followed was brief and distinct: a muffled noise that occurred when someone exceptionally quick placed a bag over another personâs head before they could comprehend the situation.
Bryan stopped walking.
There was a brief moment of surprise and struggle, followed by the sound of someone being firmly pushed in a direction they didnât want to go, like a cheetah-like demi-human who was faster than a normal human and had made a choice about this.
Rex heard it from his room.
A little while later, a door closed with a distinct sound from inside the private dining room. Following that, a silence settled over the room, as everyone inside focused intently and refrained from making any noise.
Rex stood up, fixed his clothes, and walked to the private dining room.
He unlocked the door.
Bryan Bancey sat in the chair at the head of the table, a position he might have preferred under different circumstances. Linda had procured a chain from a source Rex chose not to question, using it to secure his wrists to the chairâs armrests.
A cloth arrangement covered his mouth so that he couldnât talk loudly enough to be heard through the innâs walls.
His eyes were moving around the room in a way that showed he was trying to figure out the whole situation before he said anything.
Marceline stood before him, clad in a third robeâneither the working robe nor the comfortable one. Her hair cascaded down, and her arms were crossed, presenting an air of someone who had meticulously arranged everything to convey exactly what she intended, allowing the moment to speak for itself.
Linda stood to the right of Bryanâs chair with her arms at her sides and her tail moving slowly and purposefully, as it did when she had finished something and was ready for the next thing.
When Rex walked in, both of them looked at him.
Rex looked at Bryan.
Bryan looked at Rex with the eyes of a man who had been having a terrible day that was showing no signs of improvement.
Marceline looked at Rex with the look she had been building up to since the morning. It was the look that had been prepared specifically for this exact situation.
Rex smiled.
"Hello, Bryan," he said pleasantly.
"I believe we havenât been properly introduced."