Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (hardest books to read txt) 📕

halt and relieved me from my nightmares. Nothing seemed out of place as I swept the perimeter for trouble: The street was empty, and the nearby buildings looked to be the same residential style we had passed thus far. “What’s going on, Val?” I called up to the front of the wagon. Lia cracked an eye open and looked for the source of the disturbance.

“There is a matter I must attend to. It will only take a moment, please stay here,” Val replied as she stood to disembark the wagon.

“Hey, wait!” I shouted, carefully sliding out from beneath Lia’s head. “Lia, something’s up. Come with me.” She looked momentarily alarmed, but quickly gained her bearings and nodded. I hopped down from the wagon and circled around to find Val holding out her hand and shaking her head.

“Please, Lux, stay here. This is a...personal matter,” she said quietly, looking away.

“Cut the shit, Val,” I snapped. “We’re in a hostile city with almost no intel, and you’re trying to head off alone with no explanation as to what’s going on? No, no way.” I poked out an accusatory finger at her chest. “Trust only goes so far.”.

She stared at the ground in silence for a long time. “I understand. Follow me if you must,” she said suddenly, turning on her heel and heading across the street.

Lia appeared at my side and watched her go, confused. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I growled as I followed Val. The building she approached had a large painted sign hanging over the door, but I couldn’t read most of the symbols; I understood the word “store” at the bottom, but the rest of the characters were foreign to me. “Lia, what does that sign say?”

“I know it’s a store, but otherwise I’m not sure. It’s mostly written in Lybesian,” she answered.

“Great. More mystery,” I grumbled. We caught up to Val as she opened the door, and entered the building behind her. The storefront before us was split in half: One side looked to be a general store, with mostly empty shelves for food and other goods, while the other half was stacked with shipping crates and barrels. A long counter stretched across both sections at the back of the room with an open door behind it.

At the sound of the door opening, a shout rang out from the back of the store. “Hey! You know we’re closed, so stop bothering me!” A young woman appeared from the door behind the counter, and I experienced a sudden moment of clarity. The shopkeeper had deep bronze skin, a wide nose, and drab olive eyes that looked exactly like Val’s. She wore a simple green dress underneath a thick, well-worn brown apron. Two rounded, fuzzy ears poked out of the thick mane of cherry red hair that cascaded down past her shoulders.

When she spotted us, the girl dropped the bowl she was carrying onto the shop counter, where it shattered and sent a thin wave of soup out in all directions. “Sister!” she cried out with delight, vaulting over the waist-high counter with ease. Val charged forward to meet her, violently shaking the wooden floor with each heavily armored footfall. When they met, Val scooped her up into a tight hug, and the girl nearly disappeared from view; while it was clear by their features they were sisters, the girl was over a head shorter than Val and had a delicate, slender figure.

I couldn’t help but smile at the reunion unfolding before us. Val’s sister had tears running down her face as she laughed while Val spun her around with a shining smile. “I was so worried, Marin. Thank the Primes you are safe,” Val said as she continued to swing her sister around.

“I’ve been praying that you’d come every night...and now you’re actually here!” Marin exclaimed, burying her face in her sister’s hair. “Did the King send you?”

“Yes,” Val answered as she stroked Marin’s hair, “we are here at the King’s request.”

Marin pulled back and raised an eyebrow. “We?” She poked her head up from behind Val’s shoulder and spotted Lia and me standing awkwardly at the entrance to the store. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t even see you come in!” She turned back to Val with a laugh. “You’ve never brought friends to visit me before!”

“This is not a leisure visit, Marin,” Val chided softly. “We are here to gather intel on—”

“Bah!” Marin interrupted, dropping out of the embrace and rushing over towards us. “You’ll have to forgive my sister; she forgets about social cues sometimes, like introducing new people to each other!” she said, raising her voice so Val could clearly hear her. “I’m Marin Sesaude, Valandra’s younger sister. It’s nice to meet you!” She smiled and extended her hand.

“Likewise. I’m Lux, and this is Lia,” I said, shaking her hand. “So you’re Val’s sister, huh? That is simultaneously obvious and incredibly difficult to believe.”

Marin stifled a laugh and slowly turned her head back to her sister. “Val?” she asked with disbelief.

“That is my nickname. It is short for Valandra,” she replied with a straight face. Marin doubled over with laughter and slapped her knee for emphasis. “I do not see why that is funny,” Val said.

“Oh, I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time,” Marin said as she straightened and wiped a tear from her eye. “So, you’re Val’s friends, right? How did that happen?”

“We’re both from Yoria,” Lia answered. “The King asked us to help Val investigate what was going on in Attetsia.” While it wasn’t necessarily a lie, I found the lack of details in Lia’s explanation amusing.

“You might be able to help us with that,” I chimed in. “We still don’t have a clear grasp on what happened here.”

“It’s been awful! I should’ve left when everyone else did, but I couldn’t just up and leave my store behind,” Marin lamented, wringing her hands.

“Why not leave Daeron with the store?” Val asked. “You always have a place at home with us in