A/N: I have important news so I would make sure to check the end notes, and once again thank you to PhishTahkoh for editing my mess

WIth Naofumi held tightly onto her. Sakura left the balcony and castle, finding nothing else to do, but a young voice yelled out as soon as she came close to the gate out of the castle. It was familiar, but Sakura couldn't place it.

"Wait, miss!"

Turning around, Sakura saw a familiar young knight running towards her and her mistress. Unknowing, she held tighter onto the small girl as the boy ran towards them.

"Ah, apologies," The boy said quieter as he got closer to the duo, most likely seeing the small demi-human in Sakura's arms. The boy suddenly seemed a lot more nervous as he quickly looked to the ground and scratched the back of his head.

"U-Um" The boy started to stutter.

"W-Would you a-allow m-me to j-join y-your p-party!" The boy yelled out with a small red blush littering his face

Sakura stood wide-eyed...she was shocked. This wasn't what she was expecting. From her time with her mistress, most humans were mean, demeaning, constantly making fun of her and mistress...was this knight any different? She didn't know...though she remembered that this young man helped them during the wave.

"T-The commander kicked me off...he was incredibly angry after what happened in the wave, he laid off quite a few of us...but I still want to help people, that's why I became a knight...but now... I am not sure how I could do that...but then it came to me. I could see about joining a heroes party, and I felt the shield hero's party would have been the best one," The young knight said, taking a few deep breaths, clearly out of air from talking so fast.

Sukura stood still.

"I can't say yes... But, I'll let Mistress Naofumi know... And in case she says yes, you can stay at our camp," Sakura said honestly. After all, she wasn't sure what else to do. She didn't know if this was a trap or what. But, for now, she would give an olive branch, and it really depends on her mistress, but that was all the young man needed.

"Thank you! Oh yeah! My name is Ake. Nice to meet you," Ake said, his face a beaming light in the darkness.

And with that, Sakura started to walk to their camp. Feeling the rhythmic heartbeats of her mistress made the journey all the more serene, and unknowingly she began to lightly pat her.

It was kind of like whiplash to Ake, going from the revering anger of his old commander to now this calm and serene walk. It seemed not even the monsters dared to interrupt this peaceful night.

After a while, they finally arrived at the camp. Sakura had to force Naofumi off her and onto what equated to their bed, then lightly tucked her in.

Sakura let out a sigh before she sat down next to Naofumi.

"I am keeping watch. You can sleep if you wish," Sakura stated to the out-of-place Ake. Ake just gave a simple nod. Though he had many questions inwardly, he refused to voice them.

Naofumi's eyes fluttered open before he slowly got up from his bed with a yawn. But, as soon as he caught sight of his dress, memories of the night before came back quickly.

Shaking his head, Naofumi undressed and quickly redressed in his armor.

'So my next step is to find that stone thing for the magic shop, but the question is how do we do that?' Naofumi thought as he dressed.

'I guess the simplest answer would be to continue to wander the world until I find a quarry or something. See if I can help them with any sort of issue in exchange for one of those things... Well, I hope it'll be that easy. Who knows?' Naofumi thought semi-pessimistically before he noticed something off about the campsite. Lying on the grassy floor was the usual sleeping form of Sakura. But, what wasn't was the boy with typical knight armor next to him lying near the flickering remains of the fire.

Naofumi's eyebrow raised at the sight. What exactly happened here? The boy didn't seem hostile, though. Naofumi could already guess that by Sakura's sleeping form right next to him.

'Should I wake the both of them up to see what happened?' He thought. But, after a while of looking at Sakura's peaceful sleeping form, he decided against it…

Meanwhile, he was getting hungry, so after a bit of digging around in his bag, he found what he needed. Going back to the fire, he tossed a few pieces of firewood into the dying fire, making the fire grow brighter. He did this until he felt it was at the right intensity. Finally, Naofumi began cooking.

Within minutes an almost heavenly smell began to surround the camp as the small hero began to cook. Almost like a primal instinct, the duo sleeping on the ground began to stir until they finally awoke and searched for the origin of the heavenly smell until they found the origin. Standing on a small make-shift teetering stool, one of Naofumi's many bags of clothing, was the small hero carefully and slowly stirring something within a small stone pot hanging by a bundle of sticks.

"You know, they say the early bird gets the worm. But, I guess in this scenario, the earlier bird has to find the worm for the early bird," Naofumi spoke with a light giggle as he noticed the two of them waking up.

"Here, I decided to make breakfast," Naofumi said as he grabbed the ladle and scooped up some of the soup and put it into a small bowl and handed it to her. Naofumi gave a once over of the boy before he did the same and handed it to him.

"You two better explain what I missed when I was asleep," He said with a sigh before getting a bowl for himself before he got off the make-shift stool and sat down and began to eat.

"Wow! This is super good!" Both the young boy and the bird-turned young lady at the moment yelled out with a smile before rapidly eating it. All the while, Naofumi's ears flattened as his face became deadpan.

"It was really nothing, but okay?" Naofumi spoke as he slowly ate his food before putting it up, not finishing the entire bowl. Even after all this, he still wasn't 100% sure how much this body could take in. It was going to become even more annoying when or if this body ever started growing.

"So, what's your deal?" Naofumi finally asked the young knight boy.

With that, Ake told Naofumi what he told Sakura last night.

Naofumi let out a sigh before he began to weigh the pros and cons of letting Ake join.

'On one side, having more hands on deck is always great, but is it needed? Probably. Currently, this party consists of a loli raccoon demi-human and a shapeshifting giant pink chicken. So, having another could help a lot in case Sakura falls or is simply unable to battle for whatever reason. Another bonus that I am not sure would be important. Still, with how this world treated demi-humans, there might be a time when there is a "No Demi's" village. Having a human companion would be useful, so we don't have to rile up the village. Sneaking around could also be helped by having a human companion for similar reasons,' Naofumi thought to himself.

'On the other hand, this man is a total stranger. He may seem to be an honest and good-hearted boy, but who knows how much could be an act at any minute. He might be able to turn on me, but then again, Sukura will be enough to deal with him. There's also the fact he would be another mouth to feed, and I would need to supply him with equipment. Still, then again, he seems to already have brought his own. In all honesty, it probably is better than mine... It doesn't seem that bad. If I don't like him, or he acts worse than he appears, I can simply kick him off the team. The only issue is if he becomes stronger than Sakura and I, or the possibility that exp will be split. I get less making my potential aging taking longer, but that doesn't seem to be the case' Naofumi thought before long he finally nodded at the boy.

"Okay, Ake, you can join."

Ake has joined your party!

A/N(2) : So...as you might, or might not know it's almost been 1 year since I originally started this fic in two months time give or take this fic will be a year old...and I want to celebrate it's birthday which I admit is kinda weird but still I wanna do this, I was originally gonna ask this stuff in January but with my inconsistent updating I wanted to make sure I could get this info out before then see the results and then write what needs to be, so I am asking this earlier then I think needs be but what ever, so what exactly I am asking you? simple what do you want?

Do you want a mega chapter, put simply after I update all my other fics once I am going to solely focus on chapter which would be this, try to make it as long as possible basically to blow my 5k chapter out of the water with what I plan to do

A one-shot mega chapter (the same plan as the other option) what if which will be in this fic, where some how or another Naofumi landed in another body I would think Filo or Malty would be fun but I'll let you decide that if you want this option

or simpl which I feel is garneted to lose but I am still putting this in her just in case cuase who knows, or I might simply combine it into the winning side

or simply other and comment what that is

I was originally gonna post a poll thing but I am uncertain if that would work so I just say comment what you want and which ever one wins will be the one I pick