Kurose let out a small groan as he opened his eyes. Almost immediately, his vision was filled with white feathers.

Huh? Why are there white feathers there? And why does my left cheek feel wet?"

He put a hand to his face, grabbing whatever was there. It was followed by a small "Gweh!?" and then, Kurose's vision was restored.

"Oh, Firnen, it was just you." Kurose spoke, stifling a yawn.

He put Firnen down onto his chest, gently stroking its back. Whilst he was doing that, he opened up his menu, looking at the other two weapon forms he had gotten from absorbing the egg last night.

Monster Egg Bracelet 0/5

Rarity: Common

Equip Bonus: Cooking 1, +2 defense

Monster User Amulet 0/5

Rarity: Common

Equip Bonus: Monster maturation adjustment (Small)

Kurose immediately swapped to the Monster User Amulet, intent on unlocking it. If it would help Firnen grow faster, then it would mean they would have one more capable party member. That wasn't to say the others were not competent, just that they were assigned to him and Eorna until they got their own group together.

Once they had got their own group together, those three would most likely go back to what they were doing beforehand, which was undoubtedly important to them.

He looked down at Firnen before jumping as he heard a knock on his door.

Again? It's probably Beule if I had to guess. It's been him every other time.

Kurose lifted Firnen once again, letting the Vindr Glaedr rest in his hand before moving over to the door. He quickly opened it, being greeted by Beule, as he predicted.

"Good morning Accessory Hero. I have your arm-" He cut himself off as he looked down at Kurose's hand, seeing Firnen looking up at him.

"May I ask when you got a pet, Accessory Hero?" He asked curiously. He seemed to reach his hand out before pausing, looking to Kurose for permission.

Kurose simply nodded his head and watched as Beule stroked Firnen's head, with the Vindr Glaedr seeming to enjoy the attention it was getting.

"Well, I bought the egg yesterday, and it hatched… I'm guessing super early this morning? It kinda woke me up."

"I see. Is the mess from the egg still in your room?" He asked. "If so, I will clean it up right no-"

"There's no need for that," Kurose spoke quickly. "I appreciate it, but I have already cleaned it up myself."

"Ah, I see. Well. I also came here for another reason. His Majesty has asked you to meet him in the dining room. The Dagger hero is already there. He said it is about the plans regarding today."

It took a short moment for Kurose's brain to place that information before nodding.

"Ah, yeah. Alright, that sounds good. Could you just put my armor…"

Beule simply nodded his head. "Of course. Do not worry about it Accessory Hero. Go ahead."

"Thank you!" With that, Kurose moved past Beule, moving Firnen onto his shoulders as he made his way to the dining room.

Kurose opened the doors, immediately moving to seat himself.

"Sorry I'm late, only just woke up." He spoke quickly.

"Don't worry about it" Matthias responded. "We still have a bit of time. I just wanted to make sure both of you were awake. But uh…"

Eorna took that moment to speak. "Kurose! Is that the Vindr Glaedr?"

"Gao!" was Firnen's response, slowly making its way to rest on Kurose's head.

"Yeah, it is. Its name is Firnen, but do you still have that sheet?" he asked quickly.

"Hm? Oh the sheet that the monster guy gave us? Yeah! Why, are you already having issues?"

"Not so many issues, I just don't know how to tell what gender Firnen is."

Eorna simply nodded her head. "Okay! Well, I'll get the sheet after we are done here, and then I'll read out anything that's important to you."

"That will probably be the entire sheet then." Kurose admitted.

"Hold on," Matthias spoke. "When were you going to tell me you got a monster egg?" he asked quickly.

Eorna paused at that before starting to whistle, obviously avoiding looking at the elder hero. Kurose simply let out a small nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his head.

"W-well…" He began. "I was going to tell you yesterday! It's just that… I kind of got distracted, and we started talking about other stuff. It didn't have any time to come up, plus I was really tired…"

Matthias simply stared at Kurose.

"You won't make us get rid of Firnen, right?"

After a few more moments, Matthias let out a sigh. "Fine. you can keep it. You have already named it anyway, so no point in trying to separate you. Please just tell me about this sort of stuff before doing it again, alright?"

Kurose nodded as Eorna stopped whistling, instead opting to move from her seat to sit closer to Kurose.

"Can I hold Firnen?" She asked quickly.

In response, Kurose simply lifted the Vindr Glaedr off his head, passing it over to Eorna. Firnen looked up to her with curious eyes, starting to purr slightly as Eorna slowly stroked it.

"It's so cute!" Eorna spoke happily, still stroking Firnen, who seemed content.

"So… what else do we need to speak about?" Kurose asked Matthias, who had watched everything going on with a blank stare.

"Right. Well, like I said. In a bit, those three will be here again, and I will be taking us to the outpost. From there you lot will go to the mountains and just level up. Hopefully, you can level up your pet there as well. I'll be sorting out the soldiers like I said last night. Just remember not to go too deep into the mountains, alright?"

Kurose nodded his head at that. "Yeah, I know. Don't want to run into those monsters you talked about just yet. We will stick to just fighting the Farkas and Jiralyks plus any other monsters we find."

Matthias seemed happy with that, nodding his head. "That's good. As for-"

He was quickly cut off as the door opened again, and a blur smacked into him.

"Papa!" the voice shouted.

"Tommy! How's my little man doing?" Matthias spoke with a grin, picking him up.

"I'm doing great! I missed you yesterday!" Tommy exclaimed, pouting slightly.

"Sorry about that. But me and the other heroes had to get stronger, you know that right?"

Tommy seemed to nod reluctantly at that, even as Marissa walked in.

"When can I go out with you?" He asked curiously. "I wanna get stronger as well!" He spoke with a frown.

Matthias simply let out a laugh, smiling as he did so, but Kurose could see it didn't reach his eyes.

"Don't worry about getting stronger," Matthias spoke softly. "Just let us adults handle this, alright? Enjoy being a child whilst you still can."

Tommy didn't seem to like that answer. "But I wanna help Papa fight against the waves!"

"Tommy…" Marissa spoke slowly, trying to stop a tantrum before it could even start. "Come on, let's sit down alright? Maybe at some point, we can ask someone to help you level up if you want to that much, alright?"

That seemed to pacify him slightly, and he nodded his head as Matthias put him down, moving to sit next to his mother.

Whilst that was happening, Eorna had taken to cutting up small pieces of fruit and feeding them to Firnen, of which Kurose had taken to watching.

She chucked another piece of fruit into the air, and Firnen launched upwards, catching the small apple slice in its mouth. It let out a small, muffled "Gao" before swallowing the apple slice whole and gliding down.

Kurose let out a small laugh at that, catching at the edge of his vision how Matthias seemed to shake his head. Whether it was in frustration, disappointment, or something else, he didn't know.

After a few more bits of food were thrown into the air, all being caught by Firnen, Eorna stood up.

"Alright, Kurose! Let's go through that sheet, alright? Then we need to get prepared to meet Lea and the others!"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Matthias spoke, nodding his head. "I told them to meet us by the hourglass, so when you are ready, just make your way there. Just don't take too long. I don't want to have to go looking for the both of you."

"Got it, come on Kurose!"

Eorna grabbed hold of his arm, dragging him out of his chair, and he didn't even try to fight it this time. He simply let himself be dragged by the arm, whilst FIrnen followed behind him, confused, but also excited to be seeing new locations.

Matthias and Marissa stared at the duo in confusion, mainly due to what was happening, whilst Tommy was happily unaware, eating away without a care in the world.

Kurose looked at the sheet blankly, pretending to read it as Eorna looked at him.

"Hmmm… I see…" Kurose spoke, nodding his head. He looked towards Firnen, who was currently resting on Eorna's bed before nodding once more.

"What is it?" She asked curiously.

"My conclusion is…" Kurose paused, making sure he had Eorna's attention before continuing. "That I cannot understand a single thing that is written on here."

"Oh…" Was Eorna's response, along with a small frown on her face. "Kurose, are you illiterate?"

His response was that to look shocked. "What? No, I'm not illiterate!" He responded quickly.

"Are you sure? Even I can read that." She spoke simply.

"Of course, I'm not illiterate! In my world, everyone who goes to school learns to read and write! It just doesn't prepare you for traveling to another world and seeing entirely different symbols for letters!"

"Oh, right. I guess that would make sense." Eorna spoke with a nervous laugh. Kurose could only shake his head at that.

"Here, let me read it! I'll just have to teach you to read at a later point." She spoke simply.

"What, like you taught me about the other parts of my weapon?" He spoke, handing over the sheet.

"Oh shush. I was still learning myself, alright? I don't do good with reading giant chunks of information thrown at me. It's better to experience it yourself."

She took the sheet, holding it in her hands before speaking again. "Right…" Eorna began, slowly reading through the sheet.

"Uhuh, it's just telling me the things that guy said about. When it can start hunting on its own, growth via leveling… Ah, here it is!" She exclaimed. "How to tell what gender your Vindr Glaedr Is!" She spoke with a smile.

"Let's see… oh, that's easy." She spoke simply. "The easiest way to tell is to look at its eyes. If it's like a cat eye, then it's male. If it's a female, then it will just have regular eyes."

"Huh, interesting to know. Firnen?"

Upon hearing its name, Firnen looked at Kurose, and he got a good look at his eyes.

"Yeah, he's a male. Anything else I need to know from that sheet?"

"Let's see…" Once again, Eorna started to read from the list.

"Vindr Glaedr Care… Says that you need to make sure to brush its feathers every day as it grows. Apparently, the feathers get stuck, and can actually lead to them overheating? Alright, something you definitely need to keep ahead of."

Kurose nodded his head at that. "Yeah, that's fine. I was planning on doing that regardless, but at least it gives me a legitimate reason now."

"Let's see… hmm, there isn't anything else. Just a reminder at the bottom to check in at the two-week mark. Other than that, nothing else."

"Huh, so there was a lot less on there than we thought."

"Yup!" Eorna spoke with a smile. "But, at some point, I'm going to have to help you, or try to get someone else to help you read."

"Huh? Why can't I just ask you or someone else to do it for me?" Kurose asked in confusion.

"Well, you could…" she answered, nodding her head, "But you aren't always going to be around us, right? I mean, what if you are on your own and someone asks you to sign something? It could be some sort of contract for all you know that makes you a slave!"

"...but heroes can't be enslaved? It says in our menus." Kurose responded simply, not knowing what she was trying to get at.

"Ahh! You know what I mean!" She shouted in frustration. "You need to be able to understand things yourself!"

"Alright, alright. I get it." He answered, putting his hands up to try and placate her. "I'll try to learn the language and all that whenever I can. We just need some free time when we aren't leveling and everything."

"Uhuh, you better!" She spoke quickly, pointing at him. "Once we get some free time, I'll be teaching you the letters of our world, and you won't be leaving until you can write them down without a reference!"

"Okay, okay!" Kurose spoke quickly, agreeing to it. "Can… Can I leave now? I want to get my armor on before we have to meet up at the hourglass."

"Oh, yeah sure. I'll see you there!" Eorna spoke with a smile.

Kurose left the room with Firnen trailing behind him, to prepare himself for when they would all leave.

Kurose stood in front of the hourglass, shifting in his repaired armor. He was grateful that the armor actually got repaired, don't get him wrong, it's just he still wasn't used to it. Considering he had only worn it during the wave and shortly after, it was understandable.

"Oh, Accessory Hero!" Osvien called out, waving at him.

"Osvien." Kurose greeted him back. "Didn't I just tell you to call me Kurose?"

"Ah, you did. My apologies. I'll endeavor to follow your request." He spoke with a small smile. Behind him, Lea and Sigun waved at him.

"Nice to see you two as well." He spoke, greeting the other two knights.

"Same here," Sigun responded with a lazy smile. His eyes flicked up to Kurose's hair before speaking once more."Got a pet since we last saw you, I see."

"Yeah, hopefully, he's going to be a permanent member of the party," Kurose spoke with a smile.

"Nice. it's good to see you are getting everything sorted." Sigun responded.

"What's his name?" Lea asked curiously.

"It's Firnen. Wanna say hi to them Firnen?"

In response to that, Firnen flicked out his tongue, looking at the three people before him before letting out another small "Gao" and resting his head once more.

"Oh, you lot are already here. Fantastic." Matthias's voice came from the entrance. Eorna was following behind him, also wearing her armor.

"That's good. Thought I might have to go looking for you three, but it's all good. Now, there is a small issue right now."

"What is it?" Lea asked curiously.

"Right now, I can only take 6 people with my portal skill. If we had both Eorna and Kurose at the right level, it wouldn't be much of an issue, but the fact that there are seven of us now means it's going to take three trips. One to get there, one to come back, and one to go there again. That's a total of three hours just to ferry you all there. Plus another three hours for when we want to come back."

"Hm, yes, I see the issue you are talking about…" Osvien spoke, nodding his head. "That's six hours just ferrying us all to and from here, so it would be better if someone were to stay behind, right?"

"Whilst I would prefer for no one to stay behind, that would be the best way to do it, at least until both Kurose and Eorna have unlocked their respective portal skills."

"That's fine then," Lea spoke with a shrug. "I can stay behind this time, and until you two get your portal skills, we will just be on a rotation. It's more important for you two to level up as quickly as you can anyways."

"Eh? Are you sure?" Eorna asked curiously.

"Course I'm sure. We were all given the day off for this, so it just means I get to relax." She spoke with a smile. "It's been a while since I've been able to just chill out, so it's all good to me. Trying to force myself to go along would just make it take absolutely ages."

"That sounds good then," Matthias spoke with a nod, easily agreeing to that. "Right, everyone in the party please, except you Lea."

Everyone quickly joined the party, and Matthias nodded his head.

"Sorry about this Lea."

"Like I said, it's fine! Just make sure to stay safe, all of you, alright?" Lea spoke.

Everyone nodded their heads, and Lea smiled at them. "See you later then!"

"Enjoy your day. Portal Jewelry tools!"

With that, the six disappeared, and Lea was left alone before the hourglass. After a few moments, she clapped her hands together.

"Alright! Let's enjoy my day off then!" She spoke to herself happily

The group of six appeared once again in the center of the outpost, with the captain standing before them.

"Your majesty, heroes. Welcome back." He spoke politely, beginning to bow.

"No need for that," Matthias spoke, waving his hand. "How's everything going along?"

"It's… going well. I have managed to split them into three separate groups for each of you. The average level of each group is 30, so they should be able to hold their own in combat against the wave."

"That's good to hear. Have you assigned squad leaders to each group to help organize them?"

"Not yet." The captain admitted. "I was hoping that you would be able to assist me in that. You have been around both the Accessory and Dagger hero, so I would prefer it if you helped pick out people who might not conflict with them."

"That's a good idea. You lot, do you want to start going?"

"Yeah, we can. I guess we will see you later?" Kurose asked.

"Yeah. I'll either come find you out there, or you can come back here. Either way, it shouldn't be that difficult. But I'll keep you in my party just to monitor your health and all that."

"Alright sounds good! Come on, let's go!" Eorna spoke with a smile, beginning to drag Kurose once again.

"Eorna! Stop dragging me, I can walk on my own!" Kurose complained.

Her reaction was to pretend he hadn't said anything, simply continuing to drag him towards the main gate, with Sigun and Osvien following behind, whilst Firnen simply rested on Kurose's head.

The group of six took the same path they did the day before, moving slowly through the area. After a good few minutes of walking, low growls could be heard from the bushes, and three Farkas seemed to step out.

"Huh, seems like it really is only Farkas and Jiralyks here…" Kurose spoke quietly, taking a step back.

Everyone else settled into their positions as the Farkas started to circle them.

"Yeah, the only way we could find other monsters would be by going deeper into the mountains." Sigun began, lifting his sword in preparation. "We might be able to fight further in the mountains, but there's a good chance we might bite off more than we can chew."

Kurose nodded his head, shouting a skill. "Erst Thread! Change Accessory!" He changed the thread to the Jiralyk skin scarf, and as it wrapped around the Farkas he had aimed at, it seemed to freeze up.

Kurose let out a small noise of acknowledgment at that. It seemed similar to the Electrify skill he had already gotten but as an equip effect instead of a skill. A bit of a strange change, but he could probably find a use for it.

The sight of one of their own freezing in place seemed to set the other Farkas into action. One of them rushed at Osvien, who simply raised his shield, letting it slam against it, only being pushed back slightly. Eorna appeared by his side almost immediately, slashing at the Farkas, but it moved back, leaving Eorna to slash at the air.

The other Farkas seemed to capitalize on that, dashing towards Eorna. Osvien Immediately placed himself in its path, grunting slightly as he took the impact. Kurose looked for where Sigun was, finding him at the paralyzed wolf's side, his sword raised, ready to strike it down.

Kurose felt he could leave him on his own, so instead opted to move closer to Osvien and Eorna, already shouting another skill. "Erst-"

Kurose huffed before changing what he was going to say. "Flame Shot!"

As it turned out, He could not use any other Erst skills whilst Erst Thread was on cooldown. Was the cooldown shared between all the Erst skills? Kurose let the thought leave his mind as he watched the small ball of fire hit the side of the Farkas who was more focused on Osvien's shield

The Farkas let out a small yelp as the ball of fire collided with it, giving Osvien the opportunity to swing his hammer, connected with the Farkas's head.

"Right, that definitely went a lot better than the first time." Sigun spoke up with a smile.

"Erst Slash V!"

Eorna slashed at the third wolf, easily killing it before turning around, a similar smile on her face.

"Yeah, it really did!" She spoke, agreeing with Sigun

Kurose went to speak up, only for more growls to fill the area. Almost immediately, they grouped up again.

"Damn, there's a lot of them today," Sigun spoke, holding his sword tightly.

"Yeah. I guess they didn't like what we were doing yesterday, huh?" Osvien responded cheerfully. Despite that, he still shifted his shield so that he could hold it better.

"We'll be fine! We just need to focus." Kurose spoke happily.

His skills were off cooldown, so he had faith in their abilities. Kurose counted the Farkas's that he could see.

"Seven total…" Kurose muttered, more to himself.

Despite having five of them in the party, Firnen was practically useless right now, considering both his level and size, meaning they only had four active combatants.

Eorna made the first move, dashing towards the Farkas closer to her.

"Erst Step V!" She called out her skill, her dagger glowing.

The Farkas moved to meet her halfway, only to let out a small whine as Eorna dashed past it, flicking her blade to the side. The small whine prompted the five Farkas who had been edging closer to the group to charge in, whilst the last one simply stayed at the back, watching them

Kurose stepped forward, quickly summoning a thread before changing it to the Jiralyk Skin scarf and launching it at another Farkas.

That was one wolf down temporarily. Kurose watched as Sigun fought off two Farkas whilst Oscien held one back with his shield. That left one of them unaccounted for, but a quick glance at Eorna showed that she was handling it on her own, simply dodging around the wolf.

"Hairpin!" Kurose shouted. Now probably wasn't the time to be using new skills, but he wanted to anyway.

In his hands, a glowing green hairpin appeared, and Kurose inspected it for a moment before throwing it. It sailed through the air, hitting one of the Farkas that was currently focused on Sigun on its snout.

It didn't seem to do any damage, but it distracted it enough to get it to turn and face Kurose, snarling at him.

Sigun took advantage of the situation, kicking the other Farkas back before slashing at where the glowing hairpin was buried into its snout.

Almost immediately, the Farkas collapsed, and Sigun turned to focus on the one he had kicked back.

Seeing that everyone else had their Farkas under control, Kurose turned to the one that had been frozen from his Jiralyk Skin scarf.

"Right, I guess now that it's paralyzed, it's a good time to try out that skill…" Kurose muttered to himself. The Farkas simply stared at him, unable to move.

"Right, let's see… Spiral Strike!"

As soon as Kurose spoke, he felt himself lurch forward, with a small green glowing horn in front of him that looked similar to the wave boss horn.

After a few moments, he hit the Farkas before stumbling back as a small noise escaped the Farkas.

"Alright, so it's a sort of movement skill which can also damage? Did it even do much damage?" He looked over the Farkas, and couldn't find anything that showed the skill did much damage.

"Would have been nice if I could see what it did. How was I supposed to know it was going to force me to move forward?" He spoke to himself, slightly annoyed.

Whilst Kurose was dusting himself off, the Farkas in front of him seemed to shift slightly, unknown to Kurose, After a few more moments, the Farkas lunged forward at Kurose.

"Protective Scarf!" Kurose shouted quickly, praying the skill did what he thought it might do.

In between his hands, a green glowing scarf appeared, and the wolf smashed against it, stumbling back much like Kurose had.

"Jeez…" Kurose spoke, dismissing the skill. "I barely even have any skills to deal with something on my own. How am I supposed to do anything without others helping me out? Feather Volley!"

He flicked his hand towards the Farkas, letting the feather strike at it before stepping back again.

"Hairpin! Flame Shot!" he shouted, quickly following up on his previous skills. The bolt of fire followed the same lines as the hairpin, smashing into it easily, and the Farkas seemed to fall to the ground. Kurose got the experience for it and nodded his head.

"That… was a lot more stressful than it had to be." He spoke to himself. He turned to where the last Farkas was, only to find it fighting against Eorna who had moved to it after dealing with her own Farkas, and Sigun.

A few moments later, Eornas' dagger pierced the Farkas, and the experience notification confirmed that it had died.

"Alright! That was pretty easy!" Eorna spoke with a grin.

"Yeah, it was," Kurose spoke. He wasn't going to admit he struggled to kill his one without the use of multiple skills.

"Though, we have only really encountered Jiralyks and Farkas, both today and yesterday."

"That's true… I wanna fight other monsters!" Eorna complained loudly.

"Well, his Majesty told us to not go too deep into the mountains…" Osvien spoke slowly.

"That, plus stronger monsters are further into the mountain, which I'm not sure we could deal with at the moment, I wouldn't like to take the risk," Sigun added.

"Not even if it helps us level up faster?" Kurose asked.

"I understand you two need to get stronger than this, but right now, you could probably slow it down, right?" Sigun spoke simply. "I mean, I haven't been to a wave yet, so I can't say much, but surely you should be fine, right? I mean, considering how much stronger you two have gotten already…" He trailed off as he looked at the pair.

"Well… I don't know about Eorna, but I felt useless during the wave in Ortensca." Kurose spoke slowly. "I couldn't do anything. I could only restrain the harpies and try to organize some of the guards there, but despite that, we were still getting overwhelmed."

Eorna nodded her head at that. "It's true! Even though I and some of those guards were trying to keep everything away from the village, we kept getting hurt! And then the wave boss came and hurt Kurose…"

"So, I want to get stronger. If the waves are meant to get stronger than the one we faced in Ortensca, how can we just be happy to stay like this?"

Sigun let out a small sigh. "Well, I guess you have a point. But even then, I'm not going to let you go further into the mountain. Not today at least. How long is it until the wave again? Two or three days?"

"Two days!" Eorna answered.

"Thank you Eorna. It's two days until the wave. As it is, you have already got stronger than when you first came here. Sure, you might want to push yourself, but you will just end up burning yourself out, you know that right?"

"Yeah, but-"

"But nothing. His Majesty said we aren't to go further into the mountains today, so we aren't going further in. its simple as that. I'm sure we can get plenty of levels just killing more Farkas and Jiralyks, but until his majesty is here, I don't want to risk your lives on the idea that we might be prepared. I would much rather we be over-prepared and alive, than under-prepared and dead."

Kurose went to speak up, but a quick shake of Eorna's head stopped him.

That's fine Kurose thought to himself. If I have to, I'll just ask Matthias to come with us tomorrow. Then we can go further into the mountain. It's fine.

The group continued to follow the mountain path, defeating any monsters that came out to attack them, with it being a somewhat even split between Farkas and Jiralyks.

"Splitting Dagger III" Eorna shouted the skill, letting her dagger fly forward before splitting.

Two of the daggers missed, but three hit the Jiralyk she had been fighting, with the monster collapsing immediately.

It had been like this for the half an hour they had been walking around the mountain path, with everyone moving in to defeat the monsters, whilst Kurose simply stopped their movements.

"Right, time to absorb it, then we can keep going on!" Eorna declared with a smile. It was a pattern they had gotten used to. After fighting anything, either he or Eorna would absorb the remains of the monsters so they wouldn't just be left out in the mountains to rot, and they alternated between themselves.

Kurose was about to say something but paused as he felt someone stare at him. He looked around for a few moments, but everyone else was focused on dragging the corpses of the Jiralyks to Eorna for her to absorb.

Firnen was resting on Kurose's head, so it wasn't him. Just what could it be?

Slowly, so as not to raise suspicion, he looked around the area, turning to look into the tree line which led further into the mountain. He paused after a few moments of looking as something stared back at him.

He could only see the front of it, but from what he could see, it seemed to have plenty of eyes, with all of them being light blue.

Above its head were two… what Kurose could only describe as spiked tentacles floated, waving ever so slightly. Its legs were relatively short, with long claws digging into the ground.

After a few more moments of mutual staring, the creature tilted its head, all of its eyes blinking slowly before turning and disappearing into the forest.

Kurose hesitated for a moment, but with a small, whispered an apology to everyone else, he moved toward where he had seen the creature last

And they are back to the level grind. Two days until the wave strikes. For those of you keeping count, that is tier 1, wave three.

Hopefully it is a decent chapter, until next time