As we arrived at the dungeon together, Tony stopped us at the door, holding up a paper with a concerned expression.

"Wait, this says that we need a team oath!"

Aza, impatient, tried to pry her way in, but Tony insisted, "It says that we could go to prison!"

"With the two jail cells this town has? Please. Also, who's counting?" Grey couldn't hold in their laughter as Aza dismissed the warning. Tony leaned into the Vaporeon's ear, still determined to not let them through.

"This is our first mission, the chance of someone watching us is very high," he whispered, "besides, we also have other steps in our procedure to do anyways. How about you do some delegation?"

Ian swiftly volunteered to count the supplies while everyone else tried to figure out what their "oath" should be.

After some disagreement, Elizabeth came up with a clever solution.

"Your team oath," she read off the paper. "It says that we need to recite 'your team oath', so uhh… How could we be faulted for this?"

After a moment of silence, everyone else repeated the new team oath. Tony gave up the fight, and we all filtered in one at a time.

Upon entering the dungeon, its size of it was immediately noticeable. It was easily hundreds of times larger than the dungeon I originally woke up in. The floor was damp, and the eerie atmosphere was fueled by the thin air. I could hear a subtle wind, as if someone was breathing right next to me.

The memories of my first days in this world came flooding back. I remembered the hallucinations, the strange noises, and the thirst.

I remembered hearing the sound of water dripping from someplace unseen, slowly driving me insane as I desperately tried to find it.

If it wasn't for that Kecleon finding me, I'd be-

…I was with my friends now, and I needed to be brave. I couldn't let them know, couldn't let them know what I was thinking of.

When my breathing sped up, I forced it to slow back down.

When my face twisted, I contorted it back into a smile

When my pace slowed down, I stuck close to Tony.

Our mission was to collect items, and we did. For some reason, there were just piles of random things laying around. Judging from how our mission was pre-determined, they either sent people out to put those things there, which didn't make much sense, or the dungeon just spawned things in, which would make less sense, but more sense in a weird way.

After what felt like hours inside, we finally emerged from the dungeon, carrying dozens of orbs, seeds, and other various nicknacks.

Outside, everyone was busy counting what they had gathered, while I sat on a log and took a moment to breathe, letting myself return back to normal. I just stared at the dungeon entrance with fear as I wondered why the hell I had let myself do this.

Among the oddities we had collected, there was one that stood out to me. It was a pair of glasses. I just put them on for a laugh, and my vision became blurry until I took them back off. A moment later, Tony asked me if he could try them on.

As he lowered the glasses down onto his snout, everyone laughed, and I didn't have the heart to tell the Flareon that they were laughing at him, as the glasses looked terrible. Yet still, he kept them on. The Flareon picked up a rock and inspected it closely.

"Is this what you always see?" He asked, and nobody except me seemed to have an answer. "Yes," I said, and his face lit up with joy.

Once everyone was done counting, Toz shoved everything into the bag, and we headed back to the guild.

Everyone else was apparently eager to head to the cafeteria to see some friends, leaving me to take care of the storage items, but I wasn't upset about it, as I was avoiding the dangerous task of socializing, while also netting myself some social points in the process.

As I arrived at the storage room, I realized the door was locked, and all the signs that could guide me were in another language.

Feeling lost, I began to search for some guild employee that could help me.

Before long, a familiar feminine voice interrupted my wandering.

"Hello," she said, and I turned expecting to see Elizabeth, but I was instead greeted by Diana.

Feeling a little caught off guard, I was hesitant to respond

"Hi," I said.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, slowly creeping towards me.

"I was trying to find someone who could help me put some items into storage, you?" I responded, trying to be polite. I braced for whatever schemes she had planned before greeting me.

"I know someone who could help, but first I need to know something from you." There it was. Though, I did need her help, so I agreed to answer any question she had.

"What was it you wrote in that journal?" was her question, and I knew I couldn't tell her the truth, but at least she was providing me with an opportunity to throw her off my scent.

"It was just a journal for whatever came to my head… I also used an encryption system on things I didn't want others to hear." She looked disappointed with my non-answer, and I was expecting her to reply like so.

"Hmm, why-" she stopped mid-sentence. Diana's eyes lit up as she stared down the hall like there was something behind me that she needed to get to. Her tone suddenly shifted from curiosity to indifference as she spoke, "I need to go. There should be a Meinshao down the hall, talk to her." She pointed to where I needed to go as sprinted past me.

As I was left standing there, I felt relieved, but also confused at the same time about what had just happened. I never actually looked behind me, so I had no idea what she considered important enough to ditch the conversation. There wasn't much I could infer from her demeanor either, especially since it just changed on a dime.

But I still had a job to do, and I made my way toward the Meinshao, still wondering what Diana had been thinking, and why she was acting so strange. I spotted the Meinshao sitting at her desk through an open door.

I gave her the bag, she thanked me, and I left.

As I walked to the exit and out of the building, I passed by the cafeteria and considered joining them in their conversations. The sight of a Nickit staring me down from inside the cafeteria made my blood run cold, and I made a brisk exit with the new intent of just speeding home.

The air outside was warm and inviting, with a gentle breeze blowing through the trees. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds. The sun was just beginning to set, casting a golden glow over everything.

When I arrived home and felt the wind blowing on my face, I decided that I would sit outside the house and bask in the sunlight instead of going inside.

Before I knew it, I was nodding off.

I was awoken some unknown amount of time later by Aza lightly slapping my face, repeatedly and loudly announcing that they were home.

I yawned, rubbed my eyes, and followed them inside. I glanced at the pie in the kitchen on my way in, and I saw that it was sitting in a tub made of half-melted ice, presumably to keep it cool. I must admit that it was tempting, but I knew they all would kill me if I ate their pie.

I waited until everyone else had gone back into their rooms before I finally gathered enough courage to talk to Tony. I knocked on the door with his name on it and entered a moment later when he opened it.

As I stood in his room, I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity to my own in terms of layout. It was as if we were in a hotel, with only slight differences with the decor and furnishings. I had never really even thought about how everyone else's rooms might have looked, but this gave me some insight.

'Tony has clearly been living in this world much longer than I have, and thus he has the money to spend on more extravagant decorations,' I justified to myself.

After a moment of silence, Tony finally spoke up.

"So, what brings you here?" he asked, his tone somewhat guarded.

"I came because I had an idea about your story," I said, and Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Oh really? What's that?" He perked up.

"In your story, you said that Mike talked about an orange monster that broke into his house." I leaned in slightly before continuing. "But what I didn't connect at the time you told me was that I experienced something similar myself before I was cast into this world. I was also attacked by an orange fox, and then suddenly I found myself in the forest-"

Before I could finish my sentence, Tony pushed his paw against my face, almost to the point of a slap, causing me to recoil in surprise. He quickly covered his own face as well and started to quietly whisper in my ear.

"Eavesdroppers," he hissed. "They heard what you said. Try to change the topic, but not too much to the point that they know we know."

Even though I was feeling a bit nervous, I tried to gather my thoughts and come up with a new topic of conversation.

"I… That's when I realized that I had a fear of anything that resembled a Vulpix," I blurted out.

Tony paused for a moment, thinking.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "Is that why-"

Before he could finish his sentence, he stopped himself, as if he realized that what he was about to say was something that he shouldn't. "Sorry, never mind," he muttered instead.

Feeling a bit uneasy, I waited about a minute before I made my exit. I glanced around the area, checking for anyone, but nobody was there.

At least he heard what I had to say, that much was nice.

As I pondered over who might have been eavesdropping on our conversation, a few possibilities crossed my mind.

'Was that Elizabeth?' I thought, remembering her earlier insinuation of being able to read minds, but then again, she also mentioned not being able to read my mind.

It was a bit confusing, and I couldn't quite make sense of it. So I decided that it would be best to keep my guard up with this kind of thing, especially with other people home.

I tried to investigate further, but everyone was already in their own rooms at this point, and there didn't seem to be much point.

The night was calm, the air was still; the perfect temperature to remain unnoticed, and the house was silent. I eagerly awaited the pie in the morning, and whatever lie ahead.


AN: Sorry, I had this chapter ready last week, but just a day too late. The good news is that I've already written the next chapter, so expect that.