A distinct issue had presented itself to Lucian. As his maximum Spirit increased, so did the time it took to regain it all. Despite an increase to the maximum amount he could have, the rate of recovery remained at 1 per minute. It recovered while he fought but with how quick each fight had been so far that didn’t amount to more than 1 or 2 Spirit regained.

Lucian could understand something like this from the perspective of making things fair - high power use came with a high recovery period - but that didn’t mean he wanted to deal with waiting. But he had to. At least the river was clear enough that he felt fine drinking from it to quench his growing thirst.

After nearly an hour his Spirit was topped up and he continued on his way, continuing to follow the flow of the river. He stayed far enough from the water that if he noticed anything massive flying overhead he could duck under the nearby trees. This came in handy when another of those giant bird monsters made a pass over the river.

Hunger would see him turning back soon, but he could press on a bit further. As it turned out, he would find something interesting before then.

As Lucian walked the sounds of people talking, or maybe panicking, reached him in a stark contrast to the ambient sounds of the jungle. His ears perked up, straining to hear more. He swiveled, trying to locate the source of the sound. He focused and attempted to tune out everything else, and quickly located its direction of origin. Lucian figured he might as well see what was going on, and maybe lend a hand if he could - so he began to head towards it.

It wasn’t long before he spotted a group of people through the trees. There were five of them and they looked to be a family. Two adults, presumably the mother and father, and three kids - one looked injured judging by the red on her leg and was being carried by her mother, cheeks wet from crying - there was also a strip of cloth tied around her thigh like a makeshift tourniquet.

Lucian called out to them “Excuse me! Are you all alright?” he asked as he approached through the trees, “I might be able to help!”

The father, a fairly large man, turned towards Lucian as heard his voice, he tensed for a moment before realizing help was being offered. “Please. My daughter is hurt.” The man looked at Lucian’s ears briefly, but seemed too relieved at the offer of help to ask questions.

Lucian walked up to the family and extended his hand, “I’m Lucian. How did she get hurt? Giant bug?”

He shook his head. “My name is Joseph. My daughter got hurt by the building collapsing. Luckily we haven’t run into any giant bugs.”

Lucian looked at the children, then back to him. “I can lead you folks out of the jungle area. I have run into some but I should be able to protect you if that happens.” Lucian demonstrated by activating [Manifest Weapon] and summoning his glowing blue sword. This earned him some oohs and aahs from the kids and shocked looks from the adults. The injured girl seemed to lighten up a bit at the display.

“Today has been so strange. First some kind of “integration” and now magic…” Joseph sighed and rubbed his temples. “I guess I need to learn to roll with the punches.”

Lucian nodded and looked towards the tree line, “Well, regardless, we should get going.” Lucian dismissed [Manifest Weapon]. He felt like the Spirit cost was worth it to comfort the kids, and hoped that it didn’t bite him in the ass. “Come on, there’s a river not far from here, we’ll follow it up stream for a bit before forking off, to the path I used to come into the jungle.” Lucian explained as he began to lead the group through the trees and towards the river.

As they walked, he was introduced to the rest of the family. The mother’s name was Alana, and the kids were Jacob at 12, Charlie at 10, and Serena - the injured girl - at 7.

Lucian learned the family had been traveling for an hour or so. He felt like they really were extremely lucky to still be alive. “Luckily I found them before their luck ran out…”

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They reached the river, and began to walk up along its bank. Eventually, they came to where Lucian had left the now bisected corpse of the giant mantis. Joseph walked over to it, carrying Serena with him. He looked down at the corpse and audibly gulped.

“Yeah, kinda scary right? Big damn thing.” Lucian laughed, “It definitely didn’t go down without a fight, but I did remain largely uninjured. It didn’t expect me to be able to cut through its armor so easily.” Joseph and Alana both looked at him with a mixture of fear and respect in their eyes. Lucian smiled at them “We shouldn’t linger here, the body might attract something else. I don’t want to have to fight while protecting you all unless I have to.” Lucian gestured across the water, and to the stones he had used to cross. “I should be able to take you all across one at a time.”

Lucian tested his theory by trying to lift Joseph - which he succeeded at easily enough that he was fairly confident in being able to jump across the stones with him.

He picked him up in a bridal carry, and began ferrying him across the river, leaving Serena with her mother. He was certainly a bit heavy, but not enough to stop Lucian from making the jumps. Then he brought Serena over second and handed her to Joseph, before doing the same for the other kids and their mother.

As they continued up the river Lucian explained that the state of the city where he lived wasn’t great, but it was certainly better - and that they would need to travel even further from the jungle, he suspected, to get somewhere with fully functional utilities. Luckily, Lucian was pretty sure that the further from the jungle they got, the easier traveling would be.

As they cut away from the river and back into the jungle towards Lucian’s original path, his ears twitched as they picked up a sound from the underbrush. Lucian raised his hand, “Stop.” He said as he activated [Manifest Weapon], once again being full on Spirit. Lucian’s hand tightened around the grip of his sword as it formed and he pulled into a readied posture.

The undergrowth rustled and another giant centipede lunged towards them from its hiding place. It wasn’t as big as the last one, but it was just as fast. Lucian was faster.

Lucian swung his sword down and activated [Penetrating Strike]. The faint glow of the skill traced through the air following his sword, splitting the centipede in half before it could even realize it had to use its own defensive skill. Its blood splattered across the ground and Lucian brought his sword up and allowed it to vanish.

The family behind him let out sounds of surprise and flinched away - but by the time they really processed they were being attacked the centipede was dead.

Lucian grinned and looked down at his handiwork. It wasn’t even a fight, the monster didn’t stand a chance, “Alright, we’re okay.” Lucian looked back at the horrified family, the little girl had started to cry again. Lucian gave an apologetic look to the parents. “We should keep going. There will be time to process all this once you’re safe - and you will be safe.”

Lucian stepped past the now still creature and gestured for the family to follow. They hesitated, their eyes now showing more fear than anything else - fear of the monsters in the jungle but also fear of Lucian. He had killed the centipede before they could even react, he could very well do the same to them. But rationality won out, and they followed him. He had no reason at all to hurt them, and they understood that to a degree - but the instincts telling them he was a threat were not simple to ignore.

It was a tedious balance of emotions and lent to a tense journey. Eventually, it was over as the group approached the edge of the jungle. The trees thinned out and they could see the builds which had yet to be overgrown.

The familiar sight elicited a collective sigh of relief from the family as they began to relax. Lucian smiled and looked back at the family, “Here we are. Out of most of the danger. Keep an eye on the sky though,” he said as he gestured upwards “The first monster I saw was an overgrown bird.”

Alana stepped forward and offered her hand, which Lucian shook. “Thank you so much for your help. And…” she sighed, “I apologize for being so wary of you. You had no intention of-” she began to apologize but Lucian cut her off with a laugh.

“I know. You’re all on edge. It's only natural to be a bit afraid.” He said, offering a comforting smile. “I can travel with you to the nearest hospital if you would like. I could use some bandages as well to be honest. My back still stings a bit.”

Joseph nodded. “We… we would appreciate that, thank you.” His voice cracked a bit, the emotional roller coaster of a day starting to get to him.

Lucian nodded in reply, “Alright, I’ll come with you then. The nearest hospital isn’t extremely far from here.”

Joseph nodded, “Now that we’re outside of the jungle I can actually tell where we are…” he said with a chuckle.

The group briefly discussed their route, opting to stay off of main roads as much as possible to avoid potentially bigger monsters, then set off.