“What’s the matter Frehotreha? As the leader of the expedition, I feel like it would be a bad idea to exhaust our stamina at this late of a time at night. If you want, we can do it after we capture the dungeon.”

Frehotreha blushed at his statement, and stammered, “Tha – that’s not what I’m here for! Even though I’d normally be willing….”

“Then why are you here?”

“I thought I saw something suspicious in the distance as I went out to uh… water some flowers, and when I casted a light spell I saw something dart away into the nearby bushes when I did so. I thought it would be safer to be near – “

“We’re under attack!!!” yelled one of the adventurers on watch duty.

Meslocicas jumped out of his sleeping bag, grabbed his sword, and rushed out of the tent, with Frehotreha following behind. What greeted his sight was monsters rushing toward their campsite from all sides. Luckily, Paprufreci and some of the other mages erected barriers around the campsite, preventing the charging monsters from entering. Without further ado, Meslocicas began to engage with the nearest horde of monsters, which happened to be a group of direwolves.

In order to properly draw aggro to himself, Meslocicas was prepared to shout out loud, but for some reason, the direwolves sniffed the air, made a strange howling noise, and then madly leaped at him. He used his sword to parry the attacks and beheaded many of them, but they just kept coming. Soon enough, he failed to block a vicious bite from a wolf and felt intense pain on his left leg, but before he could scream in pain, a gentle white light enveloped his leg, and an arrow flew past him and struck his assailant dead.

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“Thanks for the assist!”

“”No problem!””

After the direwolves were slain, Meslocicas thought that would be the end of it, except various other species of monsters for whatever reason seem to focus their efforts solely on him.

“Man, what did I even do for these monsters to focus this intently at me?” Meslocicas thought as he continued to defend against the waves of monster attacks.

Block. Stab. Slash. Parry. Sidestep. Time passed by quickly as he focused mainly on defense, while his party members and eventually the other adventures helped him kill off the monsters. After about half an hour had past, a loud horn-like sound blasted through the night sky, causing the assailants to pause momentarily, before about three-quarters of them suddenly turned around and fled. The remaining monsters continued their frenzied assault at Meslocicas. Relieved that the number of enemies decreased, he continued fighting with greater vigor, until the last monster was slain. Meslocicas stood there, keenly paying attention to his surroundings, but after a minute, he turned back toward camp.

Frehotreha leaped at the blood-covered Meslocicas and cried in a worrying tone, “Are you okay? Is everything all right? Do you need healing anywhere?”

Meslocicas shook his head and was about to pat her head to calm her down, as usual, except he remembered that his hands were stained with blood and who knows what. He awkwardly withdrew his hand and said in his most confident voice, “Don’t worry, we’ve been through tougher fights than that. I’m perfectly fine thanks to your healing during battle.”

While the two were deepening their relationship, a young man tapped Meslocicas’s shoulder and asked, “Are you the leader of this expedition?”

“Yes. What business might have with me?”

“Sir, reporting on the aftermath of the battle. Aldsoren, who was one of the watchmen on duty tonight has tragically met his end during the initial ambush. Otherwise, there were only some light injuries that have already been healed. As for material goods, two tents and their contents were destroyed in a fire started by a Cerberus, and we didn’t have the manpower to put it out during the battle. Nothing that important was lost at least.”

“Noted. Thank you for the report,” replied Meslocicas in a slightly annoyed voice, as he was unhappy that his time with Frehotreha was interrupted.

“Yes sir!” the man saluted.