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CHAPTER 49: A need to change

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        Mamoru stayed silent the whole time. Even when they tried to talk to him, he's just given a weak smile and walked outside telling us he needs some fresh air. He’s been like this since he heard Junpei’s name. I’m guessing he knows him so everyone gave him time to be by himself while Miki who keeps telling me to call her sensei or Miki-sensei is keeping tabs on him every now and then. After daytime ended, everyone decided to rest for another day before heading out tomorrow morning. They’re fast asleep and I decided to walk out and stay near the exit outside. Daikichi saw me make my way towards the exit and since he couldn't sleep, he tagged along following me outside. The area we’re in is really cold at night so I had no choice but to build a small campfire near the exit to keep Daikichi and myself warm. We're leaving tomorrow anyway and I'll be awake so just in case something or someone comes up while they're sleeping, I'll be able to handle it.

        How the hell am I going to lead all of them?I whisper in my mind as I stare at the moon.

        “Tomorrow morning, we’ll leave,” I tell Daikichi whose throwing sticks into the fire.

        “Do you know where we’re going?” He asked me as he places the blanket over himself.

        "Not really, I'm guessing to keep walking towards one direction till we come across something. Takumi knows a couple of towns quite a way from here. I don't want to run into one of them but we might have to. They might have the information we need." I explain to him as I study my status window.

        “Do you think we can trust him?” He asks me as he stares at the fire.

        “Trust no one. But it doesn’t mean he won’t be useful. He needs to earn our trust.” I tell Daikichi as I throw more sticks into the fire.

       “True. Hey, sorry. I lost the weapon you gave me.” He tells me as he looks down losing the ogre queen’s axes.

       “It’s ok, it’s just a weapon. We can always find a new one if we ever come across another dungeon.” I tell him trying to keep his spirits up. With all that recently happened, it can be traumatizing for them.

        “Yeah, I wonder if you can make weapons yourself.” He tells me as he goes through his status window trying to see if there’s a weapon maker skill. I hear a noise coming from the inside and the leaf and vines that hang down to cover the entrance parted from the middle as Takumi exit out.

        “Yo.” He waved at us as he sat down across of me. He quickly took out his bag and pulled out a blanket.

       “Hey. Do you know any skills that would help us make weapons?” Daikichi asked and Takumi nods making me curious also.

       “The big cities like the Gold city or Viltair actually have a guild hall where you can learn a class and your passive class.” He says wrapping himself.

       “Passive class?” Daikichi asked and I just stayed quiet as Takumi sit near the campfire and the two started talking.

        “Yeah, it’s a skill that’s not meant for combat. You basically can’t fight with it. They have different classes like blacksmith, tailor, cook, entertainment, craftsman, and a lot more. There’s too many I can’t remember.” Takumi replied and I wondered if I can pick a cooking passive class on top of my cooking class.

       “Oh, did you pick any passive class?” Daikichi asked and the two got into their own world as I sat silently listening to their conversation.

       "Yeah, I picked crafter," Takumi replied while throwing a few sticks into the fire. "It let me craft stuff such as this door or other useful things that we can use. The only thing it doesn’t let me craft are, weapons and armor.”

        “Oh, how does it work?”

      “Well, if you get the passive class, you say the command ‘show passive class’ and it will bring you another window with a list of stuff you can make. The higher the level, the more thing pops up on the list.” Takumi fiddled with something in the air probably looking at his passive class window.

        “And what do you do? Just make it?” I asked him and he gave me a nod.

       “For me, some items like this door, don’t require anything except getting materials. Of course, you can make it yourself but when I activate the class, I get experience points towards the passive class leveling it up. Here let me show you.” He stood up and started collecting sticks and rock at the ground.

        “Show passive class, activate wood ax blueprint.” He says as he holds the stick and the rock. I was waiting for it to form itself but he started working chipping the rock with another rock forming its blade. Then he did some weird loop lodging the rock in place in the stick. He did it so fast he was finished in a short amount of time.

         “Done.” He showed us the ax he made, and it was sturdy upon holding it. “When I activate the skill, somehow, a blueprint and instruction form in my mind and I know how to make it by following that. After I fulfill the requirements and build it, the blueprint disappears and I remember bits and pieces of it.”

      "Whoa, that sound complicated," Daikichi says as he swings the ax around.

       “Yeah, but it’s useful especially if we’re living out here, I can even create stuff like the foundation for buildings as long as I can get the materials. If I level this skill up more, it evolves into master crafter where I can craft much more sophisticated things that only master crafter can make.” Takumi continued explaining and somehow, I felt excited learning about new skills I can obtain.

       “So, if I get blacksmith and level it up, I can become a master blacksmith?” I asked him thinking about having the ability to make weapons will come in handy.

       “Yeah, and you’ll be able to craft legendary items and even godly items I think.” He replied before having a long pause trying to remember about the passive classes. “But it’s harder for a blacksmith to level it up since you need an anvil to create weapons. You also need to make metal ingots by using a forge. That’s more game like since I see adventurers make swords by hitting the metal ingots over and over again until the ingot disappear and the base shape of the sword appears before them. They have to keep hitting it to form the blade. What’s cool about blacksmith is they can customize the weapons based on what they want and even enchant it.”

        "Man, now I want to be a blacksmith," Daikichi replies as he hands Takumi the ax back and he just told him to keep it in which, Daikichi happily obliged. “Do you think those small towns you said have a guild hall?”

        "Nope, they only exist in big cities," Takumi says and the thought about waltzing in the so-called Gold City made me clench my fist. The image of Junpei slapping Kana kept repeating in my mind and somehow, I want to get into their city and create havoc. Takumi kept talking and I just listened as I throw more sticks into the fire. 

        “But, when we found our castle, it came with a guild hall as a section of the castle. If the Diamond district has a hall, all you need is to hire people for it. Once you do, the guild hall activates enabling adventurers to come and pick a class and passive class. This passive class is only useful if you make it useful. It doesn’t help a person level up but it sure as hell makes it easier to level up if you can create your own legendary weapon.”

        “Dang, we got to find our castle quick. Right Yasu?” Daikichi turns to me and I just gave him a nod.  “Yasu, you alright bro?”

       I break away from my gaze towards the darkness as I look at him. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, just have a lot in my mind.”

        “Just don’t keep it all in.” He tells me with a worried look and I just gave him a smile. “Let us know what’s going on. It’s better to share than bottle everything inside.”

       Hearing Daikichi says that made me blurt out a sentence I wasn’t planning on mentioning. “I can’t lead this many… Ah, never mind.”

       “Wait, what you mean never mind? Don’t worry, we’re here to help you out ok?” Daikichi says smiling at me and I just nod towards him.

       “You should sleep, I can keep watch,” I tell him as I see him yawn.

        “Nah, I’m good. I’ll stay up. Since we got out of the Bandit town, you’ve been keeping watch. You should get some sleep.” He tells me smiling.

        “Well, I slept really well, so you guys can go sleep,” Takumi says and in the end, it was me and Takumi that stayed awake while Daikichi fell asleep on the log.

        “Hey, I heard about the Jun-gi person. Those people are messed up in the head.” Takumi whispers as he didn’t want to wake up Daikichi.

        “Yeah, didn’t you see him?” I whisper back to him.

        “I did. But from the time I was talking to him, I felt something was off with the dude.” He replies to me and his last words had me worried.

        “Like what?” I asked him.

        “He has an ulterior motive.” He tells me and in my mind, I thought about how bad it would have been if Kana and Daikichi stayed with them. How bad if, Suyeon was still with them. “I don’t know what it is. But the dude seems like he wants to do something and everyone that left the dungeon with him seems like they know.”

        “Tsk, another headache,” I whisper thinking about Suyeon when I met her.

        Maybe I should ask her if she wants to get even with him.I say in my mind. All she’s been doing is following me along and I don’t know what she wants to do.

        “Oh, by the way, do you know how to invite people to the guild? You should invite me.” Takumi says and I shake my head towards him. “Oh, say the command-“

        All of a sudden, he stopped talking and froze in place. I waited for him to move just in case he’s playing around but it would out of his character to do so. He’s not the type to do dumb stuff like pretending to be frozen.

        “Hey, What the hell is wrong with yo-…” I suddenly stopped as I noticed not only him froze but everything else. The swaying of the fire has completely come to halt and even the leaves that came from branches have frozen in midair.

       What the fuck.I whisper in my mind as I slowly stood and walked towards a floating leaf. Right when I was about to touch it, I noticed a dark figure from a distance slowly walking towards my way.

         “Item bag,” I whisper my skill but nothing. “Pound.”

        Not one skill activated so I tried to ready myself from whoever is coming my way the best I can. I feel like I was normal again.

        “Well, well, well, we meet again ol’ chap~” The shadow talked as he gets closer towards my way. “So how’s it goin’ bud?”

        “Luro,” I whisper as I watch him walk towards the fire pit near Daikichi and sat on him like a log. “Bastard! Get off him!”

       I tried swinging at him but my fist went through his head followed by my body and I came tumbling down the other side.

       "Hahaha~ Feisty, as usual," Luro says without turning around.

       “You fucking hologram,” I tell him as I stood up to dust off my clothes. I walked towards him and sat near the fire and feed it with sticks. “What the fuck do you want?”

       “Well~ it quite amazing! You are living up to my expectati- no better yet, you are going beyond my expectations~” He tells me and I looked at him glaring him down.

       “Tell me where you are~,” I tell him as I gave him a smile and he just laughed. His voice was loud enough that it would have woken up everyone if he didn’t freeze time.

       “Now, that wouldn’t be fun now would it?” He tells me as he gave me the creepiest smile I have seen him do.

        “You know what’s not fun? Those fucking followers you have. Keeps on giving me nightmares.” I taunt him remembering about Unum.

        “Oh, the overlords? I didn’t create that group. They created it themselves. I did meet their leader a few times~” He tells me as he crosses his legs.

         “Oh, so he knows where you are huh,” I tell him trying to figure out if chasing Unum will lead me to him.

        “Yup, that guy knows where I am and he visits me every now and then giving me offerings. Can you believe it? They gave me a human child. Bunch of weirdos~” He says while pretending to shudder.

       “Look who’s talking. Are you a bigger weirdo than them?” I taunt him trying to see if he’ll get angry but as like before, he never showed any emotions except his happy stupid expression.

        “Hahaha that I am.” He tells me snickering to himself.

        I didn’t want to prolong our chat so I got straight to the chase. “So, what the fuck do you want? You only come out to tell me something important in regards to your sick fucking games.”

       “Oh, yeah, the people your alternate side beat to a pulp is still alive. Aren’t you happy?” He asked me and it makes me just want to dig my fingers into his eyes.

Scoff*

        “Me happy? Who gives a shit about them?” I tell him and he just gave me a shrug.

        “Didn’t you?”

        “All I wanted was to get even. Now I did, they can play pretend to be royalty for all I care. My main aim now is to kill you.”

        “Oho~ and do you know how?” He asked me and I can see he’s hiding something behind his smirk.

      "Yeah, I do. Got a piece of very valuable information ~ two hearts huh…I'll do you a favor and rip both them out with my bare hands." I say as I walked towards him and place my hand through his chest pretending I'm ripping his heart out. "Soon, you'll know how it feels to die."

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       “Oho,~ Scary~ Well, congratulations on surviving. Oh and let me tell you a bit about the future. My biggest secret. Come closer, let me whisper it. I don’t want the other gods to hear.” He tells me as he waves.

         Other gods?I say in my mind as I lean near him and he started to whisper something that made my heart sink into the deepest part of hell.

       “…and that is the future~ Bwahahahahahahahaha!!! Now, it just became more fun~” Luro says as I stare at nothing.

      “W-wha-“ I didn’t know what to say as I fell back down.

       “Oho~ you’re speechless~ Well, I’ll leave you be. Buhbye~” Luro says as his hologram disappeared into thin air.

       “W-wait! What the fuck do you mean-“ All of a sudden, everything resumed back to normal as I see the leaves that have been stuck in midair slowly fell towards the ground and I hear Takumi spoke.

       “- show guild and that should show- wait, what the fuck,” Takumi says as the sudden change of my position surprised him. “Holy fucking hell, did you just teleport?”

       I sat there and looked at the ground. Luro’s voice repeated itself in my head over and over again. I couldn’t remove from my mind what he said and it’s making my heart beat faster than usual.

        “Fuck!!! Luro!!! Come out!!! You son of a bitch!!!” I shouted out trying to make him come back. My yelling was so loud, Daikichi suddenly woke up.

        “what enemy! Where?!” He stood up still groggy being woken up abruptly and I hear noises coming inside the cave as everyone woke up from my scream.

       “Yasu! Are you oka-“ Kana tried asking but I didn’t hear her as I shouted as loud as I can.

        “Luro! Come out you sick fuck!!” I shouted out again not giving a damn if I woke everyone up. I need to verify if what he said is true. “Luro!”

       “Yasu! What happened?!” Kana tries to shout over my yelling but I didn’t pay attention to any of them as I kept shouting till I felt my throat ripping from all the yelling and I tasted a bit of blood. Anger, fear, and all of my emotions felt like it was choking me as I screamed as loud as I can to let out all the frustration and anger he just made me feel in one night. I felt hands on my shoulders as Suyeon hugs me and she got on her knees as I sat there in a daze.

        “Yasu! It’s ok! It’s ok!” Ms. Sam says as she also hugs me and I just stayed there as tears came out of my eyes.

       “No, it’s….can’t be, it can’t be true. Ha- ha ha-hahaha haha ha ha!” I laughed and cried at the same time while everyone circled around me not saying anything.

       Morning hits and I remained leaning on the wall of the cave outside near the exit. I just stared up at the sky as I watch earth float along with the sun. After waking them all up with my screaming, everyone decided to stay awake the whole night trying to comfort me without knowing what’s even going on. They all walked back inside getting ready washing themselves before we head out. Takumi said he can lead us to the next town to get everyone geared up and I just nod towards him.

        “Hey, Yasu, come on man. Tell us, what happened?” Daikichi says nudging me and I look at him.

        “No, it’s nothing,” I tell him as I try to smile and I know he wants to keep prying what happened but he didn’t. He just gave me a smile and placed his hand on my shoulder.

       “Alright, if you say so. But if you need someone, I’m here. I’ll listen to anything.” He says and I can see a worried expression plastered all over his face.

      “Alright.” I weakly say to him and he stood up and walked towards the waterfall inside the cave to wash up.

       “Hey, did Luro come out?” Takumi comes close and whispers to me.

        “Yeah. He-” I tell him. I don’t know why I feel like I can tell him but I stopped myself. He probably notices I didn’t want to talk about it so he didn’t pry.

      “He’s always a bastard. Don’t worry about it. We’ll kill him soon enough.” He tells me trying to reassure me and I just gave him a weak nod as I stare back up the sky.

       “Yeah,” I whisper as I watched earth trying to remember how it feels like to be back home.

        We left the cave and started following Takumi who lead us through the forest. Goro, Amaguchi, and Mamoru stayed behind him while the girls are behind them. All the way in the back is me and Daikichi who watched our rear. Since Takumi is in front, it’s better to have another person strong enough to protect the back while I left Suyeon with the girls as their guard. They’re all pretty low level and Takumi said the path to the next town is treacherous since we will soon come across monsters that are level forty and higher. These guys are below level twenty and it’s only Takumi and me that exceed one hundred.

        “Damn, it’s still hard to believe we’re out. I thought we’re going to be there forever.” Daikichi whispers towards me as we walk behind everyone.

        “Yeah,” I reply, but with my mind still on what Luro said.

        “Thank you, Yasu.” He tells me.

        “Yeah,” I reply back and I guess he noticed I didn’t want to talk so we both walked in silence. Something suddenly started moving around the bushes and everyone stopped moving hearing something.

       “G-guys. W-what is that?” Lisa whispers as she huddles behind Suyeon who looks calm as she looks around. Suddenly a boar came out charging at us and my body moved on its own out of instinct.

        I grabbed the boar by its ear and using all my strength, I threw it to the side. The ear ripped off its head as the boar lands on its side squealing in pain. It tried to scamper up but I kicked it back down with my left foot so hard, I hear its ribs break. Using one hand, I stabbed its chest as I looked at its heart. The boar screamed in pain as it felt my hand go through its chest as I push it in further.

        Fucking Luro. You fucking fuck.I say in my mind as I stayed quiet watching the boar struggle as much as it can under me. I finally found its heart and using all my strength, I pulled it out of its chest and blood spurts out of its veins into my face and clothes. The heart continued beating in my palm and I watched it die slowly.

       I swear I will rip your heart out of your body. You fucking piece of shit.I say in my mind.

        “U-uhm.” I hear a voice to my right and as I look, everyone just stood in one spot watching me.

       “D-damn,” Amaguchi says as he watched the heart on my hand slowly stop beating and blood traveled to my elbow and dripping towards the ground.

        I suddenly dropped the heart on the ground and smiled at them. “Well, I need to butcher him for us to eat later on. If you guys need to piss, go now.” I tell them, all of them nod in unison.

       I immediately worked on the boar’s corpse with Takumi helping me. It seems like Tobi has taught him how to skin and debone carcass as he knew what he was doing making us quickly get what we need. After deboning the boar carcass, we kept moving until the sun has set and the moon rises up to illuminate the night sky.

        Suyeon quickly collected twigs with the help of Lisa while the guys tried to make a fire pit. I sat around watching everyone work together and it somehow reminded me when I did everything myself. Collecting woods, making my own fire, I did everything alone and I didn’t really feel the loneliness until now. How pitiful my life was trying to do everything on my own. Somehow, I felt good watching them work together. I felt good not being alone. Then, my mood changes as I remember what Luro whispered to my ear.

       Sigh*

       Fuck.I say in my mind as I watch them all happily help each other.

        “Heey~ Yasu! The fire is ready!” Kana happily waved at me and I smile at her. I slowly stood up from where I am and walked towards them.

        “Item bag.” I caught it as it appeared in midair. I took out a frying pan and a spatula, some spices along with cooking oil and placed them all on the ground. I took out the boar meat I got earlier and started cutting it into thin pieces. I cover it in oil with a couple of spices and placed it in the pan. I hover the pan on top the fire where it’s barely hitting the bottom and I hear it slowly sizzle as the heat from pan cooks the pork chop to perfection. Everyone sat around the campfire as they all watched me cook. The smell of the pork chop made someone stomach grumble and they all look at the source.

        “Oh, uh, my bad. I’m really hungry and the smell is heavenly.” Amaguchi says as he taps his stomach. They all started laughing and even I chuckled a bit as I cooked more pork chops for everyone. I cooked enough so that everyone had three pieces of pork chop on their plate. Good thing I bought more plates and utensils otherwise, they’ll be eating like how Suyeon did before. With their bare hands.

        “Ok guys, dig in,” I tell them and they all quickly took their first bite.

        “Mmm~!!!!!!” Kana happily ate her food as she moves her body side to side that made it like she was doing a small victory dance. “Oh, my god this is soo good!”

       Everyone didn’t bother talking as they all ate happily with a simple dish I made for them. I could have made something better but the pork chop is the easiest to make and the fastest.

       I wonder, what if I choose a cook passive class? Will it show me new recipes?I say in my mind as I eat in silence trying to distract myself but what Luro said kept repeating in my head slowly making me lose my appetite.

   Buuuuurp!

        “Ugh, that was the best! Sorry, I couldn’t hold back.” Amaguchi says as he slumps back on the log after he finished eating. He ate his portion so fast that it looks like he inhaled it. “Ughh, my hands are a mess.”

        “Jeez, why did you eat like a caveman?” Miki asked him and he just smiled at her.

        “Hehe, it was too good. Item bag.” He quickly took out a water container and a towel I gave him. He soaked the towel with water and cleaned his hands and face. He took a sip of his water and stored it back in the bag with the dirty towel.

        “Ugghhh, that’s so gross,” Lisa says who ate with a knife and fork. She looked like she came from a rich family as she kept her back straight while eating and she gave an aura of elegance. Even though, she so skinny looking.

       “Oh, come on, Lisa. We lived together for a while in the same cage. We watched each other poop.” Amaguchi says without holding back and care about the world.

        “Ugghhhh gross!” Everyone says at the same time and they all laughed. I smile a little as they make jokes about what happened to them.

Sniff*

Sniff*

        I hear someone crying and I see Miki or I should start saying Miki-sensei crying.

        “What happened?” Ms. Sam approaches her and strokes her in the back.

        “It’s just, I can’t believe we survived that. I prayed every day for them to release the kids but even I was starting to lose hope.” Miki-sensei says and everyone started getting teary as they approach her. “Yasu…Thank you. You have no idea how indebted I am to you. Thank you for giving me hope to live on. Thank you.”

        She started bawling out as she keeps wiping the tears that are coming out of her eyes. I couldn’t do anything but a nod to her yet, deep down in my heart, the feeling of guilt, the feeling of someone squeezing my heart lingers as I keep remembering what Luro told me his big secret. I quickly eat my food and drank water from my container to hide my depression.

       “I’m going to piss. I’ll be back.” I say quickly standing up and walking off to a distance without hearing their replies.

         I walked far enough that I see the light from a distance and sat on the ground leaning on a tree. I see something fly down and it landed on my shoulder.

       “Ah, you blue fucking bird. Why do you keep following me?” I say as I try to pet it. Every time I get my hand close to it, it would fly away but this time, it bowed its head as I pet it with my two fingers.

Chirp*

Chirp*

       It started chirping as I pet it and it made me smile a bit. Ever since I found them, my attitude changed. I stopped petting him and I just leaned on the tree looking up the sky.

       “Hey, bird, why can’t anything go right? Why?” I ask him but he just stood on my shoulder picking at my clothes. “Heh, you can’t understand me huh.”

       Sigh*

        “Should I tell them?” I asked him and he did nothing but picked on my shirt. He suddenly opening his wings and flapped it quickly flying away. “Hmm, I guess that’s a no.”

        I sat there for a couple of minutes until I started feeling cold due to the temperature dropping at night time. I stood up and started walking back towards the light. As I got close, I was hoping to hear laughing but nothing. As I got close, I see all of them surrounded the campfire with a serious expression. As I was about to step out of the dark, I hear Daikichi talk that made me hide behind a tree.

      “What the fuck was that?” He says and no one said anything. After a couple of minutes, Amaguchi continued their conversation.

        “Holy hell, did you guys noticed, he stopped time. That’s what Luro looks like?” He asked and I notice Takumi nods his head.

       Did they saw Luro?I say in my mind as I tried my best not to be seen while listening to their conversation. I don’t know why but, I stayed hidden in the dark.

        “He looked a bit different since I saw a year ago. But, that’s definitely him.” Takumi replies to everyone.

      “Is that the reason Yasu has been acting strange? Did he offer the same choices to him?” Kana says looking at everyone and I can see tears in her eyes.

       Offer? Offer what?I asked in my mind keeping silent trying not to let them know I came back.

        “I don’t know, what I do know is that he met him last night,” Takumi says as he slumps back to look at the sky.

Sigh*

       "We had our chance to go home. But eh, it's better this way. I don't feel good going home that way." He whispers and I wanted to jump out of the dark and ask them but Daikichi suddenly spoke answering the questions in my head.

        “Fucking sicko, making me choose between my friend or going home, of course, I’ll choose Yasu. I won’t leave him behind.” He says and suddenly my body froze in place from shock.

        Huh? Choice? Leave me behind? So many questions entered my mind.

        “Yeah, me too. What does that Luro person think he is.” Ms. Sam says as she throws a stick in the fire.

        Did Luro give them a choice to go home? Why didn’t they take it!I shout in my mind and I felt sick to my stomach.

        “But, you know, we could have taken it,” Amaguchi says and Lisa punched him so hard in the gut he started coughing.

Cough*

Cough*

        “It’s a joke, a joke.” He says as he grabs his abdomen.

       “Don’t joke like that. You know he put up his life on the line on save all of us. It’s only natural to choose him over going home. We owe him our lives.” Lisa says and everyone looks down at the fire.

        Wait, choose me over going home? I say in my mind as I kept listening in the dark.

        “But, what if, Luro gave him the same option. And he chose us rather than going home?” Kana says as tears roll out of her eyes down her cheeks. I see Daikichi punch the ground with an angry expression on his face.

        “That fucking idiot! He should have chosen to go home! We can take care of ourselves! He’s been here long enough!” I see Daikichi started crying and Kana went to hug him and they both cried in place.

        “I thought he changed, and I was ready to accept it but, He’s still the same. I’m glad.” Ms. Sam says as she wipes tears out of her eyes as she smiles and sniffs at the same time.

        “The same old Yasu. Shoot, he's still the same as I remember, he keeps peeing every five minutes." Daikichi joked around and they all started laughing as they wiped their tears.

       “He should have gone home,” Kana says. “He went through what we went through all by himself. All of this time, for a year, he was alone. He didn’t have anyone to turn to. He deserves to go home. He deserves to be with his mother.”

         Silence fell to the group as I sat in the dark staring at nothing trying to process what they said.

        “S-should we tell him?” Suyeon asked and everyone looked at Daikichi.

      “No. He has enough burden on his own. Knowing him, if he heard what we did, he wouldn’t let it go. Let’s all keep this a secret from him okay?” Kana says and everyone nods and they all started conversing with one another as I slowly walk off towards a distance. As soon as I got far away, I dropped to my knees and got on all fours.

       They chose to stay. They….they didn’t leave me alone.I say in my mind as more tears come out and I couldn’t stop it. They didn’t leave me alone.

          I cry in silence as I felt all emotions making my tear un-controllable.

        “They...” I covered my mouth to muffle the sounds of my wails as an overwhelming feeling went through my body. I cried and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. After crying, I started hearing voices and it getting closer and closer as the shouts got louder and louder.

       “Yasu! Where are you!” Daikichi shouts from a distance and I quickly wiped my face from my tears.

        “H-h-here!” I shout out loud and I hear them running towards my voice. Daikichi suddenly emerges out of the dark with Takumi and Suyeon behind him.

         “What the hell man. What are you doing? Number two?” He asked me as he held out his hand to help me up.

         “Uh, s-something got in my eyes and I tripped unable to see,” I tell him as he started noticing my eyes which probably looked red from crying.

         “Haha, you sure? You sure you not doing…ehem….the man business?” Daikichi asked as he crossed his arms.

        “Man business?” I asked him and he formed his hand into a circle and started gesturing masturbation.

        “It's ok man, we won't tell anyone you hit your eye by accident,” Daikichi says laughing.

       “What the- no I didn't do it! The hell man, clean your mind.” I tell him, making me chuckle.

       “Hahaha, it is clean. Come on, everyone is worried sick that you haven’t come back yet.” Daikichi says and we all started walking towards the camp with Suyeon in my side. Takumi and Daikichi talk to each another about their class as Takumi explains to him his skills and how to use them.

        “Are you okay?” Suyeon whisper to me and I see her with a worried look.

        “Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell her as I gave her a smile and she was caught off guard. She suddenly averted my gaze fixing her hair tucking it behind her ear.

        “O-Okay.” She says without looking at me but I see her face turning red.

        I leaned towards her and placed my mouth near her ear, “Thank you.” I whispered and she froze in place as I walked towards everyone.

       I looked everyone in the face, and I see Kana notice me walk out the dark with everyone behind me and I gave her a smile as she waves at me. I stood there and gave her a smile, the warmest smile I can give. Today, I felt happy. Even with what Luro told me, I felt genuinely happy. 

      Luro, I’ll save everyone. I say in my mind as I smile at them.  I’ll bring everyone home. No one will die on my watch, just wait and see…I'll bring everybody home.