The send-off was short since a proper funeral would happen in the city once they got home and this event was held only to give comfort to everyone. Everybody just wanted to get wasted to bury the sadness of losing their friends except for those unlucky ones who were assigned guard duty.

Mark learned when Natasha was drunk that she was blaming herself for the death of Ardeen and some of the soldiers since she drunkenly said that her commands were haphazard, and their planning was not on point.

Lossa joined in the blaming themselves game by saying, also drunkenly, that it was his fault that Ardeen died since he didn’t prepare the right defense spells.

Mark blamed himself for not being powerful enough, so everyone was blaming themselves. After their pathetic blame game, Mark made sure that the twins were resting properly in the RV and the group continued their talks.

“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have shown everyone the Star Wars Movie. I think most of us lost focus and didn’t concentrate on the mission. I was so confident that we could face any problems we may encounter together because I’m powerful, but I realize that I’m really not.” Mark said while swaying since he drank so much beer enough to drown three people.

“No, it’s my fault. I’m the leader. I should have been more decisive and should have been more careful since we knew for a fact that there was a powerful creature.” Natasha said, also very drunk.

“I should have prepared a lot of defense spells,” Lossa reiterated.

The sad celebration happened well into the night and after that, they went to sleep until the afternoon the next day.

When Mark woke up, he noticed that it was about eleven in the afternoon but when he checked the twins, he was glad that they’d eaten and were playing with their toys. The boys took some prepared frozen food from the freezer and heated it using the microwave. Mark was glad that he took the time to teach the kids how to use the microwave.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to prepare breakfast for you,” Mark said while he hugged the twins.

“That’s okay Mark. You and Natasha were very sad and very drunk just like our father when he drank a lot of ale in the inn.” Isaac said.

“We had a great breakfast. The box heated the food for us, and it was delicious and there was some milk and juice in the cold box.” Isaac added while looking at their Lego set.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Thank you for understanding. You know what, once we stop for the night, we’ll watch Star Wars Episode I.”

The twins smiled when they heard that. Natasha woke up soon after and Mark prepared everybody’s lunch. The guard captain called Lossa from the other RV and some of the guards to take their lunches.

While they were eating, Mark asked Natasha if it was all right for them to watch Star Wars Episode I tonight since he promised the twins.

“Sure. It will take our minds off the situation.”

“Ardeen would have loved to watch it with us. He really loved the movies. Actually, before we departed for the village, he told me that he was glad that he’d seen the movies since it re-kindled his ambition to become more powerful so he could build his own spaceships just like the kids were saying.” Lossa said and he was surprised that the twins walked up to him and hugged him which made everyone a bit teary-eyed.

After lunch, Mark kept the RVs in his inventory and destroyed them using his Inventory Material Destruction skill. The good thing about replicating fresh ones was, that all the stored fuel and food would be refreshed as well.

During the travel, Natasha didn’t join them on the Space Floating Disc and even Lossa joined the guard by riding a mount.

The twins took a nap while traveling since they knew that they would be watching the movie later and would like to be alert when they did.

Mark was mindlessly following Natasha’s mount and while he did, he thought about how he would continue exploring his dungeon. He planned that he wouldn’t join any of the circus performances and would focus on his studies of the local language and basics of magic then he would continue dungeon delving.

He knew that once the circus started traveling, he would have little time to do dungeon delving but he was determined to do it. He really needs to be more powerful.

Mark was also planning to start an ample collection of dungeon items again since it would augment his power a lot. He didn’t regret giving his items to his friends on Earth since he wanted to make sure that they would have the power to defend themselves in case they needed to, and he knew that he would soon have a lot of items himself once he started dungeon delving again.

Natasha told Mark that usually, in a mission like this, the members would hunt some game if available to augment their supplies with fresh meat to make sure that they would have enough nutrition but because of his generosity, they were able to focus on just traveling. The morale of the guards before the tragedy was also very high since they kept mentioning that the food they’d eaten was fit for nobles and they were thankful that they were able to partake of it.

Mark did notice that while traveling, he would still see a lot of animals like some sort of deer and bears and other animals he couldn’t name even though it was winter. Some even had features that startled him like the glowing antlers of the reindeer that he saw or the fire fur of some of the bears that they encountered.

Usually, the animals, even the mutated and magic ones avoided their group due to their numbers and Lossa mentioned that he had a spell that released an aura that animals avoid and those that chose to attack them were easily dispatched by the soldiers or the mages.

When night arrived, the group stopped in a campsite protected by trees and Mark summoned his RVs. He then prepared a lot of food for themselves as well as the soldiers. He also made sure that there were sweet desserts as a treat to everyone like cakes and donuts.