Glenn groaned, looking at the remaining sausages on the fire. He approached his hand from one, trying to ignore the scream, and he almost managed, but the workers all stood up in worry, making him look like the odd out.

'I couldn't even Meditate... Sigh...' Glenn shook his head and pushed himself with tired movements from the ground he was sitting on. The young man dragged his feet toward the source of the disturbance, finding an armor-covered woman kneeling in front of some seemingly meaningless tracks.

The woman turned her head seeing the crowd approaching, and her eyes directly found the burning ember of the Blood Cross emblem. Her fear and worry melted down, replaced by a hopeful smile. She scrambled off the ground and rushed at Glenn, startling him by grabbing his hand with a pleading expression.

"Mr...You're...You're from the Blood Cross. Please, help me!" A few tears dripped down her face, amplifying the feeling of pitifulness. Glenn was about to agree to help with a nod, after all, he wasn't losing anything helping her, even if it was a bit annoying.

But when he opened his mouth, only a single noise came out.

"Yawnnnn..." The woman's expression froze, and Glenn rubbed his eyes with annoyance.

'Tiring...'

"Tiring..." He walked past the woman, kneeling beside the track. Imprinted in the fresh ground were a pair of footprints heading for the edge of the forest.

'Oups, I think you might have said that aloud...' Diamanes sneered, making Glenn frown.

'No way, I just thought it. I'm not that stupid, you know?' He countered, sure of himself. Diamanes simply laughed it off, leaving Glenn to his investigations. At first glance, there was nothing wrong with whoever left.

"Why are you panicking, exactly?" He asked with an annoyed voice, already regretting giving up the sausages for whatever worry that woman had.

"As far as I can tell, your 'Doran' only went to take a piss. What the hell are you yelling so early for?" The woman gasped, and clasped her fingers nervously, trying to find the right words. Glenn felt himself dozing off, but he jolted himself awake by circulating his Mana throughout his whole body.

"...We are always doing everything together, because we already were separated once before, and we both almost died because of it. So we agreed to always watch each other's back, at all times!" She explained, twiddling with her fingers while her eyes were moving everywhere but on Glenn's face.

The young man sighed and looked around him, just in time to see Sahro and Tarana getting out of their respective tents, while Javier stood nearby watching the whole mess.

With a hand movement, he invited Javier to come over so he could help him. Glenn was no tracking expert, after all, and the one most suited for his job was the silent hunter. Even if Javier was acting a bit weird these days, if it was something that simple he should be able to help.

The hunter came over while disregarding the crowd's stares, and kneeled beside the footprints. A second later, he began walking in the forest, following the trail. Glenn looked at the woman and shrugged, before following Javier. If something was to happen while he was gone, he knew that Sahro and Tarana would take care of it.

They walked in the forest for a few minutes, avoiding thorny bushes and traitorous roots, before Javier stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the ground silently. Glenn was following so closely he almost rammed into the hunter but managed to avoid him at the last second.

"What's happening—" The young man followed Javier's gaze, finding... nothing.

There were no footprints, no broken branches, or whatever hints Javier had been following until now.

"What—Did he just disappear into thin air or something?" Glenn exclaimed, looking at Javier with a disconcerted expression. The hunter returned the stare, his eyes unblinking and weirdly deranging to gaze in. The young man turned his head away, looking at the zone while trying to ignore the hunter's eyes stuck on his back.

The glint of something shining on the ground through some bushes caught his eyes, and Glenn kneeled to figure out what it was. Squinting his eyes, he grabbed the item, and pulled it out of its hiding place, holding it in front of his eyes to see what it was.

It was a thumb-sized skull seemingly made out of pristine silver. Glenn pulled down on his chin, confused about how such a precious-looking item found itself here.

"Hey, any idea what this..." He turned around to discover that Javier was nowhere to be seen, making him swallow back his question, "...and he is gone. Great..." Glenn sighed and pocketed the item. He looked at his left hand with an insisting gaze.

"What?" Diamanes' mouth appeared in his left palm, smacking its lips together.

"I was just enjoying the stupidity of your actions back when you woke up in this world. Seriously, jumping from tree to tree?"

Glenn dismissed the remark with a wave of his other hand and showed the place to him.

"I always meant to ask, but isn't there some way to scan this place for hints? Like... a magical sense or something?" He looked at his hand with a hopeful expression, only to see Diamanes' tongue lick its lips and not reply.

"Glenn, how do submarines find their targets?" The entity slowly began, making him see the solution directly.

"Oh, right, sound waves. I can just do that with Mana somehow, right?" He said with an enlightened tone. Diamanes opened and closed his mouth hesitantly, before giving up and just smiling widely. Glenn, with the combination of his tired brain, his annoyance at this charade, and the reassurance he obtained from Diamanes, sent a wave of Mana around him to scan for whatever there was to find.

His Mana reserve suddenly emptied to half they were, and the trees around him exploded in splinters of wood while the earth shattered. With a thought, a perimeter of a few meters around him was cleared out, as if a bomb had just exploded there. Glenn felt a little dizzy from the expenditure, but stilled himself and looked around in confusion.

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"...So that's not how it works. Alright, I think I'll pass on your explanations, Diamanes," He blurted out, his hands on his waist.

"Whatever, man. Whatever," Diamanes chuckled, before disappearing back the ways he came from. Glenn smacked his lips, a helpless expression hanging on his face. He suddenly felt something land on his nose, making him instinctively sneeze. The young man looked up to see a small cloud of ash falling on him.

"Urgh, damn it..." The young man decided to head back to camp and just act as if nothing happened, and show the silver skull to that panicked lady for confirmation.

What he didn't expect upon coming back to the camp, was the sight of a happily crying woman hugging a dirt and scratches-covered man, the crowd nodding in relief around them.

"...The fuck..." He trailed off, rubbing his eyes in confusion. In a ray of genius, he decided to not care about it right now, and give the skull back to them later after getting an explanation worth his time.

He chose a large tree and leaned on it as he sat down, crossing his legs together. He plunged himself into Meditation, studying the intricacy of his Mana Heart and the Magellanic Clouds within it. While maintaining a steady breathing, he tried comparing mentally the size of the Clouds now to what they were some time ago. It looked like it became...shinier, maybe, but certainly not larger.

Well, at least it looked cool.

The two rings of gray runes hummed silently while the golden one glinted with the light of the stars. The sight calmed his heart and mind, and a few hours later, he felt entirely rested, his energy back to the brink.

"Ahh, I feel much better now!" He exclaimed as he shot his eyes open, finding himself face to face with Javier's silent face.

"ARH!!" He instinctively let out a wave of Mana, pushing the man away harmlessly while he jumped on his feet. Javier only turned around silently, inviting him to follow him wordlessly. Glenn blinked and walked behind the weirdo without questioning him.

He arrived in front of an overly decorated tent with golden strings sewn beautifully on it. Glenn followed Javier in, arriving in the middle of Monsieur Maron's meeting. The merchant turned his head at the noise of the newcomers, and his face shone as he gestured at a nearby seat. In front of him was a map of the old Palancar, back when it was still standing.

"Please take a seat, Mr Glenn! We're preparing the patrols alongside the ones done by Gentle Knight's team here, who arrived while you were sleeping!"

A fully armor-clad man stepped out from Maron's cover, his helmet open, revealing a cute baby face. Glenn rubbed his eyes, confusion taking back control of his mind.

'Wait, what the...Am I going crazy?' Glenn mentally asked, hoping Diamanes could answer him. The entity mumbled something about being busy and didn't answer, leaving his host alone in his confusion.

'I'm certain Gentle Knight and his team left before us...but they arrived after us? What? Wait, indeed, I didn't see them when we first came, but that fact somehow got out of my mind...That doesn't make any sense, the only reason I came here was to meet them...'

Glenn shook Gentle Knight's gloved hand while maintaining a composed expression, but inside, it was a complete mess. Discrepancies over discrepancies, mistakes, and things he forgot, so much shit that didn't make any sense...

"We'll be in your care, Senior!" Gentle Knight excitedly exclaimed, a bright smile plastered on his baby face. His team came over to greet Glenn as well, as excited as their leader. Josh was a very pale man, probably the same ethnicity as Javier, and very silent as well. He just shook Glenn's hand with excited movements but didn't say a word.

"I am so excited to meet you, Senior Glenn! It's not every day we get to meet one of the youngest Fixers of Dark-Gold rank in the history of the Workshop!" Valer was a very excited young man, wearing a long, deep blue robe and a pointy hat. The true cliche of the magician. But besides that, he seemed like a fine lad.

'Wait, since when am I whatever he said?' Glenn's eyebrows twitched, but he didn't say anything and only nodded politely. Toumu Toula looked like someone inhabiting East Asia but with a bone plot twist in the middle of his nose.

He stared at Glenn from above, but the latter didn't feel too threatened and only stared back, standing his ground. After a few minutes of intense staring, Toumu Toula gave up and laughed, before grabbing Glenn's shoulder and muttering something in a language he didn't know, or rather, couldn't translate with his mystical nonsense.

'Oh, that made me think, is the language-translation-thingy a gift from the Goddess? Never thought about it. I should ask her the next time I see her... Wait, why am I even planning to meet a god again? Since when is my life so damned weird?' Glenn lost himself in his thoughts, dismissing Toumu Toula with another nod, acknowledging Tarana and Sahro's presence in the other corner of the tent with a blink.

'Hum, I'd say your life is fucked up ever since you came to this world, but can you explain how can you even think in beeps?' Diamanes replied to his host's rhetorical question while asking another. What beep is this fool talking about?

"So, we were planning to take over the North and West guard duty with my team, while yours would protect the South and Eastern side," Gentle Knight explained, pointing at different points on the map. He bowed slightly, before smiling awkwardly.

"Of course, since you're a higher-ranked Fixer, you can do whatever you want, but I thought it would be better to work this way..." Glenn dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand, yawning loudly.

"You thought well. You don't have to talk to me like I'm some kind of nobility, it's honestly annoying. And power-wise, you should consider Sahro there to be on equal standing to me," He quickly stated, moving the piece representing him and Sahro further apart from each other, while his remark made the Black Heir smile gratefully.

"Of course, he's a bit weaker, but whatever, we can cover that much ground. Javier will take care of scouting the forest from time to time to check for hidden enemies, while Tarana will use her abilities to check the status of the forest. I don't know how you'll deal with things, but that's how it's going to be for us on our side, Gentle Knight." Glenn finished, ignoring Sahro's angry side-eye and nodding toward Tarana to see if she agreed to the plan.

She shrugged, soon followed by Javier. Gentle Knight nodded, before explaining his formation with his team. The lower-ranked mercenaries, represented by the not-so-missing Doran, will take care of patrolling inside the village and assuring the workers are protected while establishing an alarm system.

They were already building a huge pylon that could be lit on fire at any moment to alert everyone of any threats that they couldn't take care of.

Things seemed to be well planned, so Glenn left the meeting, soon followed by Gentle Knight's team and his own. He was about to grab the knight's shoulder to ask him all the questions he wished to ask, but the man only walked away without turning back, copiously ignoring him.

"Okay... I guess not now, then..." Glenn muttered, following them with his eyes, before feeling someone shoving his shoulder. Looking to the side, he found the mercenary leader who disappeared earlier.

"Oh, I'm deeply sorry, Mr. Fixer, I didn't see you," Doran apologized, trembling slightly at the sight of the Blood Cross's emblem burning on Glenn's chest. The young man dismissed the apology and took out the silver skull he pocketed earlier.

"No worry, I'll just use the occasion to give that back to you," The man's eyes lit up and he held out his hand, about to grab the skull, when Glenn closed his fist.

"...What...But it's mine?" Doran blurted out with a puzzled tone. Glenn smiled and put his hands behind his back, standing straight over the mercenary.

"I'll give it back, but I just wish to know something beforehand," The young man said, and the mercenary leader crossed his arms while waiting for said question.

"Where did you disappear to?" Glenn simply asked, witnessing the man's face break down.

"I...I'm sorry, but I have no recollection of what happened. One moment I was out to take a leak, and the other it was the morning and I was lost in the middle of the forest...Can I get back my silver skull, now?" The man held out an open palm, looking nervous and scared. Glenn chuckled and gave the item back.

"Sure, here you go. I found it near your tent anyway, so I know it's yours," Glenn lied through his teeth, observing the man's reaction. Doran nodded thoughtlessly, putting the item in his pocket.

"Uh, maybe I did lose it there...I hate having holes in my pockets..." Doran muttered, before excusing himself and leaving.

Glenn stared at his back while rubbing his chin.

'The mystery thickens...' Diamanes murmured in a mysterious voice while his host was lost in thoughts.

"...I just want to know what the fuck is going on, damn it..." That day began well for the complaining young man.