I watched the two humans for a few minutes, the girl deftly dodging most of the splashes of water before a shout from the woods nearby sent me leaping into the air. A burly man, dressed in leather armor, came running out of the woods. A fat sack tied closed at the top rested over his shoulder.

It gave me the impression of Santa. If Santa were equipped with countless blades hanging from straps all over his body.

Thick, sharp knives like cleavers adorned his legs, and a heavy mace hung under his waist. A bow was slung over his shoulder, the quiver hanging beside the mace, and a thick, weighted net hung from the other hip. His shocking black hair grew upwards in a rush, forming spikes like he was hiding yet more blades in there.

I kind of took liberty with my interpretation of their conversation. He was shouting more Yatten, so I didn’t really understand any of the words they were saying, but I’m an expert in human body language, if I do say so myself.

“What are you idiots doing? Get out!” I assumed the spiky guy said. He probably added something like, “There’s a super attractive dinosaur nearby that wants water and you’re tainting the source!”

I think my second translation was more accurate than my first, but I had no proof of that.

Well anyway, the brunette guy’s face grew sour. He almost looked like he was going to splash the warrior guy, but thought better of it.

Instead, he gestured to the girl who stood near the edge of the pond drying off the splashes that had hit her.

The dangerous-looking Santa shouted back at him, throwing the sack to the ground. A squeal burst out of it when it dropped.

He gestured around at the mess of items I’d only just noticed scattered around the area, probably telling them to gather their things. Then, his eyes turned to his surroundings, scanning for something. His eyes approached me and I crouched low to the ground, thankfully hidden in shade, and stayed still. I guessed he was probably on the lookout for any dinosaurs or giant worms in the vicinity.

Though, there were probably some more frightening monsters than giant worms. Like the recently deceased siren. Perhaps he knew she’d existed, and that’s why he was so angry the two had been swimming.

Your [Sneak] Skill has leveled up! It is now level [6].

Good. He hasn’t noticed me.

But… what was that sound in the bag?

I activated Observe.

Bag

This bag contains a living creature.

Yes… but what living creature?

It wasn’t that important. The beetle wasn’t in the bag, and Rexcelsis was way too big to fit in that thing, so all my grounds were covered. Unless it was a magic bag, I guess.

But I didn’t see those humans wranglin’ Rex any time soon, as humorous as the image might’ve been.

I observed the trio, as well, being careful to start with the two humans being scolded and scrutinizing their reactions to my ability. Would they notice?

Barlan, Yatten Squire [Lvl 9]

That was the younger guy climbing out of the pond, splashing the girl again to her dismay and laughing as she gasped at the cold. He didn’t notice my prying gaze.

Shella, Yatten Squire [Lvl 11]

She was the girl, standing with a pout on her face as she wrung out her hair over the ground.

Good, they’re manageable. Though not ideal, I could probably fight them off if I needed to.

I needed to be cautious. Humans are notorious for attacking things that aren’t human.

She didn’t seem to notice, either, so I observed the last guy, the armored warrior.

Ki Grenzer, the Unbent [Lvl ???]

Ah. Of course.

Just when I thought I’d found a reasonable grouping of levels, that guy had to equip the question marks.

My greatest foe: the triple question mark.

Yet another “Lvl ???” entity. And to make it all worse, I couldn’t see any information about the three besides their names.

Speaking of their names, why did that Grenzer guy have two, while the others only had one? Was Ki a title or something? It made sense if the other two were squires.

I dismissed the idea. It didn’t matter. Food for thought wouldn’t fill my stomach, after all.

Grenzer continued to scold the other two as he virtually yanked the guy out of the pond by his hair before carefully peering into the depths.

So he did know about the siren.

Or maybe… he’d felt me watching? But he couldn’t tell where it came from?

He followed the two around to the other side of the pond, a long way around, and watched as they dug through the tall grass, removing large leaves which covered bags and pieces of armor.

A clawed hand poked itself halfway out of the thick sack Grenzer had tossed to the ground, reaching around for something, but the effort was futile.

Damnit… I cursed mentally. That wasn’t just any clawed hand.

That was a clawed hand I recognized.

A clawed hand that belonged to somebody I’d just declared a friend.

Leave it to me to forget the one thing that would be the correct answer to the query, “What’s in the bag?”

The damn gorlen had to go and get himself caught by humans. Wasn’t that thing nocturnal? And these guys were very clearly out here during the day… So what happened?

I mean… I guess it could be a Gorlen I don’t actually know. Or perhaps it just looks like the Gorlen’s hand, when in actuality it’s a snake with a hand-face.

Probably not.

Let me just clarify something before we go any further. I’m not what many people would call a “bad friend”. If one of my friends is in trouble, I won’t ignore them. I'm also not a bad person.

So, even if this wasn’t my little Gorlen friend, I felt the need to help him. Because even if it wasn’t, that creature was just thrown on the ground like worthless trash.

And cool kids don’t abuse animals.