Urist stood dumbly as Uria closed her eyes and held out her arms outstretched. He didn’t know how to react to the sudden request and just stood there staring at her.

He waited so long that Uria eyebrows scrunched up, “Do you know what a hug is? Did you forget such a simple thing?”

Sighing at how shameless she was, he moved until he was only half a foot away. At this distance, he could feel her breath hitting him and her cute features more distinctly. A little dazed and awkward he hugged Uria with both arms bringing her into a bear hug.

Uria in return held Urist tightly the two could feel each other warmth. The action stole each other's breath not sure want to do at this point.

It was at this point that Uria brought up the courage and whispered in his ear.

Her breath tickled his ear.

“Be safe out there ok?”

“Of course.”

Regretfully, Uria let go of him, turned and walked away without looking at him. He wanted to reach out and stop her but static filled his eyesight. Holding his now aching forehead a memory overlapped Uria’s retreating figure.

The figure spoke in a warm tone, “Even if you’re useless, you will always be mine.”

He tried to hold onto the memory slipping out of his hands, watching the static go up in smoke and the world started to return. His head now hurt so he decided to sit down and gather his thoughts trying to brand the figure into his memory.

She was taller than Uria by afoot, having long flaming hair and wore a cut sleeve golden jacket showing off her toned arms. On the back of the jacket, a green tiger had been sewn on and to match her jacket she wore black pants. Even if he couldn’t see her face, her voice was enchanting full of confidence and power.

‘Who is she? What is her name? How do I know her?’

Questions filled his mind and he felt annoyed that he couldn’t remember anything other than her figure. During the time of his break, he sat their resting thinking with his mind trying to search for what memories he could remember.

Time passed on and the rested expedition team came back to the gates to see leaning on the wall Urist with his eyes closed.

It was Rat who poked him awake, “Hey boss you asleep?”

“Hm? No, I was just resting my eyes so don’t worry about that, is everyone one ready?”

“Yep, we got the bags.”

Getting up from the ground Urist patted the dust off and replied. “Then let's get to a gathering and kill some rats.”

Before long the group headed out of the base, as expected of how much time they spent in base their there was already a thin layer of seeds on the ground. To save energy Urist said they should only gather from the branches and not pick up the ground seed.

By now the seeds were about the size of half a pinky and the bamboo itself had become larger at least by an inch. To harvest the seeds everyone used their knives to cut the bamboo branches off. Urist hoped that by using this method they could decrease the number of seeds being populated near their home.

Despite the forest turning blood red, the birds were out and about chirping cheerfully around the dwarfs. It was nice to hear when they were doing such a boring task while harvesting. Although they did have some eventful times when they come across rats eating the seeds along, those they saw they smashed or stabbed to death.

They didn’t kill that many, only about thirty or so rats, only seeing such numbers Urist frowned wondering how many there would fight later. If there was this many in this section of the forest how many existed in its entirety?

With such distracting thoughts, he missed killing a rat with his spear. The stab was shallow only nicking the rat's right eye, as he was about to strike again the rat ran away in fear. This rat was pretty fast so he couldn’t catch up to the little rodent.

Since he lost it, he could only get back to gathering more bamboo seeds.

‘Oh well I missed one, we’ve already done a pretty good job it won't matter that much.’

“Hey, boss it’s getting pretty dark shouldn’t we head home?”

Turning to the direction of the voice Urist could she Emu shouting at him with everyone next to him. Looking at their bags he could see that they had, had a good harvest their bags full of seeds.

“Alright let’s call it a day and return home to eat.”

And so the expedition team headed back to base to have their fill of food and drink and to rest their tired bodies. While leaving Urist felt that instead of doing a good job, the dangers weighing on his mind had increased for some reason. He could only shake it off since they were already doing everything they could with their limited manpower.

‘Whatever comes I’ll deal with it.’ Throwing his fears away he led the group back to base.

But unknown to him and the team there was a small lone figure holding it’s bleeding eye with one hand while eating a seed in the other. Pure hatred radiated from the small black rat watching the retreating figures full of scorn.

It wouldn’t be that long that Urist would curse his carelessness for not killing this rat with all his being while he had the chance.

Only in the world, there is no pill for regret.

Rat Tide timer activated 6 Days 13 Hours 42 Mins

Beast Swarm timer activated 14 Days 13 Hours 42 Mins

Point Amount: 6143