It took a full day of travel for Loran and the others to make it back to the campsite, a welcome sight after three days of sleeping without defenses. The barrier had been completed a few days ago and was now a sturdy wall of logs, branches, and mud. The Mountain Goat corpse had all but vanished, its meat turned into jerky, and the bones carried away to the village; all that remained was a large depression in the grass and a significant amount of bloodstains.

“About time you guys came back,” a voice said.

Turning his head Loran saw Maxie walk out from behind a tree. After the incident with Bates, Maxie and her team took over the defense of the campsite. They had far fewer members, but with the meat from the Mountain Goat, the smaller team was able to focus on defenses instead of hunting.

“Starting to worry about us?” Zed asked jokingly.

She shrugged. “Not really. Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, just give us a minute, I’m starving,” Loran said as he felt his stomach grumbling. In their rush to return, they weren’t able to hunt and they essentially ran out of food after cooking the Iron Ant Soldier last night. “Is there anything left to eat?”

Maxie grimaced. “We’ve still got a mountain of goat jerky.”

“Anything fresh?” Alexx asked hopefully.

“Nope, I was going to head out tomorrow, but for now your options are jerky or kill something yourself.”

If the sun wasn’t already setting they probably would have done just that, but as it stands the three just needed something to fill their bellies. The dried meat would have to do.

~~~~~

“FOURTY THOUSAND EXP!?” They all shouted.

“Yup,” Loran sighed. They had just finished explaining all that they had discovered over the last few days, and despite having discovered the rough location of the nest, the existence of a new kind of ant, and even battling against a literal horde of Iron Ant Drones, Alexx and Zed’s massive rewards still managed to keep all of the attention.

“That…that’s not fair,” Maxie said.

“I mean, we did have to survive a fight against like a hundred Iron Ants, so it’s not like it’s-ACK,” Alexx said before choking on some jerky.

“It’s not like it’s that easy,” Zed finished. “I also got a bunch of EXP from taking out the Soldier and making the helmet.”

“Regardless, if anyone wants to catch up to you guys at this point they’ll have to start hunting Iron Ants.”

“Which is too difficult for anyone who’s not these two idiots,” Loran said.

“Who are you calling idiots?” Zed asked with an insincere threat.

“The ones who needed me to explain that fighting Iron Ants in their own territory was a bad idea.”

“...He’s got a point,” Alexx said, taking a drink of water.

“Yeah I know…”

The players of the camp chuckled as Zed backed off. Over the last week they had all grown more accustomed to Zed’s extreme personality. They didn’t particularly like him or felt completely comfortable around him, but no one was worried that he was going to get violent at random anymore.

“U-um, excuse me?” Calix asked, raising a hand to get everyone’s attention.

“Yes Calix, is there something you’d like to share with the class?” Loran joked.

A few people chuckled as Calix blushed.

“I-I was wondering what we’re supposed to do now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the expedition is over now right?”

Once everyone realized what she was talking about they began glancing around and talking amongst each other, realizing that they weren’t sure. The point of the expedition was to find the nest, but it was still surprising to have found it in a little over a week. They had even built up the campsite into something defensible; were they really going to just head back to the village?

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m heading back to the village tomorrow,” Loran said.

“So are we just abandoning the campsite? The builders will probably be pissed.”

“No way; the campsite will still be used,” Zed said. “Like you guys said before, Iron Ants are the new source of EXP, and anyone who wants to hunt them will need to come out here to do it.”

“If anyone wants to they can come back with me,” Loran said.

“I don’t really think we can right now,” Maxie said. “The builders went back with the rest of Bates’ team but I don’t want to leave the camp undefended.”

“Yeah,” said the crafter. “I’ll need to stay in case anything needs repairs, and Calix is the only one who can cook.”

“They will probably be at least a few higher level players ready to try hunting ants,” Loran said, “and if you guys want I can ask if any crafters and cooks can replace you.”

“I-I would like to go back,” Calix stuttered.

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“Naw.”

“I think we’re good,” Maxie said.

“Alright then,” Loran took a long sip of water before gesturing to Zed’s swords. “Also I’m taking one of those back to the village.”

Zed turned to look at Loran incredulously. “The fuck you are.”

“Zed, the crafters are going to want a look at it.”

“Fuck that they’re mine. Besides I need a new weapon.”

“Which is why I’m only taking one.”

“You’re already going back with a ton of empty shells, they don’t need my swords.”

“Uh, that might not be true.”

Loran and Zed turned to look at the crafter who had spoken up. Zed’s eyes narrowed. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

The crafter’s face paled at the thinly veiled threat as Loran put his hand on Zed’s chest. “You need to calm down,” he turned to the crafter. “But what are you talking about exactly?”

“W-well, right now the biggest problem with using the iron from the ant shells is that it needs to be extracted, which means it needs to be heated to the point it melts.” He pointed at the swords. “Those are already solid chunks of metal. It would still need special treatment, but it should need less heat to start using it.”

“So they could start working with this right now?”

“Maybe? They would still need to put some new tools together but it’s certainly possible.”

“I think they were making progress on it when we left,” Maxie said. “They seemed pretty excited about something at least.”

Zed looked down at the blade, contemplating the situation.

“Zed, I don’t know if it’ll be anytime soon, but we both know that the sooner the Workshop starts forging, the sooner you can get a spear with a real metal blade,” Loran said. “Wouldn’t you rather have that than those swords?”

Zed sighed, tossing one of the blades to Loran. “Alright fine. Take it, but you better tell them to start working on a new spear as soon as possible.”

“Alright, I got it.” Loran let out a yawn before moving away from the campfire. “Unless there’s anything else to talk about, I’m going to sleep.” Without waiting for a response he curled up near one of the walls and closed his eyes, slowly falling asleep to the sounds of the crackling fire and the voices of the other players.

~~~~~

“Are you going to be okay heading back by yourself?” Zed asked as Loran lifted up his pack.

“You’re asking now?”

Zed shrugged. “I’m not exactly worried or anything but you kept making it very clear for the last week that you’re not really fit for combat right now.”

“Maybe, but I can still run away just fine. Name one thing that’s faster than me in these woods.”

“Me,” Zed said, with a smug grin.

“...something that would want to kill me.”

“...Me?”

“And with that, I’m leaving,” he said quickly as Zed started laughing.

“Try not to die.”

“I make no promises.”

Loran left the campsite, the Soldier Blade resting on his shoulder and his pack filled with Iron Ant shells, walking calmly along the river. It was relatively early, the sun still partially hidden by the mountains, Loran was in no mood to run and with his AGI it wasn’t even strictly necessary.

By the time the sun was completely out in the sky the campsite was well outside of his perception range; all he could hear now was the rushing of water, the rustling of grass and leaves, and the various noises of the woodland animals.

Loran wasn’t really one who enjoyed the supposedly ‘great’ outdoors in reality, but he could appreciate the more controlled environment of a nature sim.

“At least Dr. Zheng wasn’t evil enough to include mosquitoes in his game,” he said to no one. “I think I would’ve gone insane if I had to deal with bug bites on top of everything else.”

The trip back to the village was proving to be rather peaceful; just walking along, occasionally moving faster but never breaking into a run. Loran idled the minutes away just glancing around, thinking out loud, and using [ANALYSE] on anything he didn’t recognize(not that he found anything new).

Minutes turned to hours, and soon the sun was directly overhead. He technically had a bit of goat jerky on him for lunch, but he really wanted something fresher. He paused for a moment as he glanced at the river, memories surfacing from movies and TV shows he used to watch as a child.

“...I can probably do that, right?”

Setting down his pack, Loran rolled up the legs of his pants and waded into the river. Remaining perfectly still, he waited as a few fish started to get closer to him.

‘Just a little closer…’ he thought as he slowly raised his good hand.

Then he lashed out, attempting to smack the fish toward the river bank.

He missed, but he did manage to feel the fish’s tail.

“Alright, it’s proof of concept if nothing else.”

After waiting some more he struck again, and this time was rewarded with a large fish landing on the river bank, flopping about in the hopes of landing in the water.

Grinning, Loran turned his attention back to the water, retrieving two more fish before returning to the riverbank.

It took a little time to find some wood that was dry enough to start a fire, but soon enough Loran was lying against a tree as three fish were roasting away.