Kalter stepped forward, and he shuffled around her again, moving into the open space. He carefully reached down and pulled the bush up by its stem—despite its size, it wasn’t unmanageably heavy, and since he was capable of lifting it, his inventory whisked it away into subspace.

“We can get the other two on the next trip,” Kalter said, “We’ve been gone for too long again, and you’re bleeding pretty badly.”

August looked down at himself; the scratches he’d gained from stumbling back into the bush had grown more visible now, a series of fine red lines leaking down the length of his arms and legs. The pain in his cheek and brow told him his face was probably in a similar state. Kalter had nothing like it, not even on her arms—either she’d been far more careful crawling around, or the thorns simply hadn’t been enough to break through her skin.

“We probably won’t be coming back to the exact same spot again,” August said, shaking his head. “We should dig out the other two now; these are just scratches anyway.”

“The others?” Kalter said. “They’re waiting for us to check in.”

“You’re faster than I am,” August muttered, turning towards the other bush. “If you want to go tell them, go ahead, but I’m staying here.”

There was far more space to move now, and the lowest branch on the second bush was high enough that he could actually access the base of it without crawling. He removed a small branch from his inventory and used it to start digging out the roots. Rather than leave him on his own, Kalter moved to the third—Rubus bush? Regalis bush? He still wasn’t sure about the name, but either way, her strength and ability to dig with her bare hands had him falling behind almost immediately.

He’d barely managed to free half of it by the time Kalter had finished her own, and the fact that she was outperforming him after he’d stubbornly refused to leave just felt like another slap to the face—how humiliating.

Once the two were completely finished, August vanished the two bushes into the inventory and turned back towards the path. Kalter led the way forward, slipping between the two trees that had doomed him earlier. He kept enough distance between them to make certain she stayed outside of his sensory range, but before they’d even made it all of the ways back, they ran into Boko.

“You guys sure you know how long five minutes is?” Boko said, bemused. “You’d think that—whoa, what happened to you, bossman?”

August glanced up from where he’d been watching the forest floor for trip hazards and found both Boko and Kalter looking back at him—he glanced away, feeling put on the spot.

“I—fell into a thornbush,” August said, stretching out the word as his mind played catchup. “I’m not your boss, either, Boko.”

“Old habit; guess I’m bound to slip up on occasion,” Boko offered, attempting to walk backwards as Kalter began to advance. “Some thornbush—did you get your revenge, at least?”

“We dug up three of them,” Kalter said, motioning for him to spin around and face forward. “They are actually some kind of berry bush, edible, as well.”

“More food is always good,” Boko said, impressed. “Shame that it’s the type that fights back.”

They returned to the group in short order, and August eyed the now massive pile they’d managed to create in their short absence. The area starting to look more like a genuine clearing now that they’d stripped everything bare. Kalter stopped a few feet into the open space and turned back as if to make sure he’d actually followed her back.

August took a wide birth around her, making sure the edge of his range didn’t overlap with any part of her body and noticed a slight shift in her posture in response. He made a beeline for the edge of the pile, ducking down to start adding it all to his inventory.

“August, you’re bleeding—everywhere,” Haiko said, startled as she dragged a log over to the pile. “What happened?”

Rittan leaned into view on the direct opposite side of the towering mess. August sighed at the words, wondering if they would let him avoid answering if he simply ignored the question—this was the kind of day where he wanted nothing more than to go hide in one of the huts until it was tomorrow instead.

“They’re just shallow scratches,” August said, keeping his eyes on the steadily vanishing pile. “I fell into a thorn bush; it’s not a big deal.”

“Your face is bleeding,” Rittan said, frowning. “You’re lucky it didn’t get your eye.”

“I’d say falling into a thornbush at all is pretty unlucky, overall,” Boko offered, shouldering the [Bone Axe]. “Probably an omen for us to finish up and get out of here before anything worse happens—any takers?”

“Yes,” Haiko murmured. “That seems like a good idea.”

August reached the end of a pile a minute later, and he straightened back up as Rittan came to stand beside him. He caught sight of Morningstar and Ladybug above them, sharing the same branch, no longer moving around as they had been earlier. Rather than wait for someone else to lead, he checked to make sure everyone was present and then set off back towards the Lakeside Hovel.

Whether it was the sight of blood or the not-quite-hidden tension between him and Kalter that had followed them back, it rendered the entire group silent and unwilling to speak up. August kept his eyes ahead of him, but somehow, even though everyone was well outside of his range, he could feel Kalter’s presence, like a weight on his mind.

August reached up and touched a finger to his cheek, rubbing at the broken skin in an attempt to see how bad it actually was. It stretched from beside his ear to his cheekbone, but it was just as shallow as he’d said. Something that would have healed on its own within a few days, even without health regeneration—his fingertips came away soaked with a vague, barely their stain of red, the blood already mostly dry.