Loran yawned as he walked along the small river that cut through Ziege Basin. He had spent several hours helping Yang extract the iron from the dead Guardians before returning to the player camp to rest, but for some reason, he couldn’t settle down despite how tired he felt. A part of that was just how noisy the camp was right now. Thanks to the siege the players had amassed a massive amount of EXP. Even those that could only kill a handful of the giant ants had earned enough to Level up several times. Most were being careful with their rewards so as to not end up over-Leveling themselves, but the excitement in the camp was palpable, and more than a few players were eagerly Leveling up and playing around with their new abilities.

And so Loran went on a walk looking for a place to relax. At first, he tried the apple tree grove in the center of the valley, but there were many young goats playing there so it was still just as noisy. He decided to see what it was like at the base of the waterfall.

‘It’ll definitely be loud,’ he thought. ‘But hopefully, it will be more like a white noise, or maybe it’ll be meditative.’

Loran’s eyes followed the river as he walked, watching as the water became astonishingly clear as he walked further. It carved a deep groove into the ground, clearing away any dirt until the river bed was made of nothing but well-worn stone.

‘I would have expected the waterfall to churn up the sediment and make it murky…Maybe the stone is dense enough that the water can’t turn it into dirt?’

Whatever the reason, it made for a beautiful image. Crystal-clear water was rushing past, sparkling in the light as its speed disrupted the otherwise smooth surface. The stone riverbed had bumps and lines scraped into it, the water having torn away any sections too weak to withstand the power of the current.

After a few more minutes he started to hear the roar of the crashing water. Loran knew that the waterfall was pretty big considering its source was near the top of the surrounding mountains, but as he got closer and closer to the waterfall he began to realize just how tall it truly was.

Although not particularly wide, the water was falling at least eighty feet before finally hitting the ground. The power of the falls caused the water to dig out a large basin at the bottom, creating a large, roiling pond that was surrounded by mist.

‘It is pretty loud,’ Loran thought as he stood at the pond's edge. ‘But fighting in the siege was worse.’

He sat down, and was about to lie down for a nap when he noticed a figure on the other side of the river. It was Soze, just staring at the falling water, his eyes seemed transfixed by something.

“Hey! Soze!” Loran cried out as he jumped across the river. Soze didn’t acknowledge him as he got closer. Loran’s brow furrowed with concern. “Soze? Hey Soze!”

“Wha-!” Soze shouted, jumping back and drawing his dagger. “You- Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Me? Sneak up on you?” The idea of anyone being able to sneak up on Soze was laughable, and that was before [DANGER SENSE] had been discovered. The fact that Loran had been able to do it without trying only reinforced his concern. “Alright, what’s up? Is something wrong.”

“What? No, I’m fine,” he said quickly.

“Um, no. If even I can tell that you’re uncomfortable right now than something has to be up.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not.” Loran paused for a moment. “You were acting odd earlier too,” he said, recalling how Soze had seemed cautious to give orders out in the canyon…” Loran recalled a conversation he had overheard while helping Yang. “Didn’t someone die in the fighting earlier?”

“Y-yeah,” Soze’s shoulders sagged slightly at the mention of the battle’s sole fatality.

“I’m guessing you’re blaming yourself then?”

“Y-yeah, you got me,” he said quickly, perking up a bit before sagging again. His eyes wandered back to the waterfall.

For a moment, Loran almost thought that Soze seemed glad that he brought up the dead player. “Well, stop that.”

Soze’s eyes snapped to Loran’s face, staring at him incredulously. “Did you really just tell me to not be sad…by not being sad?”

“I didn’t mean it like that obviously. I mean that it isn’t your fault.”

“It was my plan though.”

“Soze, when was the last time you planned- no, when was the last time you participated in such a large-scale battle like this?”

Soze paused for a moment. “Um…never really.”

“Exactly. So take some advice from someone who has done this more times than I can count. You can’t plan for everything.”

“You used to plan battles like this?” Soze asked, shocked for a moment before Loran waved his hand dismissively.

“No, I was never a part of the guilds or clans that did most of the fighting, but I was present for a lot of these types of battles, and they always go the same way. Both sides have a plan on how things will go, and then they both scrap the plans at some point to start making new ones in the moment.” He shrugged. “There’s a quote I can barely remember that goes something like, ‘no plan survives first contact’ or whatever, and it’s true.”

“I remember hearing something like that once,” Soze said with a chuckle. “Although the one I remember was ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’.”

“Hahahaha! Okay, tha-that’s a good one.” Loran kept laughing for a few seconds, finding the quote much funnier than Soze did. “B-but the meaning is the same. There’s no way for you to have known things would have gone this way in advance.”

“Yeah yeah…you know, Zed said the same thing earlier.”

“What? Did you go to Zed for emotional support? Did you pick up a confusion debuff at some point?”

“Oh fuck off!” Soze laughed as he turned around, walking in the direction of the camp.

“Feeling better then?”

“Yeah.” Soze looked back at Loran, who was starting to sit down. “You staying here?”

“Yeah. I wanted some time alone. I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Okay.”

“On second thought, don’t need me.”

Soze shook his head and kept walking.

~~~~~

“Hey, we were wondering where you went,” Yang said as she saw Soze walking over. She was currently sitting around a basket of dried meats and berries with Yin, Alexx, and Zed.

“I just needed to clear my head,” Soze said as he sat down. He grabbed a handful of berries and a strip of jerky from the basket. “So did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Yeah,” Zed said. Soze quickly focused on him but Zed waved off his concern. “It doesn’t seem like anything serious. We just got some special loot from the battle.”

“Named monsters?”

“If only,” Yang said. “No, it seems like the Iron Ants can use the inventory.”

Soze’s brow furrowed. “That’s…interesting…and you’re sure about this?”

“Yeah, we’ve got several players saying that random items started randomly appearing in the air when they killed certain ants.”

“Anything good?”

“No, it’s all just random crap.

“I mean, it is just what the ant had picked up,” Alexx said. “Most of that is just going to be sticks and rocks.”

Yin hummed appreciatively. “The most notable prizes were a handful of berries and a piece of iron ore. Certainly, nothing to celebrate.”

“Speaking of iron, how much are we taking back with us?”

“We have almost double the amount of Warrior and Soldier Blades, along with a lot of Drone corpses,” Yang said, still chewing on a strip of jerky. “Loran’s magic helped a ton with dismantling the Guardians, so we have a lot more raw iron this time. There is still a lot more to gather though, so we might head back out there later.”

“Perhaps we should remain here for a few days to gather as much as possible?” Yin suggested, but Yang shook her head.

“No, by this time tomorrow, the goats are going to be on the move again. It’ll be too crowded for us to get much done.”

“It’s not like we really need to get more iron anyway,” Zed said. “With this new haul along with what’s still back at the village we probably have enough to outfit a bunch of players with pure iron armor, the Workshop just can’t make it yet.”

“Yeah, we’ll still try to get more, but there’s no need to try too hard.”

“Alright.” Soze quickly ate a few berries. “I guess we’ll rest here for the day and head back tomorrow if everyone’s ready.”

“And then what?”

“Hm?” Soze looked over at Zed, who was staring at him expectantly.

“Now that we’re done here, what’s next?”

“Well…once we get back there will be about two weeks until we would need to leave for the next raid, maybe two and a half.” Soze shrugged. “I’d like to make contact with those players to the south that you guys saw, but I’m not sure if we have the time for that as long as we’re helping the Mountain Goats.”

“I imagine a few people would be interested in reaching out,” Yin said. “It would only need two or three to go.”

“Yeah, it’s not like we would lose that much fighting power from that,” Yang added. “We may as well try.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Soze said. “Is there anything else we can really do at the moment?”

“Aside from picking another fight with a Demon Bear?” Yang shrugged. “Not really.”

“Really?” Zed asked skeptically. “Is that it?”

“Are YOU really complaining about having things to fight?”

“No it’s just…this world has to be bigger than just this valley. I’m just starting to feel a little… stir-crazy.”

“Only you could feel cramped in an entire valley,” Soze scoffed. “Besides, how do you plan to get past the mountains?”

“Either over or around,” he said succinctly. “This place apparently opens up to some kind of sea or ocean. Once we get out there why not keep going?”

“The problem is we just can’t travel that far,” Soze said, keeping them on topic. “We would basically have to abandon the village.”

“We could just make it a long-term expedition. It’s not like we can’t carry enough food and water.”

“He does have a point,” Yang said. “We can go that far, it would just take a while.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

“Everything in this damn game is dangerous,” Yang reminded him. “We’re reaching the Level limit for this place, what we need to do is start connecting with more players.”

Soze was still hesitant, but the more he thought about it the more he knew there was no way around these long travel times. Aside from increasing their Agility, the only way to reduce travel time would be to tame faster animals or invent some kind of vehicle. The latter was effectively impossible with their current technology, while the former was incredibly difficult and unlikely.

“Alright. We’ll start expanding past the valley as soon as possible.”