I followed Crudia into the small Market, suddenly just the two of us, alone if I didn’t count our guides. It’s actually been just a few days since we’ve been just like this, the four of us, and it was very little time we did spend like that as well. But I still felt nostalgic, somehow, as if I actually spent years with these people before the tournament. As if I knew them my whole life.

  Maybe that wasn’t that far from the truth. It depended on what I took as my “life”, after all.

  “Shrimpie, you getting all that?” Talisha turned, her words breaking me out of my stupor. I had no idea what she had been talking about.

  “Yup, got it!”

  “I sure hope so. Let’s buy the items then. Remember what I said.” She turned back forward, and continued hovering through the air next to Crudia. I hurried to catch up, not bothering myself about what Talisha just said. The Raccoon dog would remember.

  We strolled through the streets at a slow pace, the ransacked buildings looking the same as they did two days ago. There were no people trying to repair them, no people crying about their lost homes. Everyone just looked at the ground, and walked to wherever they needed to go, as if they were puppets that just followed their string.

  Sighing, I tried looking at the vendor’s wares again, just to see them as plain as before. What did I even hope for? At least I got the paint from the boss.

  “Shrimpie, hurry up!” Crudia grabbed me by my wrist, and continued forward to god knew where. She was smiling, apparently happy to have a new opportunity to craft. We walked for just one more minute, and then arrived in front of a building as large as four others combined, a giant sign over it decorated by a logo of a hammer and a sword. What a weird combination.

  A small bell rang as we entered, alerting the shop owners of our arrival. The inside was smaller than the outside - the shop was probably just a small part of the building - but the shop was so full that it was hard to know where to step. There were bricks, several colors of stone and marble, tens of shades of metal cut into plates. Other than that, placed in glass showcases were also swords and other weapons, though [Analysis] told me they were dull and boring compared to the weapons the gods gave us players. I didn’t even need it to tell me so - as if I’d ever stop punching just to wave a sharp stick around.

  “Hello there! What can I get ya!” A small woman came from beyond the small door on the other side of the shop-side of this shop, her gaze firmly locked onto Crudia. The one time she met my eyes instead, she made a disgusted face, spat on the floor, and then just acted as if I weren’t even there.

  I honestly didn’t even feel like getting angry. The fact that I’d soon have to interact with the building menu just made everything else kind of meaningless, even if it should have offended me.

  Crudia, with Mark’s guidance, proceeded to get all the items that we’d need for now - some metal plates, clay to cover the traps, wood and all the other boring stuff. Crudia seemed so excited about the whole thing that I even found myself wondering about her future class. She seemed to be… no, she was a great fighter. I knew that, but seeing her like this, instead of her usual stress during battle, made me wonder whether I should tell her to pick a crafting class if there was one.

  With the materials bought, we went to the outer perimeter of the city, looking to start a new crafting base. Thankfully, the shop was already at the outskirts of the town, and it only took about two minutes before we were standing on the black grass once again.

  “So, let’s start, I guess. Want to try to test that new skill out, Shrimpie? Build us a small house here, maybe?” Mark pointed his finger at the ground in front of us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The new skill. [Wall up].”

  “Shrimpie has a new skill?” Crudia’s eyes widened with excitement again, waiting for me to show her.

  I sighed, and used the skill, smashing my foot into the ground.

  [Wall up]

  I imagined the ground shifting and just four walls emerging from the ground, and that’s what mostly happened. The walls were nothing like I imagined, though. I wanted rock smooth walls, but instead I got some gray clay, compressed to be hard but uneven.

  I also, inconveniently, forgot about a roof and a door.

  “Hmm. Looks fairly useful. It went up pretty quickly, and I think it could be helpful in a fight if you manage to think of ideas quickly enough.”

  “I still see no use for it.”

  “It’s really cool, Shrimpie! Building a house anywhere will be useful, right?” Crudia smiled.

  “I guess so. But I wanted a skill usable in fighting more. [Bullet strike] still takes too long to recharge.”

  Mark was still looking at the walls that I created. “Well, you could use it to trap someone into a duel with you if they tried escaping. Or use the ability to make some kind of distraction. All problems can’t just be solved by punching.”

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  “I have strong doubts about that. Have you seen my punches?” I looked around again. “This house looks pretty good, though!”

  “If we omit the fact that there are no doors and no roof? I guess so.” Talisha chuckled.

  “It will do. Let’s get to preparing then. Talisha, can you craft the trap plates? We’ll start placing them in a perimeter, like we discussed.”

  “Yippie!” She almost jumped into the air from joy, and then created the same damn crafting table from our first base, put it on the ground, and happily proceeded to scroll the menus that made up half of my nightmares.

  It was already afternoon by the time we began, and we didn’t particularly try to rush the trap making. A trap placed in the wrong place could mean that the trap could potentially just do nothing, and so Mark ordered us to be careful and slow. These traps were interesting in how they worked, but kind of bland in the effect. They reminded me of bear traps and weird dungeon traps - a trapdoor that cut off the legs, a spike platform that expended spears toward the air once someone stepped on it.

  We, of course, deactivated them all as we placed them, but I could already imagine the hoarders of monsters rushing at us. It would be glorious.

  A few hours passed, mostly spent just Crudia crafting and Mark correcting her on some items, Talisha offering some tips which Mark immediately shut down, and Crudia’s happy humming as we walked around the perimeter.

  Soon enough, the sky started getting dim, shades of darkness replacing the blue sky.

  “We should probably start heading back.” Talisha remarked as her eyes scanned the sky.

  Nodding, Mark slowly began hovering toward the town. “Agreed. We did less than I’d like today, but I think we made some progress at least. We surrounded what, maybe a fifth of the city? Will be faster once the three others join us.”

  “I wonder how their recruitment went.” Talisha agreed.

  “I’d… I’d like to stay here tonight.” Crudia squealed out, her eyes closed.

  I stopped just after taking the first step. “Huh? Why?”

  “I just don’t feel like sleeping in the city today, you know? We could just camp out in the little house you made, the two of us. Just like at the beginning!” She had a smile on her face now, but I could still see how nervous she was, how her hand was clutching a piece of fabric from her clothing.

  I honestly didn’t mind either way, and saw no reason why not. I trusted Crudia more than I trusted anyone. She was… something like my first friend. And at least we’d save some money. “Sure!”

  “You guys, there’s a much larger chance of-” Mark began to speak, but was interrupted by Talisha.

  “Oh, shush. We’ll watch over them, won’t we?” She raised her eyebrow. Marked sighed, unnaturally loudly, and then nodded.

  I quickly shot a message to our party chat, letting the others know. Fink was not there for some reason - he said how this is just a temporary alliance - but Bryga was, and that was good enough.

  Shrimpie: Crudia and I are spending time outside the city today. Meet us in the inn tomorrow morning to catch up on progress?

  Dusk: Outside? Okay. Sounds good.

  Bryga: AS IF. I’LL gOu TO SlAY DaT DraGon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Leav Ya iN my dUST!!!

  Dusk: I should mention, Bryga tried tasting some alcohol, and she’s not stopped tasting it for 30 minutes now.

  Talisha: Good girl! I wish I was her right now. I miss beer.

  Bryga: CoME GET DrUNK theN! These TwO aRE SPOiLspoRTs!! FinK sAiD iT tASTS BlEURHG.

  Mark: God, you all will make me mad by the time this tournament is over.

  Talisha: Stay safe you three. See you in the morning.

  Dusk: Copy that. Good night you all. I’ll try to calm Bryga. She’ll make the innkeep faint at this rate, and she keeps ignoring Fink.

  Chuckling, I followed Crudia, finally arriving at the small box I made a few hours ago. Making a door was pretty easy - I just smashed my shield into one spot several times until it cracked into a small hole, and repeated the process until I could actually get through.

  Crudia immediately threw herself into one corner, stretching in the black grass, smiling. The dark sky was visible through the ‘hole’ in the roof, and so I just stretched myself on the black grass next to Crudia.

  And we just lay there, enjoying each other’s silence only sometimes broken by a stronger gust of wind or a whisper from Talisha and Mark outside.

  “You know,” Crudia suddenly broke the silence, still looking at the stars. “The boss I fought with Dusk. Did I tell you he was a mage? A giant mushroom?”

  Confused and unsure of where she was going with this, I nodded. “I do. You told me just about everything, remember? You said so in the text.”

  “His spell, one of them… it made me see things that didn’t happen, but they felt as if they did. An illusion.”

  She paused, taking in a deep breath, and then she turned her head to meet my eyes. “I saw you all die. Dusk. Mark. Talisha…. You.” Her breath was shaking now, on the verge of tears. “I got scared, Shrimpie. I try to be strong, and I think I’m getting better at that each day. But doesn… doesn’t this feel like too much sometimes? I feel like I just started this version of my life, and yet I’m constantly a step away from losing that and all the friends I’ve made.”

  It didn’t. Not really. I kind of liked this all, truth be told. I considered just saying that, but I knew that it wasn’t the correct thing to say here. Something, the human part of me, pushed the words onto my tongue. “It’s really different from our former lives, that’s for sure. I am still getting used to it, Crudia. We all are. But we won’t die. We’re doing great, even Mark said so! …And I’ll get us to the end, okay? You and me, just like it started. Till the end.”

  She sobbed at that, though her mouth was giving me a wan smile. “So you’ll get us there? You promise?”

  I was confident in my abilities, in my chances to get to the end. I’d get us there, no matter what it took. And I knew she’d do the same. I was beginning to respect her as more of an equal, each new day shedding new light on what kind of person she was. And she definitely wasn’t the scared puppy I took her for on the first day anymore. “You give yourself less credit than you deserve. But yes, we’ll get there. I promise.”

  She smiled, and completely put her head onto the grass once again, turning toward the sky. “Hold my hand while I sleep? Please?”

  This whole conversation was weird enough, in a good way. One more weird human gesture wouldn’t hurt, and holding her fur was a pleasure anyway. “Of course.”

  She squeezed it, and then closed her eyes. Her breathing grew slower in under a minute.