Ash took us to one of the houses. It was a simpler one, at least compared to the one right beside it. That one was much bigger and well put together, with some small stone structures in the front. Structures that were very similar to the type of construction that Rex was used to doing. Especially the ones we saw him do after he got to tier two. It was funny to think that even when he was younger, this type of thing still stayed the same for our companion.

There were also a few things that seemed to be mementos from his childhood, like small carvings or toys that seemed to be placed outside of the house. There was even a seesaw and a pit where the Rodenti seemed to have played in the past. In addition to that, there was a mark that now I realized Rex was putting on all of his structures. A wind up rat toy like those from the old world. That almost shoe like shape, but without the key to turn on its back.

After being taken to the side house, Ash told us to put our stuff there and then asked us to accompany him to his house. Not the one that Rex lived in, but the Chieftain's residence. I noticed several times his eyes darting towards Rex's stump. It was pretty obvious that seeing his son mangled like that wasn't something he enjoyed.

As we walked, Rixnala never stopped staring at us. She seemed to be deeply upset about our presence, or maybe she was still angry for having lost to us when we first met. I also couldn't see any of the people that she sent to the fight, but that didn't necessarily mean that they weren't here. Maybe they just weren't invited to the house or the guest house. It was hard to tell.

Rex's older brother also watched us for a few moments, but he eventually lost interest. If I were being honest, I didn't know which would upset me the most. Having him ignoring us or having him paying attention to our every move.

Either way, once we entered the chieftain's house, we saw that he was currently living alone. Or at the very least, at this moment in the afternoon, there was no one else here. Rex had mentioned that his mother was no longer around, although he was never specific if she was dead or had just left.

Ash took us to one of the rooms by the entrance, revealing a large table with several chairs by the side. It looked like a dining room, although right now it wasn't really being used for food. Instead, there was a miniature of something on the table. It was hard to tell what it was at first glance, but the closer we got to it, the more I started to see some resemblances to one very specific thing that I had seen in the past.

The protrusions shooting out towards the sky, the strange columns that almost looked like ribs on the sides, and the ever present tentacles that spread from the entire structure. I was pretty sure before I actually even spoke, but this was a model of the Eater's nest. The one that we were supposed to attack.

"Have you seen?" Noticing my reaction, Ash asked.

I nodded once. "Yes. My home was attacked by Eaters and a few days later there was something like that in its place. But it was different. The colors didn't match, but I'm guessing this is just because of the way this was created." I glanced at the Chieftain, who was staring back at me and continued. "But it also wasn't as closed off as this one. There were openings where Eaters were coming and going, and there was one massive Eater that released tentacles from inside."

Ash frowned at that mention and asked, "How big?"

"Can I show with the model?"

"Don't break, but yes?"

Having his permission, I stepped forward and tried my best to remember how big the tentacles that I saw leaving the nest were. Eventually, I placed my finger roughly around the distance where they could reach from the inside and said, "About this big. But they were coming from the mouth of the nest, so I don't know much more of them there were inside."

Ash's eyes opened a bit more as if he was startled and nodded. "You saw tier three?"

"That was from a tier three?"

"Think so. You fight?"

"Not really. The moment we saw those tentacles, me and Pops, that's my grandfather, we just started running. We were both still tier one at the time. Actually, no. I was tier 1, and Pops was near tier 1. It was going to be hard for us to do anything about that. Running was the best option."

Ash nodded. "Smart."

"But are you sure that was Tier 3? We've seen other Eaters that were really big. Maybe it was just a very big one?" Michael suggested.

"True, true," Rex nodded. "Saw big one too."

For a moment, Ash let his hands move over his yellow mane before nodding. "Possible, yes. But, in experience, if tentacle that big, is tier three. Don't know. Here, we saw none. Only tier ones in this nest. Hiding from."

"Because this is really big, right?" Riley pointed to a small Rodenti that was part of the model beside the nest. "I mean, this is the scale. If this Rodenti was standing by the side, it should be this big?"

I had not noticed the small reference Rodenti until now. Seeing it, this nest should be at the very least 10 meters [32.8 ft] tall. And it was wide. Maybe even wider than it was tall. For me, it almost looked like a pyramid pointing to the sky, although it should be more of a cone.

Ash just nodded. "Yes. Nest take long to form. Attack sooner but was hidden."

He put his hand around two-thirds of the way to the top of the nest. "Here when we discovered. Not in place we go."

"And by the time you noticed it was too big a thing to deal with it yourself?" Michael asked.

"Yes. Needed help. That's why called for it. Still waiting to see who answered."

"And do you have a deadline? A moment when you either say, this is enough or, we can't wait anymore?"

Ash seemed a bit surprised, but his expression shifted only for a moment before returning to his stoic face. "Yes. Nest always send out tier one. Means tier two likely protecting inside. If we see tier two, then tier three inside. Ash only one tier three in village. If see tier two outside, we must strike. If not, give chance to nest to grow too much."

Stolen story; please report.

I nodded. "Yeah, it's better if we don't let that happen. Do you have any idea how long it will take for Eaters to grow that much?"

Ash just shook his head. "No. Scouts report daily."

"So we need to be ready to attack at any moment, got it. Just let us know when. We will stay on standby and let us know when we are going to fight. We actually need to get inside the nest. There's something we might need from there."

I had debated sharing that information with the Rodenti for a while but decided to withhold some of it for now. If Rex wanted to tell him, I wasn't going to stop him, but it felt like dropping the "oh, there's a species of intelligent jellyfish in the ocean that predicted the world was going to end" bomb was not the best idea for this initial interaction.

"Yet no. You and Rex stay. Protect village."

"What?" Rex and I asked at the same time.

"You heard me. Rex young, weak, now."

He grabbed Rex's leg and lifted him up by it. Thankfully, the Rodenti companion wasn't hurt by the sudden movement. "This proves Rex can't fight."

"You don't even know how that happened," I protested.

"Yeah, we were fighting a Lumerin who controlled these spiders, and she went crazy with the spells," Michael tried to help.

"No matter. Rex injured. Proof he can't fight. Too much risk to bring along."

"But Father," Rex protested.

I knew it was pointless to try to convince his father to let his son fight in a battle this dangerous, so I tried something else. "Okay, so he stays. Why can't we go?"

As the words left my mouth, I saw Rex's expression. It was a mix of shock and betrayal that left a bad taste in my mouth.

"You came with Rex. Can't fight without him. He doesn't fight. You don't fight."

"Are you saying that you will only let the people who come here to fight if whoever brought them here is going to fight too?" I asked.

"No. That Different. You different kind, other rules."

"And who makes those rules?" I couldn't help but lean back while crossing my arms.

"I do. I keep peace. I Chieftain." Ash replied with a serious expression.

I didn't really have a way to argue against that. We were quite literally in a place where he was king.

"Rex is strong. We can prove our strength," Michael finally spoke up.

Ash raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. You're saying Rex is not strong enough to fight, so let us prove that he is." I suggested.

We can have a duel or something to show that we mean business, right, little man?" Michael turned to Rex, who quickly nodded in response. "Just say how."

Ash thought for a moment. "Very well. To south of brother village, people go missing. Rumors of flying monster. Kill it and bring back proof. I'll consider you joining."

"And are you just going to say that? Are you not going to give us any more information?" I asked. The last thing we needed was to go out on a wild goose chase while the fight started. That very much sounded like what Ash was trying to make us do.

"Ask brother village chief. Information."

"And if we do that, we can participate in the fight against the nest?" I pressed. I wanted to hear the words. Otherwise he could pull some crap that we didn't fulfill our end of the bargain.

Ash just stared at me and said, "Bring proof of Rex strength. If enough, he can join. So can you."

I nodded and turned to Rex, who quickly got up and started walking out of the door. He didn't look towards his father again. Not yet. He just started moving in the direction of the rock tunnel that we had just taken to get here.

No one felt like saying anything else for a while since it was pretty obvious our Rodenti companion was hurt by his father's rejection. I also was feeling a bit bad since I knew my suggestion might have hurt his feelings, but it was hard to approach that kind of subject with someone who was still hurting because of what I said.

"Say, Riley. Think we can do something like that giant spell?" The archer asked.

Riley turned to Michael with a confused expression. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Nithera used the trees to make this spell to get stronger, right?

"We are assuming that to be the case, yes," Riley nodded.

"Then, can we make something similar so we can attack the nest more easily?"

"My best guess is I don't know. I feel like Nithera made the spell in a way that the trees grew around the spell. So, it took quite a while to get that big. I don't think we were in a circle or something like that. I quite literally think that even the village was part of the circuit of the spell. So, I don't know if it would be possible to make something like that to use against the nest. Not unless we carve something through it. We could probably figure something out to protect the village here, but it should be a defensive thing, not an offensive one."

"That's a shame. It could really help us a lot," Michael sighed.

But while that conversation was going on in the back, I was still trying to figure out what to say to Rex. Eventually, when we were about halfway to the rock tunnel, Rex stopped and turned towards me, his eyes focusing on mine.

"Does friend think Rex weak?"

I was taken aback, but I stared at him for a moment before shaking my head. "No. Not weak, but I don't think you're strong either."

"Not weak but not strong," Rex frowned.

"I don't think the four of us are particularly strong either."

As I said that, Astrid crossed her arms.

"We might be strong for humans, but not overall. Not when we are comparing ourselves to everybody. I mean, the Lumerin had the System for a long time, and they can easily reach tier 2. If we are talking about someone really strong. They would be," I glanced back towards the group of houses where the chieftain lived. "Well, like Ash. Someone who can single-handedly protect the village unless something massive happens. And I honestly don't think that any of us are anywhere near that level."

Rex continued staring at me. "Then why friend tried to leave Rex behind?"

"I wasn't trying to leave you behind, little man. I was trying to figure out a way to complete our mission. Getting the information we need from the Hatchery Eater is important. If we don't, then Lethea won't be able to figure out why our world is going to end. And if it ends, then everybody dies."

"Can we say that to Father?"

"Well, I don't know if he's going to believe us. Besides, will he believe us just because we saw a bunch of jellyfish on the beach?"

Rex stopped for a moment before shaking his head. "No. Father won't. Nest more important."

"I imagined it would be the case. Otherwise, you would have told him the real reason why we want to join the fight. I had a feeling you didn't want to do that."

" You're right. But Rex not weak."

"You are not, little man. But you have to agree that you're not very strong either. I mean, you're great in a fight if there's someone to protect you. But if you're on your own, do you think you could fight any of us?"

Rex's eyes shifted between the four of us. He stopped at Riley, about to say something before shaking his head. "No. Rex can't win against you."

"And that's what I was thinking. Not that you're weak. It was just a way to see if we could join the fight. Because I'm not really sure if your dad is going to let us."

"Father said if bring proof of Rex's strength, let us join."

"Yes, but he wasn't specific about what would be the proof. I mean, what if we just bring a severed head and say it's the monster? Is that going to work, or is he going to say we have to do something else? Or is he going to just say that that's not proof? That we could have killed the monster and just let you hit it after it got killed?"

"Father won't do that."

"Can you be sure?" I asked, which made the small Rodenti pause.

Eventually, he just shook his head. "Still, have to try. Have to prove."

Hearing that, I nodded and saw the rest of my companions nod as well.

"Of course we're going to figure out a way to prove to him that we are worthy of being part of the fight," Michael said with a smile.

"And if it doesn't work, we can just sneak out and join the fight, anyway. Once your dad sees us, there's not much he can do to stop us," Astrid said, placing a finger over her own mouth and turning to Riley. "Too loud. Don't let them hear."

I smiled before we continued moving towards the rock tunnel. We had another plan that wasn't exactly what we wanted to do, but at least it moved us a little further towards our goal. The only thing we needed to be careful of was not to allow the attack to start while we were far away. Which meant that whatever monster we were going to hunt, we would have to get to them quickly and get rid of them even faster.

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