We walked out of the village, following a large tunnel, much larger than even the Rock Fly Tunnel itself, and arrived at the outside world. The entirety of the village was inside the mountain, but the village itself was still on the ground below the desert. Unlike most of the other villages that we had seen so far, this one had no connection to a road or anything that was clearly from the old world.

Even the Brother and the Sister Village were so much closer to anything really. The Sister Village was near a road, and the Brother Village had some metallic towers that evidently used to be communication towers. I think they used to be power lines, but now they only served as monuments to the people that once lived on this planet. But the main village was away from everything. There were no roads, no structures, no signs of human life anywhere near them.

According to Rex, it would take about four hours of travel to reach anything that wasn't part of nature, and even that was just a small group of houses that seemed to exist from a very long time ago, even longer than the fall of the world. But our destination right now was to the north, going around the entrance to the village and moving towards another cluster of mountains. In one of them, there was a cave a few meters [ft] above the ground, and that's where Trix had created her garden and where the monster should be waiting for us.

Just as we stepped away from the entrance to the village, Michael asked us all to stop for a moment. He had something he wanted to say.

"Okay, so I know we're about to go after a giant monster that's apparently tier two or maybe even stronger, but I need you all to do me a favor."

"What favor?" I asked.

"I want everybody to promise that we are going in alive and we are coming back. All of us."

I chuckled, hearing that. "Of course we're coming back alive. Do you think we're going to die?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I want everybody to promise that we are coming back. That's our main goal. Not just getting the flower, not just proving to Rex's dad that we can be an asset in the attack on the Eater nest, not helping Trix, not anything. Our priority is that we come back. We go in alive and we come back the same way. Deal?"

"I don't know why you want to make this a promise, but fine. I Promise that we are all coming back."

I could see that he was being serious. Then again, it was understandable. We were about to fight a dangerous creature, and despite everybody acting like we knew what we were doing, every time we went after a monster, there was a risk that we wouldn't make it back.

"We make it back" Astrid nodded.

"Me too. That's probably one of the easiest promises I ever made," Riley said with a chuckle.

But Rex was staring at everybody with a confused expression.

"Rex can't promise that."

"Little man, aren't we friends?" Michael asked.

Rex nodded. "Yes, we are."

"Then that's a promise we make as friends. We go in, we do what we have to do, and we all come back."

"But what if Rex dies?"

"Then you need to come back. No matter what, you come back. If you do that, it proves that you're a real friend of ours, a real friend of mine. Deal? And if you don't know how you can come back from the dead, then you just don't die. You survive and you come back home."

Michael was clearly a bit frustrated that the Rodenti wasn't getting what he was saying, but he nodded nonetheless.

"Yes?"

"Again, we go in alive and we come back, even if we have to come back from the dead," Michael pressed.

Rex paused before nodding. "Okay. Rex promises."

I gave them a few seconds so that they could enjoy the little moment before adding, "That's fine and all, but just for the record, we should still make a plan."

"You have any ideas?" Riley asked the exact question I was hoping they would.

"I do. First, we're going to scout the area. No one is going to go there in a hurry. We're going to watch and see if we can find any signals of whatever is inside. If it's a monster, then maybe it's sleeping, or maybe it needs to come out and hunt. If we can't see it, we go inside and check and try to learn more about it. Only then we go after it to kill it. What do you think?"

"Brief but effective," Astrid noted.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Riley gave me a stare. "I mean, when you said you had a plan, I figured you would have something a bit more than that. It just feels very basic."

"Well, sometimes you need to go back to the basics, and we really don't know anything about this creature to warrant a more complicated plan," I shrugged before we continued moving.

Finding the cave was extremely easy. It took us just a bit over an hour to see it in the distance and another 40 minutes to arrive at its surroundings. And just like I suggested, the first thing we all did was look around for any possible markings or something that could give us some information about the monster. Unfortunately, even after almost an hour of searching, there was nothing. No footprints, no claw marks, no tracks, nothing that could tell us any information about this monster. Even Riley, who was quite proficient at tracking, and Astrid, who was the better hunter, couldn't find anything, not a hint of what this monster was like.

In the end, we agreed that the only thing left to do was to actually go up the mountain and try to look into the cave ourselves. The cave wasn't that high, only around 3 meters [9.8 ft] above the ground, so it wasn't really a problem for anyone to get up there. Despite Riley not being someone who focused a lot on their physical prowess, they were nimble enough to climb. Astrid barely had to exert any effort and jumped to grab the ledge, and Michael was quick enough to step up to the cave.

Rex just used a skill to raise a piece of rock along the side of the mountain while silently stopping anyone from hearing his movements before arriving there. As for me, {Compression} was my go-to way of solving this kind of issue. Especially now since my stats were higher, I just held on tightly to the side and made it function as an elevator, bringing me up towards the cave.

We had considered sending only one person up first, but after a brief discussion, everybody agreed that this could be a bad idea. After all, what if the creature was right at the edge of the cave, lurking just a few meters [ft] inside? Sending one person would be the same as sending that one person to their death.

Without making a sound, we all stepped into the cave, everybody with their weapons at the ready just in case the monster had noticed us and decided to attack. Each step echoed around just enough, covered by the wind outside. Before we crossed deeper into the cave, Michael tapped on my shoulder and gestured for everybody to gather. Not really sure why, I just followed as we all got closer and placed our hands together in a circle at his request.

Michael: Sorry about this, but I wanted to make sure everybody remembered their promise. You do remember, right? We go in alive and…

Rex: Come back dead!

Michael sent his message to the System, but the one who replied to him first was Rex. The Rodenti had a big smile on his face and was feeling very proud of himself.

Cassandra: What?

Rex: You said, come back even if dead. So go in alive and come back dead.

I stared at Rex's explanation and turned to Michael.

Cassandra: You know, this is what you told him.

Michael held back a groan and turned to Rex.

Michael: Does that mean you can die in there?

Rex: No. Rex can't come back from dead, so Rex can't die. Will try!

Michael: Rex, this is a promise between friends. And if you break a promise like that, then we're no longer friends."

Rex's eyes went wide.

Rex: If Rex break promise, then Michael no longer friend?

Michael: This promise, yes.

He turned towards me, and I nodded, and so did Astrid, then Riley.

Rex was clearly a bit too eager to prove himself, and we were all starting to get worried about his survival instinct. Even after Michael told us to promise that we would come back, the way he was acting still felt a bit too cavalier with the possibility of dying.

But now it seemed like he finally understood why we were so worried. Or at least, we were putting something he valued more than his own life as collateral in case he were to die. While that was somewhat worrying, it was also quite sweet of him to put more importance on our friendship than his own life.

Rex: Rex understands. Make sure not to die. Don't break promise with friends.

Michael: Okay, so let's try this again. We go in alive and?

Rex: Come back dead.

Riley: Come back dead.

Astrid: Come back dead.

Cassandra: Come back dead.

We all said at the same time.

Michael stared at this with an exasperated look.

'Sys, can I send a message just to Michael even though we are touching everybody?' I asked

[That is possible, yes.]

'Then send this to him.'

Cassandra: I don't think the message is as important as understanding what it means. So if that's how Rex wants to say it, just go with it.

Michael stared at me for a moment before letting out a sigh and shaking his head.

Michael: Good enough. Let's go.

We continued moving into the cave, being very careful not to make noise, just as we were before, but now with a promise to come back no matter what. Despite that always being my intention, it felt different to have said that was the plan. Almost as if now that this decision wasn't just in my mind, I was expected to follow through even more.

We slowly walked deeper into the cave and started to notice the small plants that covered the entire place. Trix had been busy making this cave hers, as the variety here was nothing short of incredible. I really wanted to pull Riley aside and ask about the kinds of spells that were functioning here, but it wasn't really something that we could do right now. After all, we were about to fight a monster, and when that fight was over, we would have time to check everything here.

We continued moving until we reached a large area, much larger than everything else that we had seen here. There was a small field of grass in the center, countless plants and flowers all around the place. But there were two things that really stood out to anyone who was looking at this. First was a small bush of beautiful red and orange flowers that were somewhat long, almost like giant spikes. They looked a lot like wolfsbane and should be, according to the color, the Lionsbane that Trix told us about.

The other thing, the much larger thing that was clear for all to see, was the two and a half meter [8.2 ft] tall bear that was sleeping by the field of plants. It had mostly gray fur with a few white patches around its body, a very large black nose that pulled down, giving it a human-adjacent face, and two small beady eyes in the middle of its head. Together with a pair of round ears that would be considered cute if not for the creature being this big. In addition to all that, it was also chewing on a eucalyptus leaf that was growing just by the Lionsbane.

It was an animal that I always wanted to see but never expected to find in a place like this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rampaging Koala - Tier two ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.