Stanis narrowed his eyes. From what he had seen so far, Yora Village should not be able to, in the least, contest a village with 5 times their population. This either meant that they hadn't told him the whole story or they were hiding something. Caleb must have thought the same thing as he voiced his Stanis's thoughts.

"So how are you still alive?"

It was worded succinctly and shared the grey line between a question and an insult.

"Ha-ha, that's because it's not just us who think Haven is a blight on Humankind. We haven't been able to check all the way but from what we have seen, we think there are more than 4 other villages currently fighting with Haven."

Stanis wrinkled his brows. Considering the fact that Haven was fighting so many enemies at once, it either meant that their leadership was extremely foolish, or more likely, Haven was using the villages to train up their weakest. Meaning that the strongest most likely just stayed in their personal Haven.

Stanis got up and cracked his neck.

"That all sounds good" he said, "So as I said before, these 3 will join your war effort."

The 3 of them had been reluctant before but were now fine, after all, they had thought up the same scenario as him. They only had to get deep into Haven before finding enemies of their calibre, hopefully.

Stanis took in the scene once more. He could see a feeling of loss in Alyona's eyes, a feeling of mistrust in Drak's and a clear-cut pleading in Jayesh's. He merely smiled before turning away, walking out of the building. He would never accept rape and such things but nor was he a knight on a holy crusade. He had more important uses of his time.

He walked out into the fresh air and immediately felt hundreds of eyes on him. It came as no surprise to him that 100s of people had crowded around the village hall, curious about the goings-on in the building. His exit was suddenly interpreted as exactly what it was, people fearfully getting out of his way as they realised he wasn't going to help in the war.

Stanis didn't necessarily hate attention, but he hated the frightened attention he was getting right now. Not that he would change his ways for these people, no, they'd soon come about his way anyway and so it was all fine.

He wandered around, trying to find the supply centre. This was as good as wandering aimlessly as the supply centre had transformed into a marketplace months ago, typically using rewards from the Storage stones to barter.

It was close to 30 minutes later, after a thorough going through the village, that he found the market. It was then that he realised he hadn't received a Storage stone in over a month. The Spectres, weirdly, hadn't dropped any and Stanis had grown to accept that as the norm, now being slapped back to this insane reality where it wasn't.

It was, however, to his joy that he figured out that none of the market sellers wanted to charge him, something he would learn to faithfully abuse in little time. But that was for the future, right now he only picked up a good pair of shirt and trousers, a bar of soap and a bottle of alcohol. He did try on a pair of shoes, only to be thoroughly discomforted, as well as a set of armour, only to seconds later rip through the fabric with his finger.

And thus he left the marketplace with these 4 items, walking towards the stream. The number of eyes on him had decreased over the duration but never lower than 5, something Stanis didn't care about as he stripped himself and washed.

He had grown accustomed to the dirt having lived with the Jaguars for over a month but he also understood that it wasn't the best look or hygiene, although that mattered little with his stats. Having spent all his time in the sun last month, his skin was back to a healthy tan. He had the figure of a shredded bodybuilder due to all his strength and low body fat percentage. This wouldn't stay because as said before, he would soon learn to abuse the market sellers' generosity, but right now he looked amazing. Or well would have done was it not for the countless scars marking his flesh.

Stanis washed himself raw with the soap and sliced his hair to a more controllable length by using his hand with a covering of mana. He threw Sil's old trousers down the stream and got into his new ones, ones which not only looked nicer but also were far more comfortable.

He then strolled into the Forest, humming as he did so. It was these moments of calm that Stanis truly feared because it was during these times that he would, by any method possible, slack off. He greeted the Jaguars as he went in, far more amiable to these animals than his fellow humans in the village, before walking to Serb's new boss base.

Serb was lying on the ground with his body stretched out, Niss and another female Jaguar called Zu massaging him…

"Stanis, good to see you" laughed Serb.

"You too" said Stanis as he opened the bottle of liquor. Stanis didn't know the name of it but he knew that all the liquor had been several times strengthened in order to work on their strengthened bodies. And the one he had taken had been the strongest one there.

He took a deep glug before throwing it over to Serb, who had Zu pour it into his mouth as he lay there.

"Mmm" There was no need for words as the two silently sat, and lay, for a few minutes.

"You know…"

"I know" cut in Stanis.

"That's fine then" ended Serb, yawning loudly as he did so.

Being as strong as they were, they instinctively understood what others would need convincing. This was due to the amount of pain and hardships they had to trudge through in order to get to this point of strength this far into the apocalypse.

What Serb had meant to remind him was that the Jaguars couldn't stay here forever without something to sharpen their claws against. They simply could not relax with their current strength knowing that stronger enemies would definitely come by later on. If Stanis couldn't find a decent enemy for the Jaguars to begin fighting against in about a month's time, forget their partnership, the Jaguars would simply leave and search for one by themselves.

Stanis talked a bit with Serb and a few of the other Jaguars before leaving. They had left the Jaguar's territory early morning, reaching and fighting here around midday. Stanis had spent a few hours doing the rest of his things and thus now it was dusk, the sky burning golden.

The village had returned similar to what it was on a normal day, the whole area bustling with noise as Stanis walked through. With his new clothes and clean body, most didn't recognise him until squinting their eyes, yelping backwards in shock once they did. Other than that, Stanis moved through the village without incident and reached the Smithy, standing far larger and prouder than he remembered it being.

It was no longer open to all as a massive wall had been erected around it, a small gate the only entry in. There was a large, grim man by the gate, guarding it with scrutiny. Stanis didn't know what had changed but he knew he would soon figure out and so calmly walked towards the gate.

The gatekeeper hadn't actually been in the war, instead one of the few people left in the village in order to defend it in case of a surprise ambush. He had heard wild and frantic stories about what had happened outside from his buddies but the current Stanis looked nothing like what he looked a few hours back.

This was why when Stanis attempted a manoeuvre in that the gatekeeper stepped directly in front of him. It was during the long passing second that a call came out from behind Stanis.

"Ruun, he's allowed in."

The large man grunted at this and moved out the way.

Stanis turned around and saw a plump looking Kevin. Kevin, who worked at the tannery, had been a slim, greying man whose key feature had been his haggardness. Somehow, following the day Stanis had left, Kevin had worked his way up and now had quite a bit of chub to his body.

"Kevin?"

"Ai Stanny-dog. I'd thought you'd died or sommin. I'd thought the day had just been a pleasant dream when I'd woken up" said Kevin while he wrapped his arm around Stanis's back and pushed him forwards.

Inside the walls was a large Forge, several sets of equipment all over the place. He had seen them from the outside but the plumes of smoke and steam looked far more impressive up close, the whole environment about 20 degrees warmer within the walls.

There were also consistent clanging and smashing noises, several tough-looking men and women continuously hammering steel. From the centre of these 4 people came a rumbling bellow, adding layers to the background volume.

Stanis and Kevin moved in closer, Stanis peering his head as he saw that the bellower was actually Rikkey. Her closely cropped hair was still there, her face and arms still caked with soot. She had quite a bit of definition to her arms and was viciously attacking the steel in front of her with a ravenous wolf's drive. She was wearing tough, dirty clothes which stuck to her skin due to the sweat.

"HEY RIKKEY, LOOKIE WHO COME BACK" roared Kevin, fighting the volume to be heard.

The clanging and smashing and crashing stopped at this, all 5 blacksmiths finally leaving their personal little world filled with smoke and steel as they looked up, seeing a well-defined looking Asian guy. Some of the blacksmiths cringed while others openly laughed; they didn't know who this man was but they sure as hell knew that Rikkey hated to be interrupted during her sessions, especially by Kevin.

It was to their surprise, surprise so great that a few recoiled back, that they saw Rikkey beam up, screaming as she moved in to hug Stanis. The one who was the most confused, however, was Stanis, beyond confused why Rikkey was so joyful to see him…