Deciding that it was probably time to head back to avoid any questions, he nimbly climbed back down the tree, which would be more appropriately described as jumping from branch to branch. His senses were at full alert as he could meet a beast at any moment in time, by chance one that he couldn’t handle.

He opened the map for the first time, realizing that it was just like any other map you would find in an RPG game. Other than the path he took to get here, everything else was black, even the areas he explored with the Spectator feature. But that worked for now, as it gave him a clear path back to the cottage.

‘El, what’re the criteria for filling out the surrounding map?’ He asked that as he could see a clear difference in the thickness of the explored area on the map, as it was quite thin at the start and then it suddenly widened.

‘It depends on your senses, that’s why your area of coverage increased so much when you equipped the artifact. You should probably think about investing some SP into the sub-systems features to make them more useful.’

Theo acknowledged that Eileen had a point. Even though the Spectator feature was just at lvl0, it was already quite powerful, even if he didn’t find that much use in it this time. He decided to check out what all of his features and skills did later, or at least get the general idea of it.

Theo continued his journey back without interruptions, until about a kilometer and a half away from the cottage. He suddenly caught a sweet scent in the wind, a scent he was already familiar with.

Right after the scent, his ears also caught sounds of soft footsteps, footsteps of someone used to maneuvering through the forest, and quietly at that.

Deciding not to take risks, as he wasn’t too familiar with this realm’s power system, or what its residents were capable of, he decided to stop running and move at normal walking speed. He realized that he had another thing on his to-do list, and that was integrating all of his vessel’s memories so he could make better decisions in the future, as you never know when such knowledge was needed, especially in a life-or-death situation.

He continued at such pace for another minute, until…

“Theo?” A melodic voice reached him.

“Oh? Hi, what are you doing here?” He pretended he didn’t notice her until now and turned towards the source of the voice. Although the trauma of the curse still lingered, the new mentality gained from the artifact stopped Theo’s stuttering and dissipated most of his nervousness, as if telling him that if it wasn’t fatal, there was no need to be afraid and not to show any weakness.

“It’s already been two hours since you left and I started to get worried, so I decided to come and check on you.” The genuine worry touched Theo, but it didn’t show on his face, whether because of his wolfish instincts or social inability was anyone’s guess.

“I’m sorry, I decided to take a stroll in the forest and got lost.” Theo offered the first excuse that came to mind.

“It’s ok, I probably shouldn’t have let somebody that almost died the day before wander the forest alone at night anyway. Come with me, the house is this way.” Vanessa led the way and Theo followed, which created an awkward silence between the who.

As Theo traced her steps, he was constantly assaulted by the sweet scent that came from her, he never smelled anything like it before, so he couldn’t exactly categorize it. His body reacted to it by slightly heating up and his eyes unctuously locked onto her shapely behind that was covered by her beige dress.

Realizing what he was doing, he quickly took his eyes away and looked at a nearby tree as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

His nervousness overwrote his canine instincts and made him try to fill the awkward silence, which he did by blurting out the thing that was currently on his mind.

“You smell nice.” His sentence made her pause her steps and it took him a moment to realize what he just said, when he did, he quickly tried to salvage the situation. “I mean, what perfume do you use?”

“I-I, umm, don’t use perfume.” This was the first time he heard her lose her composure, granted it was only the second time speaking to her. But her answer confused him, he didn’t know if she was lying, but he decided to give her the benefit of doubt since this was a fantasy world and things didn’t exactly follow the logic he was used to.

She resumed her steps, although they were now a little more hurried than before. The awkward silence continued as only the sound of branches and dried leaves being crushed under two pairs of feet could be heard.

Theo didn’t know what to do as he made the third person he met after getting a new chance at life feel uncomfortable, especially after she was so nice to him.

The logical and introverted side of him thought that staying quiet would be the best option, to prevent any further awkward situations, and that was also his initial plan. But the sweet scent that continued to assault his nostrils made his body heat up and compelled him to discard any thoughts of distancing himself from her. Even his predatorial instincts didn’t want him to back away.

His mind eventually reached some sort of compromise and decided to go with an apology.

“I’m sorry if my previous comment made you feel uncomfortable.”

This time she didn’t stop however and answered while walking.

“Oh, no, it’s ok.” But she still fidgeted with her hands that were out of Theo’s line of sight.

Theo didn’t know how to proceed after that, so he decided to just be honest.