After stopping by The Kitchen the two made their way to meet with the others, Alexx eating two different meat skewers and Loran snacking on a strip of deer jerky. Soon enough they arrived at The Pit.

The Pit was the largest open clearing inside the village gates, being about thirty feet across with a large campfire in the center. There were several paths through the area that had been worn down by the near-constant foot traffic, but the majority of the space was still covered in the grass where players would sit and talk with their friends and teammates.

After walking around for a minute, they found Yin and Yang sitting near the currently unlit fire pit. As they approached the girls turned to face them, eyes going wide as they noticed the state of Loran's shoulder, which he hadn't bothered to patch up after the sparring match.

"Loran! Are you okay?"

"Holy shit, what happened?!"

"We, uh, had a sparring match out in the Training Field," Alexx said sheepishly, only now realizing how bad his friend's injury looked.

"Wait, you did that," Yin asked, surprised.

"No, the two of us fought another player named Zed," Loran explained as they sat down, "the guy was really damn good."

" Okay, so why are you just walking around like you don't have a hole in your shoulder?"

Loran shrugged, wincing slightly. "I mean it's not like covering it will make it heal faster, and moving won't proc a Bleeding debuff, so why bother?"

"Perhaps, but it's still vulnerable to infection, isn't it?"

"Sure, if this were reality," Loran said, "but we've been here for, what, a month now? People have been getting cuts and scrapes daily, but no one's gotten an infection."

"Yeah," Yang agreed, "I guess if anyone was gonna get sick that Moxie chick from last week would've been dead by now."

"Maxie," Yin corrected.

"Whatever."

"Also it's only been a week so an infection probably wouldn't-"

"Yeah, yeah," Yang said dismissively. "So do either of you know when Soze will arrive?"

"Nope," Alexx said, finishing off his skewers and shoving them into the dirt.

"He just said to be here around noon right," Loran asked, looking towards the sun, "I'd say we still have a few minutes."

"Yeah? Well, he better get here soon," Yang said, lying back in the grass with an irritable look on her face, "I need to know what sort of strategy he's come up with."

"Yang," Yin said empathetically, "you know joining a party is the better option at this point."

"We'll see."

"I mean there's safety in-"

"I said we'll see," Yang said, cutting Alexx off.

The four sat in awkward silence for a moment, which was thankfully relieved as one of them spotted Soze making his way over to them.

"Okay," Soze said as he got closer, "first of all, what the hell happened to-"

"Don't worry about it."

"...You'll be healed by tomorrow right?"

"Yeah, no problems there." Loran had taken around 20 damage from Zed's spear, and while he did have the [MINOR WOUND] debuff, its duration was only 18 hours. 'Technically I'll be waking up injured, but I'll be fine by the time we start hunting for real.'

"Okay then," Soze sat down with them, "shall we get started?"

"I assume you already have a strategy to work off of," Yin asked.

"Yeah, the hunting parties have been keeping track of where they manage to find any Spined Deer, they seem to show up more to the north of the village so tomorrow we'll follow the river for a while before moving north-west. Sounds good?"

"Yup."

"I guess."

"Seems correct."

"Makes sense."

"Okay, next is the party layout. During travel we'll move in two teams; Loran, me, and Yin will move in the forward team, while Yang and Alexx will follow about 50 feet bac-"

"Fuck no," Yang spat, jumping to her feet.

"Oh dear," Yin sighed, putting her hand to her face.

"May I finish?" he calmly asked despite Yang towering over him.

"No, I only agreed to this because Sis asked, now you're telling me, the tank, to hide in the back?"

"There's no guarantee that we'll run into a deer or anything dangerous. We need to be able to hunt small game as well."

"So you'd rather risk lives than risk a successful hunt?"

"Can't we talk this out?" Alexx tried to help.

"Not until I'm at the front so I can protect Sis," Yang glared at Alexx, who shrunk back from her cold gaze.

"You say that like you're able to protect her," Loran interjected.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you're the weakest person in the party." Loran had used [ANALYSE] to check everyone's status, and now that the Skill had reached Lv.10 he didn't need their permission to see all of their information.

[NAME]: Alexx

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 8

[EXP]: 600/900

[STATUS]

{HP}: 130/130

{SP}: 130/130

[END]: 13

[STR]: 42(+21)

[AGI]: 8

[DEX]: 8

[PER]: 8

[SKILLS]

[MIGHTY] Lv. 10

(Passive) Increase STR by 50%.

[POWER ATTACK] Lv.10

(Active: Cost 20 SP) The next melee attack deals increased damage equal to 100% of the user's STR.

[NAME]: Soze

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 9

[EXP]: 150/1000

[STATUS]

{HP}: 150/150

{SP}: 150/150

[END]: 15

[STR]: 10

[AGI]: 20

[DEX]: 20

[PER]: 15

[REMAINING ABILITY POINTS]: 3

[SKILLS]

[ANALYSE] Lv.10

(Active: Cost 10 SP) Allows the user to learn detailed information about a target.

[HUNTER] Lv.5

(Passive) Increase damage against beast targets by 15%.

[SPRINT] Lv.10(Master)

(Active Cost: 3 SP/sec) Increase movement speed by 100%.

[NAME]: Yin

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 10

[EXP]: 425/1200

[STATUS]

{HP}: 80/80

{SP}: 240/240

[END]: 16

[STR]: 9

[AGI]: 18

[DEX]: 18

[PER]: 21

[REMAINING ABILITY POINTS]: 5

[SKILLS] AP: 3

[CRITICAL STRIKE] Lv.10

(Active Cost: 20 SP) Increase damage of next attack by 50%.

[FAR SIGHT] Lv.10

(Active Cost: 1 SP/sec) Increase range of vision by 200%.

[HUNTER] Lv.6

(Passive) Increase damage against beast targets by 18%.

[SP BOOSTER] Lv.10

(Passive) Reduce HP and increase SP by 50%.

[NAME]: Yang

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 4

[EXP]: 100/500

[STATUS]

{HP}: 236.3/236.3

{SP}: 213.8/213.8

[END]: 15(+7.5)

[STR]: 12

[AGI]: 10

[DEX]: 10

[PER]: 10

[REMAINING ABILITY POINTS]: 2

[SKILLS]

[HP BOOSTER] Lv.1

(Passive) Reduce SP and increase HP by 5%.

[STALWART] Lv.5

(Passive) Reduce damage received by 5%.

[TENACIOUS] Lv.10

(Passive) Increase END by 50%.

"Why the hell are you reading my stats?"

"Because you're trying to make plans that make no damn sense. Tell me, just what is your plan aside from 'put myself between Yin and the target,' go on tell me." Loran crossed his arms, waiting for her answer. As far as he was concerned, Yang's stubbornness was just going to get her killed and endanger the rest of them trying to save her.

"Isn't that the entire point that me and Alexx are here?" she asked, legitimately confused, "we hold it down while you three take it out?"

"That doesn't mean-"

"Both of you stop," Soze said authoritatively. Loran and Yang flinched, briefly remembering that Soze was technically the only adult in the party. Soze turned to Loran, "first of all, Loran, shut up. I get that she isn't a 'real tank' in the RPG sense, but it's the best we have right now; and as for you," he turned to Yang, "if you had let me finish, I was going to say that me, Loran, and especially Yin have high enough PER to see these deer long before they see us. We will hunt normally and if we see one we will fall back, and let the two of you move in while the three of us encircle it. Any questions?"

Loran shrank back, his briefly forgotten anxiety rushing back to him all at once. Yang stubbornly stared at Soze for a moment, brow creasing as she mulled over his plan. As reasonable as it was, and even as she knew there wasn't much room to argue, she still didn't want to agree.

"Yang," her sister gently pleaded, "we need to do this, for both our sakes."

Loran wasn't entirely wrong, her level was the lowest not just in the party, but in the whole village. Because she couldn't hunt small game her only EXP had come from chopping down trees and crafting, but since she insisted on joining Yin on her hunting trips she didn't have much time to gather EXP effectively. She could have kept up by staying in the village and getting points through crafting, but she refused to leave her sister's side. Hunting the Spined Deer was Yang's only chance at staying by Yin's side without being left in the dust.

"...Okay, you guys take the lead," she sighed, sitting back down next to Alexx. Alexx himself was wide-eyed, not sure what to do throughout the entire argument.

"With that settled, any other objections?" Soze asked, looking around.

"Uh," Alexx raised his hand slowly, "just to be clear, I'm not supposed to be tanking like Yang right? I have way less health than she does."

"Right, Yang's advantage comes from her ability to take damage, yours is dealing damage," Soze explained, "focus on making your first hit really powerful, and-"

"And then I can use that to pressure it, right," Alexx finished.

"Exactly, so any other questions?"

"What if the plan doesn't work?" Yang asked, "like, what if something still manages to get the drop on you three?"

"Yang-"

"No, it's a fair question," Soze told Yin, "you don't have a plan unless you have a plan B after all."

"It'll probably be fine," Loran said finally ready to contribute, "Soze, you still practice with those knives?"

"Every day," he pulled one such stone knife out of a sheath and expertly twirled it around his fingers.

"And I've been getting some practice in melee combat, we won't be as good as the two of you but we can hold out while Yin retreats."

"Is that how you got hurt," Yang asked, skeptical of his abilities.

"Yes but we don't need to win, just hold out until you guys get there. It's not plan A material but it seems like a good plan B."

"Okay then, anything else?" The others were silent except for a few muttered 'no's. "Alright, I'll see you guys tomorrow at the North Gate at dawn, I suggest you all go over your equipment before tonight."

With that, the group split up to prepare themselves for tomorrow's hunt.