It probably took another hour of swimming with the sun starting to set off in the horizon in the direction of the ocean before the stampeding buffalo had finally run its course. Or at least he no longer heard the repeated pounding of hooves and the cliffs weren't shaking so he assumed they were gone.

  Quill began to scale the cliff. Taking his time as he was quite frankly exhausted both physically and mentally, with his back still aching from his wound from the weasel. It felt like it had been a very long day.

  “That might be because it has been. Before the system integration your planet had a 24-hour day cycle? Well it has been a solid 30 hours at this point and only now is the sun starting to set.” Grey responded with some actual helpful commentary

  “Great, so now my internal time can get messed up outside of a dungeon as well as inside… wait.” his brows furrowed as a thought dawned on him. “You've been keeping track of time? Don't tell me you could have been doing that the whole time I was in the tutorial dungeon and didn't?”

  She let out a mischievous little snicker “Okay. I won't tell you.”

  He groaned at that and wanted to yell at her but that would just lead to pointless futility and he could probably see her locking his body up so he'd fall off the cliff and into the water if for no other reason than just because she could.

  “ I feel like you have a very negative opinion of me.” she said in the most unserious tone ever.

  I wonder why”

  “Truly a great mystery. It's not my fault I'm trying to spice up your life with some excitement. You can't tell me you haven't had at least a little bit of fun throughout this crazy little Adventure over the past few months.”

  “Yes I can! I have not been having fun at all!”

  "Liar.” He could have sworn he saw her grin in his mind and his body let out an involuntary shiver.

  Not dignifying her with a response, he pulled himself up over the ledge and back onto the grassy plains. You would think after several hours of giant metal Buffalo trampling all over the ground that there wouldn't be any grass left. Surprisingly though none of the grass seemed particularly disturbed, only a little flattened but even that wasn’t too bad. For the hell of it he casually casted a identify on some of the grass

  Wind grass

  Grass that has absorbed energy from an f grade Zone within a high wind area. Has some medical properties

  Well that was neat. Didn't really help him at all or explain why it survived a ton of Buffalo trampling over it. But still neat.

  “So are you going to follow those Buffalo or are you going to take the lame decision and go the opposite direction?”

  “For someone who claims to know me really really well, you’d think you wouldn't have to ask such questions.”

  “Well I was hoping you'd surprise me. Can't you do it for me?”

  “Absolutely no-” he paused and carefully examined himself.

  “What is it?”

  “You haven't done anything to me, right?”

  “Done anything to you? No. I mean I think about doing a lot of things to you, many of them happening within the confines of a lovely bedro-”

  “I ASK” he quickly cut her off “Because I'm not mad when I talk to you. I should be mad. Or at the very least I should not be so casually and easily responding to you. Plus when I try to get mad, it's an emotion I can't quite seem to grasp. So let me rephrase my question, what have you done to me?”

  “Paranoid aren't we?” she sounded almost bemused. “I have kept to my word, I will not actively do anything to influence your emotions or memories or yada yada yada. And I've kept doing it because I 100% respect your autonomy.” he couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic there or not but before he could even say anything else she quickly followed up.

  “Perhaps ignoring me when I'm literally inside your head talking to you is just a little more difficult than you had anticipated. Maybe I'm just more charming than you thought. Or maybe, Just maybe, there is some part of you who completely agrees with what I've said and that we are genuinely destined to be together forever. Or perhaps it's just some other reason that you don't know and I don't care about. Though perhaps you just can't get mad because of how cute and adorable I am. The important thing is that you are talking to me from my perspective. But deep down I think there's one major factor at play with all of this.”

  “And are you going to enlighten me on what this major factor is?”

  “You’re just lonely.”

  Her words were met with a dead silence as he took them in before he growled, it felt like she was telling the truth loathed as he was to admit it. But he didn't know if that was because she was still doing something or if it was legitimately his own thought.

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  “Oh calm down, worrying about it isn't going to get you anywhere. And before you say anything, yes I could be just saying this to distract you but I am not. In fact, you're a smart guy with an active imagination. Just go through the conversation we would be having in your own head and you’ll save us both the headache because by the end of it, nothing will have changed.”

  He opened his mouth to retort but realized she kind of had a point much to his jargon. He could easily see the both of them just rehashing everything they said before and he knew where the conversation would inevitably end up. At the end of the day it all boiled down to him just needing to get her the hell out of him.

  “That's the spirit!… I think?”

  Instead of responding back to her he jogged over to where the forest lining was, and while making sure not to step into the e-grade zone, he gathered up some branches and twigs. He then proceeded to dig a fire pit and got some fire going.

  “OH! That reminds me, obviously not now because you will 100% die. But do make sure you go hunt and kill that filthy weasel when you have the chance. I’m sure they will make a nice scarfe.”

  “I’ll think about it.” This was obviously a lie as he wasn’t really bent on finding that weasel and enacting some pointless revenge. So instead he focused on the fire that was now starting to burn higher. He made it so he could dry himself off quicker but for all he knew night was going to be really cold and he would have preferred to have some fire.

  “You know the fire could easily attract monsters right?”

  “Yes the thought did occur to me” he let out exasperated. “But at the moment I just want to dry off. If there are monsters who get attracted to the fire then that just means I have something to cook after I kill and butcher them for their meat.”

  That earned a laugh from her. “ Okay, now that is the spirit! And while I was hoping for a little bit more excitement before you called it today. I suppose sitting by the fire as the sun slowly sets brings a wonderful sense of romance.”

  “Excuse me while I try not to gag.” he retorted as he hung up his clothes to dry before sitting down on the grass and watched the setting sun disappear across the Horizon while night slowly descended.

  The stars soon lit up the sky and Quill looked up into the air just admiring the beauty that he was gazing upon. He wondered if this was the same sky as back on Earth before the system integration, whether all these stars and untold beauty that was up above him were far different than before. He spent his entire life in the city, but always wanted to see a sky filled with stars. Once again he had to appreciate the irony of a world shattering event for him to actually do something he always wanted.

  Those thoughts reminded him of his goal to look at the Aurora Borealis. He had to wonder if the phenomenon still existed or if the system screwed that up. He couldn't even remember what caused the phenomenon in the first place and for all he knew, the whole integration screwed those prerequisites up and it was now forever lost. What a depressing thought that was. It also made him wonder if this was a new starry sky, would the old sky also be forever lost to them outside of whatever pictures might have survived? Would this change be met with Mourning or excitement?

  He slapped himself across the cheek before he could get any more introspective and quickly turned his attention back to the fire. “Right staring at the Starry Sky is probably left for something when I have more time to get introspective. Can't go questioning all of existence when existence is too busy trying to kill me.”

  “ If it helps, these quieter moments are good for you. It also just makes you look cute when your face both seems to relax and scrunch up at the same time while getting all contemplative and existential.”

  “All the more reason to do it later then. And yes I am being difficult, no I will not stop. In fact, you're a smart gal with an active imagination. Just go through the conversation we would be having in your own head and you’ll save us both the headache because by the end of it, nothing will have changed.”

  “Ouch, throwing my own words back at me so soon.” she let out a small sniffle “I'm so proud.”

  Not feeling the need to respond, Quill waited for his clothes to dry before dousing the fire. The night wasn’t that cold and it felt perfectly manageable so why advertise his position. As he closed his eyes, he made sure to have his enhanced hearing and touch turned on so that he might know of any potential attack coming. Even if sleeping on the hard ground with his enhanced touch on was incredibly uncomfortable. Despite this it only took a few seconds for sleep to take him.

  When Quill awoke, he groggily let out a yawn and slowly sat up while rubbing his eyes, noting that it was still dark out. “How long was I asleep?”

  “ About 6 hours, give or take a few minutes. How did you sleep, cutie?”

  “Like I could go for more if I didn't have to pee so bad.” he got up and stumbled a little bit of a ways away from his resting spot to relieve himself.

  Once that was done he briefly contemplated going back to sleep but also knew that it was unnecessary even if it was welcoming. So instead of wasting time lying on the ground he began jogging across the grassy strip.

  He could really appreciate the difference between the darkness of the open sky being much better and more relaxing than the oppressive darkness of the tunnels back in the tutorial.

  As he jogged he realized he didn't really know where he was going nor did he have any particular destination in mind. But that then meant it didn't really matter where he ended up either. Sure, theoretically speaking at least, there was a good chance he would absolutely care the moment he stumbled across it but for now in this moment it didn’t matter.

  His jogging continued on for several more hours, using the star and moonlight to see where he was going. Only ever stopping to eat some food and drink some water while overlooking the ocean and watching some strange birds fly around. They didn't look like the murder seagulls from before and they weren't bothering him so he wasn't going to bother them.

  It was a little discerning that he hadn't run across any other kind of animal or creature through his running but that could have also been explained away from the fact of what kind of idiotic monster would be traveling down a path that had just suffered a several hour long stampede. He knew he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't have any other choice.

  It was as if the universe itself was reading his mind, or perhaps it was the system. Either way, far off in the distance as he started his jog again, he spotted something moving and slowed his approach.

  He did his pillar manifestation and launched himself upwards and looked to the thing that was slowly trudging across the ground. It was thick and big. With a very long protrusion that jutted out of the top of its head almost like a goblin shark. The rest of it looked like a rhino and sort of gave off that impression too. A very big rhino sure but still a rhino.

  Dissipating his manifestation he debated on what he wanted to do. He could move off to the side and hope to pass by the creature unnoticed or he could try fighting it.

  “You’re acting like this is even a choice.”

  “You’re right. There is only one thing to do.”

  “Fight the monster!”

  “Avoid the monster!”

  They both spoke in unison which was quickly followed by a moment of silence before Grey broke it “Oh come on! Please???”

  “No!”