"Uhhh... Man... Talking about being reckless and amazing at the same time." Soren said weakly as he was waking up and remembering the last moments of the battle.
He felt pretty proud of himself, due to the fact that not only did he beat a strong opponent, but he was also sure to level up into level 10 or maybe even 11 if he was lucky enough. he still wondered thought what was the sudden power surge and at the time, he barely got a glimpse on the panel which showed that. He wanted to get some more thinking in as well, but actually wanted to know what happened while he was unconsious, but he could barely see anything within this dark room. So his next course of action was to use his 6th sense to get an idea about the location and once he activated that, he was suprised to be found in some sort of bedroom and the place he was laying on, was an actual bed. After looking around a little bit more, he saw that this room was furnished and he even saw a small bag on a table nearby, so after getting up with some trouble, he went to the bag and check its contents. Luckily, it was his bag, since it had the wolf corpses, his camping gear and even his rations, but it also had the entire corpse of Torque inside it.
"Did Lavenza put the corpse in after we beat it? Or did the owner of this place do that instead?" Soren said while being in thought. His next course of action was to get out of this dark room, so with a little bit of trouble, he found the door and after he opened it, he was greeted with quite the sight. It was small corridor that led to a big room that looked like a living room and in that room, there were Lavenza, Lumious the Crystal Charger who helped them fight Torque and a blond mermaid with a fur overcoat that covering most of her body, a pale yellow tail, a pair of red eyes and some sort of rabbit ears that were sticking from her head.
"Would you look at that? Our patient finally woke up." The lady with the bunny ears said playfully.
"Reny~!" Once Lavenza saw Soren, she charged at him as fast as she could and hugged him, because she was very worried about him after the battle, due to the injuried he sustained.
"Hey hey. You okay mister?" Lumious was the one to speak next with the voice of a young boy, something which suprised Soren quite a lot since he assumed that Lumious was just a wild beast that couldn't talk.
"Owowowow. Calm down Lavenza, I'm still in lot's of. Ow, pain." Soren said painfully while holding himself from screaming loudly.
"Easy now little girl. Your little friend is still teetering a bit on the line of life and death thanks to those injuries, so I would avoud doing anything sudden." The rabbit-eared mermaid said with a calm and caring expression.
After she said that, Lavenza let go of Soren and then Soren asked:
"May I ask where are we or how much time has it been since I lost my consciousness?"
"The location is actually a secluded cottage a couple dozen kilometers away from that big city to the east. As for the amount of time you were unconscious, it has been about half a day and you should probably rest for at least, a day so, unless you want to die suddenly from your injuries. At least you didn't have any serious injuries from stab wounds, so most damage was done by mana attacks." The rabbit-eared mermaid said with a calm and slightly smiling expression.
Soren felt a bit skeptical about this situation, so he decided to ask his big question, although he had an inkling about the reason:
"Why did you help me?"
"Lumi wanted to help you because you helped him and protected him from Torque. I swear, that son of a demon is one hell of a cowardly piece of scum, so I'm glad that rotten dirtbag is going to be twenty feet under the sand or turned into some guy's underwear." The rabbit-eared mermaid explained with an annoyed expression that showed hate for Torque.
"So that monster didn't have the best of reputations?" Soren asked curiously.
"Even its own race hated that coward." She said disdainfully and with a murderous look in her eye.
"I see... I don't think I have got your name, so?" Soren asked a bit nervously.
"Call me Leana and I believe you are already aquainted with my little son Lumious-"
"Call me Lumi instead." Lumious interupted.
"Lumi..." Leana looked at Lumious with an angry expression.
"Sorry mom." Lumious said apologetically.
"Anyways, what about you two?" Leana asked Soren.
"My name's Soren and her name is Lavenza. The two of us are adventurers, although we are rank F." Soren explained. At that moment, Leana was suddenly looking very serious and menacing before she asked:
"Do you have a quest that requires us as the objective?"
"No, my quest requires to hunt 7 different monsters, but since I already have 3 and two of them are tier 2, I just need to hunt tier 1 monsters and I'll be done in around a couple of hours at most." Soren explained seriously.
"Then have you killed any of our kind before?" Leana asked seriously again.
"Of course not. In fact, that battle with Torque was the first time I met with any of your kind." Soren explained with a fierce look on his eyes.
For a moment, there was a staredown with Leana and Soren while Lavenza and Lumious were staring at the two of them with a look of confusion.
"I see, then I guess you are fine in my eyes. Now, let's get something to eat, you are probably hungry." Leana broke the silence and then left the room.
Soren felt like a wave of pressure had been lifted from his shoulders at that moment and then decided to sit down on a nearby chair to rest a bit.
"Is Leana always that scary?" Soren asked while holding his head.
"It depends on her mood. Today just so happens to not be a very good day. Anyways, when will we play again Soren? I was hoping to play with you yesterday for a little bit yesterday, but that nasty guy decided to ruin the game." Lumious said dejected.
'Wait, he thought that we were going to play when I was out for his blood? Either he is confidnet or naive. Either way, this will go to the grave.' Soren thought to himself while maintaining an unmoving expression before saying:
"Too bad we missed our chance for playing. Oh well, we can always play at another time."
"Promise?" Lumious asked.
"Promise." Soren answered back with a smile. After that little exchange, Lumious and Lavenza decided to play around for a little bit and while doing so, Soren was left by himself in the living room. So without anything else to do, he decided to go outside and get his bearings a bit. Once he got out, he saw Leana and a mole like animal that was taking out bags from a hole in the ground. He had his questions, but he decided to let her finish her business before getting to talk with her. After checking around the area for a bit, he just couldn't tell where he was anymore. He knew that he was to the west of Crystalia City, but not the exact location so it could be pretty hard to return by himself without some sort of mapping tool.
"Are you done looking around little patient?" Leana sneaked behind Soren while holding a few bags with produce.
"Woah. Ouch. Don't scare me like that. Nearly made me pull a muscle out of my body." Soren said while holding his chest from pain while having a relieved expression.
"Sorry. Couldn't resist the opportunity. Teehee." Leana said jokingly.
"Do you need anything from me?" Soren asked seriously.
"I'll need some help with cooking you guys a meal. And no, you are not the meal." Leana said in a casual manner.
"I don't know if I was supposed to be complimented or not, but I'll take the fact of not being someone's meal." Soren said while holding his head with his right hand.
"Anyways, are you coming or not?" Leana asked a bit more seriously this time.
"Fine, but don't expect 5-star, master chef, level of culinary arts." Soren said jokingly while chuckling a bit.
"Alright, let's get going then invading hero." Leana said casually.
"Invading hero?" Soren felt insulted with those words but as he was going to retort, Leana's next sentence shocked him completely.
"Oh, sorry. I mean, otherworldy hero. Doesn't that fit you better, little kid?" Leana said with a casual but slightly menacing matter.