Skyla sat at a table on the main floor. She ate a plain hearty breakfast, everything was dark except a lone light on the tip of her finger. The sun had another hour or two until it rose from its slumber. Everything was quiet, except for the small footsteps coming from the barrack below her.
When she looked over at the door atop the stairs, she saw Lukas walk through.
"You're up early."
"Are you feeling better?"
She sighed as she lazily poked her food.
"Yes, enough to continue doing the same thing again. Just like I always did."
Lukas returned the folder to her, seeing as he didn't need to plan anymore.
"I saw your plans from yesterday. They were good. Maybe you should be a hunter instead of me."
Lukas laughed it off, but it didn't seem like a joke. At least not the way Skyla said it. Maybe it was a compliment, but it seemed like it was bordering on being a sarcastic insult. He couldn't be too sure.
"What are you looking at me for? If you need to kill time go help the night watch wrap up. Or go run some laps or something. Anything but staring at me this early in the morning."
"...Are you okay?"
"Yeah? I'm fine. Just because I'm not cheerful every waking hour of the day doesn't mean there's something wrong with me."
Lukas left the barracks after that. He feared he had done something wrong or that Skyla was upset with him. Maybe she was a little groggy after waking up, or even tired of the near non-stop ghast encounters she had been in. Not to mention the rare ghast she had faced multiple times, constantly fighting to death with no clear winner.
Or maybe nothing was wrong and Lukas could stop worrying over it. Maybe he could forget about it and focus on today. For starters, it was rainy and dreary. Kind of like how he felt.
'Nope, that's not helping.'
He tried to take his mind off of it. While he waited for Oak to wake up and search south of Mistfell, he trained. He simply repeated what he did last time, but a little faster this time. He condensed everything he did last time, trying to make the entire process faster.
He wanted to train using his kusarigama, or even something else entirely. But he wasn't trying to train, he was trying to kill time. But he also wanted to do something productive so this was his compromise.
Eventually, he was inevitably interrupted.
"What are you doing? You like crazy."
It was Oak. In fact, now that he began to look around, the sun had risen. He was so focused on repeating what he had done that he failed to notice the time passing.
"I'm... I'm trying to practise something. I don't think you would understand if I explained it."
"Oh, is it like a technique you're learning?"
"...Yeah, something like that."
"Cool! Well, if you're ready we should head south."
With a nod, they were off. Soon they reached the southern edge of Mistfell and split off like the last time they worked together. But once more they found nothing. The constant rain all morning and early afternoon didn't help either.
They didn't even hear a whistle, nobody found anything. They even considered heading back early but decided against it just in case. But by the time they did get back, and the night watch left, nobody in the entire station had found anything.
"Don't you think something was different about today?"
Oak had a hint of worry in his tone.
"Yeah... I don't know how to put it-"
"It was too quiet!"
"I would have said it differently, but ...yeah it was."
"I wonder... what if there aren't any more ghasts in the area? You think we might've gotten rid of them?"
Lukas thought about it for a moment. Recently, they did seem a little weaker. But he had only fought three, maybe he should ask Skyla or Kai about it.
"...Maybe. You might be right about there being no more, but I'm not sure if it was because we killed them all. They could have left the area, maybe they deemed it too dangerous. There's also the one rare ghast somewhere too."
"Oh right, but it's only ever gone after Skyla right? Or was she just the only one who found it?"
"I'm not sure... but in case something bad happens, I'm going to train tomorrow. Unless Skyla tells you differently, you might wanna stay near Mistfell as well."
"Wow, you're really starting to sound like a hunter. The way you commanded people the last few days was kind of impressive. Maybe you should talk to Wels about it."
"You think so? I felt like I wasn't doing enough. Everything was so stressful, I'm not sure I could do that again."
Their conversation continued the rest of the night, even losing them a bit of sleep. But after they winded down, the next day came again. Just like it always did.