Those last words left us all confused, even me albeit less than the others. But we all decided not to dawdle in the enigma. The adrenaline in our system made it's it leaving most if not all of us on the precipice of falling unconscious. We all moved to the cave, it would make a good place to sleep but first, we had to make sure it was safe with no back exits where other monsters could enter from.
Jessie the other archer and the mages came to the cave to join us. The dark bags told a story of how tired they were.
"I'm beat! Not taking the first watch!!!" She managed to pull out her bedroll and set it up on one side of the wall before jumping in it. A seconds later it started moving up and down in a steady rhythm.
"She's got a point there, no one is willing to take the first watch and even if someone volunteers they won't be able to do it well. Most probably will nod off." Donny pressed his thumbs on his temples. "Let's make sure there is no exit on another side of the cave so we only have to worry about one way of attack."
The one of us who wasn't already asleep spread out to search the cave. Once done we all set up our sleeping areas in one area of the cave in case one of us was attacked.
The 5-6 hours we slept passed us awfully fast with no monster attacks thankfully. Setting things up to cook up a meal the memories of that morning bugged me. The nagging feeling of a missing memory or dream I had in my sleep kept me trying to remember but it kept itself just out of reach like the saying said 'at the tip of me tongue' just like the Legendary Sparrow said.
"I need my beauty sleep!!" Jessie whined from her bed roll.
"Get up, we are taking some rest to eat and then traveling back!" Briggs lightly slapped the flat of his sword on her butt. None of the vampire's blood remained on our weapons, Its blood turned to ash along with it and fell off them.
She let a playfully loud moan that bounced off the cave walls, or at least I thought she was playing around. "You can play with it later but let me sleep!"
Briggs surprised by the unexpected proposal and ignoring her playful tone fell into wonderland. Muttering 'hehehe' with a huge smile adorning his face like a hardcore simp getting a thank you text from an e-girl to whom he just transferred thousands of dollars into her bank account.
He came over to my side to help me set up a fire, there was no grass inside the cave for the fire to spread out so we forgo making a circle of rocks and instead looked for an area that would allow the smoke to exit the cave without difficulty.
"Guh.... Can't wait to get back to civilization, I miss the food already." Ranta said giving the stink eye to the dried meat in his hand.
"It isn't so bad, just a little dry. The money we will be rewarded with for the quest will be worth it." Moguzo sat beside him giving a huge bite of his dried meat.
"Stop whining and eat, we need something in our stomachs after such a long fight." Haruhiro tried to reign in whom I assumed was the whiner of the party.
"Shut up parupiro, don't talk like you don't miss the food!" Ranta jumped up and pointed a piece of dried meat at his leader.
"Ranta don't be mean! Plus Yume likes eating out here living in the wild, a sea of stars above us when Yume sleeps." A girl got in his face to admonish him and pulled back to go eat her food. She was a redhead with a bow strapped to her back and a quiver of arrows holding only two of them, she whore dark-brown thigh-high boots and red-brownish booty shorts. A brown vest covering a white shirt underneath it, a short cape around her shoulders, and fingerless gloves wrapped around her hands.
"Yes! This is great Yume, you are so right. You heard that parupiro learn to enjoy nature." Ranta cracked a huge smile and nodded agreeing with her but not forgetting to throw something at the thief.
Damn... I wasn't that hardcore of a simp as him for some girl in my last life, right?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tifa coming my way, her on Yume, her brows munched together and her lips forming a small frown.
She sat close to me, almost leaning on me. Her mouth nibbled on a piece of tried meat but her eyes never left Yume.
"Ok people, the fire is all set." With nothing to fuel the flames, I set a fire brid where the source of heat would be and kept it there.
"I will be cooking some of the meat we brought and some monster meat. Won't taste as good as a meal made in an inn or restaurant but better than the dried meat." Briggs set up rocks to hold up a pan over the fire.
"I'll help you cook, got no spices on me but I'm good at cooking." Moguzo ran up to him, he looked like a bear. Huge but it didn't seem like he was ripped only big boned covered in enough muscle to move that frame.
"Oh yeah!! Whatever Moguzo cooks becomes a feast!!" Ranta jumped at the idea.
"Does anyone need healing?" The calm confident voice of Marie asked from the entrance.
"Healing? Really you're offering it now, not in the fight?" Ranta slowly walked to her with heavy steps and a vein popping out of his temples.
"You did not need it back then, you just got some minor scratches."
"Ha, he was too!" He pointed at me." Yet you were healing him often, gonna switch parupiro for him now?"
At the notion of switching her crush for someone else, she stood up and clenched her fists. "No!! Never!" She gave a side eye to Haruhiro in hopes she believed her. "He was fighting that Vampire all alone, you had everyone backing you up, plus you were doing hit n run."
Haruhiro stood up and hugged her, "Calm down you know stupid Ranta is well stupid and a loud mouth." He sat back down with her in his arms. She took a moment in his arms enjoying the feeling and raised her hand to send a healing wave to everyone in the cave.
Ranta went back to sit on his rock and stared at the fire with a face like he just got grounded by his parents, then switched to either remembering we won the fight against the vampire -with a lot of losses- or him twisting his little spat with Mary into him winning. Or something else who knew.
"Ahh thank you, nothing like the fresh feeling of healing magic after a good beauty sleep." Jessie let out a moan and stretched like a cat before getting up. 'Floor was very uncomfortable but I needed to sleep and the healing fixed any pains."
"And I slept like a bear hibernating," Briggs said distracted by the meat searing on the pan. Moguzo beside him agreed, "Me too."
They continued their banter while the meat cooked. I sat by the fire thankful we were inside the cave with shade and not outside where the heat was brutal. Watching them banter the whole time made me think about myself if I was always this quiet, reserved, introverted. I only had about 4 friends that I interacted with regularly, the other kids from the orphanage were there but never got too close to be considered close friends. My parents were with me unlike Yoiichis and Lilith was there too, so why was I so quiet? Only making a comment once in a while? Did I want to be the center of attention? No, not really, I felt comfortable here in the back.
After some time the odor of delicious steak filled the cave, invading my nostrils and beating me mercilessly into being hypnotized and saliva built up in my mouth to the point it almost spilled out of my lips, down my chin, and onto the floor.
Tifa got up and unhooked her armguard to use as an improvised plate. She pinched a piece of meat and tossed it on the rm guard then did the same with another before walking back to my side.
"Take care not to burn yourself, give it some time." She told me fanning the meat with her hand.
The meat, even if it is no longer on the fire gave out the sound of burning fat. The aroma coming from it almost on my lap almost made me lose control. My stomach kept rumbling pushing me to eat it.
"Ok it's probably cool enough now." The sound settled down and she started trying to gingerly hold one edge of it.
I held my sword over both of our food to cut them in half before quickly throwing one half into my mouth. The meat even cooked without spices was delicious. A moment later my face split like pac-man and fire roared out.
"Hahahahaha!!!"Ranta was leaning on a rock, one hand pointed at me and the other banged on the wall of the cave. "You look like a pac-man that ate a super hot chilli!"
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Word Count 1603
If there are any grammatical errors let me know with a comment on the paragraph.
Thank you guys. I appreciate your reading so far.