Roseus returned to the real world to find that the beach had become chaotic.

In order for the scene to continue playing, he was required to keep the hat on the entire time. That meant that the threats of the ocean kept coming through. Only now had he removed the treasure.

He wanted to focus on the details of the scene, but he just couldn’t.

To his left, Dawn was using Ember Fang on a sea zombie, leaving a burned wound across its chest with her sword.

To his right, Jackson was on top of a zombie, using his Heavy Hands skill to cave its skull in with his fists.

Kruger had his gun drawn, aimed at another approaching sea zombie. He decided against shooting, as the noise could draw attention, so instead he ran at it, pulled his cutlass out, and stabbed it through its eye, sending blood splattering against the yellow sand.

Then, there was a larger creature that Roseus had yet to see. This creature was currently fighting against Petyr alone.

Its body was completely skeletal, and it was the size of a large man, standing roughly six-foot-six inches tall. There was no skin left on its bones, and it wielded no weapon. However, since it had abandoned its flesh, the skeleton was faster than the sea zombies.

Petyr stabbed with his fencing sword, but to no avail. With no flesh, such strikes hardly worked. So instead, he kept dancing around the creature as it tried to punch the fencer.

As for the remainder of the crew, none of them had melee skills, so they had clearly been told to drop back and surround Roseus whilst he was stuck in the scene.

Roseus pushed through the small group and barrelled towards the skeleton, yelling for Petyr to move out of the way.

The fencer looked back for a second before jumping out of the way.

The skeleton looked ahead at the new figure approaching. Confident that a sword could do it no damage, the creature charged to meet him.

Boosted by the speed increase granted by his father’s cutlass, Roseus dashed forwards with great agility. Once the distance was almost closed, he leapt into the air rather than swinging his sword.

His jump was higher than the human average and managed to catch the skeleton off guard. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Roseus lifted his foot and booted the skeleton in the chest, sending it tumbling backwards and falling onto its bony ass.

Being so tall and lanky, it struggled to push itself to its feet efficiently.

Before it could, Roseus landed atop it, driving his knee into its neck.

He heard bone crunch, and the skeleton’s skull shifted slightly.

It wasn’t enough.

Roseus placed his thumbs in the eye sockets of the skull, lifted his knee, and drove it down again.

Pain seared through his leg from the impact, and he felt his back wound opening painfully.

However, this time, the force from his knee cracked the skeleton’s neck in half, and the skull rolled away from the rest of its body.

The body went still and lifeless, not making a single noise as it reached its second death.

[You have defeated Skeleton]

[Common Soul Absorbed]

[The Ocean Beckons You...]

So that’s a Common creature. Stronger than the sea zombies and suckers, but weaker than the blood shark.

With this, Roseus was able to gauge the first four ranks of the sea creatures. He had not yet defeated one of the first rank, but knew that they were known as Fodder. That was because Petyr had stabbed a four-eyed harmless fish and absorbed one’s soul.

With the skeleton defeated, Roseus pushed himself to his feet. The sound of combat around him had died down, now that all of the zombies were dead.

Dawn turned to her captain. She was out of breath, and her messy blonde hair cascaded in front of her face, covering her singular eye. With the blood of zombies spattered across her white shirt, she looked menacing. The blade in her hand burned a slight orange from the use of her Ember Fang skill.

"What did you see, Rose?" she ended up asking.

Everyone turned towards the captain, who sheathed his sword and recalled the memories of his father’s crew.

The words that his father spoke to Blodwen the Green replayed in his mind.

"I think... There is someone waiting for me deeper in the forest."

---

After explaining the details of the vision to his crewmates, Silius checked to make sure that there was no threat on the island being detected by his navigation skill.

It claimed that there wasn’t, but of course, that wasn’t a certainty. The Needle of Ruin worked in ways they didn’t yet understand.

Still, they came to a joint decision. They would travel deeper into the forest and see if they could find this man that had been left there by Captain Redeye.

The forest was quiet as they travelled through the damp shrubbery. At first, they saw no signs of human life.

Then, as they continued, they noticed that there were trees that had been cut down to the stump. The further into the lifeless forest they travelled, the more trees had been harvested.

Roseus took this as a sign.

There was a civilisation living somewhere at the centre of the forest.

---

After ten minutes of walking, the forest finally opened up to an enormous clearing. It was like an empty dirt plain, surrounded by the trees of the forest.

The Redflower Pirates stopped before stepping foot onto this field of dirt.

Their eyes were focused on something that lay at its centre.

It was a small hut made from wood, with a small lake directly outside it.

Dawn nudged up closer to Roseus, showing him a questioning gaze.

Roseus didn’t need to think much before speaking.

"Let’s go pay them a visit. Stay alert, ready to fight if necessary."