Laden’s world was dark and quiet, still and empty. He couldn’t hear anything and couldn’t see anything, just plain unadulterated darkness.

"I wonder what happened," he thought while he regained a bit of consciousness.

His consciousness gradually returned, giving him the chance to think of what had actually happened.

He thought back to the events of not too long ago, when he and Caleb started spreading the flower juices all around.

"Why didn’t we just use a small amount?" he wondered, but he still kept shifting through his memories like he was a passenger in his own mind.

The more things Laden saw himself do, the more shocked he was.

"I was so brazen and arrogant," Laden said in a low voice.

"That’s unlike me," he said.

Laden thought for a while, trying to get what could have caused such a sharp change in his personality before he continued shifting through his memories until he arrived at the end.

"This is crazy," Laden muttered.

"Due to those brazen actions, now I am unconsciously lying on the wilderness forest floor."

"I wonder how Caleb is doing," Laden thought.

"Haaaaaaa," Laden suddenly shouted while he felt something impact his body heavily.

He was just about to complain when he. noticed his consciousness slowly alleviating, as if he were awakening.

"What now?" he said in an exhausted tone.

Finally, Laden felt like he was back in his body when he felt himself feel heavier.

Immediately, Laden tried to open his eyes to check his surroundings for danger, but he noticed his vision was slightly blurry.

"So much green," he muttered to himself.

Time passed, and Laden’s vision was slowly being restored; it got to a level where Laden could see what was in front of him much clearer.

"Why are you standing over me like that?" he shouted in shock while he scurried away.

"I am sorry, sorry. I just noticed your eyelids twitched after I healed you, so I waited till you woke up."

"So that’s what that was," Laden said while he thought of the heavy force he felt just now.

"Hahahah, sorry," Caleb apologized.

"Forget that, what the hell happened?" Laden asked.

Caleb looked a little embarrassed, so he quickly averted Laden’s gaze and turned somewhere else.

"Talk to me," Laden urged.

"Uhhhmmm, I can’t totally say, but when I got hold of myself again, I noticed there were no battles going on, just some dead evil beasts, and then I looked around for a bit until I found you lying here surrounded by three dead beasts.

"Three?" Laden was shocked.

He hurried to his feet and looked around him, where he saw the corpses of the dog-like and cat-like beasts and also the horned beast, but the armored beast was nowhere to be found.

"Those beasts actually escaped," he said.

"Doesn’t matter though, at least I was able to get some beast material." A smile formed on his face.

"Ouch, ouch," he suddenly cried out in pain.

"Ohhh, sorry I couldn’t fully heal you once; I might need a few more tries," Caleb said.

"Ohh, you want to blast me away again," Laden said in a half-joking voice.

The two of them laughed together for a bit, and then Caleb healed Laden again, sending him flying backwards again.

After that second round, Laden could feel his hands a bit more, and he could even exert some level of grip, but it wasn’t back to normal, and the burning pain in his back was still very present despite being reduced.

"I am out of energy for now," Caleb said.

"Alright then, let’s prepare our things and get out of here." A warm smile appeared on Laden’s face.

Using Caleb’s small knife, Laden went and harvested small parts of the beast that he could find on the floor, like the horn of the snake, the dog’s canine, and the cat’s claws.

With those harvested, Laden and Caleb returned to the previous location, the clearing where everything had actually begun.

"Why are there so few bodies?" he wondered.

"The beasts had probably carried some of the corpses away after they didn’t find any meat," Caleb said.

"That’s true, that’s true. We still have some corpses, though; let’s harvest some parts. That’s more points for us."

Laden wasted no time and instantly got to work; he moved from beast to beast, taking parts from each of them that could be used for identification.

"This is quite distasteful," Laden muttered.

His mind slowly wandered to the strange events that had happened not too long ago.

"Caleb, why did you freeze up like that earlier? I don’t think I have ever seen anyone freeze up from fear for so long," Laden suddenly asked.

"That was my fault, and I am very sorry about that. I completely forgot about something important."

"The meat-imitating flower has a side effect that causes certain states of mind to be extremely heightened when inhaled."

"It heightened my fear till I completely froze, and for you, I think it heightened your courage," Caleb said while scratching his head.

"I am very sorry; my ignorance almost cost us," his eyes showing sincere remorsefulness.

"Arrogance," Caleb suddenly heard Laden say in a low voice.

"Oh no, I didn’t mean to be arrogant. I’m truly sorry," Caleb apologized again.

"It heightened my arrogance," Laden muttered again.

"So it only increased what was in me. When did I start getting arrogant?" Laden asked.

Wohooowohoooooo!

Laden suddenly heard a loud chatter from the surrounding trees. The chatter was so loud and domineering that Laden could feel the ground shake under his legs.

"What the hell was that?" Laden said in a shocked voice while he turned to look at Caleb, who was also vigilantly scanning the environment.

"The arrogance should be my fault but forget about that for now," Prime said in an extremely excited voice.

He was so excited that his next words sounded muffled and hard to hear.

"WE NEED TO FIND AND DEFEAT THAT MONKEY," Prime shouted.