Kieran pulled out the tip of his weapon from the fallen creature before him. A broad, flat-bodied creature with eight limbs, tiny eyes, and a mottled , spotted green skin.

They were the beasts that inhabited the Verdant Ruins, one of the major biomes on the planet. The last one before the Vast Plains where Crescent was located.

This was their first battle since they left the camp.

This was the first encounter they had, and it was a beast group with numbers enough to become conspicuous at a time like this.

Kieran and the others pulled back into the ship and resumed their journey. Their short stop hadn’t lasted more than twenty minutes.

An assignment they handled rather well, the three of them were able to handle the group of Grade 2 and 3 beasts well while working together.

It had been a while since they last fought alongside each other as one. And as each of them progressed down their paths of development, their style changed, and they gained new, though subtle habits.

’It was rash of him’

He felt the need for them to have had some sort of training to rebuild what was lost between them, but this was probably August’s way of doing that.

A small glance was thrown at the other side of the main hall, where Derrick was sat. He had no idea where Richard had placed himself

The tense air between the three of them reinforced the thought that they weren’t that great of a match. He had no idea what vision August had in mind, but he wasn’t seeing it.

Richard was too hot-headed, prideful, and filled with hostility against him to actually take the first step, and Derrick was too reserved.

’That leaves me’

The recruit looked to his left, his shoulders shifting uncomfortably at Kieran’s arrival.

"Care to share why that is?"

"You can keep it to yourself if you want to. I don’t mind that, but we need to have a level of understanding between ourselves and be able to work together."

Kieran pushed on his thigh, ready to leave upon Derrick’s continued silence.

He paused, adjusting to face the recruit who had finally decided to talk to him.

Derrick fiddled with his thumbs. His shoulders pulled down like he was revisiting a memory he didn’t want to.

He knew what mission Derrick was referring to. Their last mission was a rescue mission August had put them to.

Kieran had no idea how they had survived, only remembering that he had woken up alone in the infirmary with a fully bandaged body, with August and the weird man in the lab coat, Micheal showed up, and carried him to get his ability Potential measured, for that was the mission where he awakened his ability.

His brows pushed against each other even more. His recollection of that mission was odd.

a....what?

Kieran tried again and again, combing over the memory, but there was something odd, something missing, between the time they were searching and the time he woke up in the infirmary.

Each attempt made something clearer, like a dark shroud over his memory slowly being pushed back.

It felt like he had unlocked something sealed away in his mind, a flood of memories, feelings, and sensations rushing through him and forcing him to relive that moment all over again.

Kieran’s ability had involuntarily activated, his eyes taking on a bright shade of gold as red blood vessels like streams of lava, made themselves know, stretching from his fingernails that had elongated into claws and the edge of his eyes.

It all vanished like it never happened, and Kieran, who had just been forced to relive a tragic experience, stared at the ground, his shoulders trembling as a few drops of tears fell to the cold metallic interior of the ship.

"Y-you d..di..died"

"How?"

Derrick sighed, his shoulders slumping both in confusion and disappointment.

He had been trying to understand what had happened when Richard convinced him of his death and ’resurrection’.

Kieran had made no attempts to talk to him about what Richard had said happened, so he simply convinced himself that it didn’t happen and avoided him as a whole because despite his efforts, he knew it.

And the memory of waking up a few days after in the infirmary with no injuries with Richard recollecting the events of that night to him.

"Do you remember what happened after you awakened?"

It felt like that memory was scribbled out with black and red pens in his mind, preventing him from seeing anything at all.

He said honestly, wiping off the small layer of sweat that had accumulated on his forehead.

"Yeah, you can have my back,"