It had ended awkwardly, the realisation settling over both of them that Roman had finished inside her. Rena didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, the weight of what that meant pressing down on her all at once.

’If I get pregnant now... Father will...’

She cut the thought off before it could finish itself and snapped her focus back to the immediate problem. One thing at a time.

Roman felt equally off, his expression nowhere near what it should have been after experiencing something for the very first time. The reason was straightforward enough. He had just risked getting his girlfriend pregnant at eighteen.

The feeling had simply been too overwhelming to control, and he hadn’t caught himself in time.

"Umm, I’m really sorry about—"

"You don’t have to apologise," Rena cut him off before he could finish. "We just need to figure something out. It’s not as if I’m ovulating, which makes the chances low, but..."

"Yeah, I understand. But it still—"

"It’s your first time," Rena said, her voice softening as she held his gaze. "It’s my first time too."

That somehow made the whole thing feel even stranger, realising they had shared that with each other in a wolf cave in the middle of the Badlands.

Remarkable, in its own bizarre way.

"Let’s just hope you are not going to be a father anytime soon. Nothing else," Rena said, standing up and reaching for her clothes.

"Hopefully. Though it wouldn’t be the worst thing," Roman chuckled.

Rena’s expression darkened the moment those words left his mouth, and Roman immediately knew he had pushed it too far.

"Okay. Okay, I’m sorry."

They got dressed, stepped out of the cave, and left the Wild of Howls behind them.

They decided to head back to the outpost, not wanting to spend any more time in the valley after everything the night had already given them.

On the walk back, they both settled into checking the rewards from their kills in the Wild.

[You have leveled up! Level 9 » Level 10.]

[Level: 10 {17450/20500 EXP}.]

The Dire Wolves had delivered generous EXP across the board. Even a standard Omega kill paid out well, which had made cutting through them feel almost effortless in hindsight.

What lifted his mood even further was the drop the Alpha had delivered.

Beyond the Soul he had added to the Soul Bank after hitting Level 10, which was the threshold needed to expand the Soul Slot, the drop itself was something he was already thinking about.

[Drop Name: The Alpha’s Fang.]

[Grade: Common.]

[Description: The largest and most intact fang from the Alpha’s jaw. Harder than standard bone and carrying a residual sharpness built over years of use. Best suited as crafting material for a long-range piercing weapon such as a Spear.]

Roman had no intention of keeping it. It was the first drop he had genuinely decided to sell, which felt significant given that it came from the strongest monster he had killed so far.

"If I trade it in a proper market in a bigger community, I could get a hundred silvers at least," Roman muttered.

"That’s a hundred dollars back in the real world."

The Badlands ran on two currencies. Silver and Gold. One silver equalled one dollar in the real world, and one gold equalled a thousand silvers, which meant a thousand dollars. Roman had been running those conversions in the back of his mind since he arrived, and accumulating real money before Privilege Day had been a quiet priority from the beginning.

"I’ll get Evelyn something good," he said, a small smile crossing his face.

He switched over to the BSP and found a stack of notifications waiting on the rankings page.

[Congratulations, you are rising in the rankings.]

[You have reached Top 10,000 of best performing rookies.]

[You have reached Top 5,000 of best performing rookies.]

[Congratulations! Major Milestone! You have reached Top 1,000 of best performing rookies.]

There were no Strongest or Richest rookie rankings yet, since trading had barely begun and most rookies were still finding their footing. Roman suspected he was among the small handful taking things seriously enough to generate results this early, and he felt no shame in that.

He was proud of it.

Reaching Top 1,000 among all rookie Entrants in the Badlands was not a small thing. The rookies expected to dominate these early rankings were First Class graduates placed in strong communities and guilds with every advantage available to them. There were easily more than ten thousand of that type alone, and Roman was sitting above the majority of them with a Fourth Class Academic Standard.

"Did you see the rankings?" Rena asked, her face bright and her eyes carrying that particular look of admiration that Roman had started to notice made his chest do something inconvenient.

He had been expecting to receive the praise alone.

"We are both in the Top 1,000," she added.

Roman went quiet for a moment.

He had been the one taking down Territory Bosses. He had been the one absorbing the worst of every fight. He was almost entirely certain the numbers should reflect that gap clearly.

’How is she keeping up with me?’

"You checked the ranking board?" he asked.

"You should check yours," she said.

He did.

[#544. Roman Rings. Level 10 F Ranker.]

[#763. Rena Ironcrown. Level 9 F Ranker.]

The gap was visible, but not as wide as he had expected, and Roman knew well enough that gaps like that could close quickly depending on how the next few days went.

Still, he was relieved. Not just because he was ahead, but because of what the numbers confirmed overall. Things were not unfolding the way the majority had predicted for someone like him. They were unfolding the way he had worked for them to unfold.

That alone carried more weight than any ranking notification.

He glanced at her and smiled.

"We keep going."

Rena stepped close and kissed him.

"Together, babie," she said softly.

’Babie??? What does that seem to always crack me up? It sounds so... Weird...’

Roman stared at her and kissed her on the forehead.

’Maybe it’s cool too.’ He thought.

’But the main BABIE might be the one in her womb. Hehe.’