Rusty woke with sores across his chest. They weren’t too painful, but they're still there. As he got up from the bed he noticed all the other beds in the room were empty except for one on the far side of the room where he saw Fanari fast asleep. The barracks where most of the group had slept the day before is also where most of them had slept last night. The room itself was dimly lit with several beds scattered throughout the room.

After exiting the room Rusty headed to the front of the building where he didn’t find anybody as he traveled the hallways. When he got to the front he found the door that had been blown off the day before to be melted into place, most likely done by Taste to prevent the entire building from freezing while they slept. On the other hand, the door that was still intact on its hinges was slightly ajar letting in a cold breeze that unsettled the still warm from sleeping Rusty. Rusty headed to the door to close it but decided to open it first to see if anyone was outside.

Rusty opened the door and was met with the bright light known as the sun, stunning for a second as he didn’t realize how dark the rest of the building had been compared to outside. Once coming to his senses Rusty got a good look outside the front doors of the building, where he found both of their wagons being prepared for the road by the rest of his team. After staring at the wagon's for a bit, Webs walked over to Rusty.

Turning to look at the wagons and putting his hand on Rusty's shoulder for dramatic effect, Webs said, “Well...” and then he walked inside without saying another word.

Shortly after Webs walked inside, the captain yelled for him, prompting a loud sigh from just within the building, after which Webs walked out grumbling about how close he had been. After Webs walked back to the wagons Rusty heard a voice behind him asking for help. Rusty turned to see Boomer carrying several boxes stacked on top of each other, the boxes themselves were stacked almost a whole meter above, it was a wonder that he was able to carry such highly stacked amount.

Rusty reached up and grabbed a stack of boxes from Boomer and carried them over to the wagons, after which Rusty helped his team prepare the wagons until they were ready to go

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It didn’t take too long for the wagons to be ready, after half an hour or so from when Rusty started helping they were ready to go. Everyone and everything was loaded onto the wagon that needed to be. Rusty was sitting on the front wagon again, having been saved from sitting in the back wagon thanks to the kid that the away team found in one of the villages. It took their group three days to get back to West-Rixon, along their trip nothing eventful happened, Rusty was asked to recount what had happened by Webs on several occasions throughout the trip, most likely to pass boredom, while they also played cards occasionally as a small group. Throughout their trip Everyone else who didn’t have to steer the wagons mostly just slept or read a book, although Rusty was pretty sure that Lawrence was rereading his book on the second day as when he saw him reading it earlier he was farther into it.

When their wagons pulled up to one of the cities gates the captain got off of the front wagon to talk to the guards, soon afterward the gates opened and their wagon’s continued all the way to garrison A, where the team unloaded everything from the wagons, and then Cloud and Lawrence took the wagons to the garrison’s stables while the rest of the team followed the captain into the garrison and into their teams meeting room, where, for several minutes the team simply did whatever they felt, Webs tried to show Rusty a magic trick where he held a knife and then the knife disappeared, but when he did it a second so that Rusty could try and figure out how he was doing it, the knife slid out of the sleeve of his trench coat with a blood string attached to it coming from within the sleeve, effectively simultaneously ruining and giving away the secret to the trick. Eventually, Cloud and Lawrence walked into the room, back from the stables, after which the captain called the squad to attention, asking everyone to sit and listen for their debriefing.

“The mission’s over,” the captain began, “After the debriefing, none of you will be allowed to speak any details involving the mission until what happened to the Northguard area is announced publicly, if you do then you could face jail time as you all know. After the debriefing, myself and Lawrence will be heading to give a full report on the events that took place on the mission, as for the rest of you, you all have the rest of the day off, tomorrow we begin our standby schedule until our team is assigned another mission, so goodbye everyone, you’re all dismissed.”

As everyone got up to leave, Rusty stopped Webs to ask him about the standby schedule, “Remember on your first day when you were told to show up at eight in the morning?”

“Yeah,” replied Rusty as the two started to walk towards the door of the room.

“Well, just do that again tomorrow,”

Rusty let out a tired sigh, “That’s what I was afraid you were gonna say.”

“Cheer up, it’s better than being almost killed by some ice maniac. Besides, you got to rest for three days in a wagon anyways with the exception of feeding the animals when we stopped, I’m sure you’ll be fine for tomorrow,” Webs replied.

As Rusty and Webs left the room, Rusty saw the captain, Lawrence and Fanari walking down the hall towards the center of the building, even though the child had been with their group the whole time, Rusty had honestly forgotten that she was there.

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After leaving the garrison, Rusty took his time walking to his house, where he knew Youn would ask him questions that he was just told he wasn’t allowed to answer. As Rusty walked he came across several stray dogs and cats, which he, of course, stopped to pet, but was also saddened each time as some of them looked rather hungry and he didn’t have any food on him too spare.

As Rusty approached his house, still wearing the Blood Legion armor that he had yet to take off, he looked across the street to the flower shop to see Youn’s mother behind their shops register and her father talking with his customer, Rusty didn’t see Youn, but he didn’t care, right now he just wanted to take a nap and felt lucky that he wouldn't have to explain anything to her. As Rusty opened the door to his house with a smile of relief on his face he took two steps into his house to smell its familiar scent as he closed the door. After taking a sec to view his house’s long-awaited silence, he heard a voice from his kitchen to his right. When Rusty turned to discover the disturbance he saw Youn as a guy leaning against the wall eating a sandwich. As Rusty slowly started to walk backwards towards the door in a slow panic, he heard Youn attempt to call him, but Youn’s voice was muffled by the sandwich in his mouth. Rusty turned to leave but You was already behind him.

“Where have you been?” Youn asked him, grabbing the back of his armor, pulling him into the house.

“Nooooo…” Rusty groaned to no one in particular as it was now too late to break free.

“What’s your job? It's for the military, right?”

“Nooooo…” Rusty groaned again, this time louder than the last. After moaning Rusty tripped backward with Youn still dragging him into the house, which Rusty decided to accept.

“C’mon Rusty! Speak to me! We’re friends aren't we?”.

“If I said no would you believe me?” Rusty asked Youn.

“Of course not,” He replied.

“Then no, we’re not friends.”

“Alright,” You said as she dropped him, making Rusty hit his head on the floor as Youn sat in a chair, “Tell me everything.”

“Fine,” Rusty said from the floor, “But you need to be quiet, no interruptions, got it? Good.”

Rusty started by saying how he went searching for a job in the upper district, but Youn told him to skip the boring parts, to which he replied by telling Youn that if he interrupted again then he wouldn’t finish the story and that would be that.

“Now where was I?” Rusty asked no one in particular. After a long few seconds of silence, Youn asked Rusty to continue the story, to find him asleep on the hard floor. Youn almost kicked him awake to finish the story but decided not to.

“I’ll ask him about it tomorrow,” he said as he got up to leave.

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As Youn walked back into his parent's shop, his father approached him, “How was Rusty?”

“He was...tired,” Youn responded.

“Well, that’s to be expected, so I assume he didn’t tell you much about his new job?”

“No,” Youn said with a smile, “But I’ll just ask him tomorrow."