Chương 60: Slice of Life (2)

After finishing his fourth bowl of soup, Rowan handed his bowl back to Henry before profusely thanking him. After all, it had been his best meal in ages. As they handed in their bowls, the rest of the party—even Jeremy and Emma—looked almost as happy with their meal as he had been. Then, as Henry, Eren, and Lucas talked, Rowan just sat back and stared up at the sky far above them.

The sun had already begun to set, and, if his assumptions were correct, it would only be a few more minutes before it dipped fully below the horizon. It was a bit disappointing that he couldn't see the sunset from the camp, as the trees around them blocked the view. Still, just the faint traces of orange that had managed to reach all the way to above the camp were beautiful. A few minutes later, Eren walked over to him.

"We can all see that you're tired, so you can sleep if you want. The rest of us will probably stay up for a while longer, though." Rowan smiled and rubbed his eyes. With his stats, he didn't need much sleep, but the constant action of the past day or so was catching up to him.

"I think I'll sleep now, thanks. The fight with the broodmother really took a toll on me." Eren nodded.

"Alright, then. Follow me. We usually sleep on the floor, but we do have one bedroll if you want it."

"Hmm…who usually sleeps in the bedroll?" Rowan asked, already knowing the answer. With a knowing smile, Eren responded.

"Cynthia does." Rowan smiled in return.

"Then you know my answer."

"I thought you would say that," She said, walking away.

"Follow me.

"We usually sleep under the tarp in case it starts raining—" Rowan mentally noted that it actually did rain in the Tutorial. He'd assumed it had, but he hadn't seen a single cloud since he'd gotten out of the tunnels, so he hadn't been too sure. It seemed that today was just an extra clear day.

"—but I think you'll much prefer it if you sleep without anything blocking your view tonight." Following her, Rowan tilted his head. Henry had already mentioned that nighttime would bring some sort of surprise with it, and now, Eren seemed to be setting him up to see something as well. What was going on? Deciding to just go with it and try not to pry, he continued after her. Then, she paused and ran back to the camp before returning a moment later with a blanket.

It didn't look like something made in the Tutorial, probably something that someone had brought through from Earth. It seemed unlikely that someone would be carrying any of these things when they entered Apocalypse Difficulty, but with the sheer number of people—tens of millions, if he remembered correctly—it made sense. Thinking of all of the people who were in Apocalypse Difficulty, Rowan frowned. Were all of them crammed into the area that he was in?

Probably not, since if the System didn't want a person every few feet, it would have to space them out, and that would mean that some people were very far away from others. The layer quest was to defeat either the King of the Forest or the Leviathan, and assuming they remained in place or even in just something like a twenty-mile radius, it would be nearly impossible for any of the people who'd shown up far away to get to them.

Of course, he knew there were probably many better reasons why everyone wouldn't be put into the same area. Or, perhaps, all of the millions who'd chosen Apocalypse were all together, and he was just missing something. In the end, the simple truth was that he didn't know enough. In fact, he didn't know enough about anything. He could keep asking Henry and Eren, and while they were kind, they both lacked lots of knowledge as well.

And, of course, he wanted to go and find some things out on his own rather than just relying on others for answers. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. At that moment, Eren came to a stop, gesturing before her. Following her hand, Rowan saw a small clearing about thirty meters from the camp. Above it, the forest canopy just… wasn't there, giving a perfect view of the sky far above.

"Henry and I were talking about this earlier," Eren said.

"About how everyone here has seen it and has seen it since the very first day, when we were all panicking and trying to survive. And by the time we were able to relax and truly enjoy the view, we'd already seen it so many times that it wasn't special.

"But you. I'd say you're probably the only living person in the Tutorial who hasn't seen it yet, so we figured it would be best if you had a full view for your first time. I know it's nothing compared to what you've done for us, but just think of it as a way for us to thank you for saving us." She sighed.

"I'm going to head back now, so settle in. Try not to fall asleep too soon." She glanced up at the sky.

"Just try and wait ten minutes or so, alright?" He nodded, but as Eren turned to leave, she stopped and called over her shoulder at him.

"Actually, I'll be right back; I forgot to get you a… Well, I wouldn't really call it a pillow, but it's close enough." Watching her run off, Rowan shrugged and walked to the center of the clearing, blanket tucked under his arm. As he lay down on the leaves, he found them surprisingly comfortable. He wasn't sure if it was his body, the leaves, or just that he'd spent more than a month sleeping on the cold stone of the caves.

As he got his blanket out and put it over himself, Eren returned, carrying something in her hands.

"Here!" She called, tossing the object in her arms at him. Catching it, Rowan inspected it. After a few moments, he realized that the woman's description of it had actually been perfect. Not quite a pillow, but still close enough. It was just some cloth bundled up and tied with strings at the end. After he thanked her, she said one more thing.

"I know you might not feel the most comfortable sleeping out in the open like this, but we'll be taking shifts on lookout. They'll warn us if anything comes our way, although I doubt there's much of anything here now that the bloodspawn have already swept through and killed everything."

"I can take a shift too—" Rowan started, only to be cut off.

"No, not unless you really want to. And I can see that you don't really want to. So just sleep, alright? You've done enough for us already." Rowan opened his mouth to object once more, but closed it and sighed. Then, he nodded. Eren smiled at him and waved goodbye before walking away. Then, he was left alone with his thoughts.

He almost started theorizing about or practicing his skills, which he always did when he had nothing else to do—now that he thought about it, the habits were probably some of the main reasons he'd managed to stay sane during his time stuck in the caves. But he stopped himself from doing anything with his skills, instead forcing himself to just… relax. Letting his tension slip away, his churning thoughts slowly calmed down. He had so many questions and things to think about, but they could all wait for tomorrow.

For now, he was going to enjoy whatever surprise Eren and Henry had been talking about. With the pillow behind his head, he stared up at the slowly darkening sky. Any faint streaks of orange and yellow from the setting sun were long gone, replaced by an encroaching darkness. Then, a minute later, the first stars began appearing, shining high above. Rowan just watched as, one after another, more stars appeared, joining their brethren in the night sky.

He'd never seen so many at once, but given that there was zero light pollution here, he supposed that it made sense. But the stars kept coming, blinking into existence in the sky above. There were hundreds upon hundreds, and the number was growing with each passing second. Then came the color. At first, it was just a streak of purple, but as time ticked on, it expanded and twisted, more and more color splitting off from the first streak of light.

Soon, the entire sky was purple and blue, a soft, glowing backdrop to the thousands of stars. Despite his recent exhaustion, Rowan didn't feel that tired anymore. So, with a breath, he decided to stay up for a little longer, just to soak in the view. And he was glad he did. Because soon, joining the stars in the sky were moons. Five of them. They came from different directions, their orbits intersecting, but still, they shone brilliantly.

A smile on his face, Rowan continued watching the glowing skies until his eyelids could no longer stay open. Then, he slept.