———Jeff———

  <4: 31 pm>

  “Huh. That’s surprising. Last I heard you two have beef or something.” I pointed out. Wouldn’t the conflict mess with their teamwork?

  “What do you know?” The younger sister responded, looking rather moody. I wonder if their beef has already been patched up, or am I just simply going crazy?

  “Let’s just go into the dungeon already.” Histon said, sounding tired already. “Or are we just gonna stay on the floor getting all cold air from outside?”

  “Well I don’t have anything else to say. Let’s go quickly then.” I don’t really have anything to say to either of them, so let’s just go in and kick some ass already.

  *Roar*

  The giant wolf on the second floor… At this point, it’s just a chump that I can take on by myself.

  *Grapple* *Pierce*

  But these two seem to have it under control. The older brother takes away its attention and tries to hold it in pce while his sister is the hard-hitter with that spear of hers.

  *Dash* *Punch*

  I guess I’ll clean up some of these mooks that’s gonna be a pain in the ass for them. If I’m not gonna steal their glory then I could’ve at least been the supportive one.

  ———Orrel———

  <4: 34 pm>

  “I’m surprised you rex here. Wouldn’t a more quiet pce be more to your taste?” Kroin asked, probably almost saying something stereotypical, or cliche, as some may call it.

  “Same could be said about you.” I pointed out. As far as I know, he would be categorized under the same umbrel as I do. Mostly quiet, loves to read, and ponder on perhaps a few too many things. Not the type to stay in a public pce that doesn’t have a ‘silence is golden’ rule.

  “I guess that’s fair.” He said before sitting down beside me. “Besides, it’s not like this modest shop is a pce of troublemakers anyhow.”

  “Feels like I haven’t seen you in a while, despite being in the same school and all.” I pointed out… Hmm… I think it’s possibly due to the rger space of the school’s premise that results in everyone not running into others often, especially with the teleporters. It stunted the growth of bonds outside of the cssroom a bit, but considering the alternative of having to take quite a lot of time traveling to specific facilities, it is a worthy trade-off.

  “That sounds about right.” He replied. Of course, I’m pretty sure I have his contact somewhere on my phone, so I could have contacted him if I really did miss him, but I wasn’t really pressed. We have some simir interests, but that was about it. We’re just slightly above acquaintances. “...Say, have you been fighting much at all? I feel like everyone is starting to be more proactive with getting some action in. I find it a bit excessive.” He suddenly asked.

  “If you mean outside the curriculum, then I do believe that has been the case. As for my personal actions, I have been fighting, but it was usually in the presence of a companion.” I answered. I am improving myself everyday in that regard, but I doubt my approach is anywhere near as rigorous as others. “I guess you haven’t been practicing much, or at least not utilizing it much. After all, there aren't many use cases for it, and only one thing is quite novel and not morally questionable.”

  “I haven’t even gotten the license for it.” He remarked. I doubt everyone has. Even now with the test being more x, people still don’t want to waste their time to get access to a job that could kill you.

  As far as I am aware, there hasn’t been any death recorded in our local dungeon yet, but there were already headlines about that and moral concerns not long after it was opened up to the public again.

  Objectively speaking, there are also other dangerous lines of work out there, usually with more than a few things that those employees don’t have control over. At least with a dungeon you can bail out pretty easily with no penalty as long as you know what you’re doing. From my point of view, it isn’t that big of a risk since there’s no need to worry about other people’s initiative. At least in theory…

  “It’s not like we have a bunch of thugs roaming around sabotaging a dungeon run, but you do you.” Maybe that came across a bit more condescending than I would’ve liked.

  “Hm.” He doesn’t seem to be too interested in discussing this further, and he stares at my bottom half. “How does that work? I would imagine the structure and function would be rather mishmashed. Warm and cold-blooded, receptors, sweat gnds… Not to mention the bance.”

  “It is hard to describe, but my lower body does not feel uncomfortable, at least.” I have been pondering on those details, but I don’t feel any extreme unbance in my daily life, so I push that inquiry to the side. If I am still functional, then it’s not something that needs my immediate attention. My habits haven't changed much, and the legs are a bit bulky, but they’re not that disproportionate. “By the way, how was the school trip st week? We ran into trouble of our own, but I want to hear what your personal experience was like.”

  He looked a bit troubled after he heard my inquiry. Was it really something that terrifying? Or perhaps boring and not worth retelling?

  “I… don’t actually know the full scope of it. We have Rico with us, as the driver and the teacher. She got out and dealt with it all on her own. We simply sat inside the bus while she did her job.” He recounted. Rico… Someone like her being able to handle everything by herself is definitely not surprising. “I think she cast some sort of… darkness spell at one point? Sorry, but I was trying to ignore it the best I could. I don’t really want to think about bloodshed too much, let alone trying to witness it.”

  “I see…” I think I know which one he was talking about. The giant sphere of darkness that some people at the border of Ohio and West Virginia can spot.

  I’m still a bit surprised at how far they choose to go, but then again, not only do they have the ‘teleport to base’ option, but also there is a lot less traffic going on nowadays. People stay inside often and try to not veer out of their town, remote working, and so forth… Of course, there is also the ‘purge’ going about. A lot of people are losing their lives for one reason or another, not that it wasn’t a problem before the Eclipse arrived, but it does help with increasing that number.

  “Speaking of that. I don’t believe there is even a smidge of details about your css’ trip.” He deflected the question back at me. Is that how he’s doing it now?

  “We simply didn’t run into those problems that pgue the other csses. There’s nothing worth fussing over.” I said, just ft out lying with that second part. I don’t really like to state something false. I hold value in not poisoning the well of information. You might just want it to be a simple white lie, but even those can be twisted and cause unnecessary confusion. With this line it is possible to interpret as a ‘not really feeling it’ sentiment than an outright cim, but that in itself is another yer of smokescreen. “Of course, you might find that hard to believe, but it is what it is.”

  “A bit too cryptic to ignore, wouldn't you say?” He pointed out. I’m trying to not talk about it, since they all strongly advised us not to. I’m not going to go against someone with so much authority and information.

  “Perhaps, but I am not the type to say or hold something so vague as gospel.” I said as a way to reflect.

  My eyes then noticed something white outside, some stuck to the window of the convenience store. “Huh. It is snowing outside. How odd. It feels like a lifetime ago that this pce got any snow.”

  “...Indeed.” Kroin said, also surprised by the sudden appearance of it. I think in general, it feels like the pce has gotten a bit colder, so perhaps the snow coming back is not out of the question. It is certainly a beautiful sight, even without much light to illuminate onto them.

  ———Kenni———

  <4: 40 pm>

  I reached my hand out and let a small carpet of snow formed on my hand.

  *Fp*

  My wings fpped unconsciously, shaking off the cold and preventing them from being weighed down further by it.

  *Flick* *Fp*

  I flicked the snow off my hand and cleared my wings one more time before starting up my flight. It is nice weather and all, not too harsh, but it is distracting me from what I was pnning to do. Certainly a bit of a shame, but I doubt this is going to be the only day we will get snow moving forward. Perhaps we might see more exotic weather in the future, who can really be certain?

  *Fp*

  Regardless, it’s time to get a move on. Time waits for no one, as they said. So I do not have the time to ponder on it and bask in its cruel frigid beauty.

  ———Lerim———

  <4: 42 pm>

  “Hm?” I unconsciously muttered as I noticed the white specks falling from the sky. It’s snowing? Of all the times. I thought snow was nearly distinct at this point. Hopefully it doesn’t soak the bag of stuff that might or might not be resistant to water.

  Ah crap. My hair might get messed up by this, I should probably hurry up to the guild and sell all these loots. Get cash quickly and go back home under a roof, and since it is cold, with the snow and all, I could afford to not waste electricity on the air conditioner.

  ———Wiina———

  <4: 45 pm>

  “It’s been so long.” Karra muttered as she looked outside the window.

  “Indeed. It’s quite a surprise.” Mom said, probably feeling nostalgic just like we all do. “Hmm… Maybe I should prepare some hot chocote for you two. How does that sound?”

  “That’d be great, Mom.” I said, not seeing the reason to turn down a nice drink. She then nodded and went to the kitchen. Where is Dad right now anyway? Is he still holed up in his room?

  “Wiina, do you know why it came back? I know there was talk about the change in climate, but that was about it.” Karra asked, clearly curious as to why it is happening now after all the doom and gloom about the damage to the environment, whether it’d be those on the ground or in the sky.

  “Let’s just say the one with authority on our little pnet here chooses to throw in a bonus.” That’s about the extent of my understanding. Someone threw out some sort of magic that helped repair many of the damages done by humans. Let’s just leave it at that. “...You know, I don’t think I have ever pyed with snow with another person… Outside of my parents. My hands were hurting more than a few times trying to sculpt something for an audience that wasn’t there… I think it was over ten years ago at this point.”

  Karra simply scratched her cheek, looking a bit awkward. Did I go too much into detail, or does she think I am insinuating that she should join me on my lonely snow-pying time? One that I haven’t engaged in for a long time now.

  “Ah. I wasn’t pnning on making you do that. In the first pce, it’s not like we’re pressed for time to py. With the colder climate it’s not as if we are cking in snow. If nothing else, we can just go to the north or south pole for plenty of snow.” I said, maybe getting a bit too wordy.

  “I see. Well. I was never the biggest fan of snow.” She replied as she still stared out the window. “As a sight, a scene to marvel at, it’s fine. Snow itself feels kinda uncomfortable to me. I don’t really know why. Either annoyingly cold or quickly make me wet the moment the temperature goes up by one or two.”

  “You got a simir tangent with sand as well?” I teasingly answered.

  “Come on now.” She replied with a chuckle. “Still. I guess neither of us have super fond memories of it.”

  “Certainly a weird thing to have in common.” I remarked. Obviously we have something more solid than that as far as commonality is concerned.

  “Here we go.” Mom came back into the living room with three hot chocotes on the table, all with tiny marshmallows in them.

  “Thank you.” Karra walks over and takes one, sitting down on the sofa. “Now this warm comfy feeling is something more up my alley.”

  “Yeah.” I replied simply. Just a nice, not votile atmosphere under a roof. The snow outside can be a nice backdrop for us.