Late Night Exploration

Nova stood in the land in his dreams, training the Torrential Rain Fist.

He had been training almost non-stop since he had seen Oswald.

He had sat down to rest while thinking back on what Oswald said.

『Beat her.』[Oswald]

『...Beat her?』[Nova]

『Yeah. No matter what, you must become stronger than her. Please.』[Oswald]

『...Why?』[Nova]

『...』[Oswald]

He remained silent before Nova bid him farewell.

Even as Nova left, he just kept smiling at him.

Even now, Nova had no idea why Oswald wanted him to become stronger.

『But.. That's my goal anyway!』[Nova]

Suddenly, he had a thought.

「...The place where I fought those brownlings...」[Nova]

…..

It was the middle of the night, and yet the sky still shone brightly.

Nova stood in the middle of the demolished forest.

He walked deeper through the debris.

「Hmm… Maybe there aren't any..」[Nova]

Suddenly, he heard a noise behind him.

When Nova turned around, he saw a small brownling- roughly the size of a lemon.

「...Is this?」[Nova]

『Guraa!』[Brownling]

He got closer to it before it fell over, seemingly in fear.

Staring at the little lemon sized monster, he noticed several things about it.

First, it had clear blue eyes and little tiny arms.

Second, it didn't seem like it wanted to murder Nova.

He picked it up from below, and it squirmed to try and escape.

『...Are you okay?』[Nova]

The brownling stopped squirming and nodded.

『...You can understand me?!』[Nova]

The brownling nodded again.

Seeing the brownling's sentience, he had a really hard time conveying what he wanted to say.

『..Hmm… Do you.. Uh. Are the other brownlings your parents?』[Nova]

The brownling thought for a moment, before shaking its head.

『...Are other brownlings like you?』[Nova]

The brownling shook its head.

『Hmm… then, where are your parents?』[Nova]

It pointed at a direction deeper in the forest.

『...Should I take you there?』[Nova]

When the brownling heard this, he had a wide toothless smile and nodded vigorously.

Nova also smiled, as he found this brownling quite cute.

『...Hahaha! Okay, let's go.』[Nova]

He placed the brownling on his shoulder, then went through the forest until a large amount of shuffling was heard all around him.

『...Brownlings? Did you.. Mind if I killed them?』[Nova]

The little one shook his head, telling him to go ahead.

For a moment, Nova was caught off guard by this answer.

『...Really? You don't care at all?』[Nova]

It nodded, and instead hurried Nova up with gurgling noises.

Nova nodded, then formed a sword.

「...I do need some more practice with swords.」[Nova]

Before long, he found that he was surrounded by red eyed rank 2 and 3 brownlings.

「...The rank 3's also have the 2nd head. I have to watch out for their bite.」[Nova]

One of the rank 2 brownlings jumped at Nova, but he swung up and defeated it.

However, the moment he did that, another one jumped at him.

「My sword won't make it in time!」[Nova]

When it jumped at him, he punched it and caused it to also explode into dust.

「...Not bad!」[Nova]

He continued to dispatch a few of them until the third circles began to attack as well.

「Okay! Watch out for their heads!」[Nova]

The first 3rd circle that attacked bit into Nova's sword with his second head, before Nova hit it with a nukite.

『Impact Form: True Gale!』[Nova]

A weak piercing effect caused the brownling to explode just as quick as the other one.

Eventually, Nova cleared them all out then picked up the crystals.

『Some of these are pretty big..』[Nova]

He picked up the shining multicolored crystals, with there being a variety of sizes.

Some of the crystals were even the size of the brownling that Nova had on his shoulder.

As he was continuing to go, the brownling suddenly cried out.

『Guah!』[Brownling]

『Huh?』[Nova]

The brownling had its arms out, as if it wanted something.

Nova stared at it, before realizing that it may have wanted one of the stones Nova had.

『...Do you want one?』[Nova]

『Guwah!』[Brownling]

He took one of the crystals from his pocket and gave it to the brownling.

Immediately afterward, he ate the little pebble sized crystal.

『Woah! That came from the brownlings, are you sure you want to eat that?』[Nova]

The brownling nodded its head with the same toothless smile.

『...Okay. Let's go take you to your parents.』[Nova]

He continued to walk through the forest, but found nothing of note.

A few other times, he would get attacked by brownlings but they wouldn't raise much of a threat.

��...It seems that the rank 4 brownlings don't appear much around here. Maybe they only appear around open areas?』[Nova]

Before long, he stopped getting attacks from the brownlings.

Then, he stopped hearing noises in general.

『...It's really quiet. What's… going on?』[Nova]

The area he was in had no lights whatsoever.

『What happened to the sky..』[Nova]

The brownling kept making noise, as if pushing him onward.

『...Keep going?』[Nova]

He looked at the brownling, and it kept nodding.

『...Okay.』[Nova]

Nova continued walking, then lights started to appear all around him.

It was a pale floating blue light, at first.

As he continued to walk through, more and more lights began to appear.

They took all began to vary wildly in colors, until it seemed as if Nova was walking through a rainbow.

Then, he eventually reached an area that made his breath escape his body.

There was an amount of mana that made him feel like he was being crushed.

At this moment, a voice rang out calling to him.

『...Welcome.』[???]