Hideout...

Bailey was honestly lost for words, they'd been camping under one of the safest places in the forest – needlessly putting themselves at risk.

"How- is this why you wanted to go on sentry duty first?" He immediately questioned, slightly glaring at her as he did.

"Um… Maybe…" She mumbled under her breath sheepishly, but the grin on her face was evident as she looked at him. Bailey could only sigh and be thankful that nothing had happened to them whilst she went off on her little adventure.

"So I'm assuming you found a way up?" He asked, of course, she had, he knew her character – she'd already jump head first and hated to rely on other people.

'It's just like that time…' He thought with a small smile thinking back to the past, "Yep!" Bella's enthusiastic voice interrupted his train of thoughts and brought him back to reality.

"Let me wake up Lewis, we should move up there as soon as possible." He said, turning to walk over to Lewis – he didn't need to turn around to know that she was very near to stomping her feet in anger.

She'd only woken up Bailey for a reason, she didn't like the Prince and how close he tried to get to the two of them. Bailey could only shrug it off as being childish and hope she slowly got used to having him around, after all, they could be here for quite a while.

"Ugh… what is it?" Lewis woke up pretty slowly, stretching as he picked himself up off the ground – he wasn't nearly as alert as Bailey had been but, of course, he'd woken up to Bella practically shouting in his ear.

"Bella found an outpost, we're packing up and moving now." He said to Lewis before motioning for Bella to lead them to the way up.

They didn't have much to pack up, in fact, they had nothing to pack up – Lewis had been in such a rush he'd forgotten to even get sleeping-bags and had left with some rations, they severely lacked enough resources for a prolonged stay.

Hunting could only sustain them for so long after all. When the number of beasts increased in the outer edges of the forest, where they currently were, it would probably be the time that they leave the forest.

Although beast meat is entirely edible and even the weakest beast had this type of beneficial effect on a person's physique he'd read that the beasts' in the outer edges hunted in large packs, engaging in turf battles with other beast packs at times.

In a sense they were like wolves but more vicious, they held no regard for each other and would only not kill beasts in the same pack. Only during the Beast Waves did these beasts of different 'packs' unite.

"Here it is!" Bella announced proudly, pulling on an ancient rope ladder that climbed the side of a tree, it looked extremely fragile – as if it couldn't bear the weight of a single person let alone three.

Bailey was about to say they should climb one at a time due to the condition of the rope, but defying logic Bella gave the rope a firm tug and not only did it not fall the rope didn't seem to show any signs of stress at all which was surprising considering her monstrous strength.

She flashed Bailey a quick smile, clearly having figured out what he was going to say beforehand and was proud of 'outsmarting' him.

"Come on," She said before quickly climbing the ladder, Bailey was the last to climb up as it became apparent that Lewis wasn't able to climb the rope ladder as it swayed insecurely so Bailey remained at the bottom holding it steady as he climbed.

However, very quickly after he made his way up – both him and Bella were used to this type of ladder after having used them in their 'secret' tree forts they'd made as kids, it'd taken them years to master the 'art' of skilfully climbing them, never did they think it'd come in handy in a situation like this though.

"Wow." Lewis was the first to speak as he looked at the collection of buildings built around the trees, the engineering was master-like as the small buildings seemed to blend into the sides of the trees.

The people who'd made these outposts had skillfully cut into the trees and used the inside of the trees as support for their structures but had retained enough of the structure of the tree to keep the top half of the tree standing so there was a sort of seamless transition between steel and wood.

The outpost spanned eight trees in total, forming a maze of bridges and platforms for them to walk through and explore, even the thick layers of dust couldn't reduce their admiration for the design.

Although there were eight platforms in total, spanning the eight trees, there were only five buildings, these five buildings took up the majority of the platforms they were built on and left no additional room.

The other three platforms were completely barren, the same type of rope used for the ladder was used as a security measure around them to prevent someone from just walking off the edge however apart from that they were empty.

In total there were two bunk rooms containing: beds, showers, and baths in each section – it was immediately decided that both Lewis and Bailey would share one building whilst Bella had an entire room to herself.

Unfortunately, the bathing equipment was specialised around a having someone specialised in Water Elementa to provide the water whilst a rudimentary boiler could use either Fire Elementa or wood to heat up the water.

To this Lewis sheepishly admitted to the two that he could use Water Elementa, Bailey was surprised by this reveal but not shocked – the Prince of the Empire was probably used to being clean so revealing his ability to use three types of Elementa was a small matter.

Bailey acted surprised as he should, to mask the fact that he already knew – Lewis used the excuse that due to having his Grandfathers blood it was a rare ability that members of his family were able to use three types of Elementa.

Bella was obviously delighted and quickly rushed off, demanding Lewis to fill the Boiler so she could heat it up as soon as possible. Bailey just acted surprised, he didn't want to reveal the fact he already knew his secret.

"I guess this is our hideout…" Lewis mumbled with a grin on his face as he looked around, he quickly rushed off to do what Bella had asked, eager to get on her good side for once.

"Hideout huh?" Bailey said aloud as he stood alone, "I guess it is…" With a grin on his face he turned and walked off quickly, eager to clean a building on another platform, he looked at the sign hung above it and walked inside eagerly.

"Combat Hall."