"No." Melody said it before he even finished the sentence.
He looked at her.
"B-rank beasts are not the same as what we've been fighting." Her voice was firm. "Everything we've been doing, the flanking, the shielding, letting you close the distance, none of that works against a pack of B-ranks."
"They're faster, they hit harder, and they don't give you the same windows. All it takes is one mistake. One mistake and you're not just injured." She looked at him directly. "You're dead."
"I know the risks—"
"You have D-rank body, Lukas. Your stats are absurd for your rank, but your body hasn't caught up. It doesn't matter how strong you are if one hit caves your ribs in." She shook her head. "B-ranks are manageable for me. For you right now, they're a different story."
"Then we fail the quest," he said. "Because our current pace isn't enough."
Silence filled the air.
"We're almost halfway through the time and I'm barely a quarter of the way there. The only thing that moves the needle fast enough is B-rank kills."
Melody said nothing, but her expression already told him what she was feeling. She wasn't convinced.
He stepped closer and put his arms around her, pulling her in. She didn't pull away, but she didn't soften either. She stood there with her arms at her sides, her chin slightly raised.
"I have [Blood Armor]," he said quietly. "It's an Adept-ranked skill. Whatever hits me, it'll absorb at least one clean shot before it gives. And my constitution is already over fifteen hundred."
He pulled back enough to look at her. "My stats are up to this. You know they are."
Melody held his gaze for a long moment. Then she exhaled slowly through her nose.
"Fine," she said. "But the moment I say we pull back, we pull back. No arguing."
"Deal."
"So where do we find B-rank beasts?" She asked.
"I actually looked into this." Lukas began looking around, brushing soot from his clothes. "The Scorched Forest doesn't end on its own. It connects directly to the Green Forest at the far end, which is what's left of what this place used to be before whatever burned it out."
Melody's eyes moved in the direction he was pointing.
"As long as we stay at the boundary and don't push deep into it, the beasts we'll run into should cap at B-rank. The really dangerous ones stay further in." He looked at her. "We don't need to go deep. We just need the edge."
Melody frowned, turning it over. Then she gave a short nod. "Alright. We'll try it your way."
A low rumble broke the silence.
They both looked down at her stomach.
Melody straightened, expression perfectly composed, as if nothing had happened.
Lukas kept his face equally straight. "Do you want to head back to the city first? Eat something before we do this?"
"No." She shook her head. "Awakener bodies don't need food every few hours. We can go a full day of hard fighting before it starts affecting us. I'm fine."
"You're sure?"
"Lukas." She gave him a flat look. "I'm sure."
He nodded, turning to look at the far end of the forest.
"But." Her voice stopped him.
He turned back.
She was looking at him with an expression that was completely serious. "When this is over, you are cooking me a proper feast. Everything. Steak, soup, bread, whatever else you know how to make. All of it."
He gave her a gentle smile in response. "I promise."
"Good." She fell into step beside him. "Now let's go find something worth killing."
And without another word, they began running.
They both knew time was of the essence for them to be taking a leisurely stroll towards their destination. They didn't stop, except once for Lukas to reorient himself and confirm they were really heading in the right direction.
C-rank beasts crossed their path twice on the way.
A pair of Zipper Bears that stepped out from behind a cluster of burnt trunks, and a lone Deathstalker Scorpion that came up fast from the left flank.
Lukas and Melody didn't slow down for any of them. They hit each one at full speed, killed it, and kept running, leaving the corpses behind without a second look.
The Scorched Forest thinned as they pushed further in. The burnt husks grew even more spread out, the soot on the ground giving way in patches to dark soil underneath.
Then the first green soon appeared, a single tree at the boundary line, its leaves so bright they looked wrong beside everything burned around it.
Then there were two. Then ten. Then the Green Forest opened up in front of them.
They slowed to a walk.
The change was a bit abrupt. One minute they were in the Scorched Forest, and the next, they had a whole new forest in front of them.
The air was cooler as they drew nearer, carrying the smell of wet earth.
The trees rose tall on every side, their canopies closing overhead in a thick layered ceiling of green that filtered the morning light down into dim, shifting patches.
The ground was soft underfoot, and after hours of soot and ash, it felt strange.
They moved in with weapons drawn, stepping carefully.
They hadn't taken ten steps when a shape detached itself from behind a tree ahead and moved into the open.
A boar. But not any boar Lukas had seen in pictures or memory. This one stood five feet at the shoulder, its hide thick and dark, two tusks curving out from its lower jaw like blades.
It looked at them once. Then it charged.
They split without a word, peeling away from each other in opposite directions.
The boar tracked Melody, its eyes locking onto her as the more appealing target, and committed to the charge. The ground shook under its weight as it closed the distance.
Lukas was already building speed from the side, legs driving hard as he charged at the boar. He hit the beast at full sprint, shoulder first, putting everything behind it.
Instead of being sent flying, the boar simply skidded sideways across the forest floor, hooves tearing up soil and roots for several meters before its legs caught and it stopped.
It turned back to face them.
And it was significantly angrier than before.