"The Knights of Aerospace? What kind of half-assed name is that?"

Guts started walked walking away, but Corkus stopped him by grabbing his arm. "Please, wait! The Knights could use you-" He was cut off when he was thrown on to the ground, Guts twisting his arm just enough to hurt. "Keep your damn hands off of me, Corkus. Urgh-"

Guts' head started throbbing, and a stream of blood ran out of his nostril. "Augh- my head..." Everything faded into darkness, and he was out before he hit the ground.

Guts woke up in an unfamiliar tent, and the first thing he noticed was his awful headache. "Ugh, my head still hurts..."

In the distance, he could hear a woman arguing with Corkus. "No! He's not going to join the Knights, Corkus! That's final!"

"Yes, he is! You weren't there Casca, you didn't see him fighting- it was amazing." The two continued arguing, but he couldn't figure out what they were saying anymore as the headache grew more and more severe. "I must've pushed my body too hard," he thought. For the next few hours he went back and forth between being asleep and awake, but couldn't stop thinking about the encounter with the Cyberdemon. What was that thing?

Slowly getting up the cot, he opened the flap to see that he was in an entire camp of tents, with other people in their familiar green armor. "Hey," Guts walked up to the closest one. "Where's Corkus?"

"Over that way." The large, dark skinned man pointed towards one of the larger tents.

"Thanks."

A few minutes later, Guts found him in a tent going through papers.

"Thanks for taking me, but I really need to get going. You've done enough for me already." He then started to leave the tent, but when going through the flaps he ran into a slender woman with dark hair and brown eyes, wearing a torn red cape over the usual armor. "Ah, sorry about-"

She slapped him hard in the face before going back outside in anger.

"What's her deal?" Corkus looked up from the papers.

"Oh, no one told you? You were unconscious for two days, and on the cold nights I ordered her to sleep by your side."

"That really wasn't necessary. Now if you'll excuse me..." Guts tried to leave the tent again, but was interrupted by Corkus. "Just wait a second!"

"What?"

"Please... just stay one more night at our camp, and consider joining the Knights. If you decide tomorrow that you don't want to join, I'll let you go."