West nodded without so much as a second glance, he swiped the air in front of him and loaded up the interface. It took him a second or two to find the invite button, having never looked for it in the past. He found it and soon enough there was a floating blue envelope in front of Brielle, waiting for her to accept it. West wanted to move on, but he was running through every social protocol he could think of right now and he understood that the polite thing to do in this circumstance was to wait patiently for her. He hopped anxiously from foot to foot as he did so, calming himself by running through numbers in his mind.

His previous route hadn't accounted for not being able to revive his character, but hadn't accounted for a partner. He didn't know much about the mage class, so his first step was to watch her battle and learn whatever he could, memorize as many statistics as possible. He had already seen a couple of her attacks, and they were both certainly useful tools now at his disposal. If the pair of them could take out the wasp from before, then the field that he planned on clearing up should be no real challenge. West didn't know much about this girl, but given the fight they had just won, at least he was pretty sure she was good at the game.

West gave up being patient and started slowly walking away, looking over his shoulder to make sure Brielle was following him. This situation was as alien as they came to West, but strategically it was the only thing that made sense. He needed to make sure he got a boost on the competition, and the detour into the forest had already cost him precious leveling time. He was now counting on the panic of the town being enough to grant him and Brielle the lead he needed to be able to survive. The world was dangerous enough as it was, but people in a panic were unpredictable, even for someone as socially awkward as West was. It was easy to learn the patterns of enemies, but People were harder to predict and it was the other players West truly feared.