…

In the cold night, the noise of wood cracking could be heard. Two youths were walking through them, using the flashlights of their phones to illuminate the way.

A girl was slightly shaking while walking, sometimes fumbling in her steps, almost falling to the ground.

“Calm down Stephanie, we are safe for now. The wolves have had well enough food for themselves, especially the ones chasing us.”

“You don’t know that, maybe the others successfully escaped, and the wolves are looking for us now.”

“Trust me, they did not. I personally witnessed the one in red getting bits on the neck as well as the girl falling down. Her screams could be heard shortly after.” Jonathan showed her the blood on his body, saying that it was from the red boy getting bitten.

In this situation of high stress, Stephanie would not be able to see through Jonathan lies. Even if she did after, she would realize that he had no choice.

Jonathan preferred scheming against others than seeing Stephanie getting eaten alive. Even if she hated him for it, he would not regret anything.

Different situations required different actions, and holding onto the empty values of their previous world would only put them in much more danger.

“Believe me we are fine for now. We simply need to continue onto this direction, passing by were the wolves came from before being in the clear.” Jonathan further tried to calm down Stephanie.

“Yes…you’re right. We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. I hope that the others will be fine…” Stephanie calmed down but was still extremely sad by their situation.

“Right, the others…I really hope they made it out alive. And no just them, even our families are supposed to be here somewhere. Although my parents have good chances to make it out if they don’t act rashly…my little sister. She was only nine before, meaning that she would be four here. No matter how intelligent you are, with a body like that…” Both their expressions turned solemn.

Being here truly was too harsh. Even if you got here from an accident from a plane crash or something, you would have multiple resources to help you, like the suitcases and debris from a crash. Even when people risk getting lost on something like a hike they prepare some emergency kits.

For them, however, that was impossible as they were thrown in here without notice.

“The most well off are the people that were camping or the military. They have all the tools they need. Militaries even have guns on them. They won’t feel any fear towards an ambush like we did.” Jonathan calmly said. He truly envied those people.

“The world really is unfair.” Stephanie also agreed with his thoughts.

“Yet, we cannot stay here and mourn forever. We must move forward and stabilize our situation. Tools and weapons will have to be built and long-term food sources will have to be found. If we could get some other people to create a medium-sized but extremely efficient group, we wouldn’t have trouble surviving.” Jonathan was determined to move on and live well. He didn’t believe his future would consist of picking up random food and hoping for the best. He refused to believe so.

“Then, we can head towards the sun of this place. The people who sent us here wouldn’t do it for any reason. The sun is our only lead, our hope for some change. If salvation is truly there, we might have a chance to return to our former lives.”

“That would be for the best. Then, the whole world would go on a hunt for the developers of the Phantasm.” Stephanie also displayed some hate, which was something rare from her

“Indeed. Giving them a death sentence would be considered too so-“

Before Jonathan could finish his phrase, he turned towards his right and pulled out his knife. His eyes also turned savage, like when he had killed the red boy.

They were currently walking next to a slope, making it so that it was hard to see what was up there.

“WHO’S THERE?!” He screamed out with a violent tone.

A figure suddenly jumped down from the slope landing a few metres away from Jonathan.

Without any hesitation, he changed the grip on his knife and threw it towards the person.

However, the hit never landed because an object came flying from the slope, precisely hitting the knife away and making it fall a few metres away.

Jonathan wanted to head towards where it the knife was to quickly retrieve it, but another person landed near him.

However, before that person could get up from his kneeling position, Jonathan sent a low roundhouse kick towards his face.

The person quickly blocked the kick with his arm, which wasn’t so hard since Jonathan only had the strength and speed of a nine-year-old. The attacker then sent a kick towards Jonathan while jumping to a standing position.

Jonathan was currently in the same “hunter instincts” as when he had killed the squirrel but even more intense, since he felt that his life depended on it. Thanks to that, he was able to roll away from the person’s kick before it could land on him.

Although he had successfully dodged the hit, he clearly knew his situation.

‘I can’t win this fight.’ Through this short exchange of moves, he knew that if he fought this person ten times, he would lose ten times. Furthermore, his knife was not with him.

“Stop!” A familiar voice resounded in Jonathan’s ears.

When he got up from his role, he saw the face of his opponent.

“Teacher!” Jonathan could clearly see that this was the science teacher that had taken the lead in organizing the group of five thousand humans. The person behind him, whom Jonathan had thrown the knife too, was another teacher.

“I’m sorry. I acted on reflex.” Jonathan immediately asked for forgiveness. His feelings were not fake since he would never attack that teacher and even if he would, he had no choice but to fake it since he was much weaker.

“Hm. Don’t worry about it. No one got hurt, so there is nothing to keep a grudge about. I had also attacked you by reflex. Truth be told, it was our fault that this happened. We shouldn’t have jumped out of the woods like that.” The science teacher also gave his apologies to Jonathan, before screaming out.

“The rest of you guys, come down!”

Then, four more people slid down to join them. There was another teacher that was young as well as three kids. Amongst them, Jonathan recognized Julien.

“Julien!”

“Jonathan! I can’t believe you’re here. And Stephanie too! You guys made it out of that mess.” Julien was very surprised seeing them here.

“Yeah…we got lucky.” Stephanie stepped in and answered. “There were three others with us but they didn’t make it.”

“Oh?” The science teacher seemed surprised by this claimed and he looks at Stephanie. Seeing nothing strange, he turned towards Jonathan that was covered in blood.

Their gaze crossed each other and Jonathan saw that the science teacher also had a lot of blood on him.

Something like a connection happened between them, and they immediately knew what the other was thinking.

“So, you also did it. It seems that you can change fast. You should keep it that way if you want to live.”

“Yeah, we have no choice. Restraining ourselves will only put is in danger. For our lives and those of our comrades, we have to.”

Although they had not said anything factual, they both knew they were talking about killing others. The science teacher was a smart man and had probably employed a tactic like Jonathan’s to get away.

Seeing that they both had similar personalities, the teacher suddenly thought about something.

“I saw how decisive you are, and we need exactly people like that to establish ourselves. Would you be willing to join us?”

One of the biggest obstacles to having a proper group in these situations were people with useless morals and dead weights.

Knowing that Jonathan would be the opposite of those two things, it was natural that the science teacher would want to collaborate with him.

“Definitely. Having a group like this is a rare chance.”

Although they both knew that they would give up on each other the moment the situation turned too nasty, the fact was that they would do that with any group.

Having efficient people together would make it so that the situation almost never turned “nasty,” ensuring that the group stayed stable. Even during an attack like this, they would rather depend on each other then give up on each other.

Furthermore, scheming against people of the same level of intelligence as you was very difficult and not worth it now.

“Then it’s a deal.”

The science teacher and Jonathan shook hands, officially merging their groups.

“My name is Jonathan.”

“Nice to meet you Jonathan, my name is Guillaume, no need for any misters. Same goes for the two young teachers there, Alex and Rana. You already know Julien so no introduction there. The two other kids are Jeremy and Hugo. They’ll probably be depending on you from now on.”

“Nice to meet you.” Jeremy introduced himself while sounding a bit frustrated. The science teacher had previously only treated him like an important kid, but someone younger than him was put on the level of comrades immediately. Not understanding why, he felt jealous.

Hugo simply sent a silent nod towards Jonathan and Stephanie. He was obviously a shy person.

“It’s nice to see another capable person out here.” The female teacher, Rana, obviously knew what was up. Although her pretty face was kept intact except for the dirt, she seemed to have faced many things.

“Indeed, indeed. If it continues like this, we’ll get out of here just fine, hahahahaha!” The last teacher, Alex was very happy seeing Jonathan enter the group.

“Nice to meet all of you, I hope we all end up living till old age.” Jonathan calmly responded

“Hahahahaha, old age, that would indeed be nice. Well said, well said.” Alex once again projected his happiness.

After Stephanie introduced herself, the group decided to move in the direction that Jonathan was going to, which was their direction anyways.

“We need to build weapons. I say that we do it on the move. They don’t have to be sophisticated as that would take too much time. A lifespan of a few usage is enough.” The science teacher proposed.

It was not necessary to be sitting down to build stuff like knives and small spears, so they would move and take a few breaks while constructing their tools.

Following that, Jonathan went ahead and fonts a suitable thin, strong and straight branch that was about his size. He then dug out and split the tip of it. With other pieces of wood they found along their walk, he then solidly inserted his knife, which he had picked back while leaving, onto the end of the stick.

With a stab and slash to a tree trunk, Jonathan tested his spear out. It was very functional and helped while walking, so he was very satisfied. Thankfully, the Bayonet served as a spear end anyways so it fitted its new role very well.

He would now be able to attack from far, something that was very useful against smaller animals and violent humans.

Julien and Stephanie both had knives, so they didn’t make tools other than torches.

The rest made makeshift knives and staffs.

Once that step was finished, they hurried their steps, hoping to distance themselves from the wolves.

Right when the sun rose, a layer of mist surrounded them.

After some time, they arrived in an area with much fewer trees. In the centre of it, there was a single accumulation of leaves, where rested three animals. Two others walked around, acting as guards.

Jeremy got exited seeing a source of meat, so he ran towards the animals. As they were far, their appearance wasn’t clear.

After getting a bit closer, Jonathan immediately recognized a few unique traits he had seen from close up.

Seeing the identity of those animals, Jonathan had a heavy frown on his face. Even the Guillaume’s expression turned a bit ugly.

The best option right now was to distance themselves, but groups had already been detected because of Jeremy’s impulsiveness.

“Talk about sh*t luck.”

A heavy growl was produced, and a large wolf got up from the pile of leaves, while the two others on guard duty also slowly walked towards their group.