….

Meanwhile, at Jonathan’s previous camp, the search party had returned from their expedition.

The few that stayed at the camp welcomed them.

Amongst them, a man came up to Stephanie as she was at the front of the group and asked: “How did it go? Did you find the others?”

This brought start to a violent outburst in Stephanie, but she quickly controlled herself and simply continued on her path as she bumped the man away. She then entered her tent, not uttering a single word.

“What’s up with her?” The man was a bit baffled, but he came to realize the severity of the situation when he saw the look of everyone on the search party.

He then noticed Alex carrying a singly body. It was badly bruised and had bumps with holes all over it.

“That…Yassin? Is he...?” The man was shocked by the fact that Yassin would be found dead and he wanted to deny this.

Seeing his reaction, someone nearby shook their head. This allowed the man to have a sight of relief. Still, he was apprehensive of the situation.

“But weren’t we looking for six people or so?” He asked out loud. However, this resulted in him receiving a death stare from every member of the expedition group. They then decided to swiftly ignore him.

Feeling that it was only proper that he received an explanation, Guillaume walked up to the oblivious man.

“Some stuff came up and we were only able to save one person.”

“Some stuff?”

“Let’s just say that it’s a first for everyone here to have been crushed by the odds. I’ll explain more during the imminent meeting. Speaking of which go advice the other campers of it. It will occur in two days to leave everyone the time to recover their strength. Also, try not to ask about it, it brings down the mood.” Guillaume surprisingly wasn’t mad at all. In fact, he looked like a wise adult observing a group of little kids having drama.

“Sure.”

Guillaume looked at the man departing and slightly shook his head. He then seemingly got lost in deep thinking as his gaze got distant.

At the same time, Yves followed from the back of the group and came up to him. He looked quite worried about the overall situation.

“You think that they’re going to be alright?” Yves asked. Nobody had talked during the walk back, so it was the first time he interacted with Guillaume

While staring at the sky, seemingly in contemplation, Guillaume calmly answered.

“Partially.”

“Partially? What do you mean by that?” Yves asked with curiosity. He never quite understood the man in front of him, as if Guillaume was always hiding behind a curtain of mystery.

Without turning his gaze, Guillaume answered.

“They didn’t take them just to kill them, that I am sure. I’m confident that Jonathan will be fine. The partially comes from Yamina. As far as I saw, she isn’t nearly as competent as Jonathan. She seeks futile things such as group attention and love when she is not guaranteed to live the next day. Furthermore, she cannot adapt to this situation, preferring to keep her old mentality and refusing to compromise. Had it not been for the others, she would probably have returned to the soil by now.”

“…” Yves didn’t know quite what to answer to this criticism, so he changed the subject. “What makes you so confident in Jonathan?”

For the first time during the conversation, Guillaume looked away from the sky.

“Jonathan…he’s wise beyond his age. He knows when to act and in which fashion to ensure his survival. Although he is no mastermind, someone like Yamina cannot keep up. Furthermore, he is hiding quite a few secrets that I am sure. The fact that I can’t see through him although I am a gu-.”

Guillaume stopped what he was saying abruptly.

“You are a what?” Yves asked.

“Whatever. The meeting is in two days. As the leaders, it is important to take our stance here. The entirety of the group moral depends on it.” Guillaume said as he walked towards his tent.

“Ah, yes.” Yves knew that Guillaume didn’t want to speak of some things, so he simply walked towards his own makeshift lodging, holding his doubts inside.

During the two following days, the moral of everyone was low, but they were eager to hear what they would do from now on.

Furthermore, Yassin had successfully awoken the second day, allowing him to tell of what caused his group to fall into such a bad situation. Although he couldn’t talk much because of injury, he was still able to give key information.

At the evening of that day, the meeting started. The whole group formed a circle where Yves and Guillaume would be the centre of.

Guillaume pushed through some people and arrived at the middle of the circle with Yves.

“Thank you all for coming. You already know what matter we will talk about, but for those that weren’t there, I’ll do a little sum up. We successfully found the foraging group, but unfortunately, we could only get a hold of Yassin. An armed group opposed us so we had no chance to save Yassin and Jonathan. As for the others, they were dead already.”

After the last two phrases were said, a weird atmosphere was set in the group. Those that weren’t there was clearly more detached. This only made the situation worst.

“They would’ve easily killed at least five of us, so we had no choice but to let them take away the two of them. Although no one wished for this, it would’ve been even more devastating to have lost half of us… Furthermore, I doubt that the armed group would be willing to go through so much risk just to keep kill them.”

“How were they able to grab them so easily?” A person who wasn’t there asked out. Everyone had restrained their thoughts at the moment, but this person couldn’t help but ask.

Almost no one was in the mood to speak of this prior to the meeting, so those that stayed at camp didn’t know much of the situation.

“They were unconscious before we arrived and judging from how the other group didn’t have any signs of battle on them, they were most likely out before they came too. Trust me, Jonathan wouldn’t have let them put a finger on him without a good fight.” Stephanie, who had a stern expression for the last three days, answered.

She had previously isolated herself from everyone, only coming out to eat, so her talking meant that she had stabilized herself.

Guillaume nodded with satisfaction as Stephanie was one of their greatest assets.

“As Stephanie said, they were probably unconscious before any of the groups arrived. I had previously interrogated Yassin, and he said that they had gotten attacked by a buzzing black cloud after they ate the fruits. My guess is that these were some type of predator bees. Although it is unfortunate that it happened in those circumstances, it still allowed us to learn something.”

“Yes. We now know that not everything here can be directly derived from the knowledge of our previous world. For example, these bees turned their source of food into a bait to attract bigger games like us. This also proves that despite our enhancements, we are nowhere near the top of the food chain. After all, what top predator gets tricked by insects.” Julien spoke up as planned with Guillaume.

“That’s exactly the case. We now must be wearier of everything to not fall in this situation. Truth be told, Jonathan screamed out to Yassin about the danger, but as he was lost in ecstasy, so he ignored the warning. This means that even someone who knew of the danger at the critical moment, like Jonathan, couldn’t run away from it.” Guillaume added this to what Julien had said.

These claims made everyone have hint of fear in their eyes.

“Still, this isn’t a reason to despair. The fact is that we have lived while others have died. At least we know we’re on the good path. Instead of being scared and always hiding, it’s more efficient to progress and develop our attributes so that we end up having nothing and no one to fear. We don’t know what’s the bottleneck of these substances but if they don’t have any, it’s possible to reach heights that were unachievable in our previous world. In fact, look at how strong you all got in a few weeks!” Yves pointed this out and successfully boosted the group moral.

Everyone now had a bit of a smile on their faces.

All this was true. They had gone through many hardships, but this life wasn’t entirely bad. Some felt way better in this situation, where they could show their worth and bond with others. This was a total contrast to their previous world, where everyone would seclude themselves in their bubbles.

Furthermore, they had achieved more in these few weeks than they had during their whole life. They had all gained some type of strength with attributes.

“But we still weren’t strong enough to help out a few members of our group.” Someone pointed out.

“True, but we can train like leader said and then be able to save them.” Another person objected.

“No.” Surprisingly, Stephanie walked up and rejected the idea of going after their two members.

“We can’t deviate from our objective. We’ll get stronger, and that’s all. It burns my insides to know in what situation they could in, but as leader said, they are still probably alive. If that is the case, I’m sure Jonathan will find a way out of this for them. I believe in this with all my heart. He wouldn’t want us to look after him, instead he would want us to each get stronger to not become death weights but pushers. If destiny wields it, we will meet them again. He told me so himself, if he were to ever fall, I was to never look back and instead continue running. There is no point running back if you would get lost in the process and lose yourself.” Stephanie spoke out with emotion, a tear trickled down her face.

“There is a time for mourning, but it is not now…not while you can die at any time, not while you are weak.”

Hearing what she just said, everyone was momentarily wordless. She was the one who was the biggest advocate of looking for Jonathan and the one the maddest at losing him. Yet, she decided to reject all that.

Truth be told, no one cared too much about Yamina. She had a minor role and wasn’t too involved. In contrast, Jonathan was almost as present as the two leaders. He participated in many tasks and had interacted with almost everyone. The only people who weren’t pleased of him were those who envied him. As such, they also weren’t pleased about how he was taken away.

Guillaume had a big smile on his hearing this. He was obviously pleased at her new determination. He understood that those two days in her tent that was now too big for her had propelled her mental fortitude by a lot. Perhaps many years or ‘normal’ living couldn’t compare.

“Well said Stephanie! That’s right! For the short time I knew Jonathan, I clearly understood that he was no idiot. He knows how people work and know how living out here works. He’ll be fine, I’m sure of it. Me treating him as my equal, or even a bit above that in only a few days of contact is a testimony to his abilities.” Alexandre also spoke up to recomfort everyone.

“Yes, here, it is the law of the jungle. Although it means that if you are weak you lose everything, it is also much simpler as we only have one thing to concentrate on. Strength! This was a clear call for us. We’re going to stop trying to build useless sh*t to make our life similar to our previous and concentrate on our training. We’ll turn our group of desperate people into a group of elites. We’ll train till blades cannot touch us, and bullets cannot hit us. By then, we will have nothing to fear, human or animal, and we’ll be able to continue towards a common objective…”

Guillaume paused a bit in his speech.

Everyone was much more enthusiastic of their situation now. Stephanie, Alexandre and he had all spoken loud and clear about how great Jonathan was, so they weren’t nearly as worried for him. Although he would still be on everyone’s mind, his capture wouldn’t be a handicap for long.

Furthermore, Guillaume’s speech had put most of them into deep thoughts

However, his expression had changed from his calm and composed self and turned into a much more violent one, as if he had some rage that he only let out now. This made everyone turn highly receptive.

This receptiveness caused the next words to be etched into their minds for the rest of their travels, or until destiny ‘willed’ a reunion with Jonathan.

Guillaume took a heavy breath in, and he continued his message.

“And once we get to that point, we’ll be able to do as we please and never live in fear. And if we meet those motherf*ckers that took Jonathan and Yamina away…

We WILL crush them.”