…

Jonathan followed closely behind the woman as they headed to his work location.

Neither of them spoke during the walk, but this didn’t bother Jonathan at all.

Instead of engaging in what was for him useless blather, he observed the scenery around him.

Since he stayed in his tent except for when he met Louis, Jonathan had no idea of what the terrain looked like here.

As such, he earnestly analyzed the place, engraving its disposition in his mind.

Jonathan quickly found out that they were walking downhill from where his tent was, heading to a place where some cave entrances could be seen. When he looked up, he saw another amalgamation of structures close to the top of the hill.

Since many trees had been put down here, he could get a good look at what there was using his perception attribute. He could see very large tents, along with many people in bulletproof vests walking.

Compared to where he had just left from, it was obviously more developed.

Furthermore, the density of armoured members was much higher there. As such, Jonathan guessed that that was where Louis and his closest men resided.

Also, the large size of that part of the camp as well as the other camps sections greatly shocked Jonathan.

Although he was initially part of a group numbering hundreds of people, their camp looked nowhere as well established as this one. Here, it seemed like they would be able to survive rainstorms and winds. It looked a bit like the constructions from North American natives.

The armed people, along with a few less well-dressed people, were walking to whichever task they had to accomplish, not hesitating on bits. In fact, Jonathan saw a non-armed person get hit by an armed person’s gun stock because he seemed to not be heading somewhere quickly enough. Although he couldn’t hear what was said at that distance, he could see the general lines of the conflict.

‘These must be the one of the labour workers. Although they still show violence to them, I guess it’s not as bad as real slavery.’

Jonathan quickly remembered that he would soon be in a position where that could be him.

‘Speaking of armed people…’

Jonathan glanced at the woman walking in front of him. She wouldn’t be considered as tall, but she was above average height for a woman. As he Jonathan observed her body, he found that her proportions were different from your usual female.

‘Judging by how her arms are larger but they aren’t flabby, she most likely has a strength attribute. It seems like that attribute is quite common. Till now I have met strength people the most. As for something like intelligence, the only person I could think of would be Guillaume.’

Although he didn’t care too much about what others got as an attribute, the rarity of each still interested Jonathan.

‘Doesn’t that mean that someone with a rarer attribute would be much more valuable than others?’

What would happen if he revealed he had a rare attribute like intelligence?

Perhaps he would be treated as a core member from then on.

Perhaps he would be kicked out because of others fear.

Nonetheless, Jonathan had no intention to reveal his trump card.

He also observed the pistol at her waist, imagining tens of scenarios where he could steal it. Of course, he wouldn’t do that. At least, not now.

“We’re here.” The woman said.

Unknowingly, Jonathan had walked all the way to an area where there were a few caves.

The density of trees here was much higher than at other places.

Many ordinary people were moving about, doing their own thing.

Somewhere cutting a large tree trunk while others were assembling wood using rope or carving it out. Jonathan could count at least forty.

A few armed people acted like guards at the perimeters of the work area, ensuring that no one ran away. They were equipped with fully automatic rifles.

This made Jonathan truly envious. They had probably been teleported to this world when they had guns on them, most likely during a practice.

“I’ll tell you the rules of the place before you enter.” The woman said as she turned and stared at Jonathan. She what looked like a mix of jealousy and refusal in her eye.

Jonathan had an idea of why, but he simply nodded and didn’t inquire on the matter.

“First, don’t kill anyone or we’ll kill you. Of course, self-defence is excluded, but you’ll have to compensate. Getting into fights is fine, but if you do any life-threatening injuries to someone, you’ll have to pay back by doing that person’s part of work.

Second, respect the authority. If you do not, they have all rights to do punishments that they deem fair. Remember, you have no rights here.

Third, you must do your required amount of work least you want to get kicked out of the camp and probably die in the forest.

Fourth, any actions around the lines of betrayal will grant you immediate death.”

When Jonathan heard this, he didn’t react, as if it had no worth in his eyes. He then blankly stared at the woman and answered. “Sure.”

Despite being partly displeased by his attitude, the lady simply continued with her explanation. It wasn’t unusual for new people to give attitude, so she shrugged the matter.

“As you are a strength attribute, your job will be cutting down trees. Since you have a healing attribute, you won’t have two roles as you can handle the toll on your body. You wake up when the guards tell you to in the morning and immediately get to working. You’ll get a dinner break, but that’s it. After that, you’ll work for a few more hours and return to your tent. Understood?”

“Yep.”

“I won’t be instructing you on how to do your job, so I’ll present you to the senior labour worker here. The term senior describes the person who is the closest to getting upgrade to a full-blown member in a task. For example, the tree-cutting task has its senior member, and the wood-carving task has its senior member. The position isn’t something set in stone, as it is fully dependent on your output and our judgment.”

“So anyone can become a senior if they put in enough work.”

“Yes. Your senior will be the one instructing you on what to do concerning your job. There are only a few hours of work left, so if you can learn the basics it’ll be good enough.”

As she said this, she walked towards an area where the trees still weren’t cut down.

There, a few people were hard at work. A man seemed particularly efficient while he swung his makeshift axe.

Having quickly noticed him, Jonathan examined that man.

‘Way more hits per ten seconds then the others, above-average power in his strikes. I would say that he’s an agility attribute. Although his agility attribute isn’t on the same level as Steph’s, it’s not too far from it. As for the strength in his strikes, it isn’t quite a strength attribute. He probably trained in our previous world.’

The woman approached the mentor. When the latter noticed her, he respectfully bowed while sending a quick glance in Jonathan’s direction

“I’ll leave this rookie to you. Train him.” The woman coldly said this as she turned around and left, not even waiting for the mentor’s reaction.

The mentor simply clenched his teeth, a bit of hatred flashing through his eyes.

He then starred at Jonathan, and an even more furious glow came from his eyes. In his head, he secretly swore.

‘F*ck! I put in so much work, yet they still treat me like this. And why is me that has to train now people??’ He starred at Jonathan, and suddenly realized something. Jonathan had been escorted here by an official member and this was something he hadn’t seen before.

‘No, this isn’t an ordinary rookie, could it be the guy from the rumours?’

Although the armoured members and the labourers weren’t actively in contact, they still had some relationships between each other.

As such, when the news of Jonathan appearing and acting up in front of leader was brought up, it wasn’t long for those of the lower class to hear about it, albeit not fully. They didn’t know much except that Jonathan seemed to have something with the leader and received better treatment than them, sleeping in the senior sector.

‘What the hell? Why does he get preferential treatment? It’s just a teen. By what right is he getting escorted? And why is he sleeping in the same sector as me and not with the lowly slaves? Sure, he has an attribute, but what of it? I could neutralize him quickly enough since he didn’t fully develop it.’

Had Jonathan heard this, he probably would have laughed at how the man didn’t know much of attributes. He would have immediately known how he didn’t understand that there were different levels of talent in each attribute. For example, he was a bottom agility while Steph was a middle and Rana a high.

“Hi, I’m Jonathan. I’ll depend on you to know how to work around here.” As he was the newcomer, Jonathan found it natural for him to introduce himself. He already had a bad feeling of the situation, but he ignored the senior’s anger.

“Yeah whatever. You can call me senior. Enough chatter, I’ll give you a few minutes to understand how to cut, but if you don’t you’re on your own! After all, it’s not like you can replace my quota.”

“OK.”

Jonathan’s nonchalant attitude seemed to tick off the man even more.

‘He just came here but he’s acting as if this isn’t anything worth his time.’ The senior thought.

However, Jonathan didn’t want to prove anything right now. In fact, he only saw a Yassin V2 in front of him now. He simply wanted to get away from this type of person since they seemed to bring bad luck upon him.

A slight smile appeared on the man’s face but quickly disappeared. Still, Jonathan was able to catch onto it. This secretly made him frown, as the smell of something fishy came.

“Follow me, I’ll teach you how to cut a tree.” Suddenly, the mentor seemed to have turned into a way nicer person. He grabbed another makeshift axe and walk into a part of the woods with Jonathan.

They quickly arrived at a small height tree. In comparison to others, its trunk was also much smaller than the other trees here.

Jonathan also noticed that this area seemed to be more secluded than others, the guards having minimal view.

Still, he acted as an interested student as he listened to the senior.

He was confident that his front was much more convincing than the senior’s.

After a long instruction on how to efficiently cut wood, the senior got into a stance for a demonstration.

“Don’t stay this close, or I might slip and injure you.”

This is where everything started going out of place.

First, Jonathan noticed that the senior took the second axe, which was much blunter than the one he was using. With such primitive tools, this had a huge effect on cutting efficiency.

Second, the senior's stance wasn’t quite aligned with his own instructions.

Third, he seemed to be a bit too far from the tree.

Suddenly, he initiated the swing, accelerating much faster than what Jonathan had seen before.

Jonathan’s perception and intelligence attribute screamed at him and at that instant.

Pah!

A long piece of wood was sent flying in his direction, quickly, he fell to the ground and used his left forearm to hit the piece wood away.

“@!*&” Jonathan started swearing as he felt intense pain in his forearm.

“Holy sh*t! Are you alright???” The senior tried to put up an act, but Jonathan wasn’t on the same page as him.

‘This psycho f*cker!!! I don’t even know him and he wants me crippled!’ Jonathan swore in his heart. It didn’t take long for him to understand what the man wanted to do.

He started at the senior as if he was looking at corpses, got up and screamed.

“Are you looking for TROUBLE?!?”

When the senior hears this, his apologetic façade disappeared, and a dirty look appeared on his face.

“I swear it was just an accident.” He said, putting his hands up with a smile. “Don’t fight me, or you’ll get punished!”

This man that Jonathan knew for less than ten minutes was already trying to play games on him.

Jonathan went silent for a few seconds as he removed shards of wood from his forearm.

Then, he starred dead straight through the senior and said:

“You really want to die.”