It was quiet as the fog surrounded the forest—the same forest from the GA near the headquarter, only it looked scarier than last time since it's a bit darker. Ayuki exhaled as she watched her breath going up in the air. She was tired of running around, tired from looking around, tired from the continuous training and lessons. The silence broke when a voice came out of a blinking Tag that hung around her neck. "Dwayne here. I'm running out. Thirty percent left." Another voice followed saying, "Selyn. Hold on! I've just found some clues to the root thing. It should be here at least." Ayuki picked up the swaying Tag and clenched on it, "Ayuki. Where is 'here'? Could you perhaps describe your surrounding?" "Selyn. Oh... yes. I walked quite a bit east going upwards, and there's an old black W-shaped tree in front of me." Ayuki looked around. Most of her view consisted only of dark-brown trees. According to the lesson all the recruits received before the survival training, these trees are called fein trees. The fein trees in the forest are darker than the trees seen around the city and produce a lot more Fes too. When Ayuki took a few more steps ahead, a black tree became visible from a distance. "Ayuki. Okay, I think I see the W-shaped tree. I'll be joining you." It's a bit weird saying our names first whenever we use the shared Call Tag, but it does help us to distinguish everyone's voice—they do sound different from the Tag than in person. Ayuki traveled the shortest route she could find to reach the W-shaped tree. While passing by some trees, she made sure to leave a mark with her knife on the barks. If the others spot her marks, they can simply follow it to catch up. When Ayuki arrived there, she saw that Selyn already discovered the Ferios root and was grinding it with a mortar and pestle. Grinding the root into powder is necessary for the antidote. Ayuki took some of the Ferios root that Selyn chopped into pieces and put it in her own mortar. "I'll help." "Thanks," Selyn said. "How many milligrams do we need of this again? 350?" She already forgot? "380 milligram," Ayuki replied, "but a bit more shouldn't be a problem." "Really? Okay then." Selyn's hands were trembling. "Aah, I'm starting to stress a little about Dwayne's situation." "Yeah, me too." Ayuki sighed. "I'm at least glad that this is just an exercise." "Oh, yes!" Selyn nodded. "Imagine if this was real. I think I'll die from stress before Dwayne does from his poison." "Haha, I do prefer the stress over poison, don't you think?" Selyn snickered. She looked a lot calmer now compared to before. "Still, this whole SA is crazier than I thought... Look at us now—it's the first week and the number of recruits decreased by a landslide." She's right about that. It's tough going from one training to another without a break. More than half the recruits already left... Now, the Order is expecting us to work together in random teams with people we've never met before. "Can't blame the recruits for leaving, that Defarin experience was more than enough to scare them away. And do you know how I freaked out I was when they suddenly injected something in Dwayne's arm? They said it wasn't real poison, but—" The Call Tag flashed. "Hello there! Twenty percent now! I won't make it at this rate! You know I'm dying now, right? Ugh..." Dwayne sounded more and more agitated as his so-called life bar was decreasing. A loading bar appeared in front of him when he got injected by that needle. The bar was yellow, and the text implied that it was Dwayne's life bar—it supposedly represented the time he had left before the poison would spread to his whole body. "Yes, yes. Geez, complaining won't help you," Selyn muttered to herself, and then replied back to Dwayne's reaction, "Selyn. We're almost done. Are you guys on your way?" "..." No response came back from Dwayne. "Okma here. Dwayne's starting to lose consciousness. They might have injected him with some sedatives. I'm coming, but it'll take more time now without Dwayne's support. Damn, he's heavy... Uhm... I'm following Yona Ayuki's markings now." It isn't poison, right? I sure hope not. Selyn wiped the mortar and pestle clean before she put it back in her backpack. "Hey, Ayuki. Are we done?" "Almost. We still need to check if our antidote is completely safe to use, but we can go to the guys in the meantime." Ayuki made sure to remember that everything outside the city can still be contaminated. She put a bit of Ferios powder in her jar. A bit odd, but all the recruits are in possession of a jar that contains a Cynthus—a cute beetle with a horn capable of sensing harmful substances. The Cynthus has an enormous appetite and can eat almost everything. Research has proven that anything it decides to eat is safe to consume by a human. Having everything packed, Selyn stood up, made eye-contact with Ayuki, and grabbed her Tag. "Selyn here. Okay, got it. We'll be coming to your direction." "As an Elite it is vital to cooperate and communicate with anyone. One mistake can jeopardize the whole mission." That was what an Order official said, and the reason why all the recruits kept working with different people in temporary squads they called "training squads". Ryuzo and his next new formed training squad teleported from the city to a dangerous looking forest. It looked different than the forest from the GA, it looked wilder. The trees weren't all pointing up vertically, they were pointing to all kinds of directions. The trees seen here were tain trees. The black trunks are rather thin while its length varied from very short to the height of a mountain. A strong wind was present—you could hear it blowing through the forest. It felt like the forest was trying to suck everyone in. It wasn't, however, the trees or the wind that bothered Ryuzo the most—it was the voices he heard coming from the forest. High-pitched screams echoed from multiple places. Could the rest hear it too? Ryuzo wondered to himself but refrained from asking the others. In his childhood, he remembered being treated differently or branded a liar just by saying whatever he hears from afar, so he learned not to do that anymore. "So this is the Insanity Forest." Yuu is the most experienced recruit in the squad, but even he sounded very intimidated by its menacing presence. He might have failed the SA examination before, but he did prove to be very skilled in combat during the defarin training. "Yes, it is." I advise you all to stay calm and behind us at all times." Ryuzo already forgot the name of the guy that just spoke, but he was a member of squad fifteen, that's all Ryuzo needed to know. Squad fifteen was there to accompany the training squad, well, it's more accurate to say that the training squad was accompanying squad fifteen on an official away mission. The plan for the survival training is to locate and collect eindalm seeds. The eindalm is a plant that can live under extreme circumstances. When you swallow its seed, although it won't stay alive for long, it can still sprout and grow within the stomach. Swallowing one seed will keep hunger away for a full day or two. It's the most useful food that the Elites should have in possession to survive. The unfortunate thing about the eindalm is that nobody managed to grow and cultivate it themselves. Thus, the Order has only been able to obtain the eindalm seeds through the away missions from a dangerous place called the Insanity Forest. As the name "Insanity Forest" suggests, it's not a nice place to spend your time in. It is known for its horrible nest of tarmin creatures. Multiple away missions have been conducted there, but it has never been fully explored mainly due to the dangerous whisters and rhukiolas lurking around there. Great, just great, Ryuzo thought to himself in disbelief. An inexperienced squad will go outside to a deadly place just to collect some seeds. The only positive part was that the training squad didn't have to do it on their own, they had the support of squad fifteen, whoever they are, to protect them. "Okay, guys. Follow me," said the blond-short-haired leader of squad fifteen. Austin was his name? Anyways, he seemed competent enough to lead the recruits through this mission. "Okay, does anyone know how an eindalm looks like?" Austin asked. It was illustrated in the lessons a few hours ago... Does he need to ask this? Well, Austin wasn't there, so I guess he just wants to make sure we're not a bunch of clueless rookies. "Yes," Maiden replied, "it's a medium-sized plant with curly green leaves, but the red colored root is its most distinctive feature." Maiden was part of the training squad. She stood apart from the rest with her short dark-blue hair, and appeared to be quite smart too, although that could also be because of her glasses. Other than Maiden and Yuu, the big and muscled Bayne was also part of this training squad. He remained silent, but kept his focus, looking around for any danger to pop up. Austin nodded. "Correct, but did you also know it's common form?" Since nobody was able to answer his next question, Austin continued talking, "The eindalm only grows in dire circumstances, but under normal conditions, it's completely dried-up in the shape of a snake. That's what you need to look for: snake-look-a-like plants that are all dried-up and wrinkled." With that new revelation, the team marched forward into the dark forest, looking for wrinkled snake-look-a-like plants. Finding one wasn't actually a hard task—it was pretty much everywhere to find. All that you had to do was, grab an easy-to-find eindalm plant from the ground with its roots intact, dig up the seeds from the spot, and leave at least one seed behind so that it can sprout in the future. Going further into the forest was off-limits, there were plenty of eindalm seeds to find in the outer zone anyways. All the recruits also learned about the different forest types, but Ryuzo completely forgot about that part. At least he didn't forget the zone part. For the sake of safety, every discovered forest is marked in several zones. Forest zone Meaning Outer The safest place of the forest, not much danger to expect. Border The line between safety and danger. Move more with caution. Core Most dangerous place of the forest, nests of tarmin and furmin can be expected. The Insanity forest only has the outer and border zone marked—the core has never been explored as of yet. Ryuzo and the whole team only proceeded to the outers zone, but after collecting more and more eindalm seeds, they came come closer and closer to the border zone. In doing so, the screams Ryuzo kept hearing, began to change into human sentences. "Do you hear that?" Bayne eventually asked. "It sounds like we're not the only ones here." The voices were indeed saying something, to be more precise asking for help or assistance. Was is it the Cyllius? No, Ryuzo is familiar with the cries of the Cyllius. These voices were calmer and less frequent. One voice even said, "I found it. Come here." "What's going on?" Maiden asked with concerned eyes. "Aren't we the only ones here?" "We are," Austin confirmed. "Don't be fooled by those voices—its from the whisters we mentioned before." Just before this mission, squad fifteen informed the training squad about the whisters—creatures in the shape of trees. They can look like an normal tree, but their arms are as sharp as a blade. The fortunate thing about whisters is that they can't move from their place, they always stay fixed with their roots in the ground. That is why they try to lure anything to come close to its striking range. They can produce the sound of every pray it kills, including humans. Ryuzo knew a bit about the whisters, but not about their voice manipulation. Ayuki would've known this. There's not a thing she wouldn't forget about all the creatures she read in The Curse Encounters book. Her memory is that impressive. Thinking about Ayuki, Ryuzo still couldn't understand her character. She said she has no memory of anything up until a month ago, has literally no ties to anyone here, and yet she's willing to join the Elites and help the city while having a bad reputation with the citizens. She said she wants to understand who she really is, but is that necessary? Ayuki is supposed to be younger than Ryuzo, but he had to admit that her character was that of an older sister towards him. Because of that, Ryuzo felt very ashamed towards her. He admired her ability to see every difficulty as an opportunity instead of a problem. She helped Ryuzo to change his attitude and to become a better person. If anything, he wanted to help her too in any way he could, to at least repay the favor, and be like an older brother to her instead. Those were at least the thoughts that flew through his mind, but he still had no idea how to put them in action. People are hard to get... Focusing on the objective, the collection of the eindalm seeds went pretty smoothly. Things went perhaps a bit too smoothly? Ryuzo couldn't stay calm—the talking whisters kept him on edge. Other than the whisters, Ryuzo began to hear crackling twigs, moving leaves, and bushes being touched nearby. Was something approaching? Austin raised his arm and all the members of squad fifteen began to spread around the training squad in their own positions. "Put on your masks and goggles!" Austin yelled. His eyes were dead serious now as he looked to the rest of the training squad. "Something is coming here."