It was already difficult enough to take the roe deer with us, so we didn’t take the jaguar. I had heard from somewhere that the meat of carnivorous animals wasn’t edible, so that was one more reason why we didn’t take it with us.
Just moving the one roe deer with Liana, who severely lacked physical strength, was already enough in our extremely exhausted state.
“Huff… Huff… Huff…”
When Liana returned to the camp, she almost collapsed near a tree in front of the bonfire Heinrich was struggling to keep lit. The pouring rain kept on extinguishing the fire, but there was still steam rising from it because Heinrich maintained it with all of his effort.
“Grantz, are you okay?” Heinrich asked her with worry.
Liana just stared at him while her limbs shook.
Right.
Heinrich was set up to like Liana.
“You… Does it look like I’m okay…?”
“Ah, that’s… Right.”
…I now knew what it was.
That uncomfortable feeling.
Wasn’t she just a female version of me? She was a female Reinhardt, right? Wasn’t she like me? Rude and ready to do whatever it took?
“Aren’t jaguars like tigers?”
When I told Harriet how we were able to catch this roe deer, she was surprised to hear that we actually encountered a wild beast.
"They aren’t exactly like tigers, but they are somewhat similar."
“…You killed it? You?”
She looked at me as if she couldn’t believe it. Surely, if someone heard that two 17-year-olds caught a jaguar, they’d wonder if pigs started flying.
I pointed at the roe deer.
"Then do you think I made those bite marks?”
Ah.
Looking back at it, it seemed like Grantz and I really did talk similarly to each other.
Anyway, the bite mark on the roe deer’s nape—the one that had killed it—wasn’t something one could achieve with human teeth, only after showing her that did Harriet believe that we had really encountered a beast.
“Didn’t you get hurt?”
Harriet looked at me with slightly teary eyes.
“…I got electrocuted, but I’m fine."
“Electrocuted? Why did you get… Ah.”
Harriet nodded blankly, seemingly having remembered that Liana was with me.
It was obviously Liana that almost killed me, not the jaguar. By the way, it didn’t feel all too bad that she asked me if I got hurt.
The camp had been heavily rebuilt during the rain; the smashed huts were repaired again, and when the kids felt too cold, it looked like they’d return to the campfire maintained by Heinrich to warm up before getting back to work.
As I spun around, I tied up the hind legs of the roe deer with vines and hung it from a thick tree branch.
And—
-Thud!
“Hiik!”
-Puck!
“Urg…”
-Crack!
—I struck the deer’s neck with an axe to cut it off. I could have just cut its artery, but it was already soaked in rainwater, and the part that the jaguar had bitten into was probably severely infected with bacteria. Blood started to gush out, and honestly, it didn’t look all that pleasant.
Then I cut open its stomach and removed the intestines.
All my classmates who were watching me seemed terrified. Harriet, Liana, and Adelia were even trembling.
They wore expressions that seemed to question how I could do such a thing.
I was also disgusted and about to vomit! But they wouldn’t be able to do it, so I was the one who did it instead!
“You bastards. Do you think I want to do this? What are you looking at me like I’m some bloodthirsty butcher for? Do you want to do it instead? Huh?"
When I nervously shouted that, everyone slowly evaded my gaze.
Of course, my face, hands, and clothes were completely covered in vermillion blood—making me seem really creepy.
***
The camp and hunting teams both had to do tremendous amounts of manual labor in the heavy rain without even eating breakfast.
Even if no one was showing signs of dehydration, it was only natural that everyone was extremely exhausted.
Even with Heinrich, grilling meat in the rain was still very difficult.
Therefore, I let it bleed out and completely skinned the roe deer with the axe and machete. Rather than calling it cutting it up, the expression crushing would be more fitting, as the process was that radical. It couldn’t be helped because my chopping and butchering skills weren’t all that good.
I put the meat—cut up into chunks—into a large pot.
And then we boiled it.
It was only a simple meal. If we had seasonings and other ingredients, we could make proper meals, but we didn’t have such things there. The only seasoning we had was salt.
Together with Heinrich and Liana, who applied electricity to the pot, we heated it up.
When the water in the pot started to boil and the meat started to cook, I could definitely see the looks in the kids’ eyes change.
It had been only three days, but their eyes were about to spin because of how hungry they were. They were ready to eat anything, as long as it was tasty—so they just waited for the meat to cook.
Right when the meat was about done, Bertus and Cliffman returned.
“Oh, you caught this?”
Bertus’ eyes grew wide as he saw the remaining chunks of deer meat.
Perhaps because he also hadn’t found any traces, Bertus caught a total of seven birds and small animals.
“No, I mean, how did you catch so many?”
In a way, one could say that we stole this prey from something else but he actually caught seven animals.
I felt like I forgot that Bertus was actually an amazing guy with both great physical strength as well as intelligence.
"There aren’t actually that many pieces you can eat from those.”
Still, I thought it was amazing that he was able to catch seven. Bertus started to chuckle as if he had read my thoughts.
“Reinhardt, hunting is a fairly common hobby among nobles. Of course, it isn’t that kind of hunting, though.”
Oh. That seemed to be the reason why Bertus, the epitome of wealth, was familiar with hunting. Wasn’t aristocratic hunting just shooting arrows at prey driven by hunters? Bertus seemed a little more skillful than that. Ellen took the bow, so he hunted like that only with a single spear.
Bertus’s hunting skills were excellent, actually.
He looked around the camp and directed a question at me.
“Ellen isn’t back yet?”
“I don’t think so.”
* * *
Reaper Scans
Translator – KonnoAren
Proofreader – ilafy
* * *
Ellen had yet to return. I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. Of course, Ellen wasn’t one to get into grave danger, so neither I nor Bertus was all that worried. The other kids seemed worried, though.
“I don’t think Erich is here either.”
Come to think of it, Erich de Lafaeri wasn’t in the camp either. At Bertus’ observation, Heinrich hesitantly opened his mouth.
“Erich, that guy…”
“What?”
“He said… That he was going to look for Cayer.”
His friend went missing, and no one seemed to actually look for him, so he went into the jungle himself. Kono Lint was also staring blankly into the jungle.
Kono Lint, Cayer Vioden, and Erich de Lafaeri.
Since those three were best friends, it was only natural that they worried about each other.
“This…”
“He went in before I could stop him…”
He took individual actions at a time when doing that couldn’t be worse. Bertus frowned, seemingly pondering a bit, before sighing.
“We’ll think about this situation later. Let’s eat first.”
The deer meat was enough for now, so everyone stopped working and gathered together to eat the meat on wooden skewers.
It was chewy but not to the level that we couldn’t eat it as it was salted.
“A jaguar?”
While answering Bertus’s question about how we caught the deer, we talked about the jaguar. After hearing the report that Liana and I teamed up to take down a jaguar, Bertus seemed slightly stunned for a second.
“It’s surprising to hear that this island has things like these, and even more surprising that you were able to kill one.”
To be honest, I simply hit what Liana stunned, but, in a way, it was also because of my ability that I could block its rush.
After eating for some time, Harriet suddenly burst into laughter.
“Ha, haha…Ha…”
“Idiot… What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”
Seeing the kid who seemed depressed and annoyed all the time suddenly laugh blankly like that as if she were mesmerized by something, everyone felt shocked. Harriet smiled blankly while munching on the tough deer meat soaked in rainwater.
“Saint-Owan? What’s the matter?”
Seeing Harriet’s complexion, Bertus seemed worried as well.
Did she eat some weird mushrooms while I wasn’t looking?
“N-no… It’s only been a few days, but I’ve already started eating like this as if it’s a given… I just suddenly… suddenly thought it was funny…”
Everyone was eating this deer meat, boiled in saltwater in the middle of heavy rain. It was only a few days, but everyone, regardless of status, was sitting on the bare ground totally engrossed in wolfing down the meat.
Actually, everyone was happy enough just to be able to eat. No one was complaining. Everything just tasted a lot better because they were hungry. They were deluding themselves.
Harriet didn’t even get mad anymore; she just found it ridiculous and funny.
“Yeah, that indeed is pretty funny.”
Bertus continued to eat the meat while chuckling as if he had nothing more to say about the absurdity.
It was especially weird that the nobles were just laughing, not looking like they were in a bad mood. Everyone looked like they had just realized that new fact.
***
Even after we finished our protein-filled meal, Ellen and Erich had yet to return. Even after we cleaned everything up they hadn’t come back.
Kono Lint seemed especially anxious about Erich not returning. If I left him alone, he would also jump into the jungle, wouldn't he?
“I’m not worried about Ellen, but Erich might be in danger.”
Bertus seemed to deeply struggle with whether he should worry or not. If we were to go in to find them, we might get caught up in a situation again, it was pretty much a pain in the ass.
“Okay. The camp team should continue with what they were doing, while the hunting team will go and look for Erich as well as scout. Don’t go in too deep.”
“I can’t do anything more today.”
Liana sat down and held up her hand. She had replenished some of her energy, but she had dragged that roe deer here together with me, so she spent more stamina than she could.
“Are you that exhausted, Grantz?”
“I wouldn’t be able to move even if you threatened to beat me to death.”
Grantz seemed to talk to Bertus without any hesitation either.
“Okay. Nothing we can do about it then. Then just the three of us—Cliffman, Reinhardt, and I—shall go in to look separately. We’ll be going in there on our own, so don’t walk in too deeply. Let’s just look around in the outer layers of the jungle and then come back. I think we should be back after an hour or so.”
“Sure.”
“Understood.”
Because one person decided to act alone, three other people had to do the same. Erich probably left the impression of being a useless, unhelpful bastard on Bertus because of this incident.
Bertus and I had a machete, and Cliffman took a javelin and axe into the jungle. All of us entered the jungle in different directions.
***
Class A’s low-ranking trio. The three arrogant brothers.
Cayer Vioden, Erich de Lafaeri, and Kono Lint.
Cayer was a minor villain who hated and ignored members of Class B, Erich played the role of Scarlett’s bully and was fated to receive some true education from Ludwig, and Kono Lint didn’t bully anyone in particular, but he lusted after women.
It was supposed to be the entirety of Class A that was like that, but honestly, it was just those three. I, who was placed last in Class A, was able to crush them after they picked fights with me and received my true education.
The talents they possessed were excellent in and of themselves, but their lack of effort put into developing their talents led to them having the ability worth maybe half a penny, or their talents were outrageously tremendous but had fatal flaws.
Still, those three were very close to each other. It was only natural that Erich rushed into the jungle on his own as he was really worried about the missing Cayer, but it was still somewhat surprising.
It was pretty clear that Cayer was probably eliminated, but if we were to go by typical horror movie logic, Erich would also end up eliminated. He might have ended up thinking something like: “Although they told me I should stay here, it should be fine, even if I go out to search for him.”
Then, while we entered the jungle alone, every one of us would end up being sacrificed one after the other—that was the standard development.
When I thought about it as a standard horror movie, I found it kind of funny.
Of course, Ellen Artorius, who was thought to be the final girl, would probably end up dying while trying to save the main character at the climax.
And Harriet, who was whining non stop, wouldn’t survive for long, obviously.
No, would that mean that Adelia, who was scared of everything and everyone expected to die first, would be the final girl?
So, in the end, Adelia would be the main character; that was roughly how horror movies went.
At that moment, we were at the stage where we were going around trying to find that one person that wouldn’t listen, which would end in the tough-guy character getting killed.
Then of us three, would get sacrificed first?
I don’t think it would be Bertus.
It was either me or Cliffman.
Wouldn’t it be Cliffman in terms of physique? Putting skills aside.
Or the camp with all the non-combatants might get attacked while the three of us were out.
I walked around while thinking about useless things. I wasn’t all that concerned about what would happen tonight after all. What would happen to Erich was honestly no skin off my back.
I had no intention of seriously looking for Erich, so I just walked around the jungle.
As long as I survived until the last day of the mission, I would be awarded with achievement points. So whether we won or lost didn’t concern me. So it was enough to just go out and act like I was looking for Erich, while I wasn’t really. Another reason was that, if possible, I wanted Class B to win. That said, I couldn’t do suspicious things, such as giving Class B direct hints.
I was able to take in the jungle’s scenery as I was walking alone in the pouring rain.
If there was a hell on earth, I think it would be that. Nature was beautiful but if there was too much of it, one would realize just how shitty it was.
Everything in moderation.
-Shaaaaaaa…
Since I was in a place like that, I wouldn’t ever need rain sound ASMR again.
Of course, hearing it in person like that was pretty shitty as well.
Even if the rain stopped, it would cause problems. Although I might be able to sleep with a dry body that night, as soon as I entered the jungle the next day, it would be so much more humid than usual.
I might die from that humidity.
While I was thinking about the next day and feeling like shit in advance, I heard it right when I was about to head back.
-I said get out of my way.
-And what would you do if I don’t?
I could hear the sound of a conversation through the rain.
____
____
