…

In a dense forest, a young boy was sitting on a huge rock. In his hand was a piece of wood that he was grinding on a small rock, turning the wood into a makeshift knife.

‘Although I would love to use my Bayonet, revealing it here is way too risky,’ Jonathan thought to himself.

His cynical instincts told him that he would absolutely regret showing some of his assets. After all, humans will fulfill their own needs before the social one, as shown by Maslow’s Hierarchy.

‘Although they might not act against him immediately since they still have leftover values from our previous world, this group will undoubtable crumble. And when it does, all order will be gone. When that time comes they will desire such a useful tool and not hesitate to assault me. Nothing will stop them at that time. After all, a rule is only as powerful as the entity that enforces it.’

Jonathan could easily compare this to his previous lifestyle. Ordinary people would almost never kill since law enforcement would go through heaven and earth to catch them. On the other hand, music, movie and software piracy was extremely popular since absolutely no one would enforce it. You might get an email from your ISP, but no legal actions will be taken against you.

The reason for that was simple, there was no worth to doing so.

The situation of the group will turn the same. When everyone could barely find food to eat and even going to take a sh*t would use valuable energy, was stopping someone from ganging up on another person to steal a mere tool worth it?

Absolutely not.

At best, people would tell themselves they would stop someone from doing that when their situation will be stabilized, but these were all empty words.

‘As such, I have the be very weary of my actions. Although showing that I have information on survival is inevitable, there is no other alternative.’ Hiding himself looking at his phone was almost impossible. ‘Furthermore, I cannot use the situation to my advantage, as most people that have good stuff are way older, hence stronger.’

Pushing these thoughts to the side, Jonathan continued the construction of his knife.

By the instructions of his survival guide, he had found a thirty-centimetre-long piece of wood with an around three centimetres diameter. He then carved out a fifteen-centimetre blade in it. Through his multiple failures, he had formed a knife in about thirty minutes.

After stuffing it in his pocket, he headed out to help Stephanie gather material for a shelter. Although the water her wasn’t freezing, it was still cold at around seventeen-degree Celsius. There was also a constant light wind. Although it might seem like nothing, your body used energy to create heat. There wasn’t much food here, so that energy was extremely valuable. A shelter helped keep heat in to not require more to be produced.

Soon, Jonathan found himself with Stephanie.

“We’re looking for three main materials now. One, many long, strong and flexible branches. Seeing how high the trees are here, it shouldn’t be hard to find branches of this type. Two, much softer branches that we can split and use as rope. Well, must go in the more humid zones to find those. Three, large leaves. This also shouldn’t be hard to spot. Along the way, we should also look for an area to settle. Remember BLISS. Blend with surroundings, low silhouette, irregular shape, small, secluded location.” Jonathan had given his instructions according to his survival guide which was amazingly handy.

“Got it. I’ll look for leaves and a location to build the shelter and you’ll find all the necessary branches.” Stephanie felt quite confident since she wasn’t acting of off her guts like everyone else.

About an hour later, Stephanie had found a suitable location. There were a lot of people here, so many of them were taken. Thankfully one decent spot was forgotten. Had Jonathan not taken the initiative to move quickly, only wet and unprotected areas would be offered to them.

It was also good that the group’s situation had not yet cracked down, or a little girl like Stephanie would never be able to claim this territory.

Jonathan had also successfully found what he needed. Although he had a large need in quantity, there was no competition since wood was so abundant here.

After a few trips to transport the wood to their camp, Jonathan had started cutting the softer wood in strips.

He would use is wood knife to stab the base of the branch then peel it off to form a long strip.

He also used the wooden knife to stab at the stronger piece of wood and then snap them at that spot. He then used them by crossing them with each other and tying them. This formed four fences looking planks of about ten metres by seven metres. He also made one that was thinner at five by ten metres.

Placing leaves between two planks tightly, he tied them using Stephanie’s help. These would serve as the walls of his tent. The smaller plank had leaves under and above it and served as a bed top so that Stephanie and Jonathan would not lose heat to the ground.

After sticking four large branches in the ground in an inverted V shape, the walls were attached to them and the bed top was set inside.

Although this seemed very easy, it in fact was not. It took well above five hours for just the assembly although they were two. Furthermore, Jonathan would have calluses all over his hands if he didn’t use leaves to protect them. There was also the fact that the wood here was perfect for this type of construction, making the search for it much simpler.

Still, Jonathan and Stephanie had spent much sweat and tears on this. It is to be remembered that they were quite weak currently. Just lifting a few pieces of required Jonathan’s maximum effort. As such, he felt quite defensive of this place. He wouldn’t hesitate to stab anyone who trying to grab a hold of it.

‘’Quite the find work is it not?’’ Jonathan contemplated his construction. It truly wasn’t bad. It looked solid and clean. Except for the smell of wood and leaves, it couldn’t be that hard to live in there. Right?

“Although I would prefer having mattresses and pillows, this is indeed quite good compared to others.” Stephanie had no choice to validate Jonathan’s opinion. “Look over there.”

Jonathan turned his view to where Stephanie was pointing. He could see a team of about four people struggling to make a decent shelter. Furthermore, it was smaller than Jonathan’s despite them being four.

“Since everyone is working on their tents and we are done. I think we should try to exploit other resources. You should stay here to make sure no one steals the shelter while I go looking for food.”

“Good luck out there.” Stephanie entered the tent and fell asleep. Although it was only the afternoon, the time regression put everyone back five years exactly. It was 9 pm when they entered so many people were already tired. Add to that 7 hours and you start having cases of heavy need of sleep.

Although Jonathan could continue going since he was used to staying up late, his body was not. He could slightly feel the effects of lack of sleep creeping up on him. Furthermore, he had not eaten anything for hours, making so that hunger had already settled.

‘I absolutely need to find some food. Plants are very difficult to detect if they are edible start with. Now, we have a whole new set of plant species, making the guide useless…’ Jonathan continued walking and aimlessly searching for edible plants. He could see many people from his group or other groups that were testing their luck and started eating random plants.

‘What’s that grey part on that tree?’ Jonathan just saw an anomaly on a tree trunk, thinking that it was something like a sickness, he looked at it but… ‘Fuck my eyes! That’s not a tumour, that’s a squirrel!!!’

Seeing a wild animal, his stomach couldn’t stop sending violent signals to him. Even his nervous system went haywire, making him suddenly unable to hear or smell. Never in his life had he felt such a violent reaction to spotting a source of food.

He also felt a powerful rush of adrenaline through his upper body and quickly moved as if he was not in control of himself. He felt like he was moving by instincts, not thoughts.

His body had silently crouched down to pick up a stick on the ground with his left hand while his right hand was already on the knife.

He then violently got up, using the forward momentum to swing the arm holding the knife in a way that it would fly towards the squirrel.

Wait!

A trace of intellect passed through Jonathan’s mind right before he finished the throw, pushing him to deviate it higher.

The squirrel had seen this sudden movement and the thirst in Jonathan’s eyes, so it has burst towards the top of the tree. Unfortunately for it, Jonathan had predicted that it would so, hence why he had thrown the knife higher.

Zoom!

The wooden knife flew at a surprising speed, hitting the squirrel straight on its back.

Although the knife wasn’t sharp enough to go through its whole body, it still gave the squirrel a significant injury that caused it to fall towards the ground.

Thump! A soft sound could be heard upon impact.

Without letting the squirrel, a chance to get up, Jonathan ran towards where it landed and whipped the stick at it.

The squirrel who had just gotten on its feet, got hit by a stick much bigger than it and once more fell to the ground.

This time, however, Jonathan was upon it before it could get up.

Knowing how their bites could give diseases, Jonathan wrapped his hands around the squirrel’s head and torso.

Then, with a clean motion lacking any hesitation, his hands violently twisted.

Crunch! Crack!

He pulled off the squirrel’s head and blood flew all over his face. Yet, his expression barely changed while the cold look in his eyes did no waver at all.

He stood there, blood all over his hands, heavily breathing. Everyone near him turned to look at him like he was some exterminator.

It wasn’t considered wrong to hunt, but ripping off an animals’ head was a bit too much in most people’s opinion. This was still a small matter though, to they returned to their former tasks, not paying him any heed.

Jonathan himself had acted before thinking. It was just now that he realized that he had decapitated an animal.

Truth be told, he found the feeling quite exalting.

Even a familiar person had seen him in his act.

“Quite bloodthirsty, aren’t you?” Aaron looked at him from afar.

“It’s just a squirrel and I had to silence its annoying screams.” Jonathan quickly made up an excuse.

“ … whatever. How are things on your side?”

“Not amazing, but I can at least say that I’m handling myself. I also got this guy for lunch.”

“Always so lucky huh?” Aaron pulled out an object from his pocket, which he threw to Jonathan.

With a slight movement, Aaron caught it and saw what it was.

“A lighter… That’s going to be super helpful for me. Making a fire would take hours otherwise…” Another stroke a luck fell upon Jonathan. “But I guess you won’t offer this to me for free… What do you want?”

Although they were friends, the situation here wasn’t like their everyday life. Even presenting a lighter instead of a wisp of fire was a generous offer that proved their friendship.

“Half of what you caught.” Aaron quickly gave him his price.

“Impossible, I can give you a leg but nothing more. A squirrel isn’t anything near enough to feed two people, let alone three. You’ll have to find another method to get food.”

“… Fine. I’ll come find you after it’s cooked.” Aaron then left to do his own stuff. Although they both would have liked to talk, the severity of the situation had already settled in. Unlucky people who had already not eaten at this time five years ago were screaming in hunger.

‘Now that I have a lighter, I can use fire as a currency.’

If he started a fire, people would be attracted to it and desire it, especially those that also have meat. He could then charge people to get some of his fire. Aaron had probably tried to do the same but no one had anything that could act as currency since it was only the start of this hell.

Thirty minutes later, Jonathan was in front of a medium-sized fire and had near him the squirrel he had killed as well as other parts of small wildlife.

‘It seems like we will eat our fill tonight.’ Jonathan was very satisfied with the exchanges he had made. In addition to that, all wildlife here seemed 20% bigger than in his previous world, making it so that they had more meat.

After the meat had gotten cooked, Aaron had come to take his piece while Jonathan and Stephanie ate their fill. They even had extras that they sent over to the other 4 guys. Although it wouldn’t fill them, it would help a bit.

Water was also abundant here, so after a few minutes of transporting water with their hands into a humid and ball-shaped hole in the ground, hot rocks could be added to boil it.

Successfully satisfying their basic needs, Jonathan and Stephanie could sleep without worrying about their survival for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, Jonathan still had a premonition that all of this was too simple to be true, so he always subconsciously kept a vigilant eye an ear out.

And it as such that he quickly awoke from the commotion late at night.

AUTHORS NOTE:

Yeah, I know. I’m late. I’m sorry and I won’t make any excuse. I can, however, guarantee that all the three chapters will be released by tonight (so I’m technically not late since it’s been exactly seven days). Enjoy!