Mako's vision was still cloudy from all the tears in his eyes but he quickly recognized the uniform and was relieved that a patrolling officer had arrived to save Bill.
"Please save him! He has been stung by a fang of a High-level Sabertooth Spider and has been poisoned. He could die any minute!" Mako pleaded with the officer.
The officer casually walked over to Bill completely ignoring Mako's desperate shouts for him to help Bill and save him from death. He calmly approached Bill and placed his hand on his forehead. He checked his pulse and also inspected the wound that Mako had bandaged up.
"First of all, I am impressed that you had been able to accurately identify the beast that attacked you, but you are mistaken about some things." The officer told Mako while still keeping his calm demeanor.
"The Sabertooth Spiders have to keep their venom gland intact if they want to regrow their fangs with full functionality. This is why the venom inside their fangs when they shoot it out is minimal. Bill is in no immediate danger and can easily survive for another 36 hours without any complications." The officer explained.
The officer's statement brought a sliver of hope into Mako's heart; however, the officer's next words would rip that out completely.
"Mako Grey, You have a choice to make. Either you allow me to extract Bill Johnson from the test right now and administer the anti-venom to save his life or you can find him an anti-venom on the island within 36 hours and administer it yourself." The officer laid out an ultimatum for Mako; a single choice that could decide his friend's life.
"Keep in mind that if you allow me to extract Bill Johnson from the test, he will be disqualified and won't receive a score. This will put him in the regular class once military school begins. On the other hand, if you fail to find and administer the anti-venom within 36 hours, I can't guarantee that a patrolling officer will reach you in time and it may lead to Bill losing his life or in the best case scenario, getting his arm amputated.
The choices were both dangerous and both had a bad ending for Bill. If he chooses the safe option, Bill will be disqualified, and if he chooses the dangerous option, it may risk Bill losing his life.
Mako held his head in frustration as he couldn't make a decision. He would have liked to consult Bill but he was unresponsive. The officer was pressing Mako to make a decision but just couldn't decide.
A single decision that could gamble a person's life, how could Mako possibly choose?!
A few more seconds passed, and Mako still didn't have a decision made. The officer was still waiting for a response. However, before the officer could reinstate his options, Mako heard a familiar noise; one that was made in his head.
*DING!*
(NEW!) [Emergency Quest Issued]
[Find an anti-venom and save Bill Johnson's life within 36 hours]
[Reward: ???]
[Penalty: Death]
The system had once again made the decision for him. Now there was nothing to debate as the timer on the quest had already begun and if he wasn't able to rescue Bill within the time frame, he would die alongside him.
"I will do it!" Mako replied.
The officer was a bit taken aback by the decision as he was definitely expecting Mako to just remove Bill from the test. It was a bit confusing to see as Mako's expressions changed midway. At first, he was stuck, unable to make a decision, but midway through, he suddenly paused for a few seconds and then a look of determination appeared on his face.
The indecisiveness was completely gone and now Mako was determined to save both of their lives.
He thanked the officer who acknowledged Mako's decision and quickly got out of sight. Bill didn't have any energy and couldn't even keep his eyes open much rather walk.
Mako took out a tarp from his backpack which was provided to him. Using the tarp, Mako tied Bill around his back and was going to carry him around on his back.
[Dash has been activated]
Without wasting a single second, Mako sprinted into the jungle while simultaneously using Analyze to look for loot crates.
**************
[Within a military surveillance room]
Several high-level individuals were sitting around a round table and reviewing all the different reports that had been coming in from the patrolling officers.
The patrolling officers had to send a report back to headquarters every two hours about all the events that had occurred in their area.
Currently, all these high-level individuals were focused on a few reports that were being displayed on the holoscreen in front of them. These reports had been tagged with a red marker.
The patrolling officers were trained so they would attach a marker to every report they send. Green markers meant that nothing noteworthy had happened and the report was just a normal log. Yellow markers meant that a few interesting things had happened but nothing too crazy. Finally, the red markers meant that a major event had taken place and that the report should be viewed by the higher-ups and be given commands if necessary.
One report, in particular, was the report that came from a patrolling officer by the name of Eric Wellerman, His position was the southwest beach area of the island and he reported the entire incident of the Sabertooth Spiders attacking two cadets and how the cadets were able to cleverly assess the situation and defeat over 50 Medium tier beast without getting hit once.
The report continued, relaying the events that took place afterward and how one of the cadets got poisoned by a High tier beast. The report also included all the dialogues that were exchanged between Eric and Mako and the report ended with Eric relaying Mako's decision and that he was now on the move.
The individuals at the round table were quite impressed by the capabilities of the two young cadets and were definitely interested in knowing what would happen to them next. They understood Eric's thinking as the ultimatum given to Mako was not entirely true. If Mako was unable to find an anti-venom within the allotted time frame, a patrolling officer would be on the scene within 20 seconds and will definitely save Bill's life.
However, by upholding that information, Mako's decision was made much more stressful as this was meant to test the cadet's ability to make critical decisions while being under immense pressure.
"Mako Grey and Bill Johnson..." one of the officials said as he viewed both of their files.
"These boys are definitely unique and it would be best if keep an eye on them for the entire 36 hours. I want to see what he will do, now that he is placed in this position." The Brigadier said to which all the other members of the round table agreed.
***************
However, what the military officials didn't know was that Mako's own life was also on the line and he couldn't afford to fail the quest.
So far, an hour had passed since Bill was poisoned, and Mako was able to find one loot crate but it didn't have the things that he needed. He got a High tier Healing pill, more water purification tablets, and a low-tier power accessory.
Mako didn't even care to read the descriptions at this point as he put all the contents in his backpack and continued on with his search. He would have to find out what the items that he was picking up did later as now, anything that didn't say "anti-venom" was getting tossed into the backpack.
He continued on with the search and even ran past several tablets as well but continued to ignore them as they won't provide the information that Mako needed right now.
Mako also ran into a few beasts along the way, but they were all either Low or Medium level Beast which he could easily deal with in one or two shots. Mako didn't hesitate to use his most powerful moves to get rid of the beast quickly and then move on so much so that he didn't even bother to extract the crystals from the dead beasts.
After around an hour more of searching, Mako received a notification, one that could have popped up at a worse time.
[Alert! Energy levels Dangerously Low!]
[Replenish Energy Levels Immediately!]
Mako had used up all of his energy through the constant use of several skills and abilities. Mako had to take a break from searching and replenish his energy or he would die even before the system kills him.
With no other option, Mako reluctantly settled down near a mango tree. The tree had ripe mangoes hanging from the branches and Mako picked several bunches of them and quickly started eating to recover as much energy as possible. He also had some leftover crab meat from last night and all in all it was a pretty filling meal.
Mako was afraid to use the Rejuvenating pills that were stored in his system because he had a suspicion that the military would be keeping a closer eye on him because of the severity of the situation he was in. He had to recover his energy the old-fashioned way.
*************
Mako was tearing away at his 10th mango when all of a sudden he heard a few footsteps quickly approaching him. Before he could even react 5 cadets appeared out of the bushes and circled around Mako and Bill.
All 5 of them had their abilities activated, ready to start a fight at a moment's notice.
"You are in our territory! You stole our food supply!" One of the cadets shouted to Mako.
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