Mako turned around quickly to see what Leon was pointing at. In the darkness, he could make out a shadowy figure moving toward the campfire.
Mako signaled for Leon to stay put and quietly made his way toward the figure. As he got closer, he could see that it was someone from their own group - Andrew.
"Mako, what are you doing here?" Andrew whispered, surprised to see him.
"I could ask you the same thing," Mako replied, keeping his voice low. "Why are you sneaking around?"
Andrew hesitated for a moment before finally confessing, "I couldn't sleep, and I needed some fresh air. I thought I'd take a walk."
Mako studied Andrew for a moment, sensing that there was more to his story. "Is there something else bothering you, Andrew? You can talk to me."
Andrew looked down at his feet, just as Mako sensed that there was something wrong, but before he could approach him and see why he suddenly hung his head down low, but before he could do so Andrew started to speak in a low and quivery voice.
"To tell you the truth, Mako. I'm scared! I don't even know if we're going to make it out of here alive. Those people... were so strong that it's not even worth participating anymore. I already lost two guys that God knows are in what condition. I don't want the same fate for Erin. There are so many dangers in these woods, and we're all so vulnerable."
Finally, he stopped looking at his feet and looked up at Mako with tears in his eyes.
"You can't even begin to think how hopeless and useless I felt when I was surrounded by those intense red flames. How could you live with yourself after you were just brushed by death, especially when the method of death was the one that I thought I had control over?" Andrew said with anger in his tone as he continued to stare into Mako's eyes.
"I couldn't even confront these feeling in front of everyone or else I would be hurting their morale as well, specifically Erin's," Andrew added.
Mako put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I understand how you feel, Andrew. But we have to stay strong, for ourselves and for each other. Whoever those guys are, they attacked you when you had your guard down. I am sure with more of us together, we can take those guys on and rescue Sven and Finn."
Andrew took a couple of seconds to compose himself and nodded to Mako's suggestion. However, Mako was completely confused by everything that was going on.
'Wasn't he also nominated to be the leader of their group before the test began; however, I don't see him being a leader at all. Iris had told me so many things about how brave Andrew was, but I can't seem to find that personality in him at all.' Mako analyzed in his thoughts.
The only logical sense that Mako could come up with was trauma. If a person had suffered severe enough trauma, even their most fundamental of nature can be broken, molded, and changed.
'Just what did those cadets do to you while they were occupying your hut? You are definitely hiding something from us because, from the details that you gave us, there wasn't anything that could deal much trauma to you other than the fire which I doubt would have lasting effects since you were quickly saved by us.' Mako thought as he walked back to the camp with Andrew.
************
As soon as the two boys made it back to camp, Leon joined them from the other side in a hurry. Mako noticed a smile and urgency on his face so he knew that whatever Leon had discovered was good news, and required immediate attention.
"Mako, I think I have found another information tablet," Leon said with a tone of excitement.
Mako's eyes lit up at the news. "That's great, Leon! Where is it?"
Leon led Mako back to the lake where he had noticed a red blinking light, up in one of the trees. The tablet was camouflaged quite well amongst the leaves and the darkness of the night, but the screen still seemed to be functional as it gave off the steady blinking red light.
Mako asked Andrew to keep watch over the camp while he and Leon would go to retrieve the tablet from the tree to which Andrew only slowly nodded yes. Leon once again raised the small earth pillar to reach the same height as the tablet, and after entering his information, he brought the tablet back down for him and Mako to look at together.
Mako turned on the tablet and was once again treated with the same interface as before.
[DAY 7]
[15:54 HOURS]
[Map]
[Event Log]
[Day & Time]
[Weather]
[Participants]
[Setup Duel]
There were a lot fewer notifications than last time and that was to be expected as nothing major could have gone down while it was raining so heavily for the past two days.
They checked out how many participants were left on the island and to their shock, there were only 600 left. In contrast to the data that Mako had learned from the previous tablet two days prior, the total number of participants had dropped from close to 4000 to 1200.
This marked the elimination of most of the ability users who thought they could stand up and face the challenges of the test while they themselves had no items, and had a singular ability with a low energy pool.
However, what was truly shocking now, was to see the number of casualties that the storm was responsible for alone. Of these 600 cadets, most should have been at a decent level and would have easily been able to face the challenges of the island, not for these extreme scenarios that caused them to be eliminated.
Most of everything else was normal with the only key thing that Mako had noticed was the announcement of a two-day thunderstorm warning on the east side of the island. This practically confirmed that the entire thing was just a test and not a natural occurrence.
Since only half of the island was hit during the first thunderstorm, the people on the east side of the island must have thought that they dodged a bullet, and Mako was sure this warning must have caused them even more distress than them.
Mako was about to ask Leon to put the tablet back in its case when Leon had a bright idea. He told Mako that it would be a good idea to see the battle logs to see if Sven and Finn were still in the competition or not.
"If they had been defeated, their info would show on the event log, and then we won't have to follow those people because there is no one to save," Leon advised.
Mako thought that it was a brilliant idea and opened up the event log to check if Sven and Finn's names had made it on the event log yet.
After a bit of scrolling, Mako finally stopped scrolling and his facial expression resembled that of someone who had seen a ghost.
"What's wrong, Mako?" Leon asked now worried as to what he had seen.
However, Mako didn't reply and instead just flipped the tablet toward Leon so that he could see for himself.
[Sven Nieminen VS Mikhail Fedorov: Sven Nieminen Defeated!]
[Finn Nieminen VS Mikhail Fedorov: Finn Nieminen Defeated!]
.
.
.
.
[Andrew Thorne VS Mikhail Fedorov: Andrew Thorne Defeated!]
Now Leon had the same exact shocked look on his face as Mako. However, before a single word could be uttered, the sound of a feminine cry resounded all around and it was coming from the campsite.
Worried that something was terribly wrong, Mako gave Leon the tablet back and told him to join him after putting it back in its case.
[Dash has been activated]
Mako sprinted off toward the campsite at top speed hoping to make it there before anything unfortunate happens.
************
As Mako made his way back to the camp, he suddenly heard a loud rustling in the bushes nearby. Before they could react, a wolf beast emerged from the undergrowth, growling and snarling menacingly.
The wolf beast wasted no time as its red eyes glowed and he lunged toward Mako. The wolf beast was a lot faster than Mako had expected and he couldn't get out of the way of the beast in time.
The beast tackled Mako to the ground and they both began to wrestle as Mako tried his best to not get his head bitten off by the wild beast. However, he was still struggling as he could break free from the wolf.
Out of nowhere, A streak passed by Mako and the wolf and soon the wolf yelped in pain as it let go of Mako. Mako looked behind him and saw Leon standing beside him with his medium-tier shiv that was dripping with blood.
It looked like the active skill had been activated as the Wolf beast began to howl and attack randomly as it was starting to hallucinate.
Leon gave Mako a hand and helped him up on his feet. They both turned toward the campsite to witness a gruesome scene. Several dead bodies of wolves could be seen littered around the campsite and there were still several more wolves that were engaged in combat with Bill, Iris, Erin, and Andrew.
Seeing that their friends had also sustained some injuries, Leon and Mako rushed forward to aid their friends and defend against this sudden beast attack.
