Chapter 65：Struggle beside the stream (1/2)

At night while Sam and his team are sleeping comfortably. The remaining teams are having a hard time. Many of them doesn't even have any food in the two days and they don't have any proper shelter to find rest in the cold night.

But not all the teams are having this much of a hard time, a team is much better off than others and that is team 3.

Hawk and Kelly are in this team. Due to Hawk's status and prestige he was made as the leader immediately. He did justice for the position given to him by other members.

Even though, they don't have fire and warmth, nor shelter and meat. They still are ten members left and they were able to find enough fruits and wild vegetables due to Hawk's observation and familiarity in the forest.

He is not as skilled as Sam, but at least his teammates have enough food and water and they have some little gain in points.

”How are you feeling?” Hawk asked Kelly as he passed a fruit to her to eat.

”I am okay.” Kelly has a beautiful smile on her face as she replied. Even though she looked haggard and a bit pale, she is as beautiful as ever. All the members are men in her team except for her. If not for the fact that Hawk is her friend and has her back, she knew how her situation would be, just based on the looks the people are giving her.

”How do you think, he is doing?” Hawk asked.

”I don't know exactly, but I think he is definitely in a better situation than us.” Even though both of them didn't mention the name of that person, they knew who they were talking about.

Kelly is looking at the sky as she thought of a handsome face which is usually cold as ice with a smile, when he was satisfied with the dress, he made for her. She smiled at the thought of the arrogant smirk he had when he received the pseudo rank 3 tailor artisan badge.

Looking at the beautiful lady smiling like a silly little girl, Hawk shook his head and said. ”I hope we could meet him. Let us see if what you said is right. I really want to see, how many points he got.”

Then a guy came and asked. ”Hawk, what are the plans for tomorrow? Are we going to search for another team or are we going to search for scrolls?”

”I don't know. I think we need to take a risk for tomorrow. All this time we are avoiding all the dangers from the beast. I think if we don't go and look for them, we won't have a chance for getting anything substantial. Tomorrow our target is to get some scrolls, either they are point scrolls. Cultivation scrolls, attack scrolls. We have to find something and we will be picking the way tomorrow. Tell them to rest properly tonight.”

After receiving Hawk's instructions, the guy went to the other teammates and gave the message.

”You also need to rest properly.” Hawk said to Kelly and stood up.

Kelly nodded at him and smiled without any reply.

Next day morning.

Sam and his friends were already awake and are getting ready to move. Right now they are eating some bear meat.

”The meat will not taste good and there is a chance that it might be spoiled soon. We need to get some new food today. So, you can eat as much as you want and don't hold back with the intention of preserving this.

This is only third day and we have a long way ahead of us. Now that we know that we need to target the animals with higher level of danger to get rewards, we will get fresh food.” Sam said as he took a big bite off of the roasted meat in his hand.

The remaining three nodded and continued eating the meat.

After their meal, they made preparations. They put the left-over meat and the bamboo containers along with the defence scroll in the bag. Jack is holding a make-shift bamboo sword he made himself yesterday and Eve is holding the dagger.

Sam held the axe and Shor was left with the bamboo pike. Sam carried the bag and four of them started their move. They put out the fire and Eve is holding the container with the live dried wood, which has a small spark on it.

”Today, let us go near the stream and explore. From every water source, there is a chance that we can find some trails leading to other animal's nest. If we are lucky, we can have another prey today.

They moved towards the stream and when they reached there, the bank is empty and there are no other creatures. Sam and Jack started searching for trails while, the remaining two are on look out. When they found no trails of some big animals, they started moving along the bank in the same direction as the stream flow.

On the way, Sam saw many trails, but none of them are any of the big animals and the animals they encountered are also not that big. There are rabbits, wild cats, racoons and some other animals like that. Since, they already have food for now, they are not interested in hunting them

After sometime, Sam and the group arrived at a place, which is a bit weird and different. There are no trails of any animals at all. The grass on the bank is too lush and tall compared to the other areas near the stream.

”Let us stop here for a while. Rest a bit far away from the bank.” When the group sat a bit away from the bank, Sam started looking around. He saw that there are no patches in between the grass near the bank and the vegetation is too thick as if there are no animals in the vicinity.

When he came back to the group, Jack saw Sam's frown and asked. ”Is something wrong?”

”Don't you think the grass is a bit too dense and tall when compared to other areas we have been to previously?” When Sam asked this question, Jack was a bit confused due to the weird question, but he still answered.

”Now that you mention it. It does have difference. But does it make any difference?”

”This situation happens when there are no animals in the vicinity and that happens mostly in two cases. First one, if the vegetation has a problem here which by my observation is not the case and the second one, they are afraid of something here.” Sam explained.

”But there are any traces of any creature here. There is no place to stay and this territory seemed to unoccupied. What do you think they are afraid of?” Jack questioned.

”How can you say that there is no place to stay here?” Sam said and looked at the water stream.

Jack understood something and asked. ”What do you have in mind?”

”If my guess is right, we can get something here. We need to prepare.” Eve and Shor are just listening from the side without saying anything. They actually didn't see anything different here and they didn't notice anything wrong.

”Collect as much dry leaves and grass as you can. Even small twigs will do. The prerequisite is that they have to burn quickly, as soon as they were lit with fire, they have to burn. Don't bring big ones.”