The beautiful lake surrounded by towering oak trees and inhabited by eight people was bustling with activity.
Adriel, Kael, Nico, Amara, Liora, Selene, Steven, and Elena were unfortunately sitting in a circle. Although in reality there were only seven of them, as Amara was asleep next to Selene.
After a while, Adriel relaxed and began to eat the fruit that his friends had gone to pick with Steven earlier. He had never tasted this fruit before, as it was the first one Steven had found, and he decided to share with them the knowledge that it was not poisonous.
It looked similar to cotton, only this food was sour and salty, which caused a reaction in Adriel's body. He was about to spit it out, but he felt that if he wanted to be a good hunter, he had to eat what was given to him, so he continued eating despite his clear expression of disgust.
"Ha, you look ridiculous like that," Kael pointed directly at Adriel as he put a little more of his own food in his mouth.
"Shut up, you know I've never been someone who eats everything, besides, who are you to make fun of me? You don't like cheese." Adriel turned his face away in indignation and then reproached Kael for being so weird from his point of view.
"No matter how much you say that to Kael, you can't forget that the reason you tried the mandarin was because Liora gave you some. In fact, you tried almost all the fruits only because we forced you to." Selene judged Adriel harshly, as if she were Kael's lawyer.
"Shut up." Adriel knew that if they kept arguing about it, he would lose, so he decided to just keep eating while making ridiculous expressions with every bite.
"Hey, Liora, did you like it?" Nico smiled at the shy girl sitting to his right.
"Yes, it's not bad," Liora gave her boyfriend a warm smile as she grabbed another piece of fruit.
"Nico! You should talk more with your friends. Since we got here, you've just been flirting with her," Adriel reproached Nico as he took another bite of the horribly tasting fruit.
"Shut up! You've been talking about the system the whole time. We haven't had a normal conversation in ages." Nico responded to Adriel, who backed off again.
'0-2 It seems that arguments are not my strong point.' Adriel, resigned, continued eating, but stopped talking so as not to lose another easy argument.
Adriel fixed his gaze on Steven, who had Kael on his right and Elena hanging on his left arm. 'I don't like that she's gone with him... What would happen if Steven couldn't stand her provocations?' His hand began to grip his pants tightly, and an immense fear consumed Adriel's mind. 'Would he kill him?'
Adriel quickly hit himself on the head when he realized his strange thoughts. "I'm going to the bathroom." He got up and went into the woods to "feed" the plants.
...
Amara bent her torso upward suddenly, waking up from her nap only to hear a conversation that made her blood run cold.
"Come on~ why do you keep pushing me so little? Could it be that you're only weakly refusing because you want to?" Elena's seductive and deceitful voice echoed in Amara's ears, who lay back down.
"G-get off me, I already told you I don't want to." Steven shifted uncomfortably, but his lack of resistance was still evident.
"Why not? The boys are gone, Liora and Nico went to look for Adriel, while Selene and Kael are looking for wood. Isn't this the perfect situation?" Elena's tone was perfectly captivating, and even though Amara knew she wasn't the target, she felt it had an effect on her too.
"Bu-but Amara is sleeping very close to us... I mean, no, no matter how perfect the situation is, I won't do it!" Steven sounded totally convinced of himself, but he faltered even more when Elena gently licked his ear.
Amara was surprised to see such a scene. She knew she couldn't violate them. "Then how is she able to do this?" But she quickly noticed how Elena was trembling, her jaw was completely clenched, and Steven didn't notice her legs because they were sitting down.
Without wasting any more time, Amara pretended to be asleep and then made a loud "Hmmm" sound to announce her awakening. Thanks to this, Steven pushed Elena away and looked at Amara with concern.
Amara let out a small sigh, revealing her nervousness, but she tried to turn the situation around. "Hey, do you guys know where Adriel is? I need to talk to him." Amara was using all her strength not to give away any clues that she had heard them.
"No... he went to the bathroom a while ago, so Liora and Nico..." Steven avoided looking at her; in fact, his gaze was fixed almost entirely on Elena.
"Oh, okay. Wait for them to come back." Amara sat down next to Elena, although she herself put a considerable distance between them.
"Adriel, I beg you, come back soon," Amara thought desperately as she felt the tension was about to overwhelm her.
...
Adriel was lying on a large rock in the middle of the deep, imposing forest, his eyes looking directly at the sky, while his raincoat was overflowing with blood.
On his way, he had encountered two F-rank goblins, which he killed without difficulty, but his attention was fixed on something else. "Could I do that to a human?" It was his only thought.
He knew Elena was dangerous, and in order to cancel the contract, both parties had to agree to it, which she would never accept. That was why was worried. If Steven became an enemy by being corrupted, he would have to kill him.
From his point of view, his problem was that it was a human life, not that of a common forest monster. "But isn't it the same thing?" he thought as he remembered how a goblin tried to run away from him after he killed his friend.
"For some reason, I can't stop shaking..." Adriel stood up, determined to return to the "camp" when he saw two young people, Nico and Liora, walking together, talking quietly.
Then they saw him. "Hey, what are you doing here? Were you looking for the perfect rock to mark your territory or what?" Nico asked, exhausted from the clearly long walk he had taken.
"Haaa, I ran into some goblins on the way, and after killing them, I felt like taking a break was the best thing to do." Adriel walked past Nico, his hand pushing him to turn him around.
"Come on, you better not make me feel like a pathetic third wheel." His tone was brimming with amusement, even though it had been so dark and sour before.
When the three returned to the "camp," they saw Elena, Steven, and Amara sitting there, the aura around them radiating discomfort, and the distance between them was considerably large.
When Adriel was about to sit down, Amara stopped him. "Follow me, please." Amara grabbed Adriel's left sleeve tightly, and he sighed and followed her to a place away from the group.
"I know this is sudden, but... there's something we need to buy. I swear to God it's not something Elena told me... just..." Amara was silent for a moment, thinking carefully about her next words until she found them.
"When we went to see the system, I noticed an item that could be very helpful to us, but I don't have any money." From Amara's point of view, her voice implied that it was a lie.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, how necessary is it?" Adriel asked, not noticing the girl's lie.
"It could save our lives." For the first time that day, Amara felt that her words were genuine and full of determination.
"Okay," Adriel turned to look at everyone else. "Amara and I will go to the place where the system can be used. We'll be back soon." Adriel turned again and began walking north with Amara, unaware that the sun was very close to the west.