Day 25, Hope Forest.
Since the massive boar harvest on Day 20, their luck had completely dried up. Aside from two smaller weasels trapped on Day 23, they hadn't eaten anything substantial.
As Henry and Recruit 7 came out of the lodge into the crisp morning air, Recruit 1 called out to them. She was standing under the lone tree in the clearing, her arms crossed.
"Come here for a second," she ordered.
Henry and Recruit 7 walked over. "What is it?" Henry asked.
"There are only five days left in the exam," Recruit 1 said, her tone dead-serious. "And I'm not sure exactly how far we are from the exit." She pointed back into the dense treeline.
"All I know is that we walked to this clearing from that direction." She then shifted her hand, pointing toward the exact opposite side of the camp.
"To make it to the end, we have to hike that way."
She lowered her arm. "I don't think we should risk being late to the extraction point. We need to head down to the stream, drink our fill, haul more water back up here to boil, and then immediately break camp and start heading toward the exit."
Recruit 7 immediately groaned, his hands dropping to his sides. "But we haven't eaten in two days. If we leave now and just start hiking, we most likely won't have a real meal for an entire week!"
"As long as we don't overexert ourselves, the human body can easily survive a week without food just fine," Recruit 1 countered coldly.
"Fine, sure, we'll survive, but it's not ideal," Recruit 7 argued. "I vote we stay here for one more hunt, get a meal in our stomachs, and then leave."
Henry shook his head. "I vote for 1's option. If we stay here any longer, we risk failing the entire exam just for being late to the extraction." He looked over at Recruit 7, trying to soften the blow.
"Besides, just because we haven't found any edible plants in this specific area doesn't mean there aren't any further south. We could easily find something to forage and munch on while we hike."
Recruit 1 didn't even acknowledge Henry's support. She just stared dead at Recruit 7. "I don't care about either of your votes. This isn't a democracy, and I'm not going to let a group vote be the reason I fail my exam. I'm leaving today. With or without you, 7."
Recruit 7 glared at her, muttering something foul under his breath. Recruit 1 didn't quite catch it, but standing right next to him, Henry heard it perfectly clear.
"Bitch".
Refusing to push the argument any further, Recruit 7 spun around and started storming toward the edge of the clearing.
He looked over his shoulder with a nasty, sarcastic grin. "Well, come on. Let's go start our fasting campaign."
Moving in silence, they made their final trek down to the stream. They drank until their remaining water was gone, then refilled their containers and hiked back up to the lodge to boil the water for the hike.
As the water hissed and bubbled in the metal basin over the fire pit, Recruit 1 locked eyes with Recruit 7.
"Ration your water," she warned, her voice cutting through the crackle of the flames. "Because if you run out this time, I won't be offering mine to anyone."
Recruit 7 shamelessly ignored the threat, crossing his arms. "By the way, oh fearless leader, where exactly are we sleeping at night on our way to the exit?"
"Wherever we can find," she replied without missing a beat.
"Well, that's vague," Recruit 7 scoffed.
Henry sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "If all else fails, we can just find the thickest tree available and sleep on the lowest sturdy branch."
Recruit 1 gave a sharp, satisfied nod toward Recruit 7. "Is that less vague for you, 7?"
Recruit 7 scowled, turning his frustration on Henry. "Why'd you bail her out, 14? I'm pretty sure she had absolutely no idea what we were going to do for the nights."
"You're an idiot," Recruit 1 snapped back. "Why would I bother giving you the details of my plans?"
"And you're a stuck-up bi—"
"Stop fighting!" Henry quickly interjected, stepping directly between them before Recruit 7 could finish the slur. "Just drop it. We are in the final stretch now. Don't ruin this when we're so close."
The awkwardness was broken only by the bubbling water. Once it was purified and cooled, they distributed it into their leather skins. They packed up their newly crafted fur blankets, stomped out the ashes of their fire pit, and unlatched the heavy wooden barricade.
Without looking back, they stepped out into the Hope Forest, silently saying goodbye to the fortified lodge that had kept them safe, warm, and alive for the last twenty-five days.
They marched in an oppressive silence. Recruit 1 took the lead, diligently carving shallow notches into the red bark of passing trees just in case they were forced into a blind retreat.
Oddly enough, the deeper they ventured into the uncharted southern expanse of Hope Forest, the more an unshakable sense of dread settled in Henry's gut.
The immediate woods around them were eerily quiet, completely devoid of the usual ambient sounds. But every once in a while, carried on the wind from miles away, a sound would shatter the stillness. One echoed like a deep, guttural roar; another rose into a high, piercing howl. None of them sounded friendly.
The terrain was changing, too. The ground sloped upward, a steady incline that forced their leg muscles to work twice as hard. The elevation change was steep enough that Henry had to continually swallow to pop his ears.
Despite the unsettling atmosphere, the first night of their trek went smoothly. As the sun dipped below the canopy, they found a thick tree with a relatively low, sturdy branch only forty feet off the ground. They climbed up, rotated through their solitary watches in the dark, and resumed their hike the second the morning mist offered enough visibility.
This routine consumed the next two days.
By Day 28, there was still no edge of the forest in sight, proving Recruit 1's cautious timeline had been entirely justified.
As they pushed forward, the distant, guttural roaring they had heard on Day 26 entirely faded away.
In its place, the eerie, haunting howls became far more frequent, sounding closer with every passing mile.
Around three in the afternoon, with at least two hours of viable daylight left to burn, Recruit 1 suddenly stopped.
"Let's start looking for a suitable tree to rest in for today," she whispered, her voice tight.
Recruit 7 halted behind her, his brow furrowing. "How come?" he complained, pitching his whisper loud enough to make his irritation obvious. "That'll be a massive waste of daylight."
Recruit 1 shook her head, her eyes rapidly scanning the surrounding shadows. "I'm starting to feel off again. It's the exact same feeling I had right before that Fire-Mana Lynx ambushed us. We need to find a tree now."
Henry knew 7 was gearing up for an argument. Wanting to cut the tension off at the knees, he stepped forward. "Alright. Let's start looking, then."
Armed with Henry's backing, Recruit 1 didn't even wait for Recruit 7's begrudging agreement. She just kept moving forward, her pace much more rigid as she visually inspected the trunks around them.
But the environment was working against them. Because of the sharp increase in elevation, the dense, massive red trees of the lower forest had given way to sparser, thinner vegetation.
The trees up here were significantly smaller and lacked the thick, horizontal branches needed to safely hold three people through the night.
The longer they walked without finding a defensible spot, the more visibly paranoid Recruit 1 became.
Her head snapped at every snapping twig, her hand hovering inches from her sword hilt.
Recruit 7 noticed her fraying nerves and leaned closer to Henry as they walked side by side. "Why is she being so damn paranoid?" he muttered.
Henry implicitly trusted Recruit 1's survival instincts, but he didn't have the energy to explain that to him at the moment. He kept his eyes locked on the tree line. "I'm not sure."
By half-past four, the light was falling fast. Recruit 1 had accelerated their hike into a near jog, desperate to find shelter, but the higher they climbed into the foothills, the less suitable the terrain became.
Finally, right at five o'clock, the trees parted to reveal a massive foothill. A large cave was carved directly into the stone. "Looks like we'll be sleeping in a cave tonight," Recruit 1 said with visible relief.
She confidently stepped out of the tree line and approached the dark opening. But as she closed the distance, her footsteps suddenly faltered. She froze perfectly still, ten feet from the entrance.
Henry hurried up behind her. "What's wrong?"
The moment he asked the question, it hit him. An unnatural, bone-deep cold radiated from the black of the cave, washing over him like a physical wave of ice.
A second later, Recruit 7 stepped up beside them, shivering violently as the freezing aura hit him, too. It wasn't just cold air; it was a heavy, suffocating pressure.
Several tense minutes passed before Recruit 1 finally snapped out of her paralyzed state. She took a slow step backward, her eyes wide as she stared into the deep cavern.
"Whatever is in there..." she whispered, her voice barely audible. "...isn't at the Foundational level."