What welcomes me inside the bus is a bunch of people absentmindedly staring into the air. Well, some of them are discussing.

“Fuck you, I will not go into that god damn forest! You go there if you want to die that much!”

Calmly discussing the situation we are in.

It looks like the wolf scared them as all of them are inside, using the bus as shelter.

It's easy to understand why, but I already know that we can't stay here for too long.

The main problem is water and food. It's only been around an hour since we arrived, but I already feel thirsty and hungry, most likely because of the energy I used.

Even if they are not hungry at the moment and have a bottle of water with them or a little bit of food, soon they will need to look for more.

 

“So you're back,” the man with the gun comes towards me and falls silent for a moment, watching the bus driver conversing with two adult men. He then looks at me, “You good?”

I nod. I have already put my white shirt on. Ehm, my formerly white shirt. I guess it's more red now.

“We will need some water and maybe food and it would be best if we look for it before sunset," he says directly.

He seems to be on the calm side, and from the way he watches other people, I can say that he is in a better state than most others.

Anyway, he should have a good impression of me as well. Hopefully. Well, maybe not that good. In his eyes, I might be a suicidal lunatic.

He looks at me for a whole minute, with a deep discerning stare as if he's trying to see inside my head.

His stare makes me slightly nervous, especially knowing that he should have leveled up as well. Who knows what skills did he get or how did he use his stat points.

“Soo, how many bullets do you have left?” I break the silence.

”...” He once again falls silent and looks at me, a slight smile slowly appears on his face.

“Not too many.” There is a hint of amusement and warmth in his voice.

"I see."

 

So careful and not too trusting type.

 

He is slightly shorter than me. His figure is pretty robust and muscular, with a sense of authority around him. It might be caused by his gun, but I don't believe that's just it.

A cop? Maybe.

"Nathaniel." I reach out my hand towards him, and he accepts. His grip is strong, and he looks into my eyes while shaking my hand.

Like I do to him, he is also judging me.

"Hadwin." he says.

I notice a few people staring at us, but I ignore them for now.

"Did you also level up?"

"Yes," the bus quiets down, and I can see them listening to us. "I already used my stat points. One of the kids told me to do so," he nods towards the school kids. "It's crazy when you think about it. Us appearing in the middle of nowhere, two suns, gigantic wolf..." He smiles awkwardly while looking around.

When he looks back at me at me his smile is gone.

"You know," he starts, and I can see that he is trying to find the right words. "I thought about it, and I think we should look around. We will need water soon and we might find out something about this place."

I can tell what's going to be next.

"Do you want to join me?" His eyes seem honest and firm as he asks me to risk my life.

So shameless.

"Sure, let's go."

Short pause.

He slowly brushes his hair off his forehead and his muscles tense a little bit. After few second he relaxes his body and quiet sigh escapes his mouth.

“To be honest, I pretty much expected you to decline.” he says.

"I gave it some thought." I shrug my shoulders. "We should look around while we are not starved or dehydrated. Logically, it will be harder the later we go."

“It's not about logic… People don't tend to think logically in situations like this…” Another sigh escapes his mouth. “I see… Well, I guess you are one of these guys…”

I feel like I should be insulted, but I let it go.

 

I kind of like the way this goes.

Let's put it all on Hadwin.

Yup.

I like it.

 

"Others should keep watch while we look around." He quickly gives a few orders, and I can see that he has already talked to a few people, and they seem to respect him enough to follow his orders.

 

It's the gun.

 

I bet it is because of the gun.

 

Obviously, some of them seem dissatisfied by the guy with a gun leaving them to go into the forest, but no one says anything. Most likely, they are scared that he will ask them to go with him.

I am not too surprised at their lack of initiative. It's weirder that Hadwin and I plan to go there without being pressured to do so.

Hadwin grabs his backpack and two iron pipes, clearly inspired by me. He gives me one, and I take it.

Some of the passengers see it and start talking amongst themselves, and I see some of them trying to pry out their own pipes.

What's with that reaction time?

As we are about to leave the bus someone stops us.

"Do you have a spot?"

In the bus, there are few 30-40-year-old men, and the one asking is one of them. He is close to 2m in height, slim, but his shoulders are surprisingly wide. His face is on the handsome side, and he is smoothly shaven.

"Maybe…" Hadwin stops next to me

"Damon," he reaches his hand towards Hadwin and then towards me.

His grip is even stronger than Hadwin's. Hadwin's shake was just a greeting, but Damon's is clearly some sort of test as he squeezes my hand as strongly as he can.

As he lets go of my hand, his gaze stays on me a bit longer than on Hadwin.

"I would like to join you. I grew up in the countryside, so I shouldn't be baggage inside the forest."

A laugh almost escapes my mouth, but I keep my face neutral.

Well, in the worst case, we can use him as bait. Something tells me that Hadwin wouldn't like it, but I can work around it.

"Sounds good," says Hadwin, and I just nod. Damon once again looks into my eyes.

Look at him.

I feel amused as his look isn't too friendly, more like the opposite.

As we exit the bus, no one else joins us. No one is brave or desperate enough to come with us. Not yet.

Well, almost no one. I saw one of the school kids wanting to join us, but others stopped him. Well, I call them kids but all of them are around 18 years old, not that much younger than me.

 

Bless you, kid.

 

Maybe next time?

 

After something eats Damon.