The busses continued their way out of the city while Max and Selena continued reading their comics. Every once in a while Selena teased Max with what was about to happen on the part he was reading while he tried his best to ignore her.
This continued until Max finished the comic and started reading one Selena didn't know, which stopped the teasing.
After almost an hour of waiting the caravan of busses reached the city gates and ventured into the wilderness.
"So... what do you guys do on the Short Range Department? Just beat eachother with sticks?" Selena tried to start the conversation again.
"Yeah, just like how you shoot at eachother on the Long Range Department" Max replied with sarcasm.
"Very funny, but I'm serious, what do you guys do?" Selena asked again.
"Well... we build up musculature and elasticity mostly, so a lot of exercise, cardio and sometimes even yoga. Then we train with our weapons by fighting eachother and sparring... I think that's it, you guys probably have Professor Pate and Oberis too, right?" Max asked as he put his comic back on his backpack.
"Yeah, we also build our strength but that's for the archery division mostly, the others only do cardio and light exercise. If only those idiots knew how easy they have it, the first few weeks I felt like my arms were wet noodles all the time..." Selena grimaced at the memory.
"Same, but for my whole body... but now I'm way stronger than I was a month ago!" Max replied with enthusiasm.
"Yeah, I could barely tense the string of my Bow when school started but now I can tense it almost halfway! It's pretty cool to finally be able to shoot arrows. Oh right, check this out!" She showed Max the palm side of her index and middle fingers, they were squished as if a string had been pressed against them for a week straight, which was quite close to what actually happened.
"Woah, are bows really that hard to tense? I thought fingers could only get like that if you tried to learn guitar." Max said.
"Yup, extremely hard... and i heard Longbows are even harder! Good thing they're temporary, Professor Nara said we're only using them on the first year to build our strength and that we'll move to compound bows on the second year." Selena said as she pulled up her sleeve and showed off her developing biceps with a smug grin.
Max pulled up his own sleeve only to see the same noodle arm he always had "Damn, well... in Professor Bronn's class we have to focus on the whole body, so there aren't going to be many noticeable changes at first..." Max explained but Selena just chuckled as she put her sleeve back on.
"Yeah right, continue believing that, I would obviously win if we did an arm wrestling match." Selene laughed at Maxs expense again.
Max grumbled but decided to swallow his pride and take the bullet, even though it tasted like shit.
He could use the the vein-like things, but that would be cheating.
After a couple hours of chatter and a rest stop to stretch their legs and go to the restroom they finally reached the campsite, which wasn't more than a big clearing in the forest with a wooden cottage in the middle.
"Alright, here's the stop for all the Long Range Department students, please leave the bus and follow me to the campsite!" Professor Oberis said as he walked out of the Bus.
"Oh, it's a goodbye then... it was a nice few hours, I guess..." Selena said as she put her backpack on.
"Yeah, good luck on the camp! I hope no spiders come at night and eat you, not at all." Max said with sarcasm and a chuckle.
Selena looked at him with a hint of fear on her eyes and suddenly punched him on the arm, huffed in anger, and then left.
Max rubbed his hurt arm and looked at Selena with confusion as she left.
"Wow, what a way to blow it, didn't know you were an expert on the art of scaring girls away." Gareth said with a sarcastic tone.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Max looked over at Gareth who woke up a few minutes before in the same confusion.
"What? I'm telling the truth! You totally blew it. Vitria told me how you guys were laughing and talking the whole trip!" Gareth added as he got up and stretched his legs.
"I- Ughhhhhhh..." Vitria groaned as she put her backpack on.
"Blew what?" Max said as he did the same as Vitria.
Gareth rolled his eyes "Nevermind... I didn't know you were this dense-" He was about to continue but the bus started moving again, after a few minutes of driving on the dirt path they reached another similar clearing with a wooden cottage.
The bus stopped and one of Professor Oberis' assistants spoke up "Alright, here's the spot where we are going to set camp, everyone please leave the bus and don't forget anything!"
All the remaining students got up from their seats and walked out of the bus along with the assistants.
An assistant walked over to the cottage and opened it while the students were checking out the clearing where the campsite would be.
The other assistants were talking in a circle while discussing something, meanwhile the one that entered the cottage started taking out multiple bags that shared the same shape 'Uh, so that's where the tents are...' Max thought as he noticed more and more bags being taken out.
"Alright! All the students that are girls please move to the left of the cottage, all boys move to the right!" One of the assistants suddenly spoke out loud as they started separating the bags for each side.
After separating the students by gender the assistants also separated, that's when Max noticed that they were 6, 3 guys and 3 ladies.
The 3 guys went to the right side and the 3 ladies went to the left side.
The three assistants Gareth and Max ended up with were: A Plant Elemental, a Stone Elemental and a Water Elemental.
After doing a recount of the students and checking that everything was correct the Stone Elemental spoke.
"Alright, My name is Mike, this is Alex, and this is Ian, we're going to be your teachers for these 3 days as Professor Oberis is busy dealing with the Long Range Department, they're the troublemakers this time, so what do you guys say if we keep things that way?"
Mike explained as he pointed to the Water Elemental first and then at the Plant Elemental.
"For the first activity of this camping trip we are going to set up the tents, 2 people can fit in one so find yourself a partner and grab a tent." Mike said as he signaled the pile of tents.
Gareth ran in first and nabbed a blue tent before anyone could move.
Max walked over to him with an awkward smile.
After everyone had grabbed their tents Mike spoke again. "Great, Now let's get on with the explanation..."
After almost an hour later Max and Gareth had a semi-passable tent set up and ready, with a tarp and everything.
The teacher's had given everyone a sleeping bag after the explanation was over and went over to the bus to grab the food, which was halfway done by the time everyone had finished up their tents.
While the teacher's on cooking duty prepared the food the others took out the foldable tables they had inside the cottage and washed the utensils.
Some students took the chance to help around while others decided they would rather procrastinate.
Max and Vitria were on the first group while Gareth was on the latter.
They helped around with setting the tables and preparing the food as Gareth bid his time playing with his phone.
After half an hour the food was done and everyone sat down to eat.
"Damn, is this really just fried rice? It's even better than the stuff at school!" Gareth said as he quickly finished his meal.
"It would taste even better if someone had helped us..." Vitria grumbled as she ate her food.
"Hey! You guys volunteered to help, not my fault you're salty I didn't." Gareth replied as he went to ask for seconds.
VIstria sighed angrily as Max continued eating silently.
"Aren't you mad at him for that? He's eating but didn't do anything at all!" Vitria put her fork down as she looked at Max.
"Well... No? Yeah, he didn't help but are you going to get angry with all the others that didn't help too? I would be angry of he started complaining that he didn't like it or something." Max shrugged and continued eating.
Vitria just looked at him, flabbergasted.
After a bit Gareth came back with his second serving and sat down.
"Uh... I-" Gareth tried to say something a few more times but couldn't choose the right words. "I'm sorry... I should have helped..."
"No-... you were right, we chose to help... sorry for rubbing it in your face." Vitria apologized as she looked down at her food.
After a bit of quiet the talk resumed with a lighter subject.
When everyone finished their food and had some time to let it settle down Max went to grab a tupperware from his backpack and brought it back to the table.
"Hm? What's that?" Gareth asked.
Max didn't say anything and with a smile opened the tupper, inside there were 6 chocolate cupcakes, he gave Gareth and Vitria 2 each, leaving the last 2 for himself.
After having their first bites Gareth and Vitria quickly finished both of them, then they looked at the ones Max left for himself like hungering beasts.
"So... were they good?" Max asked as he quickly took out a cupcake and closed the Tupper.
"They're awesome! Where did you buy them?" Gareth asked as he looked at the cupcake Max was holding.
"Yeah, I need to get me some of those!" Vitria asked as she did the same.
"Well... I made them!" Max said as he ate the cupcake.
"No way, did you make them from a box or something? They taste too good." Gareth said.
"Nope, I made the recipe myself, I can share it with you guys-" Max was about to continue when the teachers suddenly called for everyone's attention.
"Now that all of you had time to rest after a good meal, where going to set out for the first activity of this camping trip, You have 5 minutes to prepare before we leave!"