The trio ran for most of the 2 hours they had left, they decided that going Northwest and away from the perimeter of the walls was a bad idea yet going southeast and towards the walls was the most popular direction the other students had gone towards, so they were at a crossroads... after a bit of talking they decided to go West and keep the walls at the same distance, that way they wouldn't get lost, as a plus not many students were going in that direction.

So they spent almost 2 hours running away, only walking after the last 30 minutes of the countdown had begun.

"Alright... Huff... What's our plan then?" Gareth said as he panted.

"Get as far as we can, we should be fine for water if we ration it, food is going to be the main problem..." Vitria replied as she went through a mental list of what they had.

"Uh... Wasn't there a river around here? We can make Spears and use them to get some fish." Max added as he looked around for any SpiralBerry bushes.

"That's true, but we would have to cook them and making a fire would give out our location..." Gareth said as he recalled one of Professor Oberis' classes outloud.

"Not only would the smell of cooked meat attract more Beasts, they are also not afraid of fire, rather, they actively seek for it. That's why on the wilds Hunters only have MRE's or other canned goods that can be eaten without the need to cook them over a fire!" Professor Oberis explained as he showed the class how to prepare an MRE using only the specified amount of water and nothing else other than the package itself.

"Oh right, Do you remember when that Fire Elemental guy tried to heat up a soup can to show the Professor that a fire wasn't needed at all but it ended up exploding on his hand?!" Max laughed as he reminded Gareth and Vitria of what happened that day, which made them laugh too.

"Yeah! they had to rush him to the Nurse's Office while he screamed bloody murder the whole time... Professor Oberis and everyone on the front row ended up covered in tomato soup..." Vitria tried to stiffle her laugh as she remembered Professor Oberis' face covered in tomato soup.

"Damn... that guy was so embarrassed when he got back... it was too funny..." Gareth covered his mouth with his hand in a vain attempt to stop laughing.

A couple of minutes after that the laughter died down.

"Uh... what were we doing?" Gareth said as he looked around, they had stopped walking the moment the laughter started.

"Shoot! There's only 10 minutes left until the countdown stops- let's get moving!" Vitria said as she started walking again, Max and Gareth quickly followed, and so they moved West... or did they?

Thanks to the laughing the group had gone slightly off course, rather than west they were leaning slightly southwest now, they will never know it, but that had changed their fate.

After almost an hour of walking the group came across a small river that flowed southwest, it was quite probable the rivulet they had come across yesterday came from a bifurcation of this same river.

After inspecting the river for a while and deeming it safe the group took off their hiking boots and socks, with them in hand they slowly crossed the river.

Max felt the cool and clear water rapidly move forward around his feet as he made each step, the force of the current threatened to sweep him off his feet yet it only added to what he was experiencing right now.

The smells of the forest and of the river joining to make the clear air feel even fresher, the crown of the trees full of green leaves swaying gently with the wind... it all came together to make the forest feel magical.

Max took out his phone to take a photo of the scenery, yet that's when disaster hit.

Something had struck against his leg, making him lose his balance for a split second... and drop his phone.

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The world seemingly slowed down to a crawl, he saw his phone slowly flip in the air and drop down into the waters below.

He thought about jumping to grab it, yet he instinctively knew that if he actually did it both him and his phone would end up being carried off by the current... The situation seemed hopeless.

That's when his phone stopped in mid-air and slowly floated back towards him.

Without a second thought Max grabbed it and checked if water had managed to reach it, yet it was still perfectly fine and the photo had come out looking great.

Max sighed in relief as he thanked the Heavens for the miracle.

"Hey, did you slip or something? Your phone almost slept with the fishes." Gareth said as he looked at Max. "And not even a thank you after I saved you from certain death?"

"Oh! Sorry... thank you so much Gareth! I really owe you one..." Max said as he put his phone in his backpack again. "And... No, I think something hit me on the leg..."

"On the leg...?" Vitria said as she looked around the water.

"Yeah, I think it was a fish or som-" Max was talking but he got cut off as another thing struck his leg. "Again!"

"Uh, maybe you're ju-" Gareth tried to speak before also getting hit on the leg. "Shit!"

"Maybe it's actually a fish, we need to cross the-" Vitria came next, almost falling over this time.

Without having to say another word the group gave their all to cross the river, which they managed without falling over even once, yet they ended up completely soaked up to the waist.

"Huff... I swear I'm going to kill that fucking thing..." Gareth groaned as he attempted to dry himself using a towel, Max and Vitria did the same.

After changing their pants for some non-wet ones Max and Gareth looked away so that Vitria could do the same.

After that they decided to come up with a plan for revenge.

Max went over to a tree and touched its bark, after a very arduous process of coaxing the tree into absorbing nutrients from the ground and quickly developing an specially made branch that looked like a big wooden fork with three tips he made the tree cut off the branch and he passed it to Gareth.

Gareth used a wind blade to sharpen the tips of the wooden fork, turning it into an Trident, which he gave to Vitria.

With a wooden trident on her hands Vitria walked deep into to the river and waited for her chance to strike.

The chance came quickly enough as Vitria felt something strike her leg from behind, she knew the attack was coming so rather than regain her balance she thrust the Trident towards the ground in a specific spot, a few seconds after the trident hit the riverbed the water around it started turning red with blood.

Vitria got the head of the trident out of the water to see which creature had attacked them, It was a medium sized fish with light blue scales with a yellow strip going from its head to the tail, it was called a YellowRamer as they were known to ram into wathever passed through the river they considered their territory. A pretty common Water Elemental Beast.

"We've got dinner!" Vitria held the trident up to show off her catch to Max and Gareth, who were back on the shore of the river.

After that exciting occurrence the group continued their travel in relative silence, only broken by finding the occasional berry bushes.

"Did I tell you guys that my grandma made SpiralBerry Jam once? It was pretty good, I don't think it's healthy though, with the amount of sugar she used..." Max thought outloud as he continued picking Berries.

"Uh, so you can make Jam out of anything..." Gareth added as he filled up the bag he was using.

"Yeah, my dad made pinecone Jam once, I can't believe he ate it with a straight face..." Vitria grimaced at the memory.

The talk about weird types of Jam continued until the bush was picked clean of Berries and the group continued on their way.

Yet not even 10 minutes later Vitria purposefully slowed down her pace yet not enough to make it noticeable.

After that she put one of her hands in the air and pointed at it with the other "Hey guys!" Max and Gareth looked at the hand she raised, it was making an OK sign. "Made you look!"

They both chuckled at her supposed joke, yet understood the hidden meaning.

That was the sign that they were being followed.

Max looked around discreetly, seemingly only admiring the scenery, yet in reality he was looking for their stalker.

Gareth did the same, and then spoke "I think we should look for shelter soon, preferably before 7 PM, so we have time to make a fire and everything."

Max understood the code and discreetly looked at his right, there at his 7'o clock and at the edge of his vision he saw a hooded figure doing its best to hide from their scrutiny, which it clearly failed at.

"Yeah, I'm getting pretty tired of this, maybe we should take a rest now..." Max added to Gareth's code.

"No, let's walk for a bit more and then we will rest." Vitria said as she took out the fish that was still on her trident and placed it on her backpack.

After walking for a while more Gareth separated from the group. "I'm going to take a piss, be right back."

Max and Vitria 'waited' for him as they continued talking in code.

"So, after Gareth is back we take a rest?" Max said as he fake yawned.

"Yeah, we've been walking for a while, it'll do us good." Vitria responded as she looked at her trident.

Meanwhile they waited for Gareth they slowly moved closer to the hooded figure.

After a few moments they heard a certain whistle, which meant it was time to spring the trap.