The sense of time had left the group long ago. But today it would finally end. They were on the cusp of civilization.

Before they saw anyone, it was screaming at them. It was easy to see that people would be close by. It was here that the herd of scavengers wouldn’t follow them anymore.

‘This looks suspicious.’

In front of Din was woven green rope. It couldn’t be considered impressive but it was clearly rope.

“This is rope, right?”

“Looks like it.”

“I don’t know.”

“I think it’s rope.”

Only Feli wasn’t sure. He felt it was maybe a tree vine. Despite its course outlook. But he didn’t dare voice his opinion.

Even to this day, he felt Din’s casual smile was filled with unprovoked malice. He felt like a mouse being glared at by a cat.

‘Why would it be here?’

Cuddled by his upbringing he had never seen such a simple alarm system.

‘I should take it with me. Rope might be useful.’

Getting a grip on it he began pulling it. And in the distance a rock fell down. It was near, but far enough to dismiss the sound it made.

The sound made by hollowed out tree. It wasn’t loud but it was easy to discern it once you knew what it was.

‘This a lot longer than I expected. Why would someone tie rope randomly. Can this be a trap?’

What Din couldn’t have known is that in the past these ropes had been used for traps. But in the end, they only ended up hurting those it was meant to protect.

With the survivor camp being alarmed, it wasn’t too serious. They had never actually had it work as intended, more often than not they had no idea why it had been triggered.

Few tens meters away, two men were casually making their way towards the makeshift wooden drum that had been slammed by the rock.

“These things are a waste of time.”

“Better than nothing.”

“How is it better than nothing?”

“I don’t know. It makes me feel safer, that’s worth something.”

“Won’t be safe much longer. Tiar has been planning an attack ever since he found the other camp.”

“Don’t even talk about it. Why does he want to attack? Don’t we have enough here?”

“Maybe he wants fresh stock, if you know what I mean.”

“Man. If I get a good skill at level thirty I’m going to create my own camp. And live like a king.”

“How are you going to get to level thirty if you keep dodging the hunts?”

“I’ve got my ways. I’m getting experience from all my ropes.”

It was up to here that they stopped talking. They were shocked. In front of them was a man. His eyes clear as the ocean blue. They almost felt like they had fallen into water.

‘These two are pretty big.’

The man’s eyes only distracted them for a moment. They realized he was stealing their rope. They weren’t sure what to make of it.

Din saw them looking at the rope. He felt a bit guilty. He was stealing their rope after all.

“Ah this. This isn’t what it looks like.”

One of them was going to speak but suddenly felt baffled. They now felt like they had caught someone in the act. They found a thief!

“You’re stealing the rope?”

“He has good taste. That’s quality rope.”

It was a strange encounter. They should have been alarmed. This man was covered from head to toe in dried blood. But they mistook it for dirt. They had seen stranger things.

But the most baffling of all was the pride in the man’s voice. This was pride in his rope. He felt it was quality rope.

“Ah. It was just lying around. Thought it would be useful.”

It was only up to here that they came to. This was a foreign invader. If he was from another camp. He was an enemy.

If he escaped here and informed a different camp about this location, it might spell disaster. The other option was they were new arrivals. In either cases they had to act.

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“You need to come with us.”

“Can I keep this rope?”

“No you can’t keep the rope! This is my rope! What do you mean can you keep the rope!?”

“Calm down Hore.”

“Ah. Sorry.”

‘Is this a special rope? Why is he mad?’

Before following them, Din glanced behind him and the other three people came from hiding.

“These three are with me.”

The trio felt odd. It was a sense of warmth and relief. But it was overwhelmed by their nervousness.

They hadn’t heard nice things about other survival camps. It was common to be killed on sight or taken as labour slaves or worse.

When the two saw the other three they were surprised but quickly they became thrilled.

Their eyes like windows to their souls. It was easy to see their happiness when they noticed two of the newcomers were female.

‘I guess their camp doesn’t have a lot of women.’

The previously unenthusiastic men became almost bubbly, but they still did not speak to anyone other than themselves.

To Din and the others, it seemed strange. It wasn’t that they were naive. They saw their expression change.

However even after discovering them, they didn’t speak one word to them after telling them to follow.

‘It just keeps getting stranger and stranger.’

The camp wasn’t far off. They couldn’t afford to defend too large an area. Limited by their population.

Soon other people could be seen. There was surprise and then shock followed by either worry or pity.

No one felt the new people to be pleasing to the eyes. This might be paranoia or the filth they were covered in.

‘What a strange bunch.’

After walking between the cottages. The housing looked worse off than common city slums. But they were discernibly cleaner.

There was no issue so far, no one even bothered to ask questions about the group. But that wasn’t because they weren’t curious. They just seemed naturally timid.

Din was counting houses and people. He felt there was room for a lot more people here. It was at this point when he felt his body twitch.

His neck snapped in a direction. His vision focused on one particular survivor.

‘What’s going on?’

He felt the familiar ache after the rapid movement. But the person watching him was startled and fell backwards. The momentum carried and rolled on full cycle before stopping.

‘What is he doing?’

Of course Din wouldn’t understand what happened. That person harboured killing intentions. Had he been closer to Din he might have been struck down.

Some people noticed the quick action and felt it odd, but it wasn’t much stranger than what they had experienced these last months.

After watching the fool roll backwards and retreat. Din’s looming shadow dissipated slightly. The oppressive feeling he gave off lessened greatly.

“We brought new people for Tiar!”

Lounging on makeshift chairs were two similar looking men. Their gaze was lazy but that’s just the impression they gave.

“Who are these people?”

There wasn’t much to say but before they could even begin a skinny man strolled out. He was fully naked and gave of the same lazy expression as the two men sitting in the chairs.

“Tiar! These are the people we just found.”

Tiar didn’t seem like he heard the man. He was frowning and looking at the four.

After a moment he glanced at the two men that brought them. His frown deepened.

“Fuck off!”

It sounded like he spoke through his nose. Some would feel it irritating.

“Bu-.”

“I said. Fuck off.”

The two lazy looking men stood up. It looked like it took everything they had to stand up. Like a cats after a long nap.

Seeing them stand up they quickly shut up and began walking away. They were furious. They had expected a reward but instead were treated like this.

“Take those two. Have them bathed then bring them.”

Not wanting to waste another moment here. He felt it beneath him. And was insulted he had to smell them.

No one spoke but Tiar had already left. The two men looked at the women and gestured them to come.

Suit and Seri were hesitant and looked to Din. Din was in his own world, thinking.

But Suit’s and Seri’s hesitation was like a slap in their face. People did what they told them to. They had worked hard to create this merciless lazy image.

Seeing them look to the filth ridden Din. They could smell him from where they stood. Finally their lazy look changed.

Like practiced they both squint their eyes. A smile crept out. Once they smiled, they looked handsome. Too handsome. At least that's what Feli thought.

What right did they have to have such sparkling smiles? This was the jungle. This isn’t a place for handsome young men like these.

It wasn’t until he saw them move towards Din that he forgave them. He didn’t think holding grudges against dead men was worth it.

The three were all thinking that they were going to die. But they still didn’t warn them. Maybe Din would have, but he was ignoring them. Still thinking out his plan.

He felt this place was good. He had gone so far as to treat it as his own. He was planning how to improve things.

Once they got close enough, the two attack together, wanting to destroy this filthy thing.

Din had been carrying a metal pole in his hand since the ruins. He hadn’t bothered to clean it. He tried for a bit but the stick felt more like moss than metal at this point.

This allowed for this rare opportunity, they struck out. But two loud cracking sounds suddenly emerged.

“I knew it.”

Feli felt a bit smug. He’d watched this insane act happen countless times. These two felt dangerous but they weren’t wild animals.

They weren’t hiding in the shadows ready to pounce on them. He even felt a bit superior to them. Aren’t you strong and handsome?

There was no sense to be found in Feli’s thoughts. Suit’s and Seri’s thoughts were much simpler, they thought along the lines of, as expected.

“Uh.”

He felt a bit baffled. He really wasn’t expecting to be attacked like this. He was trying to solve problems he hadn’t even encountered yet.

But now he was struck out of his reverie. Two men dead. Their faces mangled.

‘My pipe!’

The pole from the sign was bent out of shape. He felt a slight tear at his heart. It had been bending slowly as it hit the beasts along the way.

But it was much cleaner. He had lessened the blood splatter by at least a quarter. This pipe had sentimental value now.

“Why did they attack me?”

No one had an answer for him. Some of the nearby people were a bit shocked. They had seen people killed for small things.

But this were the leaders right and left hands. These two went everywhere with Tiar. They couldn’t fit the image of them dead into their heads.

It was like putting a puzzle piece into the wrong slot. It wasn’t right.

‘That’s four. Four people I’ve killed. Not even father killed anyone.’

Having suddenly thought of his father, a foreboding feeling crept out from Din. The shadow seemed to come alive.

He felt angry. He felt angry that he accidently thought of his father. He felt angry that they made him think of his father.

If they weren't already dead, he would have felt like beating them up.

A few moments passed, Din stewed in his thoughts. Oblivious to his surrounding.

From an outside perspective it looked like he was staring at Tiar’s shed. They thought he was going to challenge their leader.

No one felt like standing up for their leader. They didn’t think it was a good or a bad thing. No one liked Tiar.

Tiar wasn’t the only leader this survival camp had served under. Tiar was fourth in line in the current generation. A generation that had only existed for a few months.

It wasn’t that the previous leaders were weak. It was that they were betrayed or ambushed. One had even died to a small wave of creatures.

They didn't have good feelings towards any of these leaders. All of them were vicious. Cruelty seemed to go hand in hand with leadership.

‘Maybe I can find someone to fix it.’

He really did feel this pipe was a good thing. Even he realized he was getting too emotional over a piece of metal.

He turned around, spotting one of the survivors his eyes lit up.

The survivor was unlucky enough to match his gaze. The bright blue eyes trapped him. He couldn’t look away.

“Where is the river?”

He felt too shocked to respond. He had never seen such eyes. He began asking himself questions he never thought he would. Soon he blushed and looked away.

‘What is with these people.’

“You. Where is the river?”

A few people had already pointed in the direction. They felt a bit coerced. Why did they all point at the same time?

They looked at each other and felt a certain camaraderie. It was a strange feeling. It wasn’t until Din’s was few steps away that they realized what they were doing.

Finally lowering their hands they slowly followed behind. They felt this person was interesting. Interesting enough to observe, so they followed.

‘Do they all want to make sure I clean myself? Do smell that bad?’

He looked at Suit, Seri and Feli. They noticed his gaze but didn’t match it. They all knew it wasn’t smart to look directly at Din. They had all met that gaze a few times. It stuck with them.

“Do I smell?”

All of the people following stopped. Do you smell? Yes you smell. This thought was mirrored by all of them. The could smell him from afar.

But no one answered. They had just seen him kill two men.

‘No need to answer. I can read your faces easily enough.’