CHAPTER THREE: Adults

It was perhaps only ten minutes—Lavan couldn’t know for sure because besides clothing nobody had anything on them, which meant no time-keeping devices—before everyone managed to get ahold of their wits and move their “huddle” and supply crates away from their puddles of barf.

Upon opening the air-tight crates whose lids were kept closed by simple PVC gaskets like the ones in refrigerators, the group had discovered within them food, clothing, various wilderness survival gear likes knives, and other goods that…well, Lavan knew he’d have to address later.

Finding tents and fire-starting tools among the wilderness gear, Lavan immediately directed their entire group to gather kindling from the forest for a half hour in order to allow them time and a task with which to calm themselves, after which they erected half of the available compact tents. In the case that something happened in their camp that destroyed their sleeping arrangements, Lavan didn’t want them to run out of easy shelter and convinced everyone that keeping two or three people to each was safest, even though there was one for every Chosen in the crates. And at Lavan’s recommendation, they refrained from choosing tents, for now.

By this point people’s bellies began rumbling, so they all sat together within the circle they created with the tents and opened the plastic MREs—or, ready meals—to feast on tasteless calories. There were other not-so-ready meals available, but they required cooking to prepare that nobody wanted to do in that moment.

‘Blaagh, these are awful,’ Lavan complained with a grimace after taking a bite out of what was probably hardtack. ‘And bad for morale. It’s not as important as before, but good food is still high on the priority list.’

The aspiring leader scarfed down his terrible-tasting meal and followed it with a long swig of water—fighting his instinct to gag—before wiping his mouth with his sleeve and standing up, putting his arms behind his back.

“We all need to discuss a few things,” Lavan said in as firm a voice as he could manage. ”Firstly, our Quests.”

Directly after everyone received the notification for completing the Secret Quest—which made known that there would be secret objectives for them to complete—everyone also gained the information detailing their first…real, for lack of a better word, Quests. Judging by the snippets of conversation Lavan had heard, their Quests varied greatly. When they had appeared it was decided that they could put the Quests off until after they set up the tents and ate.

Parameters of Quest “Fitness”:

— As this is your first, I, in my infinite benevolence, give you an easy Quest rated one star below what you have chosen, for the same prize. Within 5 hours of receiving this Quest, run 3 kilometers.

Reward:

— One dazzling Oruthen Peach. It is a consumable spirit herb. Use it wisely.

“I don’t know about all of you, but the parameters say because it’s my first Quest it has the danger rating of a Quest one star below what I chose but for the same prize, which is to run 3 kilometers within 5 hours starting…almost an hour ago.”

Lavan hid a gulp after reading his Quest parameters again. He’d never been much of a runner and he’d never tried running more than a single kilometer at a time, which was exhausting enough. Sure, he had about four hours to complete his Quest, which was a lot compared to how long it took to rest between runs, but just the idea of how drained he’d be after was enough to make him shiver.

His peers had diverse reactions to hearing about his Quest, some of which were negative for a good reason. Assuming that the majority of them chose one or two stars and their Quests were comparable to his, Lavan had basically given away that he’d chosen to undergo the most danger possible, which didn’t necessarily only put him at risk.

Lavan opened his mouth to ask about everyone else’s Quests when Georgy, who was leaning against one of the supply crates, spoke up.

“I bet you chose three stars, right?” he asked Lavan with a gesture of his chin, his expression giving away nothing of his intentions…though he always looked grumpy to Lavan. When Lavan nodded, Georgy continued, “I did too, and the goddess also lowered the danger rating of mine to two, but…” the boy scratched his head as his eyes unfocused from pulling up and reading his prompt. “Well, just like yours, my Quest doesn’t seem dangerous at all, which is weird because the difficulty meter for our Quests is literally called the ‘danger rating’.”

At that, Lavan blinked.

“Huh, I didn’t think of that… Well, I hope the name ‘danger rating’ is a misnomer, but I wouldn’t count on it. What’s your Quest, Georgy?”

His eyes refocused and he swiveled his head, looking around their makeshift base of operations.

“It says that I have to vigilantly patrol our camp for two hours after this world’s star—called the nuu—reaches its zenith, but before it sets. Also, the Quest notification confirmed that this planet has a 24-hour day/night cycle like Earth. I think she’s going easy on us for the beginning.”

“That’s good to know. Thanks,” Lavan nodded, holding a hand to his chin and staring into the distance. “And yeah, probably. After all, exercising and patrolling our camp? She might be using these first Quests as examples of tasks that will keep us alive.” Lavan let go of his chin and returned his attention to his schoolmates. “Anyone else have a Quest like that?”

A dozen people spoke out at once and overlapped to create chaos, so Lavan quickly added, “Raised hands, please!”

The voices died down as embarrassed Chosen Ones raised hands instead. However, many more hands raised than voices had spoken.

“Okay, that’s one mystery solved,” Lavan said with a sigh of relief. “Looks like we have at least a day of safety. Some Chosen don’t even get that much. We’re lucky… And next on the agenda is organization. I think we should split ourselves into teams with representatives,” he tacked onto the end.

Lavan could tangibly feel the rejection of his idea as most of his compatriots made faces and exchanged glances with one another.

“Why?” one small blonde girl with short hair tentatively spoke up. “There are only thirty of us.”

“And look at how well representative democracy worked for the United States,” Georgy snarked, reminding Lavan of why he didn’t like Georgy.

All eyes returned to Lavan as he cleared his throat.

“I agree that on the surface my idea to form teams doesn’t seem practical when we're only the size of a classroom…” he let his words drag for effect, “but we’re not on Earth anymore.” His voice took on an undertone of severity. “We’re not working on a group project. We’re going to fight for our lives in this new world. We cannot all consistently keep track of what the other twenty-nine are doing. What if one or two people go off to do their own thing for a little bit and never make it back? Who—”

“Safety in numbers. Nobody’s stupid enough to leave the group under these circumstances. We know that there are dangers out there,” a redhead girl loudly interrupted.

“Yeah, we’re all adults here,” Georgy huffed.

Lavan didn’t mind. Their points would serve his argument.

“Because adults have never done anything stupid?” he countered with an eyebrow raised. “Let me paint you a picture: we lived off the land here for three days without incident. No monsters have appeared. Not even normal apex predator animals like bears. Over these three days you have relaxed, lowered your guard. Your Quest is to gather berries, which you luckily happened to spot many of somewhere a little deeper in the forest but never gathered because your hands were already full from taking back a rabbit caught by a snare. The berry bush is only one or two hundred meters from camp. You could gather them all and be back in less than twenty minutes. But you’re smart. Your guard is lowered, but you still remember to bring a friend. You leave the camp, you easily find the bush, you both kneel in front of it with bags in hand, and begin plucking berries from their stems. A very simple Quest.”

Lavan passed his stern glare around before softening it and letting it rest in the sky, attempting to strike a somber pose.

“You both die, having fallen for the lures of a plant monster that struck at you with powerful thorny vines and latched around your throats, slowly crushing your tracheas. If your friend had been on guard duty while you picked the berries they could have cut the vines with their knife before you choked. Or if anyone else had joined you, they could have also rescued you.” His gaze fell to his feet. “It’s the monster you don’t see that lands the killing blow, and we need as many people watching our backs as possible without lowering our work efficiency. Please, just listen to my id—”

“I thought Chosen Ones who survived their Deity’s challenges couldn’t become Chosen again. You sound awfully experienced.”

Lavan looked up at the mountain man, who munched on his MRE without so much as a wince at the flavor and stared back.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he chuckled, silently thanking him for the assistance. “Deity Survival was my best and favorite class. Besides that, I play a lot of team games…” Lavan made a face, realizing what he’d said. “Well, I used to, but that doesn’t matter cuz I’m going to make sure we all get back to Earth with superpowers. Then I’ll play even more videogames.”

Lavan shook his head mirthlessly.

“Anyway, please just give my idea a try. If we form smaller groups, then we all won’t have to hear so many different ideas when discussing matters or watch so many backs when we’re in danger. Instead, each team representative will gather their team’s opinions and publicly share them with the other representatives, making everything easier to keep track of.”

Words and mumbles of assent resounded. Lavan stared directly at the redhead.

“Plus, I want us to be split into teams to make working on our Quests together easier, since we’ll probably be able to get them done much faster with familiar groups. So, are there any more objections or other id—”

“Okay, okay,” the redhead grumbled, “I relent. And no, I don’t have a better idea. Just voicing my thoughts.”

“Thank you,” Lavan smiled, then brought his hands together in front of his chest with a clap when nobody else objected. “Now, let’s all stand and form two sides.” He waited a moment while everyone picked up their food and stood. “Men, please gather around me, and women please face opposite of us.”

Lavan thought he heard a guy complain under his breath about the separation by sex, and internally laughed.

When everyone was separated into two groups Lavan began giving his next order but stopped as something unfamiliar caught his attention. His head swiveled to face Georgy who stood nearby with his arms crossed and eyes closed. Was his breathing slightly labored? But that wasn’t what had caught his attention. There was something…different about the air around the guy.

“Yo, Georgy,” Lavan said, scooting toward him, “have you already—”

“Yeah, genius,” Georgy snapped, opening his eyes to glare at Lavan. “And I’m not the only one, which you would have noticed if you weren’t trying to play president of the Chosen.”

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Lavan bristled at the unnecessary jab, but held his tongue, instead closing his eyes to focus on reaching for the mana in the air that everyone had begun to feel after their completion of the Secret Quest. He’d wanted to try this sooner, but organizing his Chosen compatriots took precedence over learning the magic system.

With just a few seconds of focus Lavan opened his mind’s eye to the energy all around him, seeing it and the disturbance that had caught his attention more clearly: Georgy was slowly and clumsily absorbing mana from the atmosphere, and like he’d said, he wasn’t the only one. Senia, the mountain man, Gust the bulky blonde, the redhead, and several more were also cycling.

‘These guys must have paid attention in Deity Survival. Very good. It’s a shame most people treat it like a filler class that can be ignored.’

He shook his head.

“Anyway, um, I want everyone to find two teammates from your side, for a total of ten teams of three each. Preferably with people you don’t already know so that you can build new bonds, but it doesn’t really matter.”

The groups shifted as everyone shuffled around, no doubt finding the people they picked out as soon as Lavan earlier mentioned splitting into smaller groups. In Lavan’s case, he immediately put an arm around Gust’s broad shoulder, saying, “I hope you don’t mind me,” with a smile. Lavan’s gut said he was a reasonable guy.

Thankfully, Gust smiled back.

“’Course not, dude. The second we were transferred here it seemed like you knew exactly what to do. If I can help it, I’m sticking with you.”

“Well, you know, Deity Survival. I feel like anyone who paid as much attention to that class as I did would do just as well.” Lavan put in an effort to sound humble, but in truth his belly filled with butterflies at the praise. He could never get enough praise.

Lavan led his new friend to the third member of their team, whose eyes were still closed, and put his other arm around him.

“Heyo, Georgy!”

The boy’s eyes flew open as he dawned a sneering frown.

“Bitch!? No,” Georgy grumbled, struggling to remove Lavan’s arm from around his shoulder. “Why me? I knew I shouldn’t have waited for whoever was left!”

“Hey, just hear me out!” Lavan pleaded casually, keeping a tight hold on Georgy and looking around at his other schoolmates, who’d already chosen their teams and were looking at the scene he had caused. “Besides, everyone’s already in groups.”

“And what if I…”—he finally managed to get out from beneath Lavan’s arm with a huff—“…refuse to cooperate? Huh? What then?”

Lavan allowed his cheer to slowly drain from his face and voice as he stared back at Georgy.

“Look, dude, neither of us are the nicest people,” he related generously, because his attitude could certainly not be compared to Georgy’s, “but we just got off on the wrong foot last year and I want to make up for it.”

The two had met in 11th grade’s Deity Survival 3, and when Georgy and his friends were rowdy and obnoxious Lavan was always the first to tell them to shut up because his class with Ms. Jackson was the only one he cared about. Obviously, Georgy did not appreciate that and would always respond with, “Make me!”, and “What are you going to do about it?”, or something of that cliché variety. However, the ball-less coward never tried anything. Back then, Lavan had wished he would.

But in the present, none of that mattered anymore…for the most part. He’d be lying if he said he forgave Georgy for being an asshole during his favorite class, but Lavan was definitely willing to bury the hatchet and build a better relationship so long as his fellow lazy student applied himself to doing the same.

With so many eyes watching them, Lavan imagined that Georgy was calculating how much respect he’d lose in the eyes of his peers if he didn’t accept Lavan’s earnest proposal and if it would be worth it.

“Tch, fine,” Georgy eventually barked. “But keep your hands off me!”

He had chosen wisely.

“Swell!” Lavan exclaimed, removing his arm from around Gust and clapping excitedly. He hadn’t even begun practicing any kind of magic and he was already having so much fun! “Now, I’d like the girl teams to each partner with a boy team for a total of five teams of six members.”

Besides the redhead immediately dragging her two teammates toward the muscle mountain—which Lavan would have done in her position, to be honest—his words caused a stir. Though no one directly opposed his order, nobody other than the redhead followed it and many voices raised questions.

Lavan held up his hands in a placating gesture asking them to settle down, which took a little bit longer than he expected. And a surprising number of boys were among those questioning him, including Gust, though they just seemed curious.

“Again, I know the idea sounds weird on the surface,” he began, bringing a hand to his heart, “but we are all going to live, work, and fight alongside each other, and I’ll be the first to admit that I have some unconscious biases. I want to believe and act like we’re all the same but…to put it simply…I still get nervous around girls. Y’know…they’re pretty.”

The deceit caused a few to laugh and others to raise eyebrows.

“I still have a little bit of a ‘boy’s only’ mindset that I doubt nobody else suffers from, including the ladies and their biases,” he said while giving the women a look. “In the case that we’re trapped in this fantastical world long-term I want us all to see each other for who we are instead of what, and working in mixed teams will help with that.”

Once again, his argument worked flawlessly—though mostly because nobody seemed to have had a problem with the idea, just questions. Though he’d lied about the nervousness and whatnot, everything regarding wanting everyone else’s biases to disappear was truth. Lavan would hate to hear that a guy died because he hadn’t trusted a woman to help in a fight against a monster, or something similar.

When it seemed that everyone’s demands for answers were satisfied he once again asked the girl teams to partner with boy teams and they obeyed. Senia briefly locked eyes with Lavan and quirked an eyebrow, but he gently shook his head, hoping she’d get the full message.

  One girl hilariously walked past the redhead to stand in front of the mountain man and asked if he wanted to combine their teams, but mister muscles shook his head, saying the redhead asked first. He was also munching on someone else’s MRE, which they had let him have after retching at the taste. Lavan couldn’t help but to recall a meme that went, “The man, the myth, the legend!”, thinking it fit his huge schoolmate.

“Hiya, Mr. President. I’m Jalonra,” a purple-haired girl greeted Lavan as she led her two teammates—one of whom was the tall girl who’d long since stopped sobbing—toward him, good-naturedly referencing Georgy’s earlier jab.

“Hi. I’m Lavan,” he replied simply with a short wave, uncaring of who he teamed with so long as it wasn’t Senia so that she could lead her own squad.

“I hope you don’t mind if we try to mooch off your success,” she smiled, coming to a stop in front of him and offering a handshake.

The boy accepted it, saying, “Well, no success yet, but you hoped correctly.”

After a quick look around at their camp she gave him a knowing smile. “Sure.”

Lavan gave his fellow Chosen a few minutes to become acquainted with the teams they would probably spend most of their time with before he gathered everyone’s attention by clearing his throat. Then he raised an arm to point at a girl standing next to the crate containing miscellaneous items.

“You. Please toss me a notepad and pencil from that box?”

The girl Lavan asked a favor of still held her rations with a napkin, but she happily complied, putting them on the ground before leaning into the crate. After retrieving and tossing over the requested items she didn’t pick her MRE back up despite it resting on the napkin instead of directly touching the grass. Better food moved higher up the priority list.

“Now, I’d like you all to choose team representatives, come up with names for your teams that aren’t confusing like animals since we might fight some, then for every individual to give me whatever name you go by. I’d also like every team rep to copy the information into their own notebooks, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just for convenience. Having documents with all our names and teams in case we forget. By the way, I’m Lavan.”

“Heh, now this really is feeling like a school project,” somebody snickered, prompting chuckles.

“And I hope it stays that way, but…you know,” Lavan sighed, bringing the mood back down.

A few minutes of discussion—and recommendations by Lavan—later and the team names and reps were decided.

Team Cabinet, named in reference to Georgy’s joke about Lavan playing president. Georgy voted against the name, but was vastly outnumbered.

Team Garden, named for Valerie’s—the rep—love of gardening.

Team Senile, named to resemble Senia’s name, as she was its representative.

Team Barbecue, named by its rep—Wanda—as a reminder to everyone that the food from the supply crates sucked and they needed to remedy that.

And Team Mountain, named after Donovan, who was built like one. He strangely didn’t seem pleased by the decision, despite not offering a name of his own and starting to do pushups while waiting for all the teams to finish choosing theirs.

“Right! We’re almost done!” Lavan announced after writing down the last Chosen’s name with a brief description of their hair and eyes for easier identification. “Now…I have a confession to make.”

Those last words caused his peers to make funny faces. He could almost see the question marks appear above their heads.

“Umm, and what would that be?” Valerie—the small girl with short blonde hair—cautiously asked.

Lavan slowly turned his head to make eye contact with everyone as he lowered his notebook and pencil, creating a false air of regret.

“I must confess that before we got the notification about the Secret Quest I was brainstorming ideas for how to, umm, carefully manipulate my way into a…village-chief-like position, as Georgy alluded to,” he lied, using a tone of apology and struggling to hold his amusement at the even funnier faces. Though, a decent number didn’t seem to care.

“But after seeing the quote unquote reward for bringing everyone together, I figured that you all would perfectly understand just how important working together is going to be and don’t need someone taking that kind of role, so… Yeah, I came up with the idea of teams instead. That’s it.”

  “So what you’re saying is,” Georgy spoke over the other few voices raised after Lavan said his piece, “that you thought we needed a dictator but don’t anymore cuz the goddess made it clear we’ll die if we don’t cooperate?”

  “Yeah,” Lavan tentatively nodded, hoping that’s where Georgy would end…but the man sneered with an eye roll that said he’d had enough bullshit.

  “I’m not buying it,” he announced. “I don’t trust when people try grabbing for power. You did set up this system for democracy, but that won’t stop anyone from valuing your opinion more than others if you choose to speak loudly enough since you still made yourself a ‘representative’. Your confession could just be a publicity stunt to make getting your way easier by having something to point to and say that you don’t have ulterior motives.” Georgy’s arms were already crossed, but he leaned forward to make his posture even more confrontational. “The only way I’ll believe that you stopped trying to take power is if you let someone else be our team representative and speak as little as possible.”

  ‘Bruh, why does he see right through me?’

  Lavan internally scratched his head, wondering what he did to give himself away or if Georgy was just really skeptical of everything. But before he could say anything, Senia approached.

  “And what’s the problem if you’re right? He took good charge of everything the hour we’ve been here, so what’s the issue with letting him stay that way so long as he continues doing well?”

  Surprisingly, a few schoolmates Lavan hadn’t even seen before their world transfer also showed their agreement with Senia—more people than had nodded along to Georgy. Remembering how Donovan had subtly supported him Lavan turned to see if the mountain man was paying attention to find that he was not. Eyes closed, the man was pulling in mana during his pushups, and his breathing seemed unstable. Lavan would have to ask about that later.

  “Nothing necessarily,” Georgy told Senia before scoffing, “but how do I know that you’re not in on it too? Since Lavan knew who you were when we appeared here.”

  ‘Eh, he makes an alright point. Conflicts of interest are real issues in all politics, after all.’

  In Senia’s case, she was acquainted with Lavan through having taken a few of the same classes throughout high school and then playing games together when they realized that they shared those hobbies. However, Senia probably hadn’t backed him up because they were friends, but because one of the games they both played was the team game Lavan learned most of his leadership skills from. Building morale, allocating tasks, figuring out what role everyone was best at, planning their battles, setting up their defenses, placating unruly teammates when it came to that, and more.

  The wind picked up, creating howls in everyone’s ears and forcing those speaking to raise their voices.

  “How can I trust that Lavan won’t give you, or himself, special treatment?” Georgy loudly continued. “We hated each other in 11th grade. What if he abuses his power to disadvantage me?”

  “Those are reasonable concerns!” Lavan agreed enthusiastically, hiding his irritation. “But there’s no way to guarantee you anything. Regardless of if I pinky promise you’ll still have your doubts, so just bring up specific concerns when the time comes. Like, if you and I find some cool magical tool that you would benefit from most and I claim it for myself, that will obviously be a problem and will ruin my reputation! But just the threat of such a thing happening doesn’t warrant the energy you’re wasting by worrying about it!”

  Heat bubbled in Lavan’s chest from his noble intentions being questioned, but he forced himself to remain calm, remembering the first sentence of his counter argument: “Those are reasonable concerns”. Georgy was just looking out for himself, like anyone with a sense of self-preservation would do. In fact, it was even helping Lavan build his image by reasonably discussing the matter!

  But none of that changed the fact that it didn’t feel good to be accused of wanting to abuse power. Deep breath in, deep breath out, repeat. This fool would eventually come to learn that he just…mostly just wanted them all to survive. All he needed was a show of patience…which Lavan was running out of.

  “Look, Georgy,” Lavan growled through his teeth, having failed to cool down, “just because we didn’t like each other last year doesn’t mean I give two shits about you this year. Don’t give me a reason to dislike you again and we’ll be fine.”

  A few Chosen recoiled slightly at the aggression, but nobody commented as Georgy came up with a response.

  “All I’m saying is—”

  Deep cries of agony interrupted him. With a start, everyone turned to see that Donovan’s perfect pushup form crumpled, and he lay squirming on the grass, spasming. Most of the Chosen simply watched in shock while a few, including Lavan, ran up to and surrounded the ailing man.

  “We’ll search for injuries! Everyone else, encircle us and watch for enemies!” Lavan screamed, then quickly added, “Equip the knives!”

  Several students ran to the crates to gather their only weapons while everyone else shakily positioned themselves around Donovan facing outward. Unfortunately a significant portion of their view of the surrounding wilderness was blocked by the larger circle of tents they built, but they watched what they could.

  Lavan quickly slipped off his T-shirt in the case that a wound needed pressure applied to it…but after scanning Donovan and the ground around him he found no blood. What was going on?

  Then just as quickly as it had begun, Donovan’s writhing ended. Lavan and the others attending to him froze as the mountain man’s eyes closed and he grew completely still. Only when someone announced that they’d found a pulse did Lavan realize he’d been holding his breath in fear.

  “I’m…okay,” Donovan rasped after the hand checking for a pulse lifted from his neck. “There wasn’t…an attack.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “You don’t sound okay!”

  “Can you move?”

  Everyone spoke at once, drowning the poor guy in questions until Lavan raised his own voice to quell them.

  When everyone settled, Donovan coughed before mumbling, “And I think…I figured out part of the magic system.”