Chapter 74
I suddenly came to my senses and looked around, changing the subject.
“Were you on your way to the cabin?”
Kaiden, who had been staring at me, swept back his hair as if he was in trouble, then sighed.
“Yeah. But I need to know where this is. I’m roughly estimating the location based on the cliff position and moving…”
“How long was I asleep?”
“When I woke up, it was midday. You seemed to be sleeping so deeply, so I didn’t wake you.”
At Kaiden’s words, I tried to forget what had just happened. Then, I started walking with him again.
“Good job. It would have been easier to pinpoint our location if I had my bag, but it’s a shame.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I drew a map of the island. It was in the bag I was carrying.”
There’s no point in saying anything since we can’t find it anyway. There are Bombs left in the cabin, but what a waste of the Flares.
“It would have been nice to have Flares too. If we had shot it into the sky, they would have definitely seen it from the cabin, right?”
As I muttered, Kaiden sighed, saying what’s done is done.
The cliff we were presumed to have fallen from was the largest and highest in the vicinity, so it was easily visible from afar.
I squatted down and drew a line on the ground.
“Kaiden, let’s think. Assuming the distance from here to that cliff is 5km…”
Kaiden sat down next to me and quietly watched the calculations I was writing on the ground.
“What’s a kilometer?”
‘Damn it, the measurement system is different.’
I rummaged through Margaret’s memories, but Margaret had no interest in mathematics.
I sighed and vaguely continued the explanation.
“I’m saying let’s calculate the distance and time from here to there. What if that cliff isn’t the cliff we fell from? If we came to the opposite side of the river. Then we have to go back to the first place.”
“You’re saying let’s consider efficiency. I understand. I was thinking, we’ve moved about 3,000 steps from the river to here? But looking at the angle of the sun, it seems like it took about 30 minutes.”
I watched him calculate time and distance using the other world’s calculation method.
“We need to recalculate the time considering the angle of the cliff.”
Kaiden diligently started calculating time on the dirt floor with his finger.
“If that cliff isn’t the cliff we fell from, it would take at least two days, or even more, to return to the cabin.”
“If that cliff is the one, it would take a day, right? Then first, it would be good to get a day’s worth of food.”
At my words, he nodded, dusted off his hands, and got up.
“We need to find a place to sleep first.”
Kaiden said to me, looking at the setting sun. I looked up at the sky, following Kaiden.
“Enoch will be worried.”
This has happened before. When I disappeared, Enoch searched for me all night.
This time will surely be no different.
Enoch, who had completely erased his distrust of me, was always kind to me without being confusing.
“It seems I can’t live without you on this island.”
“So Margaret, I need you. So please stay by my side. Don’t leave.”
I recalled what Enoch had said to me before.
He was really like a puppy who gets anxious when separated from its owner, so anxious that he couldn’t think straight without me.
“We have to go back quickly. Enoch is waiting.”
I was saying such things and walking blankly after Kaiden when.
“Margaret.”
Kaiden called my name in a low voice.
“Who do you like more, the Crown Prince or me?”
There was a hint of great jealousy mixed in, so I was a little puzzled.
“Why are you asking that?”
“I’m curious, huh? Answer me.”
Kaiden even stopped walking and asked me as if urging me.
“I like Luzef.”
I deliberately mentioned the name of someone who wasn’t even on the list of options in a playful tone. And it was clearly a light joke…
“I didn’t like that bastard from the beginning.”
Kaiden took it seriously. He was even overly angry. I looked at Kaiden with a bewildered face.
Whether he knew my feelings or not, Kaiden grabbed my shoulders seriously and asked again.
“What’s so good about that bastard? Margaret, tell me.”
Kaiden’s pretty face was horribly distorted.
I blankly stared at his eerily red eyes burning like fire, like an idiot.
“Wow… I can’t even joke with you.”
“What?”
Kaiden tilted his eyebrows, not understanding my words. Ugh. I shook my head.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t make jokes anymore.”
Kaiden still had a face that didn’t understand my words. I could see that he was about to bring up Luzef again, so I forcibly changed the subject.
“Is it right to look for the cliff? There might be other shortcuts.”
Kaiden, who had been staring at me intently, ruffled his hair and turned his head.
“No, it’s better to go to the cliff. There are too many possibilities if we try to find another way. And we might be able to find your bag on the cliff.”
“It wasn’t in the water, was it?”
“It wasn’t. At least, I didn’t see it.”
I sighed, following Kaiden.
“We’re really in the same situation as castaways.”
The sky was already getting dark.
“Damn it.”
Kaiden cursed again.
First, we decided to look for a place to spend the night. Fortunately, we found a suitable place without wandering around for too long.
There was space to hide under the roots of a huge tree, and we decided to spend the night there.
It was very similar to the place where Luzef had hidden us after we were knocked out by the Anaconda’s poison gas.
“There are a lot of these in this forest. The place we were staying didn’t have roots sticking out like this.”
I muttered, bringing branches and leaves to set up a place to sleep.
Then Kaiden, who was laying out a place next to me, chimed in.
“You’re right. It seems like each area has its own characteristics.”
“Huh…?”
After hearing Kaiden’s answer, puzzle pieces were put together one after another.
Only Wolf-type Monsters appeared near the cave where we first stayed.
Then Anaconda-type Monsters, and Tarantula-type Monsters near the cabin. Could this really be a coincidence?
“It’s as if someone intentionally set it up that way.”
The name Alea kept lingering in my head.
“Is someone locking us up and experimenting on us?”
Kaiden, who was sensitive to the word ‘experiment,’ reacted passionately.
“We don’t know that yet. The only clue we found was ‘Alea’.”
“That damn Alea. Just let me catch her.”
Kaiden gritted his teeth.
But it wasn’t certain yet that it was Alea’s doing. It was all just speculation.
Besides, I don’t know what variables have arisen because I, who should have died in the original story, didn’t die.
‘It seems like a lot has already changed, but who cares. I have to live too.’
According to the original story, we could escape the island if we survived for just one year. But the problem is that we still don’t even know the location where the Escape Gate opens.
If it’s the Key that Yuanna has, we might be able to escape right away without waiting for a long year.
“But didn’t you see an Orangutan monster in the area where the Wolf-type Monsters live?”
At my point, Kaiden tilted his head.
“That’s right. Is that guy a mutant? But I don’t think I’ve seen any others besides him.”
I turned to Kaiden with a serious face and put forward a new hypothesis that I had thought of.
“Originally, the habitats of the Monsters are divided, but it seems like it can be explained if the boundaries are collapsing because the Monsters are evolving.”
“It makes sense even if it’s according to the hypothesis I said earlier. It’s true that there are fixed Monster habitats, but someone is intentionally manipulating them.”
“Come to think of it, unlike the other guys, that Orangutan seemed to be looking for people as if it had intelligence.”
I was hiding in a crack in the rock, but I stopped right in front of it, wondering how it knew. I shuddered, recalling the situation at the time.
Then my stomach rumbled loudly, announcing my hunger.
‘I need to eat something first.’
I pondered for a moment and then sharpened a branch with Kaiden’s dagger. Kaiden asked with a puzzled face.
“Huh? What are you going to do?”
“Preparing to hunt.”
“At this hour? Are you crazy?”
“I know it’s crazy. But we haven’t eaten since yesterday. It will be difficult to move tomorrow if we don’t eat something.”
At my words, Kaiden couldn’t refute and got up. Then he started preparing to hunt with me.
“I think it would be better to make a fish trap. There will be a limit to catching fish with a Spear at this hour.”
“What’s a fish trap?”
“It’s a tool for catching fish. I’ll make it, you help me from the side.”
At my words, Kaiden nodded and quietly helped make the fish trap.
I carried the completed fish trap and went out with Kaiden to find a valley.
Whether the sound of the stream flowing was a hallucination or not, we soon found a wide valley where water was flowing.
“First, we need to put bait in the fish trap, so I think we need to catch fish with a Spear.”
One good thing is that the sky was clear without a single cloud today.
Because it was a wide valley, there were no trees blocking the sky, and the moonlight was directly received, so the visibility was still somewhat secured.
‘It would have been nice to have a flashlight.’
I was thinking that while trying to catch fish with a Spear, but it wasn’t easy because there was no flashlight.
Had about two hours passed? Fishing is about persistence, and I still managed to catch a crucian carp for bait with a Spear.
And Kaiden, who had been striking out all along, looked at the palm-sized crucian carp in my hand with a dumbfounded face.
“I want to receive that education that the House of Floone teaches.”
I shrugged my shoulders, stunned the crucian carp, prepared it for bait, and put it in the fish trap.
“I told you, I was eccentric. There are secrets that I don’t want to tell people.”
Only then did Kaiden nod with a face that he understood. It seems that the expression ‘secrets that I don’t want to tell people’ convinced Kaiden.
“Come to think of it, who would have known that ‘that’ Lady Flone would be versed in survival knowledge.”
Kaiden muttered, watching me carefully as I put the fish trap in the valley water. Whether it was a misunderstanding or not, it didn’t matter. It was enough that he was convinced.
I got up and nodded to him. It meant let’s go back.
And when we returned to the place where we had made our sleeping place, we found something familiar sparkling there.
Silvery bird eggs were neatly placed under the tree roots.
