The Discarded Son's Skill Market
Chapter 13: They escaped (2)

Chapter 13: They escaped (2)

Zaid looked at her for a brief moment and sighed. He’d let himself get carried away by the urge to mock this guy and had almost gotten into a pointless argument.

"I won’t give up," he declared.

John clenched his fists. "I need to get out of here with a token. No matter what!" It was his pride that was burning.

He’d been tricked by five bastards who were clearly trying to curry favor with the Shawns at the expense of ruining him. He couldn’t lose.

"Anyway, we don’t have time anymore. Getting out means giving up... I’d rather be remembered as the one who died trying." Another member of Zaid’s group laughed; they were already helpless and knew they were going to fail.

"So, are we all going to keep going?" Zaid asked. Everyone agreed to continue.

"I think we should split into three groups of five for this. The tokens are getting farther and farther apart, so there’s no point in all of us sticking together."

The fact that he brought it up again—even though no one had paid him any attention at first—was a relief to everyone, as they realized he was being sincere.

Although some of them secretly despised him, for some reason they respected him at that moment.

"We’ll listen to you," they said.

"All right." Zaid then divided the groups into three.

He deliberately put John in his group so he could keep him within his line of sight, but he split his two friends between the other two groups.

Alice stayed with him.

"Before we leave, we need to mark some trees to guide us and help us figure out where we’re going, since this place is so big. We’ll come back here in four hours to check in," Zaid suggested, and that’s exactly what they did.

They split up, and the three groups went their separate ways.

Splitting up in a large forest like this wouldn’t be such a good idea if it were a normal forest; fortunately, there are no wild animals here, which makes it easy. Since they didn’t have to watch their backs for a sneak attack, they had more freedom to move around on their own.

They searched for four hours in groups of three, trying to go to different places than the other group.

The four hours went by quickly...

"Not a single token—this doesn’t make any sense," John complained. "Do these tokens have legs or something? How is it possible to sense one and never find it, only for it to show up later on?"

Even though they didn’t get along, Zaid agreed with him wholeheartedly.

"Let’s hope the other groups have found something." Zaid sighed and decided to turn back.

They retraced their steps along the exact same path they had marked earlier and soon found each other.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

The other group shook their heads.

Everyone fell silent. What was going on?

Zaid felt a slight uneasiness in his heart that became apparent at that moment.

"I think... the problem is the corrupted essence. It’s deceiving our senses," he said.

Everyone turned to look at him. "I-Is it really that bad?" Some shuddered at the thought.

They’d only been under its influence for a few hours... Were they already having so many problems? Did that even make any sense?

"I don’t know if that’s the case, but it’s a possibility, since we’re low-ranking," Zaid replied.

They frowned. "Should we go back?" asked one of the members of the second group.

Someone from the third group nodded. "I think we should go back. It’s been 8 hours already..."

"I think we can last another 4 hours, but we can’t keep searching the same way," said Zaid, crouching down on the ground to draw a small map.

"We’ve been searching in a straight line based on our senses, but if we’re under the influence of the corrupt essence and it’s deceiving our senses, we should search differently. Instead of searching in a straight line, let’s spread out about 5 to 10 meters apart so that every member of the group can search the entire area."

Zaid explained his reasoning, and in a way, everyone agreed.

Then the second search round began—the 12-hour one. They decided to search with the same idea in mind: they would return here in 4 hours...

This time, they did find tokens.

The search paid off.

But so did the fear.

Eleven hours after they’d gone in.

John broke his stance and approached Zaid. "Hey, where the hell are those guys?" he asked.

"I was wondering the same thing." Zaid looked to his right. About ten meters away, among the trees, Alice was still walking, actively searching.

But where were the others?

"Don’t tell me that..."

"They were the ones who got the tokens..."

"Those damn bastards..." John clenched his fists and started yelling.

His shouts caught Alice’s attention, and she finally noticed that two people were missing from their group.

"We have to go back. Let’s meet up with the others, and maybe we can give them the news," Zaid suggested.

But as they were on their way, they noticed something strange... The marks they had left on the trees had been erased, and in their place, hundreds of marks had appeared on every tree!

"This..."

"Those bastards..." John’s eyes flashed with rage.

Even Zaid was angry. It was clearly the work of those two bastards, and now they had no idea where to go.

John was too furious to think straight. He talked nonstop, yelling and hurling insults. "Not even I—who’s known as a neighborhood thug—would dare to do this, you dishonorable bastards!"

Sometimes, only he understood his angry outbursts.

"I think it’s this way..." Alice said, pointing in a specific direction. "Right? Back when I used to get lost in the nearby forest, I could find my way back by following the density of the trees—I remember them well."

Zaid stared at her. "We’ll follow your lead."

There was no other choice.

.

"So where do we go now?" John asked when Alice fell silent.

"I... I don’t know." She shook her head and looked down, frightened.

"How can you not know?! We’ve been following you!" John roared at her.

Alice took several steps back.

Zaid stepped between them and glared at John menacingly.

"What gives you the right to yell at her?"

"Can’t you see she’s fooling you, you damn good-for-nothing piece of trash?!"

"Shut up." Zaid took a step forward to confront him again.

"What have you done, besides yelling and letting yourself be fooled?" Zaid asked him.

"The way I see it, this is all your fault. Because you were the one who supported those three bastards getting tokens they didn’t deserve, just to keep us from getting them. You have no right to scold us—and certainly not her."

"You..." John wanted to confront him, but he couldn’t. Everything he’d said was true.

He had to lower his head.

Crack!

Crack!

A sudden sound shattered the brief silence that had settled in.

"Are you sure you heard that over here?"

"If my senses aren’t failing me again, I’m sure I heard them over here... very close by."

Two people were talking as they walked along, and suddenly they came into the three of their field of vision.

John’s eyes lit up.

And so did the eyes of the newcomers.

"Leader, it’s you!" They ran toward John, overjoyed to see him.

Meanwhile, John just looked behind them. "Where are the others?" he asked.