Chương 44: [B2] Chapter 2: Reconnaissance

The search fell into a rhythm within the first several days. Zero catalogued the rhythm the way he catalogued anything repeated often enough to become data: wake up, assess light levels, move in the direction most recently untried, stop when the light failed. Zero did not count the days individually anymore. He had learned, watching Miho's face on the mornings he still tried, that counting days made the number the point instead of the search, and the number was not useful data.

What would be more useful was pattern, but the pattern the jungle offered could barely be classified as one. Tracks kept braiding and rebraiding until following one meant abandoning at least three others that were equally plausible. The canopy blocked enough light that Zero's internal clock, calibrated across two decades of windowless rooms, found itself arguing with a sky that refused to confirm anything. They found the first abandoned camp on a gray morning indistinguishable from the last.

"Four packs, still mostly full," observed Yukito.

"There's a fire pit, but it's cold." Viria peeked into the makeshift tent and recoiled.

"There's two bodies in here." Zero walked over to Viria's position and scanned the tent's interior. There were indeed two bodies, which were confirmed to be deceased thanks to Identify. They had no visible wounds that they could have feasibly died from, so he walked inside to inspect them more closely. Zero sniffed the air, and behind the odor of the putrified cadavers, his enhanced nose picked up a scent that was distinctly tart. He frowned and stepped closer.

The sour smell became strong enough for Zero to locate the source: a cluster of blood-red berries, each one the size of his thumb. He ran Identify on the cluster. IDENTIFICATION ACTIVE: Unknown Berry Cluster Classification: Non-hostile, edible* Nutritional Value: High *Note: Juices are extremely acidic (pH -0. 5). Ingestion may cause severe chemical burns to internal organs. To Zero's surprise, another window appeared. [Skill Improved: Identify Lv. 4 → Lv. 5] Repeated low-threat application logged Resolution speed increased on previously catalogued categories Zero said nothing and ran Identify on the corpses again. Sure enough, their cause of death was labeled as 'internal chemical burns'. He exited the tent, and saw that the others had already salvaged the important items. Viria looked up at him.

"Well?"

"Berries," said Zero.

"They probably saw that the fruit was technically edible, but didn't know how acidic they were. They died from internal chemical burns."

"Eugh," Viria cringed.

"That sounds… painful."

"I can assure you it most definitely was," Yukito said.

"Come on. Miho's anxious to leave and find food. Preferably some that doesn't melt our innards." Before they set out again, Zero inspected the stuff that Viria had salvaged in her subspace. Loot Acquired: 2x Unmarked Antitoxin Worn Whetstone 3x Empty Water Canteen This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Miho found their food source an hour past midday. They were yellow fruits, each one about the size of Zero's fist, and hanging low enough to reach without climbing. She stopped three meters short of it with one hand raised.

"Wait." Miho did not explain immediately. She approached the nearest cluster slowly, two fingers extended, and held them a hair's width from the skin without touching it, the same stillness she used before a sword form she hadn't fully learned yet.

"My clan tested unfamiliar food this way," she said.

"Qi moves differently through something that will hurt you. It resists in a way in which healthy growth does not." She held the stillness for a long moment, then exhaled and drew her hand back.

"This is safe. I would stake the method on it." Zero ran Identify anyway, not from doubt, but habit. Identify: Unknown Fruit Classification: Non-hostile, edible Nutritional Value: Moderate Note: Peel can be burned to ward off insects.

"Confirmed," he said.

"I already know that. I do not need your confirmation."

"I did not offer it for your benefit." Miho sighed, and gathered what the pouches could carry, testing weight against distance the way she tested everything. Zero noted, filing it without comment, that both her method and his had reached the same answer by entirely different roads, and neither of them had needed to say which one mattered more.

The stream they found near dusk ran clear over pale stone, cold in a way nothing else in the jungle had managed to be, and Viria was already crouched at its edge with a canteen half-submerged before Miho's voice cut through the clearing.

"Stop." Viria froze.

"Why? It's clean. It's the cleanest thing we've seen in weeks."

"No," Miho said.

"It's clear. Not clean."

"Same thing!"

"If you really think that," retorted Miho, "You'll probably be dead before we find the damn jaguar." Yukito, ignoring them, leaned in to whisper to Zero, "Is it safe to drink?" Zero ran Identify on the water. IDENTIFICATION ACTIVE: Water Source Status: Unsafe (Contaminated) Contaminant: Parasitic larvae (waterborne), concentration high Effect if ingested: Internal infestation, delayed onset, severe. Viria, who had turned to read the window, slowly withdrew the canteen.

She stared at the water that looked, to every sense she'd trusted a moment ago, entirely safe to drink.

"That is deeply unfair," she said.

"It looks better than anything we've had since we landed."

"Looking safe and being safe are different," Zero said.

"The jungle does not announce which one is which."

"That would have been nice to know BEFORE I filled my canteen halfway." Viria frowned.

"Now I have to throw this one out,""I'm sorry. I did not know until I checked." Viria huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh and tossed the canteen, and they moved on before dusk closed the last of the light, giving the stream the wide, deliberate berth it had apparently earned.

Twenty minutes into their trek, Viria stepped in a puddle. It sat in a shallow depression half-hidden under a fallen frond, unremarkable, the kind of standing water the jungle produced by the dozen after every rain that the canopy trapped rather than released. Viria stepped into it without breaking stride, the way she'd stepped into a dozen similar puddles that day, but her boot went down further than the puddle's surface had suggested it would.

"Oh, that's… deeper than it looked," she said, more annoyed than alarmed, pulling her foot back out with a wet, unpleasant sound. Dark water had already filled the boot past her ankle.

"Wonderful. Now I get to squelch for the rest of the evening."

"No. Take it off. Now," said Miho.

"Clean it with water, if we have any left to spare, and dry it with cloth. Standing water in this jungle is almost never just water." Viria sighed in melodramatic protest, but still sat on the nearest root and worked the boot off, wrinkling her nose at the smell that came with it. Zero passed her the driest cloth remaining in his own pack, and she scrubbed her foot and ankle with the brisk, irritated thoroughness of someone more concerned with comfort than consequence.

"There," she said, wringing the sock out over the frond that had hidden the puddle in the first place.

"Disgusting, but handled. Miho, Are you happy now?" She took Miho's silence as affirmation. Zero looked at Viria's ankle a moment longer than the task required, the skin reddened from scrubbing but otherwise unremarkable, and found nothing in it that was worth the attention. He said nothing, because there was nothing yet to say.

The four of them moved on as the light failed properly, leaving the puddle to fill again behind them the way it had likely filled and emptied a hundred times before anyone had ever walked through it at all.