14 Survival Skills

"You know the lost arts?"

A surprised voice exclaimed close by; I didn't even bother to respond.

'Lost arts'?

Wasn't this just simple needlework? They require women to learn basic embroidery; that is, after all, what the Wu wife had mentioned to me.

I knew that to have a needleworker compile a basic garment back on earth was expensive, costing four times the amount of buying ready-made clothing occasionally. Competent needleworkers were exceedingly limited; machines were more cost-effective and only the upper middle class could afford at most a suit or two every few months.

These suits are worn; helmets and wristbands were all custom made and thus rather complicated to duplicate, making them priceless.

Anyway, with my knowledge from my past life and the extreme unique techniques taught by the Wu wife, my resulting skills were... Yeah, not to toot my own horn... but beyond amazing.

Sadly, that stupid boy's reply was just a mere surprise.

"It seems she does."

"Wait, my saviour is a girl,"

'...'

I hesitated a moment mid stitch, annoyed that this girl thought me a boy. Sure, the helmet made my voice sound neutral, but that was not the point!

Do her eyes not work?

"How could you not notice? Her bone structure is that of a female!"

Hmm, this boy – Could he not have a little more excitement in his voice?

I exhaled. Way to go System. Soon I will be incapable of exhibiting emotions.

Would that not be a bad thing?

Already my face looked like it had been carved from stone most of the time, unless I put extra thought to present to those around me as though I was a cute child.

Even if I hated that, I still had no choice. It is better for them to... ugh.. look at me with overwhelming adoration than with disdain or caution. I shuddered in irritation.

Still the thought of this girl, tch, I could not help but feel extremely aggrieved at the simple sound the girl made, am I not awesome?

"Oh."

What an airhead. I will make sure when the greatest danger arises, I will toss her as bait first.

The suit I am in the process of making will take a while to complete.

I needed to make sure that it was both flexible and sturdy enough to hold up against the cold and provide basic protection functions, this one was similar to an ankle-length jacket paired with a hood. Of course, this is not the most difficult;what would be difficult would be those shoes and helmets.

The cold will last five months and on the last month it will be subzero. I'd heard about it before in science class but I'd never expected that I'd probably encounter a subzero kelvin – d which, if I remember correctly, would be over -270 degrees Celsius. Every living thing will be frozen over for that duration before the spring arrived which lasted two mere weeks before the heat of summer arrived.

I cursed at this world in my mind, lamenting: wasn't earth easier?

"With the fur here and the suit, if we still have them by then we should be able to survive, especially if we build a home such that even if outside freezes the inside will be at a constant temperature," I thought, finally deciding to discard all the fine details about the weather.

With those meat shields below, I also have to consider them.

"Any of you have extra helmets and suits?" I asked simply, too lazy to really care.

"I have those allotted to me," the boy replied curtly in a flat tone.

"I still have those you gifted me and the helmets,"

The girl seemed excited. An image even popped up in my head of a big-eyed, eager puppy wagging its tail in excitement.

I made a tch sound, then with that bothersome image fading from my mind, I thought of the next step to take.

First, we will probably have to plunder.

I shook my head slightly and thought it over again. No we will have to plunder. With that thought in mind, I lifted my arm with the school band around it looking at the number of enrolled students remaining, noticing that the number of children has dwindled to a mere seven hundred and six.

Disappointed, I wished and hoped that they would have just killed off more.

It seems many were really prepared for the worst; well, time still needed to tell.

After being silent for a long while, I focused on those below and spoke once again.

Since I have decided that these two will be meat shields, I should inform them of things they could possibly be unfamiliar of before.

"There is a freeze coming soon; we need to prepare for it. First, we will have to establish a home, high in the trees would be best since the height difference matters. Let's start by collecting leaves and wood. If you come across any beast during your task, kill it, no matter what it is, and place it in storage. We need to store enough food for the freeze time since we will run out of bars soon,"

The bars located in our wristbands were filled with some sort of absorbent liquid that automatically fed us at a specific time. It provided each individual with the necessary amount of energy needed to survive, providing us with the feeling of being satisfied. From my calculations, now it will last at max five days more than we will have to find food and water ourselves. Since I had already collected enough food for about two weeks I just needed a few more.

The sad thing right now was that, on this world, we require ten times more energy than an adult human on earth and that was for children not yet adults; it really was dependant on how powerful the person was at fifteen.

This revelation was shocking at first and - the worst part? Even though I had the same amount of energy fed through my wrist via the band through several microneedles I still grew hungry and needed to eat. Oh, right … could it be because of this fact why my vitality levels rose extremely slowly?

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