10 >Chapter 9<

The boys finally went to find some food. They haven't eaten anything but those weird apples a few hours ago and for some reason, the strange fruit didn't satiate their hunger for a very long time. As they were searching, they noticed some berries but they didn't know whether they were poisonous or not so they ignored those for now and only decided to eat those in an emergency situation.

Finding no other plant alternatives in their immediate surroundings, the boys decided to try their other option – hunting animals. They remember seeing the deer earlier so they were sure that some lived here.

They searched around the forest, trying not to lose the water stream. They were searching in a way where they made a line with one person going along with the water as their guide, and the other about 300 steps to the side of the stream of water. This way they would cover a big area and not step out of range of their telepathy.

They also noticed something strange about their bodies. Right now, if they had to guess, it would be about 8 o'clock in the morning and their stamina would usually be totally expended. Even if a normal walk lasted more than eight hours they would've been totally spent and definitely not as energetic as they are now. They discussed this subject a couple of times already but they just can't arrive at any other conclusion than some power helping them. And, honestly, they only got to this conclusion because of their novel experts, who started to explain how it usually went in anime and etc. Well it was mostly just Tim though.

Coming to this conclusion, they tried to feel something within them but failed to notice anything. They then tried to conclude experiment with their telepathy power and only got a headache when they tried to sense the 'wires', as Tim described them, connecting them.

Focusing back on their hunt, the boys were making small steps as they were focusing on not making any noise. The animals in this forest had very sensitive hearing. They already had a few successful encounters with a few deer-like animals, though the weird thing was they found out that the actually have a spiky horn coming out of the middle of their forehead, but the animals could somehow hear them from 100 meters away.

So they made a strategy. Right now they were looking at this weird deer from about 200 meters away, which was also noticed by them as another change in their body. They then started to spread out and slowly surrounded the deer in a circular formation. They then sneakily started to approach it. Each of the boys was holding a sharp stone in their hand. Slowly coming closer and closer the deer's instincts started to warn him that something was wrong.

*Crack*

Suddenly one of the boys stepped on a dry stick that made a cracking sound, which alerted the deer. The deer looked in the direction of the sound for a brief moment before running in the opposite direction almost immediately. As it was running its instincts still kept warning it that something was wrong. But before the deer could properly notice the gravity of its own situation, it notice two human jumping down upon it with sharp stones in their hands, squeezing them tightly. The stones were brought down onto the deer and dug into its flesh as it let out a painful squeal before another stone was rammed into its head.

The deer struggled for a bit before its eyes slowly dimmed. David, Jacob and Patrick, who were again covered in a little bit of blood, looked at the corpse of the deer which they killed, still twitching slightly, as their ragged breath slowed down again to a normal pace. They weren't feeling guilty. They did all for their survival. It had to be done, just like the night before.

The other two boys, Phillip and Timothy, slowly approached the rest of their group as they started dragging the corpse of the animal to the riverside. While two of the teenagers carried the corpse, so that blood wouldn't spread on the ground and attract some hungry predators thanks to its smell, the other three picked up some sticks and dry leaves for a fire.

When they got to the riverbank, they placed down their future food and tried to skin it as much as possible with their stones and amateurish skills. Soon they started draining its blood by cutting the artery at its neck and placing it next to the river as they didn't want the blood get on the ground. While the blood was being drained, the rest were trying to light a fire and believe it or not, it took them more than ten minutes to start it. Well, it could've been worse, so no complaining there.

As soon as the blood was somewhat drained, they took the dead body and cut off some pieces of the meaty parts of the deer. They then proceeded to impale those parts on some of the longest sticks they could find but not before dipping those stick in the water. They then brought their stick over the fire and after that a long cooking session commenced.

After about 30 minutes of slowly roasting the meat, they cut one piece open to check if it was properly cooked so they don't get food poisoning. After checking if their piece of a little bit charred meat was cooked they took a small and fearful bite and chewed for a bit. After savoring the taste of meat, even if it was not good at all, they continued eating as if the food was going to run away.

After eating their fill, they left a little bit of the roasted pieces for later in case they didn't find any food. They were going to have to hunt in another few hours anyway as the meat isn't going to be edible forever. And they really didn't want to eat spoiled food. They packed the leftovers into some big leaves they found on their journey through the forest.

The group wanted to continue their journey as soon as possible. They didn't want to spend a night in this forest and if they had to, they would at least like to find a cave or big tree to sleep on top of.

Yes, though it may not seem like it, they had actually already climbed a few trees somehow. Their perception seems to have increased overall as well, because they keep finding footholds they would've never thought about.

They have done and tested a lot of things throughout the whole morning and now it was about lunch time. They were currently chasing another type of animal. But it wasn't for the reason of eating the animal, it was because they saw this bird earlier carrying the same apple they had seen and eaten before. So, now that the bird was on its way back for more of those apples, the boys were trying to quietly chase it and find the source of the delicious fruit.

Though they were trying to chase after it, they didn't consider the fact that they have never really run at full speed, even in their original world, through a dense forest. So chasing a bird who can navigate through the forest like it was nothing was really challenging. It didn't even take them one minute to completely lose the bird.

"Fuck dude, this is hard." Timothy complained while trying to calm his breath.

"Huff, huff, it doesn't matter now anyway. We know the direction in which the fruit should be in." David sighed in exhaustion. "We should just walk there. We still haven't recovered from last night."

"Agreed" Replied Tim.

The rest of the boys just nodded their heads and continued walking in the direction in which the bird left in.