Clearing

The place was eerily silent. Still, we trekked on. Within five minutes, we were finally greeted with a unique sight.

"This… this is a lake?" Seamus said unsurely.

Before us was a large body of water. It was chock full of weed and grime. It seemed murky. Unsanitary. Most of all, radioactive. It couldn't compare to the lakes of old.

Personally, I didn't see it as too large a deal. There were all sorts of lakes and it just so happened this one wasn't in ideal condition. Of course, there was always the chance that all lake took on this hue after the fallout.

Kaiser didn't say anything. He had likely expected to see such a sorry sight. He therefore quickly shifted gears.

"Start cutting the tall grass. Leave a single wall between us and the lake." The point of that was obviously to cover our vision.

The members were still admiring or lamenting the sight when they heard Kaiser's voice. They sluggishly brought out whatever their preferred cutting tool was in order to hack away at it.

I didn't pack any though so I stood in the sideline admiring their handiwork as well as observing the lake. The reason was simple.

"What are the mutants that live in there?" I asked Kaiser who I noticed was approaching me.

"You don't need to know all of them. It's a thriving ecosystem after all." Kaiser responded. I wasn't sure if he was implying I hadn't done enough favors.

"In that case, what's the most dangerous mutant?" I proceeded to ask. Kaiser had earlier mentioned an irradiate level. That was likely the second stage of mutation. Was it possible that the strongest mutant was at said level?

"Hmm… It's the Vile surfer. As the name implies, you can see them occasionally swimming across this lake of vile." Kaiser answered.

"Vile Surfer? Is it a snake?" I had seen snakes that did that in animal documentaries before and it was the first thing that came to mind.

"A big one too. Even the youngest one is capable of finishing all of us. It's best we don't approach the lake." Kaiser said and patted me on the back as he handed me a machete.

"Get to work" He said with a smile.

"...fine" On account of his seniority, I decided to comply. Staring at the lake wasn't particularly exciting.

I parted the grass and found myself in a clearing. The work of exalted, even in the first grade, was quite a wonder.

Slash!

I then noticed a curious point. Cutting the grass took more than a single strike at times.

"Dan, get over here" Seamus said from a short distance as he swept sweat off his forehead.

"Did you think you could slack off? Help me out, this got stuck" Seamus' words made redirect my vision towards his knife. It was stuck on a thick blade of grass, it was quite bewildering.

Particularly the way the grass softly shook. As if alive and sentient.

I decided to no longer pay any attention to that and gestured Seamus to move a bit further. I decisively swung the machete resulting in a clean swoosh followed by the sound of metal on wood.

The grass was sliced in half. The blades started to flail and writhe at a much more visible rate.

"The boss mentioned this before." Jimmy who was taking a short breather said. Given that neither of us heard Kaiser said this it was either on his own time or when Seamus was telling me the story.

"It's a mutant. Baneful weed. This whole field is made up of them. As a matter of fact, you probably won't find any other plants here. That's how destructive they are." Jimmy informed us.

This served as a sort of warning for me. Anything that lived seemed to be capable of mutating and evolving following the apocalypse. And it made for a scary notion.

Like, could bacteria mutate? The answer was an obvious yes but the question was how large would their impact be. For example, would he be facing man-eating bacteria? A place where one couldn't step foot in or they would seem to fade away with the wind?

Noticing my strange expression, Seamus piped up.

"Don't worry too much. Most mutants are harmless to us. They are also equally useless" Seamus was likely referring to the fact that these plants weren't giving us any crystals.

After less than an hour, a decently large clearing had been made. The smell of freshly cut grass was annoyingly floating about the campsite but there was nothing that could be done about it.

We started setting up tents. I received help from Kaiser since I had never done such a thing before. Actually, a lot of people here hadn't either. The open area turned into a brief learning camp.

Once we were done, I observed the whole area. There were eight tents in the middle of the clearing. There was then a lot of empty space. The purpose was to spot mutants in advance. It would suck to die in your sleep after something comes out of the grass with no one to notice.

It was soon time for a lunch break, which also meant more learning.

"Do not eat anything out in the wild unless told otherwise. That includes the corpses of mutants. Cooking would not be enough to get the radioactivity out of their bodies" Kaiser spoke as he roasted some canned food over a rudimentary grill. He was in charge of the manning the fire.

Nobody commented on his words as they anxiously anticipated the food. It was meat! No one knew where Kaiser got it from but they were certainly glad.

"Of course, after going up several grades radioactivity is a negligible factor but most of you guys are only in the first grade." Kaiser added after putting the grilled meat on a simple plate.

The smell of grilled meat wafted over the clearing and the field of grass.

"Ca-Can I have it?" One of the men said looking at the plate of delicious meat.

"This is radioactive as well." Kaiser essentially said no. But that brought out an important question.

"Who is going to eat it then?" Seamus asked feeling wronged after hearing the answer to his colleague's question.

Squeak

"They are" Kaiser answered after seeing a dog-sized rat appear out of the parting grass.

"Th-They?!?" That was when they were struck with the realization that there was more than one!

More squeaking and chirping was then heard as multiple large rats started to appear from the field of baneful weeds.

"Let's have a good hunt hahaha" Kaiser said and laughed loudly. It felt like I had been thrown into a military camp. They didn't even get anything to eat before being put to work! I was sure not even the military was so cruel!