Laughter

The burning bright sunlight showed down on Edward, awakening him from his slumber. He slowly opened his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the sunlight. Sitting up from his lying position, he found himself in a savanna that seemed to expand with no end in sight. He was under a tree, but its shadow was in the other direction.

Around him laid the 99 other people that teleported with him through the safe zone. They were sleeping, evident by their snores and sleep mumbles. Everyone wore burlap sacks instead of their old clothes with basic straw sandals.

Looking down, Edward noticed he also wore one. "At least my inventory bag is with me," Edward mumbled, seeing his bag of holding beside him. Taking it, he quickly tied the pouch to his right wrist.

Standing up, Edward quickly scanned the sleeping people, finding Andrew missing. He must have woken up already and gone out to hunt or something.

Edward opened his status to see his EXP 67/750, so he decided to hunt whatever he could to get to level four. He knew he had already outpaced the others in leveling, but he didn't want to slack. As it is, Andrew is slowly catching up, and level three won't be enough to survive for long.

Carefully crossing over the sleeping others, Edward started to jog in a random direction, trying to find any monster to kill. After a few minutes of jogging, he found Andrew sitting on a tree's root, the tree's shadow shading him, with his back to him. He had torn the top half of his burlap sack, making it look like he was only wearing skirts.

Seeing Andrew so focused on whatever he was doing, Edward got an idea. Edward got low into the tall grass, moving toward him like a beast hunting its prey. Getting close to Andrew, Edward was able to see what he was so focused on. He was using a stone to carve out a stick, making it a spear.

"Interesting," Edward whispered in his ears.

Andrew reacted quickly, swinging the stick he held behind him with Edward quickly jumping back to avoid being hit by it. The stick flew by, slicing the air. Edward felt a shiver run down his body, touching his chest with his heart beating more than 100 bpm.

"Y--you could have kil--killed me..." Edward incoherently mumbled, staring at the stick Andrew held.

"Next time, don't sneak up on me like that," Andrew responded, returning to what he was doing.

Edward stood still, calming himself down. Edward then walked in front of Andrew, breaking a big branch from the tree and sitting on the ground. Picking up a sharp stone, he also started carving the tip to become a spear.

They sat in silence for minutes, with only the stone scraping of the stick and the warm wind of the savanna blowing against them. The silence wasn't awkward, and none of them were bothered by it.

"You aren't bothered by what we did?" Andrew suddenly asked, still carving the stick.

"No," Edward responded, stopping his carving and looking up at Andrew. "I am not the one who killed the baby. You are."

Andrew stopped carving, mumbling, "You are right..."

Edward noticed Andrew's hands shaking, sighing. "I am not a therapist, but I would say you did the right thing. If you hadn't killed the baby, none of us would be here right now." He addressed, returning to carving his stick. "I am also an accomplice, and so is everyone who didn't stop us. Don't bother yourself with it."

The silence returned between both of them. Minutes passed, and Andrew spoke, "I got Exp..."

...

Stopping, Edward looked toward Andrew. "What?"

"I got Exp from killing the child in the woman's stomach," Andrew repeated, looking straight into Edward's eyes. "100 Exp."

A sudden coldness hits Edward's core as he gulps hard. "Ki-killing other humans also grants Exp?"

Andrew noded, a shaky smile on his face. "Isn't that crazy?"

"We should just keep this between us!" Edward buttered, shooting up to a stand. "No one else should know this. The last thing we wanted is for this place to become a blood bath."

"I am planning to," Andrew said, looking down at his shaky hands. "I only told you because I felt like you needed to know."

Hearing this, Edward returned to his seat and started carving his stick. "You know there will be a problem when everyone awakens?" Andrew didn't respond, but Edward knew he already knew.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leonardo opened his eyes after Edward crossed over him, watching him walk away. Had awoken some moment ago but immediately pretended to sleep once Edward woke up.

Sitting up, he watched Edward jog away, mumbling to himself. "Why did I do that?" He had pretended to sleep because he felt like he betrayed Edward.

Edward had risked his life to draw the slime. He and Andrew risked their lives so it would follow them instead of attacking him and the other back at the school lobby. And when they did that to the woman, no matter how wrong it was or how disgusted he felt towards them, he knew Edward and Andrew had saved them all.

"Fuck." He mumbled, clenching his fist, regretting not supporting them both.

He felt like they had taken all the burden, and he knew everyone would throw the blame on them when they woke up. They will become the scapegoat for others to escape the reality that they inwardly supported the killing of the baby.

"Haah." Andrew sighed, standing up. "I should talk to him."

He started jogging in the same direction Edward went, wondering what he was going to say. Some minutes later, he could see Andrew and Edward sitting across from each other, below a tree's shadow. They sat in silence, carving a stick head with a stone.

Walking up to them, they both turned to look at him, saying nothing. Leonardo quietly broke off a branch from the tree and sat with them, forming a semicircle. He started removing the leaves, and Edward and Andrew went back to what they were doing.

"By the way, how did you guys escape the slime?" Leonardo asked, unable to handle the silence. He knew it wasn't an awkward one, but he didn't like it.

"When we were crossing the bridge, the slime ignored us and jumped into the river," Edward explained, tapping the tip of the spear to test how sharp it was. "The river was more important to it than us."

"Wait, you guys crossed the river while going to the safe zone?" Leonardo looked up from his work, confused.

"Wasn't we supposed to?" Andrew asked, turning to Leonardo. "That was what the map showed us, right Edward?" He looked at Edward, who nodded in response.

Leonardo suddenly let out a quick bark of laughter, his voice shocking both of them. "That was the long route! Hahaha! The system led you both through the long way! " He continued laughing, with Edward and Andrew glancing at each other.

Soon, they too started laughing. It was, by no way, funny, but the laugh just came to them. THe laughed for a while, with Andrew's own being the loudest, like a roaring meshing, and Edward let out a snort while he laughed.