Karma used his tablet as a shield to protect himself from a frog-like creature's tongue, which was launched at him at high speed.
Just as the amphibian's attack failed, Rita swiftly cut the retracting tongue of the defiled, making it cry out in pain.
Ren used that distraction to jump on the monster.
It wasn't very tall, maybe a bit less than half of Ren's height, but it had very tough and slippery skin, making it hard to mount and even harder to pierce.
The remaining half of the defiled's tongue was used to strangle Ren off of it, just as it enveloped his neck, Ren stabbed it in its eye as deeply as he could.
It froze, before falling dead on the floor.
Ren quickly jumped away from it, free from its tongue.
"Ew, ew, ew! I think I got some of its saliva in my mouth..!" Ren shouted as he washed his mouth with the sand.
"You think that's bad? I'm pretty sure I got some on my hair! MY HAIR!" Complained Karma as he used some of his water to wash it out.
"What are you- are you dumb?? You can't use water for that!" Rita scolded Karma for wasting their resources.
The sun was high in the sky, yet, not burning quite as much as it used to. The more they walked, the more they noticed that the heat was less and less pronounced during the day. Until it finally became cool enough for them to move during daytime.
Ren believed this was both a good and a bad thing. Good because they were less limited by the time, bad because this meant the monster could also come out during the day, and they no longer had any safe time to rest.
Just as Ren was contemplating their situation, Rita took her knife and started cutting open the large yellow frog.
"So, which parts do you think are edible?" Rita asked Karma as she quietly opened the creature's stomach.
Ren wanted to puke, and considering Karma's face there was no doubt he wanted to do so too.
Ren was the one who suggested eating the defiled to make up for their lack of food.
Karma had a surprising amount of wisdom when it came to hunting and cooking revealing to the other two that his mother used to hunt and his father was a cook and that he picked up some stuff from their occasional lessons.
After separating the things they could eat and the things they couldn't, they all decided to take a break and eat, since they didn't really have a way to store the meat, they decided to always eat right after killing a monster with edible parts.
"This is gross…" Said Karma as he hesitated eating the piece of cooked meat Rita was handing him.
"Well, it's either that, or you starve.." Rita answered as she was slowly taking the food away just before he snatched it out of her hands.
Ren was chewing down on a piece of the defiled's leg and was surprised by the surprisingly good flavor invading his mouth.
'I don't like the fact that I like this…' he thought as he kept on eating his share.
After a rather quiet meal, Ren decided to summon his Tablet again.
[Name: Ren Gray]
[Title:]
[Skill: Instinct Lv 3, Primitive Stab Lv 3, Awkward Lockpicking Lv 1, Gotta Move! (weak) Lv1]
[Level of growth: 0]
[Achievements: 2]
"Not a lot of change.." Ren quietly said to himself as he got rid of his Tablet and looked at the others.
During the previous days, he managed to confirm that looking at other people's tablets always showed nothing, and that Rita's wasn't especially weird. He also noticed that while there were more monsters here they were definitely weaker than those they had previously encountered, like the Worm, the white dogs, and obviously the serpent.
Ren was confused. Why? Was it because smart monsters didn't want to get close to humans in large groups? But then why were there abandoned bases? Was there something else persuading them not to approach? If so then what?
All those questions rose without answers, and Ren knew he would not get those answers now.
He stood up.
"Break's over, let's move." Ren quickly gathered his stuff and waited for the others.
Karma was fast to follow but Rita took quite a bit of time.
She still seemed a bit affected by the overuse of her strange abilities as she was slower and paler than before.
After helping her up, they finally got back on track.
After Eric's death, everyone had more resources to carry greatly reducing their speed. And there was also Rita and her weakened state, slowing them down even more.
Each day that passed she seemed to get weaker and weaker. Her skin became paler, her voice grew weaker.
Both Karma and Ren had to look out for her more and more.
No matter how much they tried not to pay it any mind, Eric's death had greatly impacted them. Both physically, and mentally.
———
After walking for a long time, Rita was breathing heavily.
"H-hey! Can.. can we take a break? We've been walking for a while…"
Karma also stopped and looked up at the sky.
"She's right, it's almost night time anyway."
"Sure, it is getting late anyway. Who's keeping watch first tonight?" Ren said while taking out of his bag some clothing to use for sleeping.
"I'll do it." Said Karma as he helped Ren prepare the camp.
Once they were done, both Ren and Rita lay down and went to sleep while Karma was carefully observing the environment.
Ren eventually got taken over by fatigue and closed his eyes.
It was quiet.
"…Ren..?" Karma quietly whispered.
Or so he wished it was. At first, he tried to ignore Karma.
"Ren!" He shouted.
This time Ren jolted awake.
"What?!" He shouted back.
"R-Rita! I think something is wrong with Rita!" He said while pointing at the young lady.
Just as he laid his eyes on her he froze.
What was that? Black liquid was dripping from her mouth, and the veins on her neck were swollen and black.
"What the hell is that?!" Ren said as he jumped back.
"I don't know! She looks like she's in pain!" Karma said as he hesitantly got closer to her.
After both of them panicked for a while, Rita eventually stabilized.
She opened her eyes and saw both Ren and Karma next to her as she was covered in black blood.
"Ah shit.." Rita quietly cursed.
"What the fuck was that?!" Ren demanded an explanation, still hesitant about whether he should get close to her or not.
"You.. wouldn't really believe me if I say nothing now right?" Rita said, almost laughing. "Take off my shirt.."
"W-what?!" Karma shouted in surprise as Ren obliged.
On Rita's shoulder was a disgusting wound oozing with the black blood from earlier.
"Ow! CAREFUL!" Rita screamed in pain. "It's from that damned scorpion… while Eric took most of the damage, it still touched me.. and I guess the end of its tail or whatever it's called released.. some sort of venom?" She carefully explained under both Ren and Karma's worried stares.
"W-why didn't you tell us anything?! You just kept on going like that! We could have helped you!" Karma yelled at her in shock.
Rita avoided eye contact as much as possible.
"I didn't want to be a burden. Plus I didn't think there was venom involved at first…"
After Rita's revelation both Ren and Karma were filled with worry.
Karma took care of properly cleaning Rita's wound and sent her back to sleep.
After that, Ren immediately took Karma aside far enough so that Rita could not hear them.
"Wh- what are you doing?!" Karma asked as he was being pulled away.
Ren finally stopped walking and let go of Karma's arm.
"We need to go. Now." He said coldly.
"Wh-why? Is there a monster nearby?! Wait! Let me go grab Rita!" Karma was about to go just before Ren stopped him.
"There is no monster." Ren said calmly.
Karma looked confused.
"Then, why the hell would we need to go? Rita needs to rest!"
Ren got quickly irritated by how dense Karma was.
"For fuck's sake.. We have to leave her behind! She's dead weight!" Ren blurted out, ripping the bandage.
Karma froze and slowly stared at Ren.
"What..?" He didn't entirely process what Ren had said for a while, but when he did, an ugly expression appeared on his face. "What the hell do you mean leave her behind?! We can't just leave her here to die! What kind of fucking monster are you!"
Ren quickly shouted back at Karma.
"She's way too suspicious! Don't you see how weird she's been acting? And now she's useless too! You want to keep someone useless and suspicious around?" Ren argued. "She goes ahead and pulls some random magic out of her ass, changes her whole personality in one nap, and knows stuff she's not supposed to know, and you keep her around?!"
Objectively, Ren was right. Rita was suspicious, and he had every right to want to leave her behind.
That's why he didn't get why Karma did what he did.
Karma swung at full force at Ren, punching him with all his might.
He wasn't especially strong, but Ren wasn't ready and only managed to move a little thanks to his skill [instinct].
"What the- what the hell?! You're seriously gonna be emotional right now?!" He said while holding his cheek.
Karma was also in pain as he had punched too hard and hurt his hand.
"Y- you had it coming!"
"You have to understand what I'm saying! Not only is she suspicious she's also a liability! We can't keep her around!"
Karma glared at Ren.
"Why do you always have to be so.. calculating! It's not always about-" he received a blow to the face before he could finish his sentence and fell to the ground.
"Fuck you!" Ren said as he spat some blood on the ground. "You have to think about our survival!"
"W-we wouldn't even be alive without her! Especially not you!" Karma yelled back at Ren.
Ren froze as he remembered the fight against the serpent and his near-death experience.
"She saved our lives! We can't just, leave her to die here after all that! So what if she's acting weird?! Does that automatically make her bad?!"
Karma's argument was flawed. It was emotional. Yet Ren had nothing to add.
"… you know what..? Fine! Have it your way then! But you're the one taking care of her!" Ren shouted venomously at Karma as he walked back to camp.
"Fine then! I don't need your help!" Karma shouted back.
As Ren walked back to camp, he couldn't help but wonder. Had Eric's sacrifice been in vain? Was it disregarding it that he had wanted to leave her behind? Why did he care?