Slap!
Ehh…
"WAKE UP!!!" Cassidy reared her arm back one more, ready to slap Cane with impunity. Cane's pupils narrowed, and his hand shot up just in time to block her from hitting him again.
Already, Cane could feel a bruise forming on his face. Cassidy blinked once, before moving her hand back, slightly embarrassed.
"Oh, good. Cough, now that you're awake, the rest of us are holding a meeting. We were just waiting for you to wake up, so..."
"Uh, yeahh, one moment. Where are we??"
Cane was fully sitting up now. Even though the surroundings were the same, familiar high-rise buildings, they were all broken in some way. Most windows were shattered or cracked, and holes were scattered around within some of the buildings.
Dust was swept into the air from a passing breeze, swirling around a reddish cloud. Cassidy turned to watch the cloud of dust twirl and disperse.
"Well, I don't know either. It's just... I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Cane also blinked.
"Huhh? Where's Kansas??? What are you even saying."
Cassidy also frowned, before replying, "I'm not sure why I said that either... it was just some sort of instinct? I dunno, maybe I heard the line somewhere else before and subconsciously said it right now or something."
She shook her head to clear her thoughts.
"Anyway! C'mon, we need to go to the meeting."
Cane nodded hastily. He had a feeling that if the two continued on such a topic, they'd probably be hit with some sort of copyright strike. Whatever that meant.
Regardless, the two went on their way, entering one of the nearby buildings. As Cane passed some halls, he noticed a few dead monsters piled up. Furthermore, a decent barricade had been formed in the hall, made out of military-grade barriers.
Cane frowned, thinking about a glaring issue that he'd just noticed.
"Hmm? Hey, why didn't you guys move me in here, instead of waking me up outside!"
Cassidy raised an eyebrow. "It's because you were twitching and screaming, of course. We didn't want to disturb you too much. Speaking of, it was the same last time you went unconscious."
She turned around to face him. "You have a habit of screaming while unconscious! Also, on that note, you have a habit of falling unconscious too. What, do you have some sort of repressed, traumatic memories that subconsciously reveal whenever you fall into a deep sleep?"
Uhhh... I'd like to know that as well.
Cane didn't say anything, merely continuing forward. On the inside, he was also speculating about certain things.
I seem to think that I... SHOULD have some sort of traumatic memories... something about, children dying? But I can't pinpoint it at all, even though the memory is supposed to be a core part of my childhood. If it wasn't for that Awakening Crystal, I might've forgotten even these small details.
WAIT!
Cane looked up, suddenly alert. "Do you know who it was, the guy that ambushed us outside the district's vault??"
"Nope. None of us."
This voice was new - it was Nick's voice. Cane looked over, seeing his friends as well as Alex, Hoffmann, Isaac and Nick. It was a surprisingly small group, compared to the previous crowd of prodigies that he'd remembered going down the tunnel with.
And...
Nick was just a head in a jar??? Everyone else was facing away from Nick's halloween cosplay, and upon seeing Cane staring, he could only glare.
"Don't look right now, that f*cker dispersed more than 90% of my body! And then, he stuffed me in this jar. I'm just reforming my body right now, it'll probably take a week or more."
Hearing this, Cane also tactfully turned his head. Although he knew his friends didn't like Nick (and vice versa), Cane himself was rather indifferent, uncaring of how Nick felt about him. Could it be the attitude of the truly powerful? Cane felt rather smug inside.
"So... I think it's pretty obvious that we're in the Empty Districts? I mean, you can find a monster in every other window of any building in here."
Rake pointed outside. As if to prove his point, some strange-looking headless bird hit the window, before slowly sliding off. A feathery outline could still be seen on the window.
"And... that's not a good thing," James solemnly closed his eyes. "Because we have no food or water, we have terrible shelter, and... we have no idea how to get home. If we can just find which of the Empty District territories we entered, we'd definitely be able to get back home."
Cane, who'd been nodding along with James' speech, suddenly frowned.
"By the way, which district is ours again?"
The gathering suddenly grew silent. If there had been some sort of background chatter before, now it was so quiet that one might be able to hear a pin drop.
Chirp... chirp...
With comedic timing, a cricket began chirping outside the window.
Thunk.
With even more comedic timing, a pin that'd been stuck to the ceiling suddenly dropped, and everyone heard the impact too.
"Are you saying... you've been in District 851 this whole time... without even knowing what District you were in???"
Nick slowly enunciated his words, almost as if in disbelief of Cane's obliviousness. Okay, he was definitely in disbelief.
It was... unfortunate, but Cane had actually never come across anyone mentioning the district number of he and his friends' District. Furthermore, without any info dumps or expositions mentioning it either (and thus unable to magically beam the info into his mind) he had no way of knowing.
Luckily, now that he knew, not only would Cane's District cease to be vague, but it could finally be capitalised without worry! After all, according to the law of novels, terms could only be capitalised after being different.
Cassidy cleared her throat, grabbing everyone's attention once more.
"Well, anyway, finding our way back should be the end goal. For food we have monsters, and Hoffmann can cook the meat for us. For shelter, we definitely don't need to worry since there are buildings everywhere. As long as Isaac summons those military barricades with Army Surplus, we can make a decent shelter. The only real issue..."
The water. Even in the forests of the Inner City, they could still somewhat make do - drinking from one of the lakes or streams wasn't exactly rocket science.
But in such a modern, futuristic city like this, no one had any idea of how to get water. Aside from buying bottled water in a store somewhere, or collecting their water rations from their home taps, it seemed like the City had purposely made it difficult to get water independently.
While no one said it out loud, the problem was still there, hanging over everyone's heads. For now, there was nothing anyone could do, other than work on food and shelter.
...
Over the next few days, while some hunted, others set up shelter. Cane was especially skilled in hunting, with his incredible bursts of attack damage and his Stealth helping to do sneak attacks.
The shelter had been basically left to Isaac to worry about, since he was the only one capable of creating walls from nothing. For scouting, Alex could fly through the air and warn of incoming monsters at the shelter, while Rake was fast enough on ground to work as a battle scout.
Susie's phantom dog was an added layer of defence to the shelter, being able to smell for certain stealthy monsters as well.
At night, the defensive cloaks would keep them warm, and by burning furniture with Hoffmann's Fire Control, they could even cook food.
To stave off the thirst issue, everyone took to drinking the blood of the monsters. But even still, it could only be a stopgap. After all, blood had salt, so even though it temporarily relieved them of their thirst, it would only make things worse in the long run.
If only there was someone who could provide a Deus Ex Machina, and help out those poor children?
...
"Achoo!"
The Wanderer sneezed whilst walking among the rooftops of the Empty Districts.
"Is someone talking about me?" He frowned for a moment, but couldn't think of anyone who'd be saying anything.
"Hmph, don't you notice anything wrong down there?" High Heaven No. 2 opened the mental channel, sounding somewhat peeved. "You followed those kids down the portal, only to not keep an eye on how they're doing!"
"What, did something go wrong? After Cane's rank up to being a full-rank Warrior, he got a 4x boost in everything. His current strength should be... 500 times stronger than the average human? He's more than 80% as strong as a Master!"
"Cane's strength is one thing, but what about everyone else? They're still pretty far from breaking into the Apprentice Warrior rank. Plus, strength means nothing if you can't even get the water you need to survive."
Ahh.
The Wanderer was enlightened. So, it was an issue with water?
"Then, gramps, how should I help them out without it looking too obvious?"
But High Heaven No. 2 didn't answer. Instead, he only snorted and replied, "That's for you to figure out, kiddo."
Following that, the mental channel cut once more.
Being left alone once more, The Wanderer had no choice but to turn invisible, jump down from the top of the building and check back in on the 10 kids he'd abandoned after a plot push.
Peering down at the camp that Cane and the others had set up, The Wanderer couldn't help but let out a surprised hum.
"Hoh? Looks like these kids haven't done too badly for themselves after all. Food and shelter, huh?"
He quietly crept into the middle of the encampment, looking around further.
"But it's true, looks like these kids need some sort of water source. If not, even with their physiques, they wouldn't be able to go on for more than a month before going crazy."
Hmm? What's this...
He found a checklist hung up on a wall. On it, four things were listed. Food, Water, Shelter, Location. Of the four, only Water and Location were left blank, while the others were ticked.
Location as well, hmm? I think I can make do something about these. I only wonoder if it'll be too easy... After all, with food, water and shelter, who could they be if not master of the end times!
Maybe I can give these kids a boss fight to escape?
The Wanderer left, wondering over his future plans.