It was too late by the time Sung picked up on what was happening and jolted awake, Jones was already dead then. There wasn't even a corpse to be found, Dieu had recovered it, converted it back to nanites. Jones was probably waking up back at the complex, perhaps a bit traumatized. What remained of Jones' struggle were the blood stains on the snow, those small, oval spots scattered across the front of his tent and a giant ugly blotch just feets away.

  Standing outside his tent right now was a party of unknown strength and size. The most he could gather from the scene outside, was that Jones got heavily overpowered and killed by a single one of them. If only a single member of this party went for Jones, then he couldn't rule out the possibility that several of his team members were dead already. He's neither got the strength, nor the numbers, to take on these unwelcome guests.

  If only, there was a convenient weak spot to exploit. For now, the most he could do was to try and get as much info on them as he could, that was what Sung decided.

  Dieu and Mignon were too loud when they were bickering, they inadvertently covered up Sung's footsteps. In the dead of the night, compared to their infighting, Sung's movements barely made a noise, he was barely even trying to sneak, Dieu and Mignon were just simply that loud.

  Sung hid behind the tent flaps, his knuckle dusters wrapped firmly around his fingers. He heard two distinct voices... Is this a party of two? No... A third voice came from the right. The voice wasn't able to find a target, perhaps they just so happened to have found Jones' tent. The voices blabbed on, from which Sung could gleam that they had quite a stockpile of daggers, and that they had stealth capabilities, something Sung hadn't heard of in a very long time.

  He could still hear his heart racing, the odds weren't in his favor. He was outnumbered three to one, he's got almost no experience with fighting, and he's got little to no equipment, while his enemies were fully kitted out with implants and weaponry. Even a PvP veteran would get the shakes under these conditions.

  He tried to calm himself down by fidgeting with his knuckle dusters in the darkness of his tent, when he felt some sort of button between his pointing finger and thumb. He couldn't tell what it did, but he made a mental note to test it on whoever's coming into his tent.

  Dieu pushed open the tent flaps, she stared right at Sung, but perhaps the strong moonlight behind her made it difficult for her to see him. Sung got startled at the sudden pair of eyes, and instinctively threw a clean punch squarely in her face. Sung could feel her nose crumble and break under his fist, blood came gushing out of her pulverized nose.

  Sung haphazardly pressed the button on his knuckle dusters, and all of a sudden a tiny bubble of air spawned between Sung's fist and Dieu's face, now a dozen inches apart thanks to recoil. The bubble of air quickly ballooned to cover the distance, before the vacuum within caused an instant implosion, shockwaves sent tearing about the tent. Sung managed to get away from that with a shoulder dislocation, but Dieu's face was totaled. It, very much like her nose, caved in as her skull crumbled from the shockwave.

  Sung recognized the distinct brittleness of her body as a side effect of having too many implants and augmentations within the clone. During his time at the lab, Sung and his lab partner had tried to put augmentations into the clone body in an attempt to give it more functions than normal. The augmentations, however, turned out to severely compromise the machine's ability to build and form tissues during the clone materialization phase. Tiny implants like heart valves and pacemakers were fine, but augmentations like entire limbs replaced with guns would just reduce the integrity of the clone to the point where a single flick would turn the surrounding tissue into dry crumbles.

  They couldn't figure out why that happened, nor did they have the budget to iron out the issue. Augmentations, particularly integrating stealth implants, was one of the reasons why the Chinese Revolutionary Army was heavily invested in Sung's human clone project. Though, the heavy durability drawbacks were far too unsatisfactory for the military, and they pulled back from the project, cutting all funding as a result. The idea was quickly scrapped, though it seemed like it's made a comeback after the clone bay was stolen.

  Sung eased up a little bit. "Augmentations, eh?" Sung muttered under his breath. He let out a small grin, the odds are starting to turn in his favor, it might not be as grim of a situation as he thought. Dieu laid on the ground, any facial expression was beyond painful for her, she watched helplessly as Sung, now regaining confidence, slowly walked next to her body.

  She tried to look as innocent and pleading as she could, but Sung in return only scowled, nothing but disdain in his eyes, his previous grin nowhere to be seen. She watched with terror as he raised his foot, so much so she bore through the pain just to try and speak her way out.

  "H- Hpawe E! A I'i't 'een 'o kiwh hor heen! Hihe! (Spare me! I didn't mean to kill your friend! Please!)" She tried to plead, a far cry from her cruel, sadistic self just moments ago. As if he's showing mercy, Sung lowered his leg, which made Dieu cry a bit from the relief. "You didn't mean to?" Sung paused for a while, before abruptly stomping right on Dieu's chest, crushing her heart and killing her in the process. "Yeah. Right."

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  Sung stood amidst the puddle of blood and dry crumbles of flesh, he was extraordinarily composed during the confrontation, but now that the adrenaline's worn off, the shakes were coming back to him. His heart rate spiked, and he started to pant. He wasn't well versed in battle, so the victory came as quite the shock.

  Nevertheless, there were two more to deal with, he couldn't just dawdle there forever. Sung let out a deep breath, and looked up to find his tent severely battered. The shockwave from earlier had ricocheted around the tent, wrecking havoc wherever it went.

  From a gash in the tent, Sung saw two shadows projected onto the side of Miguel's tent. One knelt from the pressure the other was pushing down onto them with a long rod, barely holding up against it with their dagger. Immediately, Sung came to the realization that Miguel was fighting another attacker. And without a second thought, Sung hastily rushed to his aid.

  Moments prior, Miguel was sat upright in his tent. He, too, couldn't sleep after fighting the couple of clones. This was hardly his first fight, yet it was the first time he felt as if he had an actual chance of dying. Toilet-hogging drunkards could only do so much, but getting killed wasn't on the table.

  It wasn't exactly a hard fight against the lancer, but every thrust of his lance felt like the rushing of death towards him. Nay, he could see it, the reaper rushing towards him with his scythe, ready to harvest his wretched soul down to the abyssal depths of Dante's hell. It's almost comedic, how cowardly he is.

  Back at the complex, he inadvertently became the leader of the five, but has he done anything worth being called a leader for since? He just went with the flow, Sung's flow, he just followed around without making any major calls himself. Even this experiment they're grazing death in, he only chose to enter a melee experiment because Jones said it'd be easier than a firearm experiment.

  On these fields, it wasn't him who took the initiative to split work and assign roles, Yoko did that. He couldn't even do the only thing he volunteered to do then, he had to give the chains over to Rin while he pathetically ran out of breath.

  The only time he really stood at the forefront was when they spied on the small fight that broke out in the woods. Did he volunteer to lead the way? No, it once again only happened because fate willed it so, and he merely let it happen. When fight broke out between them and the couple, he couldn't command the fight, they just did stuff out of instinct and it somehow, miraculously worked.

  Yet he is the leader. Through pure happenstance, he's now expected to lead 4 other people, all of them he's met for a mere 72 or so hours. Absolutely different people with different nationalities, different personalities, different goals, different cultures, different ideals, different skills. It's already a miracle that all of them know English.

  It's impossible, it's already hard to tell 4 of his co-workers what to do, co-workers who he's spent a decade with, they still see and treat him as a joke. Anything he said, they'll laugh it off and act on their own. Stuff eventually gets done on time, but it's still tiring to have to keep nagging at them.

  He's never had the initiative, he's never had the drive. He was never the commanding type of person, what he would give to sit back, and never have to lead another person again. But he knew that, once he's gone, nothing's going to be done. If it wasn't for his constant nagging, they would just slack off, chit chat, and leave the cleaning work for tomorrow, day after day, until someone eventually complains about it and they all get sacked.

  Because of that, he can't stop nagging, he can't stop barking. Even if he looks like a dog, even if Sung, Rin, Yoko and Rin think he's annoying, even if everyone comes to hate him, it's a necessary evil. Because then, nobody would be doing anything, and nothing would get done. Someone has to step up, even if that someone's just a cowardly, incompetent idiot.

  And it's high time he step up. Who cares what he wants? Nobody, the world doesn't care, the universe is indifferent to his whims. If the script calls for a predictable antagonist to push the plot, then he will be that antagonist. The antagonist nobody likes, but the antagonist that ends up forcing everyone to improve.

  After all, who is he, a lowly human, to go against the threads of life? However it is spun, however it is woven, he is only one to trace, to be the needle which sets in the thread to the likings of the higher being, from the first stitch, to the last knot. Even if the end product's one for show, or one that ends up discarded, the needle must move.

  While deep in thought, Miguel thought he heard some rustling outside. Was it an animal? The forests are frosty, but it's not impossible for perhaps snow foxes or bears to exist and live here. Then again, he doesn't even know if this forest is natural, he's never heard of a forest with such a large crystalline tree in the middle. Fishes exist though. To what extent had they created this forest?

  The rustling grew louder, meanwhile a thump was heard, then a muffled cry. This wasn't a bear attack or anything like that, no. This is a coordinated hit by other people in this forest. How they were found doesn't matter, what matters more's how they proceed.

  The rustling stopped right outside his tent, Miguel's instinct told him so. With shaky hands, Miguel reached inside his inventory for his spear. Strong or not, he won't go down without a fight. And if he's going to nag the others, he's gotta be alive to do that.

  His heart was palpitating, his palms sweating profusely. His instincts are telling him, behind the entrance lies the reaper, once again knocking on his door. Every fibre of his being could tell him that these will perhaps be his final moments. He tried to stand up, but his legs gave out.

  If his opponent is working under the premise of stealth, then there's really only one thing he could do for now. Maybe he wouldn't have to fight at all, maybe he could just solve this like how he's always approached stuff.

  "I know you're there." He shouted at the entrance. "Come out, let's have a talk."