When Katherine decided to jump, she khere was no other option. Even so, she imagihere might be some ce of survival.

  As soon as her body touched the water, she deactivated any remaining parts of her armor. At least that way, she wouldn't be dragged to the bottom of the river. Finally, her body made tact with the icy water.

  Until then, she hadn't realized how fast the river was, especially in the deeper parts. The girl was thrown against every curve in the river's path, her arms aoo weak to pull her to the surface. Her lungs begged to breathe; her body craved for a fresh air. But the rest of her sciousness fought against it. With each passing sed, the pressure in her chest increased.

  Until she finally gave in. In a single deep breath, her lungs filled with water. She no longer felt panic or the urge to fight. Her sciousness finally stopped.

  --

  --

  ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ It was the only thing going through the boy's mind.

  Oliver jumped into the water right after Katherine, and she wasn't far ahead of him. Sometimes, he could vaguely see the girl's golden hair when he came up to the surface. However, getting close or even grabbing her iurbulent waters was hard.

  He had already pushed his arms ao their limits, trying not to drown or at least to get a bit more air. His muscles were burning, but he needed a little more from them. In the distance, he saw that the river was about to make a sharp turn, and the boy thought it would be an excellent ce to try to grab the girl and drag them both to the riverbank.

  He began swimming with the current, using whatever energy he had left, just enough to get close to the girl. She seemed unscious, but he didn’t have enough time to check her dition. Oliver ed his left arm around Katherine's ned waited. A few seds ter, both were thrown against one of the banks.

  With his right arm, Oliver tried to grab the bank, using all his strength to dig his fingers into the earth and press his hand, trying to pull them both out of the river. Gaining some fiden his grip, he began to use his other arm t the girl, pushing her body out of the water.

  After nearly tossing Katherine over the bank of the river, it was now his turn. Without the weight of another person, he mao use his arms to pull himself up onto the bank.

  “Cough! Cough!” Oliver tried to cough up and spit out all the water that had entered his throat along the way. His legs wao give out so he could finally rest, but he recalled he had seen Katherine unscious.

  Oliver crawled over to Katherirying to uand the girl's ditiourhe girl over and saw that she was unscious, but the worst part was that he couldn’t see her chest moving. The boy got even closer and couldn’t feel her breathing. Panic started to take over Oliver.

  “What should I do? Think! Think…” Oliver spoke, trying to rush into a solution. "If she has water in her lungs, I o help expel it. Is that it? I should have paid more attention to medical series. Here we go."

  He left the girl lying on the ground, crossed his hands, and pressed down on her chest.

  “Owo, three, four, five!”

  Using all his weight, he began pressing down on the girl’s chest, hoping he wasn’t doing something wrong.

  “Owo, three, four, five!”

  He kept pressing, but there was still ion from the girl.

  “Do I o blow air into her mouth?”

  The boy didn’t know if it was while pressing or ter, but just as he was about to apply more pressure, finally, there was a rea.

  “Cough! Cough!” Katheriurned her fad expelled water from her mouth and ill, with blurry vision, she tried to open her eyes and see her surroundings. She could make out the soaked boy but didn’t have the strength to speak. She stretched out her arm, trying to crawl, but only mao toue of the trees before closing her eyes again, this time to sleep.

  Oliver smiled slightly, seeing that the girl seemed okay and, most importantly, was breathing.

  “But now... what do I do?” The boy questioned himself.

  They had drifted down the river and were oher bank. To make matters worse, he didn’t know if there were Crabits on this side. His luck was that they hadn’t been attacked as soon as they got out of the water.

  His first idea was to try and unicate with the group.

  “CHAT!”

  No response.

  “MAP!”

  Also, there was no response.

  “Status Page!”

  | Status Page| User: Oliver [Nameless]| Level: 2 [Pawn]| Experience: [118/200]|| Stats| Strength: 6 [Pawn]| Agility: 14 [Knight]| stitution: 5 [Pawn]| Energy: 14 [Knight]

  ‘This still works. Maybe it doesn’t need a e?’ the boy thought as he tried to think of alternatives.

  It was still early in the day, so there should be plenty of sunlight left. However, their clothes were soaked, and the cold wind wasn’t helping. Hypothermia might be their biggest challe the moment.

  He removed his uniform shirt and tried t it out to remove as much water as possible, but it was still wet. He put the shirt ba anyway, thinking it would be better to have some prote while walking through the trees, even if it was just his uniform.

  The trees around him were quite different from the ones oher side of the river. They were rger and more spaced apart, with more vibrant leaves.

  ‘Perhaps… not having so many monsters eating everything around them allowed the trees to grow more?’ Oliver questioned. ‘How will I find her if I leave to explore? Do I only have questions and no answers?’

  He had trained in bat, but survival training wasn’t yet part of his curriculum at the Academy. Still, he thought finding his way out of the forest would be impossible if he got lost.

  ‘I’ll just walk along the river; there’s no way to get lost.’ Oliver rationalized.

  He walked for about 10 minutes, heading upstream, trying to find someone or something that could help them. Luckily, he didn’t enter any monsters. Not wanting to waste more energy, he returo where he had left Katherine.

  She didn’t look much better. But looking at her bluish hands, it was clear she was freezing. Her fingers, wrinkled from the water, were trembling.

  ‘If I don't do something, she'll freeze to death,’ Oliver thought.

  He dragged the sleeping girl closer to a tree further into the forest, a small ge that helped avoid much of the wind ing from the river.

  ‘Hummm, let’s also get some leaves and branches. Maybe this will work.’ Oliver looked around and searched for each of the items. The boy had an idea, more of a gamble, on how to solve the problem for both of them.

  He began making a small circle with the stones and throwing leaves and branches iil he had enough to start a fire. But that was the biggest problem; he didn’t know how to light it. Still, he had an idea.

  [Activate]

  His armor once again covered his body. He pulled out his Energy Pistol and aimed at the firewood. He wao use the minimum amount of energy possible to start the fire but, above all, avoid exploding everything in front of him.

  Oliver trated and eled the feeling he had during the st fight. He tried to reduce his energy even more, then slid his finger over the pistol's trigger. A small, barely visible shot was fired into the ter of the stones.

  | Puff!

  Although it caused an explosion, it was small, lighting the fire and scattering the branches.

  “Phew!” Oliver was relieved. It wasn’t perfect, but at least there wasn’t a wildfire in his hands.

  Now came the sed tricky part. Keepi clothes on was foolish. He hem to dry while als his own body. He started with the easy parts, taking off his boots and shirt.

  He grabbed some of the branches and id his clothes on top of them so they could dry he fire. He looked at his pants, his face turning pletely red. It was the first time he would be practically naked in front of a girl, even though she was asleep.

  Oliver jumped up and down a bit, trying to warm up and gather fidence before taking off his pants. For the first time, he noticed how much his body had ged. Of course, he had bulked up a lot after w with Wave Disposal, especially si was such a manual task. But the army training had toned his body.

  In one swift motion, he closed his eyes and removed the rest of his uniform. He stood o the fire before taking the step.

  ‘This one might be the riskiest. Dear god… please protect me.’ Oliver prayed.

  He removed Katherine’s boots and socks.

  ‘Here we go! Here we go!’ He gave himself two sps on the face for ce.

  This was the final step; he had to remove her shirt or pants from her uniform.

  ‘Ahhhh!’ he screamed inside his head.

  GCLopes