“Where…?” Aoyama forced himself to prop up his upper body.
A dull ache throbbed at the back of his head, as if he’d been struck with a hammer, accompanied by a piercing ring in his ears.
His vision was filled with the twisted, mangled metal frame of the school bus.
The roof had completely flipped over, and shattered window glass lay scattered across the ground, glinting blindingly in the dappled sunlight.
The air was thick with the pungent stench of gasoline and a metallic tang, mixed with a more unsettling scent.
The smell of blood.
“…” Aoyama slowly turned his head.
He saw Watanabe.
The boy who always argued about baseball scores during class breaks was now draped over a broken seat in a grotesque posture, his body bent at an impossible angle.
His stomach churned, but Aoyama forced down the urge to vomit.
Being young is great, falling asleep the moment your head hits the pillow…
He forced himself to look away, trying to steady his ragged breathing.
Then, fifty meters away, he saw another figure slowly sitting up.
“Kasumigaoka Utaha.” She woke several minutes after Aoyama, her crimson eyes now blankly sweeping over the surrounding carnage.
Her face was nearly translucent, her lips trembling slightly.
But when her gaze met Aoyama’s, she bit her lower lip, forcing a scream back down.
“…It seems we’re not among the dead.” Kasumigaoka stumbled as she rose, steadying herself against a crooked tree trunk.
Her school skirt had been torn, revealing a pale thigh with a shallow bloody scratch.
Aoyama didn’t reply.
He stood up and began patrolling the scattered debris.
His steps were steady, his breathing gradually returning to a normal rhythm, as if the sickening scene from moments ago hadn’t affected him in the slightest.
Aoyama knew exactly what mattered most right now.
Not crying.
Not panic.
Not even grief.
I have to figure out how to survive.
After all, he was the man who had watched every single one of Bear Grylls’, Ed Stafford’s, and Jeremy Wade’s survival shows!
As a transmigrator who had lived in this world for eighteen years, Aoyama knew all too well it was a slice-of-life, crossover anime world.
After all, his classmates included Kasumigaoka Utaha and Mouri Ran…
and there were a few other household names from the neighboring classes.
Mouri Ran didn’t join this school-organized outdoor trip.
Is this a blessing in disguise?
Without overthinking, he spotted a thermos beneath a pile of mangled luggage racks.
He unscrewed the lid; the inner wall was dry and scorching hot, without a trace of water.
But the body was intact, and the seal was still good.
“Too bad there’s no water,” Aoyama lamented, stuffing it into a half-buried backpack nearby.
Next, he found paper and pens.
A few notebooks had been crushed out of shape.
One was blank, and there were two ballpoint pens—one with a broken tip, the other still writable.
He stashed them all together.
Then, he discovered three slices of bread.
They were wrapped in plastic, squashed flat but mercifully free of blood.
“What are you looking for?” Kasumigaoka had appeared behind him without him noticing.
Her voice was much lower than usual, the characteristic languor and nonchalance mostly gone.
Without turning around, Aoyama replied, “Anything useful.” “What did you find?” Kasumigaoka fell silent for a few seconds, and then Aoyama heard the rustle of her rummaging through the debris.
After a moment, she walked over and held out her hand.
A phone with a spiderweb-shattered screen, a silver lighter, and…
an unopened box of condoms.
Kasumigaoka stared at the box for a moment, her lip twitching, before handing it over.
“It fell off a luggage rack.
I don’t know whose it is.” Aoyama took the lighter first and tried it.
A steady, orange-red flame flickered to life.
“Great!” Aoyama’s eyes lit up, and he slipped it into the side pocket of his backpack.
Then he picked up the box of condoms and examined it closely.
The thin plastic packaging was intact, without a single tear.
“This is good stuff!” he said, his tone filled with genuine joy.
The only disappointment for Aoyama was that the condoms were a size too small.
After all, his was huge.
Kasumigaoka raised an eyebrow.
Even in this environment, her beautiful face still managed to form that signature, somewhat mocking expression: “You certainly have a taste for the finer things…
in a place like this.” “What, planning to indulge in some depravity before we turn into savages?” “Or can you actually get in the mood with corpses all around…” “Ahem, in the wilderness, condoms have far more uses than you imagine,” Aoyama interrupted her, his expression unchanged.
“If you use them to hold water, one can hold about a liter, and they seal perfectly.” “They can be used for bandaging wounds, blocking moisture, making a slingshot, or even starting a fire…
The things running through your head are actually the least important.” Kasumigaoka Utaha’s eyes widened slightly.
She then turned her head away, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
“…You certainly know a lot.” “An average high school student wouldn’t go out of their way to learn this kind of knowledge, would they?” “I just watch a lot of documentaries,” Aoyama said, stuffing the condoms into his backpack and zipping it shut.
He turned, his gaze sweeping over their surroundings.
The school bus had tumbled down a cliff beside the highway, its fall broken by the dense canopy of trees that had absorbed some of the impact.
Otherwise, survival would have been impossible.
They were in a typical primeval forest.
Ancient, towering trees entwined with vines reached for the sky, their thick canopy blotting out the sun, allowing only specks of light to filter through the gaps.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of humus, spongy underfoot and smelling of damp mold.
The air was stiflingly hot and heavy with a moisture so thick it felt like being submerged in warm water.
“This environment…
isn’t good.” By now, beads of sweat had formed on Kasumigaoka Utaha’s forehead, trickling down her cheeks to drip onto her pale pink lips.
She unconsciously licked them, then frowned.
“How long were we unconscious?” she asked.
Aoyama looked up through the canopy at the sky.
The sun was leaning west, but the angle was too obscured to determine the exact time.
“I don’t know.” “But people outside should have noticed the bus is missing by now,” he paused.
“If they can find the location of this highway, that is.” “…” After all, Japanese rescue operations were notoriously slow.
At the thought, both fell silent.
In this primeval forest, where the canopy blotted out the sky, a school bus that had tumbled down a cliff would be completely invisible from the road.
“Besides us…
is anyone else left?” Utaha’s voice dropped a few degrees.
Aoyama didn’t answer.
He had already confirmed it while inspecting the wreckage.
All their classmates, including the driver, showed no signs of life.
He didn’t say it aloud, but Utaha read the answer in his silence.
She took a deep breath, lowering her eyes, her eyelashes trembling twice.
Then she asked, “The bodies…
they’ll rot, won’t they?” “Yeah,” Aoyama nodded.
“It’s hot and humid here.
They’ll start to smell by tomorrow morning at the latest, and that’ll attract scavengers.” He glanced at Kasumigaoka Utaha.
“We can’t stay here.” Utaha nodded, surprisingly offering no objection.
She took off her school blazer and draped it over her arm, leaving her in just the white shirt.
“Let’s go.
Since you know so much, you lead the way.” Aoyama bent down and picked up a piece of rebar that had fallen on the ground.
It was about half a meter long, its broken end jaggedly sharp, like a crude serrated knife.
He weighed it in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.
“Stay close to me.” With that, Aoyama stepped into the forest.
Trekking through the primeval forest was more exhausting than he had imagined.
The ground was a tangle of gnarled roots and moss-covered stones.
At any moment, one could slip or step into a pit hidden by decaying leaves.
The dense underbrush and drooping vines had to be pushed aside nearly every meter.
Crack!
Snap!
Walking ahead, Aoyama used the rebar to hack through the branches blocking their path.
The metal edge sliced through thick vines with a crisp sound, and clear sap oozed from the severed ends.
Kasumigaoka Utaha followed close behind him, never more than two steps away.
At first, she tried to maintain her elegant gait, but the uneven terrain soon defeated her.
She had to tread carefully, avoiding the serrated edges of the ferns, yet sharp branches still managed to scratch her bare calves several times.
“Hiss—!” She sucked in a sharp breath and glanced down at a fresh bloody scratch on her leg.
Aoyama turned back, his eyes sweeping over her fair, smooth thighs.
“Are you okay?” “I’m not going to die,” Utaha scoffed, though her pace noticeably faltered for a half-beat.
She looked around at the dense, layered greenery.
Everything here seemed to be slowly breathing, growing, and rotting.
In the unseen corners, thousands of insects rustled incessantly.
“…” Her lips pressed together.
She quickened her pace, closing the distance to Aoyama.
The air grew increasingly stifling.
Sweat trickled down Aoyama’s forehead and stung his eyes.
“We’re in trouble if we don’t find water soon.” He licked his lips, which were so dry they were nearly cracking.
Since waking up, he hadn’t had a single drop of water for over four hours.
The small amount of fluid he’d started with was almost entirely spent from the trek.
He had better stamina than Kasumigaoka Utaha, but he knew perfectly well that if they didn’t find fresh water soon, dehydration would claim them.
Utaha was in no better shape.
Her lips were chapped and peeling.
Her pace had slowed noticeably, her breathing grew heavy, and a damp patch of sweat soaked through her blouse at the chest.
“Do you…
want to drink some water?” Aoyama’s voice was as dry as sandpaper.
Utaha shot him a glare.
“Is this the time for jokes?” Aoyama didn’t reply.
His gaze swept past a dense clump of bracken and landed on a low tree about a dozen meters ahead.
Fist-sized fruits hung from its branches, their skin an unhealthy yellowish-green.
They resembled unripe mangoes, but were covered in a fine, white fuzz.
“Fruit!” His eyes lit up.
The tree stood about three meters tall, its fruit hanging sparsely from the branches.
A few had already fallen to the ground, their skins riddled with holes where ants had chewed through.
Aoyama studied the fruit carefully.
There were no bite marks on them, but in a place like this, the absence of animal predation was no reliable indicator of safety.
After all, poisonous fruits came in all sorts of bizarre forms.
“I can’t take it anymore…” Waves of hunger and thirst washed over him.
He reached out and plucked one.
The fruit had some weight to it.
It felt hard, yet gave slightly under pressure.
He carefully sliced the skin open with the sharp end of his rebar, revealing pale green flesh that was plump with moisture and gave off a faint, grassy fragrance.
Kasumigaoka Utaha walked over, her gaze fixed on the fruit in his hand.
She licked her lips.
“Are you sure it’s edible?” “I’m not,” Aoyama admitted candidly.
He gouged out a small piece of the flesh with his fingernail and popped it into his mouth.
A burst of bitterness exploded on his tongue, followed immediately by a hint of sweetness.
The dryness in his mouth was momentarily relieved.
He waited for about two minutes.
No stinging, burning, or numbness followed.
“It should be fine.” He picked a few larger fruits, wiped the fuzz from their skins with his shirt, and handed them to Kasumigaoka.
Kasumigaoka Utaha took them and hesitated for a second.
Then, imitating Aoyama, she gouged out a small piece of the flesh and popped it into her mouth.
Her expression twisted momentarily, but then her brow gradually smoothed.
“…It’s bitter, but it really quenches thirst.” The two leaned against the tree and ate several fruits.
As the juice spread through his mouth, Aoyama could feel his parched throat being moistened to some extent.
He picked another five or six fruits, wrapped them carefully in the inner pages of his notebook to keep them from being crushed, and tucked them into his backpack.
This little moisture isn’t nearly enough.
Aoyama knew all too well that in a sweltering primeval forest, an adult male needed at least two to three liters of water a day.
The water from a few fruits wouldn’t even cover a fraction of that.
They had to find a real water source!