To help Yukino learn to climb trees more quickly, Kato Jun donated his school uniform jacket, which they carefully altered into a pair of practical trousers for her.
Although Yukino had confidently declared that her own jacket would suffice, she had severely underestimated the matter of her hip and thigh measurements.
Her jacket simply did not contain enough fabric.
I’ve been eating rather too much fish and coconut crab these past few days…
She thought, pressing her lips together with mild indignation.
“There we go, all finished…”
Yukino Yukinoshita examined the trousers she had assembled from Kato Jun’s jacket—somewhat oversized in the waist, but genuinely practical for climbing and running.
“Not bad at all…”
Kato Jun gazed at the girl wearing fabric cut from the very same garment as his own shirt and felt a peculiar, inexplicable warmth stir in his chest.
Even in crude, improvised jungle trousers, the school’s reigning beauty managed to look effortlessly stunning.
“Is…
is that so…
Thank you, then…”
Of course, Yukino herself felt the strangeness even more acutely.
I turned Kato-kun’s clothes into my trousers and am now wearing them next to my skin…
The thought alone was enough to make her flush crimson.
Her gaze dropped to the ground, unable to meet his eyes directly.
Inside the wide trouser legs, her knees pressed together unconsciously, as if trying to physically contain the flustered embarrassment swelling in her heart.
It was uncomfortably reminiscent of the trope in romance films—the heroine wearing her lover’s oversized shirt the morning after.
And then the memory of the kissing incident resurfaced, and her face grew even redder.
After the rain cleared and the island returned to its blazing tropical warmth, Yukino’s tree-climbing education began in earnest.
Under Kato Jun’s patient guidance, her progress was nothing short of astonishing.
Thanks to the intuitive physical precision granted by her Deft Craftsmanship passive skill, her body adapted to each technique with remarkable speed.
Within a single day of practice, she had mastered the trunk-grip shimmy, the branch-to-branch transfer, and by the following morning, she was scaling the smooth, knot-free trunk of a tall coconut palm with effortless confidence.
Once both her tree-climbing and their equipment were fully prepared, Kato Jun unrolled the revised bark map they had drawn together, and the two stepped into the jungle for the third time.
This time, however, the mood was entirely different.
The dominant aura of confidence this time belonged squarely to Kato Jun.
Because since their previous expedition, a quiet but seismic transformation had taken place on his status screen.
Kato Jun: Hunger: 190 / 210 (Satiated) Health: 220 / 220 Stamina: 230 / 230 Sanity: 200 / 200 Skill 1: Absolute Stat Lock (3 Hours / Cooldown: 24 Hours) Skill 2: Dead-Eye (Passive — 100% Projectile Accuracy) Note: Third skill slot unlocks when all core attributes average 300 AND a Skill Stone is obtained.
A Skill Stone…
what in the world is that?
Kato Jun shrugged the mystery aside for now.
His second skill was what truly mattered.
If Yukino’s remarkable natural talent allowed her to hit a target five times out of ten, Kato Jun’s newly awakened Dead-Eye passive skill granted him a one-hundred-percent hit rate on every single projectile he launched—arrows, stones, thrown sticks—anything.
He had secretly field-tested it by flinging pebbles at a distant coconut while Yukino’s back was turned.
Bullseye, every single time.
He had then tried throwing stones with his non-dominant hand.
Bullseye, every single time.
He had tried throwing two stones simultaneously at two separate targets.
Both hit dead center simultaneously.
Kato Jun had stood there in the jungle like an absolute child at a theme park, bouncing on his heels with pure, unbridled glee.
If someone handed me a firearm right now, I’m fairly certain I could curve bullets around corners…
The sheer precision of it swept away every last remnant of the archery humiliation Yukino had subjected him to earlier.
In short: combined with his stamina-locking first skill, Kato Jun had effectively transformed himself into a living, breathing targeting computer with an infinite magazine.
Bursting with this secret confidence, he had asked Yukino to craft several dozen lightweight wooden arrows.
He had then slung the quiver and the bow entirely over his own shoulder, as if the instrument that had publicly exposed his terrible aim days ago belonged to him all along.
“Should we explore the same general direction as our last expedition?”
Yukino asked as they entered the treeline, carefully adjusting the wrapped bundle of special poisoned arrows on her back.
Recalling the coral snake and the terrifying spider colony, a residual shiver ran through her.
“No, today’s primary objective is locating a permanent fresh water source.
Any survivors still alive on this island will inevitably be camped near running water…”
While the recent rainfall had filled their wooden buckets temporarily, and the cliff-face puddles provided a modest supplement, genuine long-term survival required a flowing river or a spring.
Furthermore, after nearly a week of harvesting, the island’s coastal coconut trees were nearly stripped bare.
“But how do we locate fresh water in a jungle this vast?”
Yukino asked, delicately wrapping the bark sheath around each venomous arrowhead with precise, careful fingers.
Since today’s route deliberately passed through wild boar territory, these five coral-snake-venom-tipped arrows represented their absolute last line of defense.
“It’s straightforward, actually.
Large animals require fresh water just as desperately as we do.
So, if we simply follow the wild boar tracks in the direction they were heading, the probability of finding a water source is very high…”
Wild animals invariably established their daily routines along paths that connected their den to the nearest river or watering hole.
“That makes sense…”
“Therefore, we need to be even more vigilant than last time.
The moment either of us spots a boar, we go immediately for the nearest tree.”
“Understood.”
Yukino nodded with quiet seriousness.
The pair advanced in single file through the dense undergrowth.
“Look, this is the ridge where we found the wild boar tracks before, and there are fresh ones on top of the old ones!”
“These chaotic prints suggest a startled, high-speed retreat…”
His expression grew serious.
Only one class of predator could send a five-hundred-kilogram wild boar into a blind panic: a large apex carnivore.
A leopard.
A tiger.
Something even larger.
Kato Jun’s grip tightened around the bow.
Every subsequent step would require absolute vigilance.
“Yukinoshita, do you hear that?”
Kato Jun froze mid-stride, raising a closed fist in the silent signal to stop.
“What…
what is it?”
Yukino froze behind him, her voice dropping to a near-inaudible whisper.
“Close your eyes, take a slow breath, and listen very carefully to the wind…”
Kato Jun cupped his palm around his ear, tilting his head slightly.
“That’s a wild boar…”
Not far through the trees, Yukino caught the unmistakable deep, rhythmic grunting of a large animal rooting through the undergrowth, and she immediately spotted its dark silhouette hunched over a patch of exposed soil.
“But listen past the boar.
Hear that underneath it?”
The sound of water.
A light, crystalline trickling of a current finding its way across smooth stones, drifting intermittently on the shifting jungle breeze.
Yukino’s eyes lit up immediately.
“It’s the sound of flowing water…”
The two exchanged a single, electric glance.
Moving in practiced unison, they bent low and began to creep forward, advancing heel-to-toe against the wind direction so their scent would drift away from the animal’s sensitive nostrils.
“Stay as low as possible, and move against the wind at all times…”
They had crept to within thirty meters of the boar when the massive beast suddenly wrenched its snout from the earth and swung its huge, bristled head directly toward them.
“It’s picked something up—Yukino, get to a tree immediately!”
Kato Jun barked in a low, urgent command, simultaneously swinging the bow off his shoulder.
“Got it!”
Yukino pressed the bundle of poisoned arrows into Kato Jun’s hands and launched herself at the nearest trunk, her feet finding the bark with practiced agility as she powered upward in seconds.
“Huff…
Roaaaar!”
The sight of Yukino scaling the tree confirmed to the boar that intruders had breached its territory.
It raised its enormous, scarred head and let out a thunderous warning roar that shook the canopy, though it did not yet charge—the distance between them apparently giving it brief pause.
Using that window, Kato Jun planted his back against the base of the tree, raised the bow, nocked a standard arrow, drew the string back to his jaw, and released.
The arrow covered the distance with a sharp whistle.
Just to be safe, he didn’t linger to verify his aim.
The moment the string snapped forward, he was already grabbing the trunk and hauling himself skyward.
“Kato-kun, it hit!”
From her elevated vantage, Yukino watched with wide eyes as the wooden shaft buried itself precisely into the animal’s eye.
The boar let out a violent, ear-splitting shriek and launched into a frenzied charge directly toward the tree.
BOOM!
The entire trunk shuddered like a struck bell as the boar’s tusks drove deep into the wood below Kato Jun’s feet.
“That was close…”
Clinging to a branch with white-knuckled hands, Kato Jun exhaled sharply, cold sweat beading across his forehead.
Looking down at the monster rampaging below him, he revised his weight estimate upward considerably.
Eight hundred kilograms at minimum.
The tusks buried in the tree trunk were longer than his forearm.
“Kato-kun, get up here, now!”
Yukino reached down from her higher branch, stretching her small hand toward him with a pale, urgent face.
“Coming!”
Seizing her outstretched hand, Kato Jun hauled himself up to her level with a grunt, just as the boar lined up for its second charge.
BOOM!
The entire tree swayed alarmingly under the impact.
The upper canopy shuddered.
“At this rate, this trunk won’t survive a third hit…”
Kato Jun pressed his back against the main branch, wiping his forehead.
Yukino’s face had lost every trace of its usual composure.
They both thought the same thing simultaneously: If this tree falls, we fall with it.
“One arrow clearly wasn’t enough.
Yukino, give me the rest of the poisoned arrows!”
Yukino pressed the remaining four wrapped shafts into his hands without hesitation.
“This time, watch closely.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Kato Jun braced his feet against the branch below, drew the bowstring with one smooth pull, and nocked three of the poisoned arrows simultaneously across a single string—something that should have been virtually impossible for an untrained archer.
Below them, the boar was already lowering its head for a third devastating charge.
Three arrows.
Three fingers.
One release.
Snap.
Three shafts left the bow in a single breath, their trajectories converging like laser beams through the air.
All three hit the boar’s remaining eye in the exact same spot within a centimeter of each other.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
The boar unleashed a high-pitched, agonized squeal that tore through the jungle like a siren, scattering every bird within five hundred meters.
Blinded, maddened by pain, and with three doses of concentrated coral snake neurotoxin flooding directly into its optic nerve tissue, the half-ton beast staggered sideways.
It ran in a blind, panicked spiral.
Then it struck a moss-covered boulder at full speed with a sickening crack.
Silence.
“Is it…
is it actually dead?”
Yukino stared down at the motionless mass of dark fur and muscle with a mixture of utter shock and pure disbelief.
“Almost certainly.
Coral snake neurotoxin acts fast, and that impact with the boulder likely finished the job…”
Kato Jun dropped from the tree in a few fluid movements.
“Stay in the tree for now.
I’ll go confirm it first.”
He approached cautiously, bow raised, a final poisoned arrow nocked.
“Hff…”
The boar’s barrel chest still rose and fell in shallow, fading intervals.
Its mangled, bleeding eye sockets still had all three arrows protruding from them.
It was dying.
Confirming it could no longer pose a threat, Kato Jun turned toward the tree, wore a massive grin, and waved his arm broadly.
“Yukino!
Come down!
We’re having pork tonight!”
The moment Yukino reached the ground, Kato Jun grabbed her by the waist in a burst of unrestrained joy and spun her around twice off her feet.
“Alright, alright, put me down this instant…”
She pushed against his chest, her cheeks flushed—but her eyes, fixed on the enormous boar now lying still on the jungle floor, were wide with pure astonishment.
She had genuinely believed they were going to die.
She had watched what she thought was a catastrophically reckless boy take a near-impossible shot under lethal pressure—and somehow pull off a miracle.
“When exactly did you become this skilled?!
You hit the same spot with all three poisoned arrows fired simultaneously, and you hit its eye clean on the first shot from thirty meters away…”
She walked over and pulled one of the three grouped arrows free from the boar’s eye socket, examining how impossibly tight the grouping was.
“Hehehe…
it seems my natural talent for marksmanship has simply been dormant all along…”
Kato Jun scratched the back of his neck with a modest, deliberately evasive smile.
He saw no reason to confess that a supernatural passive skill had done the heavy lifting.
However, celebrating would have to wait, because the real challenge now reared its head.
How in the world were two lean teenagers supposed to transport a four-hundred-kilogram carcass through dense jungle terrain?
Kato Jun grabbed the boar’s front hoof with both hands, dug his heels in, and pulled with every ounce of his strength.
The boar did not move by a single centimeter.
He tried pushing from the rear.
The boar did not care.
He estimated its actual weight was closer to five hundred kilograms.
The blood spreading into the surrounding soil was already beginning to carry its scent outward through the jungle, where other apex predators with far better noses than his were undoubtedly beginning to take notice.
Do we just cut off what meat we can carry and abandon the rest?
What an obscene waste…
The thought of leaving hundreds of kilograms of prime pork to rot made him wince.
Yukino stood studying the problem beside him, one finger resting thoughtfully against her lips.
“Kato-kun, perhaps we should follow that river sound first and see if it gives us an idea…”
She pointed through the trees toward the musical trickling they had been chasing before the boar ambush.
“Are you suggesting building a raft?”
“Mm.
The river appears to be flowing in the general direction of the coast.
If the current carries a raft toward the sea, we could potentially float the boar most of the way back to camp.
Even if we can only load half of it, that’s still far more than we could ever carry on foot…”
Kato Jun stared at her for a moment, then broke into a slow, deeply approving grin.
“That’s genuinely brilliant.
Let’s go take a look.”
He gave her a single, firm nod of admiration, then turned to survey the nearest stand of straight bamboo with the calculating eye of a man already mentally assembling a raft.