“Kato-san?
Where are you?”
When she finally managed to wring out her clothes and came back to her senses, Yukinoshita Yukino realized she could no longer see Kato Jun.
She hurriedly shouted his name, her voice trembling in the cold wind.
Being separated from the only person you know in a terrifying, unfamiliar place like this is the worst possible situation.
“Really, why does this guy run around the moment he gets ashore?”
Yukinoshita muttered under her breath, holding her small leather shoes in one hand and her damp stockings in the other.
In a state of mild panic, her bare legs and fair little feet began to trot along the footprints Kato Jun had left behind in the wet sand.
“Kato-san?”
There was an unmistakable hint of joy and relief in her question as Yukinoshita finally spotted her classmate in the gloom.
The boy was squatting quietly in front of a small rocky bay full of sea foam, washed-up kelp, and dead fish.
The expression on his face in the moonlight was incredibly lonely and disappointed.
“What happened?”
Yukinoshita Yukino was tired, intensely hungry, and freezing cold, so she naturally felt a little resentment that Kato Jun had run so far without saying a word.
“I found some very bad news.”
Kato Jun’s tone was incredibly low, lacking the confident energy he had in the water.
“I’m afraid there is absolutely no sign of human activity on this island…”
He pointed down the entire stretch of the beach and the rocky terrain sitting in front of the looming cliffs.
Kato Jun hadn’t been able to find a single piece of human-made garbage among the items washed up by the sea.
There was nothing here but dead fish, foul-smelling foam, broken shells, and some driftwood twigs.
If an island is really inhabited, or even located near modern shipping lanes, there will always be some waste products dumped by humans.
But not even a single piece of plastic, a discarded bottle, or a scrap of fishing net could be seen here.
“You mean…
this is a completely uninhabited island?”
Yukinoshita Yukino wrapped her damp school uniform tighter around her body as the sea breeze grew even colder.
Her fair feet unconsciously dug into the sand, seeking out the deeper grains that were still fairly warm from the daytime sun.
Also, this island was far too quiet; even the calls of night birds could only be heard faintly when the sea breeze blew.
Are we really stranded on an uninhabited island?
“I’m afraid so.”
Kato Jun didn’t look at her; instead, he looked up at the vast canopy of stars in the night sky.
“There is no Big Dipper, and there is no North Star.”
“So, does that mean we drifted into the Southern Hemisphere?”
“No…
the star clusters that can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere don’t look anything like this either…”
Coupled with the bizarre, game-like status panel from earlier, Kato Jun began to seriously wonder if they were really still on Earth.
However, as a transmigrator who had already lived two lives, his psychological ability to accept the absurd was already quite strong.
“Then we’ll just have to wait for the search and rescue team to find us.”
“The wreckage of the plane crashed right off the coast of this island.
As long as the rescue team finds the plane, they’ll deduce that survivors might have washed ashore here…”
Yukinoshita Yukino analyzed the situation calmly, relying on her intellect to suppress her growing fear.
“So, first of all, we have to find a way to survive on this island until they arrive.”
“You’re right.
No matter what world this is, we need to live first…”
Kato Jun reluctantly picked up some of his lost energy; no matter the circumstances, survival was the absolute most important thing.
Megumi…
as long as you’re alive, I’ll definitely find a way back to you.
After reciting his beloved sister’s name a few times in silence, Kato Jun regained his mental strength.
He stood up and looked intently at the dark tree line bordering the beach not far away.
Tall trunks with iconic fronds.
“It’s a coconut tree!”
Yukinoshita also noticed a few coconut trees growing tall and straight along the edge of the coast.
There were also a few coconuts that had already fallen on the ground, their outer husks a dark, rotting brown.
Yukinoshita quickly dropped her small leather shoes onto the dry sand and eagerly trotted over to pick up one of the brown-gray coconuts.
“I remember reading in a book that you can smash these open on a rock…”
Yukinoshita started looking for a sharp rock wall near the beach, her throat burning.
She desperately needed hydration right now, having swallowed too much salty seawater earlier.
“Wait, Yukinoshita-san!
Stop!”
Kato Jun rushed over and grabbed her wrist.
“That kind of old coconut fruit that fell on the ground a long time ago is very likely spoiled and will cause severe diarrhea.”
“In a place without medicine or clean water, diarrhea is a death sentence.”
Kato Jun pointed up at the smooth, green coconuts hanging high in the canopy of the tree.
“If we want to drink, we need to get those fresh green coconuts…”
“Really?” Yukinoshita paused, looking between the heavy brown coconut in her hands and the fresh ones twenty feet in the air.
TO BE CONTINUE