“Where am I?”
Aoyama struggled to push himself upright.
A dull pain throbbed at the back of his head, as if someone had struck him with a hammer, accompanied by a sharp ringing in his ears.
His vision was filled with twisted metal frames.
The roof of the school bus had completely flipped over, and shattered pieces of window glass were scattered across the ground, reflecting blinding flashes of sunlight through the gaps in the trees.
The air reeked of gasoline and something else foul, something that made his instincts scream.
The smell of blood.
“…”
Aoyama slowly turned his head.
He saw Watanabe.
The boy who was always arguing with others about baseball scores during class breaks was now hanging from a broken seat in a horrifying position, his body bent at an angle no human should ever be able to reach.
His stomach churned, but Aoyama forced down the urge to vomit.
“Youth really is great.
You can just fall asleep…”
He forced himself to look away, trying to steady his rapid breathing.
Then he noticed another figure sitting up about fifty meters away.
“Kasumigaoka Utaha.”
She had woken up several minutes after him and was now staring blankly at the wreckage around her with her crimson eyes.
Her face was pale enough to look almost transparent, and her lips trembled slightly.
However, when her gaze met Aoyama’s, she bit down on her lower lip and swallowed the scream that was about to escape.
“…Looks like we weren’t among the ones who died.”
Utaha staggered slightly as she stood up, grabbing onto the trunk of a nearby crooked tree for support.
The hem of her school uniform skirt had been torn open, revealing her pale thigh with a shallow cut running across it.
Aoyama didn’t answer.
He stood up and began searching through the scattered wreckage.
His movements were steady, and his breathing gradually returned to normal, as if the gruesome scene before him had barely affected him at all.
Aoyama knew exactly what mattered most right now.
Not crying.
Not fear.
Not even grief.
“We need to figure out how to survive.”
After all, he was a man who had watched every survival program from Bear Grylls, Ed Stafford, and Jeremy Wade!
As someone who had lived in this world for eighteen years after transmigrating here, he knew exactly what kind of place this was.
A world where all kinds of anime-like events could happen in everyday life.
After all, his classmates included Kasumigaoka Utaha and Mouri Ran…
And there were even more familiar faces among the people nearby.
“Mouri Ran wasn’t part of this outdoor trip organized by the school.”
“Did we actually get lucky because of this disaster?”
Without thinking about it too much, Aoyama searched through the twisted luggage racks and found a thermos buried underneath them.
He unscrewed the lid, but the inside was completely dry.
The metal body was hot to the touch, and not a single drop of water remained.
However, the thermos itself was intact, and the seal was undamaged.
“Too bad there’s no water.”
He sighed and stuffed it into a backpack half-buried in the dirt nearby.
Next came paper and pens.
He found several notebooks that had been crushed out of shape.
One of them was blank, and there were two ballpoint pens inside.
One had a broken tip, but the other still worked.
He kept them both.
After that, he discovered three pieces of bread.
They were wrapped in plastic packaging and flattened, but fortunately, they hadn’t been stained with blood.
“What are you looking for?”
Utaha had approached him at some point.
Her voice was much quieter than usual, and the lazy, carefree tone she normally carried had mostly disappeared.
Aoyama didn’t turn around.
“Things we can use.”
“What did you find over there?”
Utaha was silent for a few seconds before Aoyama heard her rummaging through the debris.
A moment later, she walked over and opened her hand.
A phone with a screen shattered like a spiderweb, a silver lighter, and…
A box of unopened condoms.
Utaha stared at the box for a moment.
The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, but she still handed it over.
“It fell from the luggage rack.
I don’t know whose it was.”
Aoyama took the lighter first and flicked it.
A flame immediately appeared, orange-red and steady.
“Great.”
His eyes lit up as he placed it into the side pocket of his backpack.
Then he picked up the box of condoms and examined it carefully.
The thin plastic packaging was completely intact without any damage.
“Now this is useful.”
His voice carried genuine happiness.
The only disappointing thing was that the condoms were too small.
After all, his was quite large.
Utaha raised an eyebrow.
Even in this situation, her beautiful face still showed her trademark teasing expression.
“In a place like this…
you still have that kind of hobby?”
“Are you planning to indulge yourself before becoming a caveman?”
“Or are you saying you can still do that while surrounded by corpses…”
“Ahem.
Condoms have far more uses in the wilderness than you think.”
Aoyama interrupted her without changing his expression.
“One can hold about a liter of water, and the seal is excellent.
They can be used to wrap wounds, keep moisture away, make a slingshot, or even help start a fire.”
“Whatever you were imagining is actually the least important use.”
Utaha’s eyes widened slightly before she turned her head away, the corners of her lips curling upward.
“…You really know a lot.”
“Most high school students wouldn’t go out of their way to learn this kind of thing, would they?”
“I just watched a lot of documentaries.”
Aoyama stuffed the condoms into the backpack and zipped it shut.
Then he turned around and examined the surrounding environment.
The school bus had fallen off a cliff beside the road, but the dense tree canopy had caught the vehicle and absorbed part of the impact.
Otherwise, neither of them would have survived.
The area around them was a typical primeval forest.
Towering ancient trees wrapped in vines stretched toward the sky, their enormous canopies blocking out most of the sunlight and allowing only scattered rays to slip through.
The ground was covered with thick layers of decaying organic matter.
Each step sank slightly into the soft soil, releasing a damp, rotten smell.
The air was hot and heavy, saturated with humidity so thick it felt like they were standing inside warm water.
“This environment isn’t looking good.”
Utaha’s forehead was already covered in sweat.
Drops slid down her cheeks and landed on her pale pink lips.
She instinctively licked them away before frowning.
“How long were we unconscious?”
Aoyama looked up through the canopy.
The sunlight was leaning westward, but the angle was impossible to use for an accurate estimate.
“I don’t know.”
“But someone outside should have noticed the school bus disappeared by now.
Assuming they can find where this road is.”
“…”
After all, rescue operations in Japan were notoriously slow.
The two fell silent.
Deep inside this forest, where the trees blocked everything above, a school bus that had fallen from a cliff was completely invisible from the road.
“Other than us…
is there anyone else?”
Utaha’s voice became softer.
Aoyama didn’t answer.
While searching the wreckage earlier, he had already confirmed it.
Every other student, including the driver, had no signs of life.
He hadn’t said it out loud, but Utaha understood the answer from his silence.
She took a deep breath and lowered her eyes.
Her eyelashes trembled twice.
Then she asked, “Those bodies…
they’ll rot, won’t they?”
“Yeah.”
Aoyama nodded.
“It’s hot and humid here.
By tomorrow morning at the latest, they’ll start to smell, and scavengers will be attracted.”
He looked at her.
“We can’t stay here.”
Utaha nodded, surprisingly without arguing.
She removed her school jacket and draped it over her arm, leaving only the white shirt underneath.
“Let’s go.
Since you know so much, you lead.”
Aoyama bent down and picked up a piece of steel rebar lying on the ground.
It was about half a meter long.
One end had snapped off into a jagged edge, resembling a crude saw blade.
He weighed it in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.
“Stay close.”
With that, Aoyama stepped into the forest.
Walking through a primeval forest was far more exhausting than he had imagined.
The ground was covered with tangled roots and moss-covered rocks.
Every step carried the risk of slipping or falling into holes hidden beneath layers of rotten leaves.
Dense bushes and hanging vines blocked their path, forcing them to clear the way almost every meter.
“Snap!”
Walking ahead, Aoyama used the steel bar to cut through branches blocking their path.
The sharp edge sliced through thick vines with crisp sounds, and clear liquid seeped from the broken ends.
Utaha followed behind him, never more than two steps away.
At first, she tried to maintain her usual graceful pace, but the uneven terrain quickly defeated her.
She had to carefully avoid ferns with serrated edges, yet several times sharp branches still scratched her exposed calves.
“Hiss…”
She sucked in a breath and looked down at another fresh cut on her leg.
Aoyama turned around and glanced at her pale thigh.
“Are you okay?”
“I won’t die.”
Utaha gave a small snort, but her steps slowed noticeably.
She looked around at the endless layers of green.
Everything here seemed to breathe, grow, and decay at the same time.
Thousands upon thousands of insects rustled in unseen corners.
“…”
She pressed her lips together, then hurried forward and moved closer to Aoyama.
The air grew heavier and heavier.
Sweat slid down Aoyama’s forehead and dripped into his eyes, stinging painfully.
“If we don’t find water soon, we’ll be in trouble.”
He licked his lips, which had already begun to crack from dehydration.
Since waking up, he hadn’t had a single drop of water for more than four hours.
The little moisture left in his body had nearly been exhausted during their walk.
Aoyama was in better shape than Utaha, but he knew that without fresh water, dehydration would become a serious problem very soon.
Utaha wasn’t doing much better.
Her lips were already dry and peeling.
Her pace had slowed considerably, her breathing had become heavier, and a small patch of her shirt was soaked through with sweat.
“Do you…
want some water?”
Aoyama’s voice was rough like sandpaper.
Utaha gave him a glare.
“Is joking around at a time like this supposed to be funny?”
Aoyama said nothing.
His gaze passed over a cluster of ferns and landed on a short tree about ten meters ahead.
Fist-sized fruits hung from its branches.
Their skins were an unhealthy yellow-green, shaped somewhat like unripe mangoes, with fine white fuzz covering the surface.
“Fruit!”
His eyes lit up.
The tree was about three meters tall, with only a few fruits hanging from its branches.
Several had already fallen to the ground and been eaten through by ants.
Aoyama carefully examined them.
There were no bite marks on the fruits, but in a place like this, that couldn’t be used as proof of safety.
After all, poisonous fruits came in countless forms.
“I don’t have much of a choice…”
The thirst and hunger became harder to ignore, and he reached out to pick one.
The fruit had some weight to it.
It was hard when squeezed, but with a little force, it gave slightly.
Using the sharp tip of the steel bar, he carefully cut open the skin, revealing pale green flesh inside.
It was full of moisture and carried a faint grassy scent.
Utaha walked over and looked at the fruit in his hand.
“Are you sure this is edible?”
“Not really.”
Aoyama was honest.
Then he used his fingernail to scrape off a tiny piece and placed it into his mouth.
A bitter taste exploded across his tongue, but moments later, a faint sweetness followed, briefly easing the dryness in his mouth.
He waited for about two minutes.
There was no pain, burning sensation, or numbness.
“Looks safe.”
He picked several of the larger fruits, wiped away the fuzz with his clothes, and handed some to Utaha.
She accepted them, hesitated for a second, then copied his method and tasted a small piece.
Her expression twisted briefly before slowly relaxing.
“…It’s bitter, but it really does help with thirst.”
The two of them sat beside the tree and ate several fruits.
The juice spread through their mouths, and Aoyama could feel his dry throat receiving some relief.
He picked another five or six fruits and placed them inside his backpack, carefully wrapping them with notebook pages to prevent them from being crushed.
“This little bit of water isn’t nearly enough.”
Aoyama knew that in a hot, humid rainforest, an adult man needed at least two to three liters of water every day.
The moisture from a few fruits wasn’t even close.
They needed to find a real water source.