Standing around the now abandoned camp with the other four, I realised that they were all the ones that had voiced their thoughts about continuing travel.

"What the f*ck!? Did they really just abandon us with nothing but one monster? There's not even any rations or a spare change of clothing!" Gordon, one of the scouts that planned to join me, shouted out in frustration and he grabbed an old log and slammed it against the floor. He had short brown hair and brown eyes, his clothes were tattered and the equipment he had left out has been stolen.

Looking into his eyes, I could see that he was truly p.i.s.sed about the situation since it hasn't even been a full day and yet they had left us with nothing.

"What do we do now then? We're already hungry due to the lack of rations." Cadmi called out with a sigh.

She was the one in charge of distributing the rations before. Her hair was blonde and it reached her lower back. She had a pair of ruby eyes and wore a simple dress that was dirty around the edges thanks to the days of travel.

The other two were a pair of twins that didn't speak and only used magic to speak by writing words in the air.

They were both male and had black hair and green eyes. One of them had st.i.tches around the corner of his mouth but I never asked them about that since it might be a delicate subject.

The one with stiches was called Eric while the one without st.i.tches was called Lyle.

Every time they ate, Eric would eat with small mouthfuls so as to not damage the st.i.tches while Lyle would do the same so that Eric didn't feel left out.

[Maybe we should see if we can catch up to those that left. They can't have gone too far considering where the settlement is. Maybe we can even get some of our supplies back.] Eric suggested but I shook my head.

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"Forget it. It's not worth the trouble seeing as though we might be fighting against a settlement if we go. We'll try to kill one of the lower level monsters surrounding the place without being seen and use that as food for now. Since it's just the four of us, rationing food would be a bit easier. At least they left Nitha so we still have a way to scout." I sighed.

Seeing that my friend has left, he was probably trying to persuade me last night but gave up seeing as how I was adamant about continuing to travel.

"In terms of combat, I guess you can leave it to me, Nitha and Gordon since we've fought in small skirmishes before. It shouldn't be too difficult. Eric, Lyle and Cadmi, you three will be responsible for the miscellaneous stuff I guess since me and Gordon are not that proficient with everything else." I smiled, wanting to keep the morale up by talking about something else.

As we cleared up what's left of the camp, we started to travel east with four tents. For food, we decided to look for some fruits for now but that was only a temporary solution.

Even though I told the others to not bother, I couldn't help but clench my fist whenever I thought of what happened.

All of my effort, gone in the wind. I still remember what they said when I helped them but all of it seemed fake as they left us without a single ration. Who knows, if we're unlucky, we'll be dead tomorrow.

Gritting my teeth, I took several breaths to calm my mind.

Nitha would pat by head or nudge me slightly to try to cheer me up but I couldn't shake this feeling of rage inside me.

As we travelled towards the east, we started to feel a little tired from not eating all day so me and Gordon decided to scout for some monsters that we could potentially kill.

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We had Nitha remember the temporary camp site that we had created so that the other three weren't left behind.

"I say we should go to the settlement and kill one of the monsters around the perimeter. That's the only guarantee right now." Gordon suggested as I nodded my head.

"Hey Gordon, I got a question for you." I called out since I wanted to get this off my mind.

"Mn? What is it?"

"Why did you suggest continuing to travel? I'm just curious about your views." I asked.

"Hmm… because I don't trust people of authority especially in a time like this. You don't know this but before I was part of the slums and those that we worked for always exploited those that were weaker. All of our earnings, food would go to the leaders and the leftovers would be for us. I figured that the leaders of the settlement would probably be the same so I wanted to keep traveling, at least we'll be our own boss and not get exploited am I right?" Gordon smiled as I chuckled.

"Sounds like you had a pretty bad upbringing."

"You got that right. I was actually freed from all of this not too long ago you know? It was during this year and there was a raid on all of the factions within the slums. It all started since one of the factions called Ivory Cobra started to develop a drug that caught the attention of the authorities and all the adventurers were called into action. I was already thinking about leaving but this just gave me a better excuse." Gordon shrugged as he could still remember the kind of life he led in Cairosa.

"Oh? I remember seeing that in the news. Apparently there was a secret individual that gave them the information but they weren't able to track it back to anyone." I replied, remembering the news I saw quite a few months ago.

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"Mn, if I could see the one that indirectly helped me, I would thank them since they gave me a new chance in life." Gordon grinned.

However, our talk was cut short when a strong pressure washed over us.

It felt like we were ants and a demon just set their eyes upon us. Even Nitha was scared as she quickly dived down and urged us to hide behind her body.

Glancing towards the source of the pressure, I realised that it was from the settlement.

A shadow slowly appeared in the clouds as a scaled underbelly revealed itself.

[Primordial Dragon of Air LVL 600]

Looking at the four winged dragon that had just appeared, the three of us held our breaths, afraid that it'd come attack us after noticing us.

Luckily, it didn't seem to care as it opened its mouth.

Mana surged towards it as a high level magic circle was formed.

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Next thing we knew, we were blown back by a shockwave. Even with Nitha s.h.i.+elding us, the force still sent our HP towards the red zone as I could feel my organs shake from the impact.

Forcing myself to glance up, I could see a giant tornado sweeping up the settlement as the buildings were shredded to dust.

Clenching my fist, I couldn't help but curse in my mind.

'If only they were a little more patient! They wouldn't have been caught in this!' I thought in my mind.

But regardless of what I thought, we couldn't stay.

Dragging Gordon by the arm, I called out to Nitha.

"Nitha! We need to run!" I shouted.

Nodding her head, Nitha turned around and grabbed both me and Gordon before placing us on her back,

Rus.h.i.+ng towards the temporary camp that we had made, we knew that we should leave as quickly as possible.

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I could hear the cries of monsters behind us as they charged into the settlement.

Glancing back, I watched as the dragon observed everything before flying back into the clouds.

When we arrived back at the camp, we could see the three waiting with pale faces since they saw everything from a distance.

"We've already packed up, we can leave." Cadmi said as I nodded my head.

While Nitha couldn't carry everyone on her back, she could use her tentacles to grab them as the five of us quickly evacuated the area.

As we were running, I couldn't help but think back to my friend.

If only he had trusted me a little more, if only he had decided to stay for another day, there would be six of us rather than five.

He's made his choice and I've made mine.

But maybe he was lucky, since he didn't need to live in this kind of world anymore. The day ahead could make us wish that we had died to the dragon but I wanted to push on. I believed that there was hope.

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Leaving behind the ruined settlement, the five of us continued east with an empty stomach.