GUARDIAN OF THE END

'Never thought I would be surviving in a forest at the mere age of ten.' Jason wondered silently while looking at the bag below.

All five children exchanged looks before coming to a silent agreement. If they started fighting over the right to keep the bag, things would turn bad for them.

"How about me, Jason and Amber split up some stuff? All of us have the storage thing with us," Zeke suggested while pointing towards the rings glistening in the duo's hands.

"If you remember correctly, anything inside your ring will start rotting so unless those pills don't have an expiry date, we can't hand them to you." Jason suddenly interrupted.

'No wait…' One second later, he realized that he had made a mistake.

The rotting thing had never been announced by Zilan. There was no way for Jason to know the details of the ring unless he had personally tested it himself.

[ And that's why you think before saying things, host. ]

'Maybe you should have tried to stop me when I had said the first few words.' Jason pointed out.

[ Great, now I am at fault. Go handle the situation first and then we will talk. ]

Surprisingly, there was no situation to handle. Zeke just sighed and nodded.

"Yeah, there's that. I guess you both can handle the food and water stuff." He stated and picked up the bag from the ground/.

The black-haired boy handed the bag to Jason and stepped back. The latter stared at it with a serious gaze before opening it.

Jason took out the pills and studied them.

---

<Food pill >

- Provides basic nutrition for eight hours.

---

< Water Pill >

- Provides basic hydration for the next 24 hours.

---

Both pills looked ordinary. The food pills were orange while the water pills were light blue.

'System, count the pills and make sure that they are sufficient for all of us.' Jason ordered.

He had a feeling that Izzy might have lied to them about the amount of pills. Their teacher could create conflict between them in this manner.

[ Izzy had told you the correct number. All of you can survive with the help of the pills. ] The system replied confidently.

It had counted the number of pills twice to make sure that no mistake was made.

[ Also, you might receive a quest for this occasion. ] The system added.

Certain situations were the triggering events for quests. The system knew that Jason rarely got quests despite the amount of excitement in his life.

This was because the system was designed while keeping a goal in mind. Erebus wanted to make sure that its original purpose would be that of a guide and not of the ultimate spoonfeeder.

Erebus knew how pathetic it felt to have a restriction on your powers. He had feared that if anything ever happened to the system, Jason would have suffered the same fate as him.

That was why Erebus had went out of his way to design something different than the everyday systems seen in fantasy novels.

'Any quest right now would be helpful. Well, not like I have anything that I want to buy," Jason sighed.

He had refreshed the system shop multiple times yet nothing new had appeared there. Jason had been excited about the shop at first but seeing that nothing new was appearing there, he felt disappointed.

"I will take the water pills. Amber, you can take the food pills." Jason suggested.

Amber nodded in agreement. Jason transfered the water pills to his ring before handing the food pills to Amber.

The latter put them inside her dagger as well and tossed the bag to Zeke. The black-haired boy stared at the bag before putting it inside his own dagger.

"Now that we have food and water pill incharges, its time to decide who will take care of shelter." Zeke announced.

"I can help a lot by using my Earth element. Mila can help me do some things too since her wind element can be used to shape things," Amber suggested.

Everyone agreed and the two girls went to the side to talk things through. Though night was still a few hours away, they decided it was better for them to create shelter as soon as possible.

"I will go secure the perimeter," Wade announced and started walking away.

"Even if this is a beginner's area, are you sure you want to go alone?" Jason asked curiously.

"I'm going alone because this is the beginner's area," Wade grinned before walking away.

The brown-haired boy didn't bother to look behind and walked away.

'We have to watch out for him. He seemed pretty confident in his abilities too so he might be quite strong.' Jason silently thought.

He was sure tha Wade was at least silver(C) ranked. He might also be a B rank mage which was quite high level for someone his age.

Jason himself was B ranked so there was that as well.

"So, this leaves me as the only person without a task," Zeke yawned. "Do you mind if I sleep here?"

"Uh, sure?" Jason replied with a confused expression. He found it hard to believe that Zeke could sleep in the middle of such a place.

"Goodnight," Zeke suddenly erected an ice sculpture in the middle of the ground.

The sculpture resembled a bed as the black-haired boy floated on top of it. Zeke wasn't good at controlling his wind element so he set himself on the ice-bed.

Zeke had a B grade affinity with wind element which was quite low. However, his A grade water affinity and S grade Ice affinity made up for his smaller affinity.

Zeke's body was also resistant against cold which allowed him to lie on the ice-bed comfortably. He could easily sleep on the bed without facing a problem.

'He wasn't kidding,' Jason observed.

Zeke had managed to fall asleep in a matter of minutes and was snoring peacefully on the bed of ice. He really did like sleeping.

Jason sighed once before he decided to take a look at his surroundings. His eyes settled on one of the tree's before he shot the Dark Harpoon at the top of the tree or at least as far as his vision would allow.

Jason pulled on the harpoon and lifted himself to the top of tree. It was barely tall enough for him to look around the area but Jason managed to identify some of his surroundings.

The walls surrounding the academy and the city built around it was like a tiny sculpture in the distance. This meant that trying to go back towards the academy was quite foolish.

None of them had any idea about the area near the academy and they might end up in some beast's clutches unintentionally.

'I should go back.' Jason thought with a sigh. He had already seen what he needed to and decided to climb down.

But before he could do so, he heard screeching noises coming from the nearby trees.

Jason focused a bit on his eyes and activated his special ability. His eyes were soon able to see some figures moving in the trees.

They were barely a feet tall and were swinging from one branch to another. Jason identified them as monkeys while trying to locate one of them.

He caught a tiny glimpse of brown fur and immediately used his inspect skill.

---

< Red-Butt Monkeys >

Threat level: D rank

- These monkeys are weak when found alone. That is why they usually move in groups of hundreds and can be quit deadly while fighting.

- They obtain their name due to their red-butts which everyone can look at.

---

Jason decided to not comment on the name or the description of the monkeys. They were fearsome creatures who could pack some damage if he wasn't careful.

[ That's what happens in most places. The weak group together to fight the strong and protect themselves. I am ninety five percent sure that you can't beat them without using both your lightning and dark magic to the fullest. ]

'At least I can beat them.' Jason reminded the system.

The silver-haired boy, however, was not interested in fighting the monkeys. In his opinion, it was better to let them pass by to not ensue any chaos.

Jason came down the tree with the help of his dark harpoon. He could hear the monkeys screeching while they ran away.

'How many of them are there?' he couldn't help but wonder.

Despite what the description about the monkeys had said, Jason was sure that he counted more than a hundred monkeys swinging from the branches nearby.

[ There are more than three hundred monkeys near you… ] The system informed in a dazed voice.

Both Jason and the system doubted whether he would be able to defeat so many monkeys alone, at least without damaging any of his body parts.

'Wait, what's that?' Jason suddenly frowned as his eyes lingered on two feet tall beast overflowing with Earth mana.

[ I think that's a bigger monkey. ]

'As if that wasn't obvious. I am more interested in seeing what it is.' Jason replied while trying to find a way to read the big monkey's details.

His attempt was futile since the big monkey continued to roam around the trees but didn't reveal itself.

[ Host, another hundred monkeys showed up… ] The system informed.

It was as though a huge scale rampage was taking place, a monkey rampage. Jason had barely seen ten monkeys together in life yet here, three hundred monkeys were gathering together.

"I have bad news!" Wade suddenly came runnning.

[ Host, the monkeys are moving together towards a common place, ] The system said at the same time. [ They are heading towards you. ]