Mako started moving further away from the shelter but still, he didn’t have any luck finding an information tablet. He had been moving for a while and was a decent way away from where the shelter was so he decided to turn back and circle around back toward the shelter.

This way he could check the remaining perimeter for the tablet before arriving back at the shelter.

The structure of the mountain was such that it had uniform steepness all around for most of the way up, but coming close to the top, one side of the mountain started to become less steep and eventually flattened out, this was where the lake was situated and where the group had decided to build the shelter.

However, the other side of the mountain was significantly longer than the other. This long side appeared to be incredibly steep, with sharp cliffs and jagged rocks that tower higher than the other side of the mountain, reaching its true peak.

Mako had trekked through the short side of the mountain as he made his way around the whole thing, hoping to make an entire loop and reach the shelter before it got too late in the day. He had now entered the steep part of the mountain with a lot less vegetation.

Since there weren’t many trees, it made Mako’s job a whole lot easier as it would be easy to spot an information tablet attached to the wall if there were any.

*************

Mako traveled through a significant portion of the steep side of the mountain and still wasn’t able to locate a tablet. He had given up looking for a tablet at this point because even if he did find one, it would be too far away to reliably use from their shelter.

He decided to just move forward, complete the loop, and start looking for the tablet again once he was closer to the camp from the other side.

Since he was away from everyone, Mako decided to use this opportunity to quickly knock out his daily quest as well so he wouldn’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. The first quest was to do several exercises such as pull-ups, squats, sit-ups, etc. Next, he had to not eat anything for twelve hours, and finally, he had to jog 32 kilometers.

Mako found a smooth flat rock during his search and quickly did all the exercises on it. He hadn’t eaten anything since morning when they stopped near the stream before the cadets attacked them so that task would be automatically completed by the time he reached the shelter, and lastly, he had refrained from running at top speed and maintained a quick jog instead as he made his way around the mountain so that he could complete the 32 kilometers.

The mountain circumference was a lot more than 32 kilometers, but once Mako’s daily task was completed, he could cover the remaining distance at faster speeds to make it back in less time.

*************

Mako had completed all his daily tasks at a good pace and had trekked over the entire steep side of the mountain with no complications. He made his way back to the flatter and smother side of the mountain and slowed down his pace once again so that he could look for the information tablet again.

He used his drone to check the top parts of trees because that was where they had always found a tablet before. Things weren’t looking too good as Mako still didn’t find a tablet and he was nearing the completion of the whole loop around the mountain.

If he wasn’t able to find a tablet near the vicinity of the shelter then it meant that they could not stay there and would have to move again and search for a better spot to build a shelter. This would be a huge pain as they had already spent so long trying to make it up the mountain and had also begun building the shelter.

*BEEP!*

Just as Mako thought that his fears had come true and that he would have to break the news to the group that they had to move again the AI drone finally gave off a beep indicating that he had found something.

Mako rushed over to the drone’s location and looked up to see the drone hovering next to the tablet which was blinking red just as usual. Mako was justifiably pissed after confirming that he had indeed FINALLY found the information tablet.

He was so angry with himself because if only he had chosen to start walking from the opposite direction, he would have found the tablet in under 20 minutes and it would have saved him that whole hiking trip.

However, Mako didn’t want to jinx his luck and just thanked his lucky stars that he was able to find one at the very end and won’t have to move again to another location.

Mako quickly started climbing the tree to reach the tablet. He reached it and released it from its case by entering his name and pressing his finger on it so that it could scan and verify his fingerprint. He jumped back down and opened the tablet to check out what was the latest news.

There wasn’t much new information on the tablet this time since he had read through it last night. There was the obvious announcement about the special loot crates, but it wasn’t just on the west mountain, but rather all four mountains.

The event log also had a lot of new information as many more cadets were being defeated especially since they were coming into close contact with one another as they all made their way toward the mountains in the center.

After reading through the last bit of unimportant notifications, Mako was about to put the tablet back in its case and return to the shelter to inform everyone about his find, but he was interrupted by the sounds of leaves crunching and twigs breaking.

The sound was very quiet and soft but Mako’s perception was still able to pick it up. He quickly placed the tablet on the ground and turned around, removing the Storm Caller Staff from his back and equipped it in his hands while also taking a stance to be prepared for whatever was approaching him.

The sounds continued to become louder in Mako’s head indicating that the thing was moving forward toward him and yet nothing was coming into Mako’s sight. Mako was quite confused as he still could not see anyone or anything in his line of sight and yet the sound he was hearing was indicating that whatever it was was directly in front of Mako.

It was getting really creepy and Mako didn’t like it one bit so he quickly channeled his aura into the staff and directed a lighting strike toward the exact position from where Mako was hearing the rustling noise.

The strike landed right on the intended area where Mako thought the target was but nothing was hit by the lightning as hit the ground and dispersed, only charring a couple of leaves nearby. ｏｖ𝚕．ｃｏ𝚖

Suddenly, Mako started hearing the same set of noises but from a completely different direction. He quickly turned around and used his left hand to throw a fireball but still, the fireball hit nothing as there was nothing there.

As soon as Mako struck the area from where he thought the sound was coming, the location of the sound would change. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he was genuinely spooked by the fact that he had attacked a different location of the sound for the tenth time and still, there was nothing actually being hit.

He couldn’t understand what was he fighting against, it wasn’t paranoia because the system confirmed that Mako was in perfect health, something was definitely making those sounds.

Mako thought that maybe it had an invisibility ability which was why he couldn’t see it, but that didn’t explain the fact that it was still somehow able to dodge his fastest attacks. He then thought that perhaps it had a shrinking ability and was just too small to see, but that also didn’t fit the description because it wouldn’t be able to travel so much distance instantly and dodge his wide-range fire attacks.

The sounds just started to become louder and louder and Mako had no idea what to do anymore so he just began to rapid-fire skills in random locations from where he heard the noises hoping to hit whatever it was making those noises, but still, there was nothing hit and the sounds never stopped.

Mako started feeling more and more anxious as he could figure out what was going on around him. He bent down on one knee in defeat after he had activated the Flame Pillar ability to attack the sound but there was still no result as the sound just relocated to a different spot.

Mako couldn’t take it anymore and he just covered his ears with his hands hoping for the sound to go away but his hands didn’t provide any protection at all because he could still hear those noises and it looked like they were even multiplying now as he was starting to hear them from multiple locations at once.

Mako didn’t know what to do anymore. He continued to cover his ears and hope for the sounds to go away but they only got louder and louder. He was feeling light-headed and thought that he was gonna faint from hearing so many noises at once, but just then a notification appeared in front of his eyes.

*Ding!*

User is experiencing Auditory Sensory Overload

Temporarily blocking User’s sense of hearing