The sun was shining brightly in the sky vault and the people of the camp were busying themselves with various tasks.
Silver was sitting near the carriages observing the work of the black-clothed people.
Throughout the day, he had identified four types of people in this encampment.
'The first and the most important people of the camp are these black-clothed people. They are the main fighters and the people with real authority. It looks like they are some sort of group who do this regularly.'
These black-clothed people were skilled in the things they did. Just before, he had seen one black-clothed woman deskin and extract all the materials which he had no idea about, with scary precision in about twenty minutes. Even if he didn't know the standard time, the confidence and expertise she moved her hand with enough to give her experience away.
Not just that, there were many other black clothed people in charge of various things throughout the camp.
Some managed the carriages, some were responsible for hunting and material gathering, some even maintained swords for the whole group, something Silver was extremely interested in. After all, he had only learnt about swords and crude weapons in history and it was mesmerizing to see it in…uh real life?
Anyways, these were the people who had the final say and it looked like they were making preparations and getting ready to leave this site.
The next group was of the travelers. Most of them looked well-off. The condition of their clothes were not that bad, even considering the wolf beast attack. They were not the fighters but actually the employers of the black clothed people. These travelers employed them to help them cross these plains and reach the destination Silver knew nothing about yet.
The third group was the tag along group. These people were not originally part of the troupe but lone travelers who later joined together with them. They would assist the people with whatever they could provide in exchange for protection and convenience they would not get traveling alone.
'I should not be a part of the tag along group, after all, I don't seem to have anything of value or maybe I already paid them hmm…'
And finally the last group, the most unfortunate, the injured. He became a temporary member of this group for a while and he was glad that he did not belong to that group anymore.
The temporary infirmary was not set up by the black clothed people but some travelers who felt bad for the injured. Although it was a do or die world, the travelers didn't have hearts strong enough to leave people to die in the wilderness. Though they couldn't do much for them, at least they would try to lessen the guilt of not helping the poor even though they could.
'I don't know if the people of the world are generally kind towards each other or it is just this particular group of travelers but I was saved due to that kindness, I should try to repay them somehow in the future.'
Contradictory to kindness, it could also be the fear of karma finding their way to them. Well, if they were on the verge of dying, they'd not want others to just leave them behind.
'As they say: do to others what you want them to do to you.'
Unfortunately however, even with the people showing kindness at unexpected times, during such travels, the people who entered the temporary infirmary most certainly won't make it out of there.
A person who got fatally wounded would die unless some miracle saved them, which of course didn't happen.
Silver himself was a rare case, although he was not fatally wounded when the man dropped him to the woman who looked after the injured, he was most certainly classified as a 'to-be-deceased'.
After all, the troupe wouldn't stay here to look after the people with over ninety-nine percent mortality rate. They would just leave them behind, which according to them and others of the group was the only logical thing to do.
Silver understood too, they could blame no one other than their fate.
While surveying the infirmary, Silver counted the number of injured people there. There were exactly thirteen injured people and only three people made it out alive, including Silver but he was in the best condition out of the three. The other two looked like they would drop dead at any moment but didn't want to be left behind.
He hadn't yet met the lady who bandaged him, but even if he met, he won't be able to say anything other than shaking her hand vigorously to convey his gratitude.
'The black clothed people, let's call them the fighters, the followers are the travelers, the tag along group can be grouped in together with the followers and the injured would be just left behind to die.'
Silver summed up.
'So it's just those two— The fighters and the followers. I without a doubt belong to the latter.'
Silver made a cursory glance, preparations were almost complete. The total number of people left in the troupe were now twenty-seven including him. A lot of people had died in this wolf beast attack, directly or indirectly. The dead were already buried and the fire would be put out once they were done drying the wolf beast meat and handing them out to everyone.
'At least those beasts were edible, we won't run out of food and die of starvation at least, but water seems to be insufficient.'
The people here were anything but clean. They stank like cavemen and honestly nothing much could be done about it. Either this or death, surely they would rather choose to be ugly over dying.
'I don't know when we will be stopping next, logically, we should be traveling quite far from here.'
Silver was a person of logic and common sense, although it was relative and ever changing, he would adhere to it as much as possible because the least it would do is give you a direction to approach the unknown.
'A lot of blood has been spilled here, adding all the dead bodies and beast remains, this place will attract quite a lot of scavengers. It would be best if we are as far as possible from here.'
His logic didn't fail him as the group was doing just that. The beast meat was done drying and now it was time to hand it out to people. The luggage would be divided among people too in order to keep the fighter as free as possible so that they are ready to take action at the earliest should the need arise to.
'Hmm, it looks like they are handing out bags of dried meat and some other stuff to carry, but there's not much water.'
Silver got up to approach the distribution area, As he got in line, he started inspecting the people and any and all words that he could pick up, well, the latter was of no help.
"Yifan?...halak zama muen rom! Yifan?"
Silver kept musing in his thoughts when he heard a commotion behind him, As he turned back, he got surprised slightly.
'Who…?'
It was not his fault for being surprised as he was the center of attention of the group the moment he turned behind.
This group was just standing behind Silver. There were five peop—kids around his age in this group.
'Wait…Yifan?'
Silver looked at the people of this group. There were five kids. Two girls and three guys who looked like they were about fourteen fifteen years old. Silver also noticed that he was quite short compared to these kids.
'Yifan! Zala yum kora meta nina?!'
He finally glanced at the girl who seemed to be screaming at him for quite some time.
He first looked at her face to see if he remembered her but he got nothing.
This girl was as tall as Yifan…Silver, with auburn hair and a round face to compliment the hair. She was wearing traveling clothes which covered most of her body other than the neck and the face. It was relatively clean, most people of this group had clean clothes except for one guy who stood behind the two girls. He had a sharp face and sharp eyes that was quietly staring at Silver for quite some time now. What reflected in the depths of his eyes was…displeasure?
'What's with them, do they know the original body?'
Noticing the eyes reflecting displeasure and the one girl screaming at him, he thought that their relationship with the original was not the best.
The other two guys looked like twins, to say the least. Even their clothes were the same, if it were not for the slightly dirty dress of the guy on the right, he would have guessed that he registered them wrongly.
The last girl with black hair and brown eyes with the cleanest clothes of them all was quietly staring at Silver, more like his clothes.
It was not only her, most of the people were observing him and his clothes. He was the dirtiest of them all.
His clothes were torn with dried blood marks and dirt and mud all around. His arms and legs were still wrapped in bandages from yesterday. It looked like he had been out of a brawl with beasts.
Contrary to what you'd expect, his face was beaming with clarity and energy. The journey had been tiring and had taken a heavy toll on everyone. The arduous journey was laced with difficulties to say the least.
Fighting the cold, fighting the beasts, fighting the hunger and thirst, fighting the anxiety and depression. They had to be the one winning every time or else they would be the next in line, joining the ranks of the dead.
Expression was the only outlet of the people who couldn't speak of their difficulties, especially the kids, no one was here for them to rant to. If they could not persevere, they would be left behind.
It was very normal for their faces to reflect that and yet here Silver was, his face lightened and his eyes brightened as if he was given the map to the treasure he was looking for all his life.
It had been quite some time since Silver started observing this group of people who seemed to know him.
"YIFAN! NORA ZEM LIYA!"
However, he lost all motivation to interact with them as the only verbal one out of them kept screaming at him like a broken record. He had never been talked to like that his whole life, he was aware that he couldn't afford the fake pride here but how was he supposed to talk to a person who kept screaming at him like a chimpanzee.
'Did she have any misgivings with the original Yifan or something…'
He was not really curious about that, after all he was not Yifan. He didn't know of the original's background and history and honestly he didn't want to interact with people he was familiar or acquainted with.
'They'd be able to tell that something is wrong by interacting with me…It'd be bad if they took some actions and I don't really want to go along with all the things that would come out of it.'
He would have considered going along with the act if he at least knew the language. He would be able to manage things into his favor somehow but how was he supposed to do that when—
'I don't understand jack shit folks.'