About two hours later, the vehicles stopped moving and Kieran opened his eyes, awaking form his short nap.
"We are here, you can get your asses out now!"
The voice of the instructor Keith was filled with disdain which they had long gotten used to.
No matter how hard they tried, everything they did had errors to him and he didn't care whether about the lineage of the recruits.
Taking that as his cue, Kieran stepped out along with the others from the other vehicles that had been parked a few meters apart from each other. Taking a short moment to look around, Kieran noticed that while the jeeps had been parked in a small clearing, they were totally surrounded by tall trees blocking his vision more than a few meters in front of him.
The path they had taken to get there was a very narrow one bordered with trees on both sides. It was quite obvious that the clearing they were standing upon had been made by the military.
Making his way to the front of the jeeps and assembling with the rest of the recruits, the instructor, Keith, took over.
"The dense cluster of trees right behind me is the entrance to the region on the map. You already know the objective. We will be heading back to the camp and will only come back in seven days' time."
Hearing the part that implied that they were going to be spending seven days here, the faces of the recruits broke but none of them dared to voice in complain, their experiences over the past three months in the camp warned them against doing so.
"Do the camp a favour and don't die. If it was up to me, I'd like it if a few of you did die, that way I'd have fewer idiots to deal with."
The instructor said with total disregard as usual.
With these words, he stepped into one of the vehicles with Selena and they made their way back to the camp following the path they had taken to get there.
It didn't take long before the line of vehicles turned into black dots before vanishing completely. Once this happened, the recruits broke into a chatter, most of them voicing their dissatisfaction at the rotten piece of news the instructors had dropped on their laps at the last moment. The camp and its instructors had really managed to pull a fast one on them!
Despite knowing that something like this might happen, they never expected the mission to last for a whole seven days. They thought they would only stay here for two or three days at most. Most of them only prepared for a stay that long. Meanwhile Ruby stared at Kieran and the bulging backpack he carried, he looked like he already considered the possibility of staying out here for that long.
"How long?"
She asked him.
"Used properly, the whole seven days."
He replied looking away from those who were complaining loudly.
"Wow, mine's only going to last me four days maximum if I use it sparingly."
She stated looking towards Jake with a questioning gaze.
"Five days."
The tall recruit said.
It was clear that Kieran was the most prepared amongst them, they were pretty confident that no other recruit was as prepared as him in terms of rations.
"We need to move. Get them over it."
Kieran said looking at away from his watch, directing his words to Jake.
"A-AHEM!!!"
Jake understood what Kieran was referring to as he approached the recruits and coughed loudly gathering all their attention on him, even those who were about to leave silently paused and waited to hear what he had to say.
"I understand your panic, but it's too late to change anything. All you'll end up doing, is wasting your time, it will get dark in a few hours and we all need to get some cover before that."
Jake started, calming the recruits that fell into a panic.
"You have a point, but why do you care? It's not like we are moving together."
A recruit with dirty blonde hair said. He was one of those that were are about to leave and Kieran quickly recognised him. He had a scuffle with a white-haired recruit during the first morning drill.
The other recruits that had almost left nodded their heads in agreement with his words, they had all formed groups of five or three and they didn't need someone to tell them what to do.
The only reason they had paused to listen was because of his ranking on the list, never budging from number one, and because of the friendly relationship with most of them.
"I understand your worries, but I'm not here to order you around. I only have a suggestion to give and I would appreciate it if you would at least listen to it. Whether or not you decide to follow it afterwards is completely up to you."
Hearing this the recruits gave him the chance to speak, even the blonde who had spoken earlier said nothing as he had no reason to object.
Seeing this, Jake proceeded with a smile on his face.
"The region is very large and it would be impossible for our numbers to cover it entirely and make it back here I seven days. This makes it obvious that the goal is to cover as much ground as possible before returning."
"I suggest that we should split the map and dedicate several routes to each team. They are to scout the area around them while travelling deeper into the forest before returning here seven days later. This should be the fastest and most effective way to complete the mission. I don't think I need to say anymore. We are short on time, so I will wait for ten minutes before leaving, taking your silence as a no."
Jake said walking back to where Kieran and Ruby were waiting watching him handle the recruits.
"That was efficient!"
Ruby commented, hitting him a fist bump.
Smiling, he naturally accepted the fist bump. He found it quite intriguing how Ruby acted both playful and graceful at the same time without any conflict, it just felt natural.
Five minutes later, the recruits stopped speaking among each other and the blonde hair stepped out, representing all of them once they had come to a unanimous decision.
"Alright! We will listen."
Once Jake heard this, he walked back to the centre of the recruits, giving them the breakdown of his plan.
Just like he had stated earlier, the plan was to split the map into several sections or routes which each team would scout. Their number of sixty-five was split into eight five-men teams and five three-men team, totalling to a number of thirteen teams which made thirteen paths.
The area of coverage of each team was allocated based on the strength of the members constituting the team.
The strength of the members was obviously based off the ranking, they couldn't just host a mini tournament to decide each member strength.
Strong three-men teams like Kieran's, Sabrina's, the white-haired recruit's, and one other took up the largest area as all their members were in the top twenty of the rankings and had never dropped past that mark.
After the routes and areas were allocated, the leader of each team nodded and moved back to their teammates, none of them felt dissatisfied or cheated. In the next moment, they all started to take their leave not wanting to waste any more time.
Kieran's team also prepared to move into the forest, they had been given the responsibility of scouting the largest area as the three of them were rankers in the top five, barely moving from their positions.
Fortunately for them, their route wasn't a curved one. All they had to do was walk in a straight line while scouting the area within 400meters of them.
Hearing the huge distance they had to scout, Ruby looked at Jake, stupefied at how he consented to something that ridiculous.
"How the fuck did you agree to that…. sigh!"
She asked, her hand massaging her forehead while Jake just scratched his head with a sheepish smile looking like someone who wasn't that bright in the thinking faculty.
The exact impression anyone who came across him for the first time had especially with the wild aura he tried so hard and failed to suppress, a honest brute who just loved fighting.
Kieran on the other hand, just stood up and moved towards the forest unbothered, whether or not he was pleased with the arrangement was concealed behind his cold face.
Looking to see if Ruby and Jake were following behind him, he caught Sabrina nodding in his direction before moving in with the two guys that always followed her around.
'What's she up to? It can't considered even be my fault for mistaking him for her bodyguard, he acts like one.'
"Stop wasting time, we need to move!"
He shouted at Ruby and Jake slightly annoyed at their childish behaviour.
"Chill a little, we ain't dying"
Ruby said, rolling her eyes while approaching him with Jake before they went into the forest to start their mission.