Chapter 3

After drinking just a little bit Sam stood up, he didn't drink more than a mouthful in case the water wasn't good, that way he would avoid putting himself in more danger than necessary. If he felt sick in the next hours he would know the reason was the water and he would look for another water source, since he didn't drink much he would at most vomit and that would be all.

'Now I need to make or find a shelter...'

He decided he would either find a cave in the mountain close to the river or he would make himself a small hut by using the abundant wood around him, the weather on Tunger moon was famous for being extremely random, the sky could go from calm blue with no clouds to full of rain clouds in a matter of minutes so he decided sleeping outside wasn't a good idea.

He looked over at the group of three that were drinking earlier and it seemed like they had already started their camp, one girl was taking care of starting a fire while the other boy and girl brought her wood from the nearby forest.

'I should get to work too.'

During the next two hours Sam looked upstream the river if he could find a natural shelter but there was nothing, it was a plain mountain with no cavities, in the end he went back to the small pool and decided he would make a basic hut, it was the most practical and less tiring thing to make to accommodate only one person.

While Sam and his neighbors were busying themselves to secure a shelter before nightfall they didn't realize that there was another group of four people spying on them not too far.

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The four senior soldiers each assigned to one person were all sitting on the sturdy branch of a big tree and kept looking at the 4 examinees.

"Your target looks like a loner Sara."

One small guy with sharp asian eyes and pitch black hair shaped into a bowl said while looking at the girl who has been following Sam for the day.

"It seems so, your target is the little cutie taking care of the fire, Sid?"

"That's right, she doesn't have the profile of a soldier from what I've seen yet..."

"What about your targets, Ben and Ash?"

The guy and the girl named Ben and Ash were sitting on another branch not too far making out in a very open way and they didn't care if their two friends saw them at all, Ash had already lost the top half of her clothes while the guy Ben was enjoying the feel of her naked skin.

"I don't know, mine looks a little boring."

Ash said and Sid added after her:

"Her target isn't attractive enough for her to give him attention huh."

"As usual hahah."

For this examination all the senior soldiers who had been solicited were from the same battalion so most of them knew each other from face if not from name.

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Back to Sam, before the sun had even started setting he already had a hut done and a fire running, his hut was very small but it looked extremely comfortable and cozy.

It was made of long straight branches that he had put together using strong vines he had pulled from underwater, as his hut was made for only one person it was faster to do than the one his neighbors were making since their was supposed to accommodate three people.

He looked in their direction by curiosity and it was already taking shape but what caught his attention was that from inside the forest he saw the guy and girl running at high speed, when they left the outskirt of the forest and made it to the river they yelled as loud as they could to their friend

"Run ! A beast !"

Their friend was flabbergasted for a second and then stood up and started running with them towards where Sam was, although there was a pool of water between them if they went a little bit downstream they would reach the small river that they could just jump over.

'A beast!'

Sam on the other hand had a completely different reaction and he ran towards the beast, it was common knowledge that the alien beasts on Tunger were all grade one beasts ! The only reason the punitive expeditions had failed was the sheer number of beasts living here, they were too much and most species that lived here were fast reproductive species so Sam wasn't afraid in the least and instead was happy that he could start hunting this soon.

From the forest jumped out a big rat the size of a husky, it had a long tail with sharp pointy protuberances and it's back was covered of some sort of dark red scales, it's red eyes suddenly turned towards the group running away.

SQUEAAAAAAK

The loud squeak of the rat made the group look behind them and when they saw the beast they grew even more scared and ran faster, they were surprised however to see Sam running in the opposite way from them with a smile on his face.

"He-"

One girl was about to call him out but remembered what the goal of the examination was and stopped running gradually, Alien beasts were the nightmare of every human. They were a lot stronger than them and some of them were even stronger than evolvers!

Their reaction was relatively normal and even Sid and Sara who were looking at the scene unfold weren't surprised because most people would react this way when they saw an alien beast for the first time, on the other hand Sam's reaction had greatly surprised them.

"He's good, not scared and on top of that he looks excited."

Sid said while a smile appeared on his face and Sara stayed silent, she looked curiously at the boy she had been following for the whole day.

Sam jumped over the small river and the rat's focus was already on him, he ran towards the rat and suddenly he saw a shadow creeped onto his right side and move towards him at high speed, he didn't know what it was but he jumped down and rolled to avoid it. He looked at it and it was the rat's long tail !

'How fast, this is a grade one beast?!'

Even though the beast was stronger than he expected he didn't feel scared and instead stood back up and again started running towards the beast, it had a longer range than him with its long tail while all he had was a short dagger so all he could do was run while barely avoiding it's attacks.