We Think She's a Misogynist 2

Ace felt a headache coming on and didn't know whether to laugh or cry at how stupid the guy was. "You don't know what that thing—" But before he could continue, he felt Norman tug at his hoodie. 

Norman was looking him in the eye, all but telling him to stop. Norman then leaned in and whispered in Ace's ear, "How are we going to know if it's safe to eat?" 

Ace immediately picked up on what Norman was trying to communicate, and he himself agreed after some deliberation. Seeing as they were on a foreign world, they would need to figure out from scratch what was safe and what wasn't. Having a guinea pig would be a good idea for them since he definitely would not test things on himself. 

Looking at the young man wolfing down the purple fruit, Ace thought his expression was too simple. He mustn't be that bright, Ace assumed, and so even if they lost him, it wouldn't actually be a loss, but a net gain. 

Ace hovered his gaze over the other five youths present and thought they all seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place them in his memories. He turned to Norman, "What do we have in common with these guys? Any shared traits? Why are these the people we transmigrated with? There are millions of people with countdowns, so why us together specifically?" 

Norman made a weird expression and seemed at a loss for words. He took an entire minute to collect himself, and Ace could even feel some slight contempt in Norman's eyes when looking at him now. Ace wondered why this was the case. 

"Ugh, they are our colleagues, Ace." 

"They are?!" 

Norman nodded and pointed towards his back but still didn't turn to look in that direction, "All except him." 

Ace took a minute to try and remember any memories he had of any of them, but they all looked so foreign. He did feel like he'd seen them somewhere before, but it was like the feeling he had for a stranger he saw on the street, not for his classmates. 

"Argh! I get it now! They must be new transfers. But damn, five at once?" 

Norman seemed shocked to see Ace's logic, but he just closed his mouth and said nothing in return. The silence was basically confirmation that they were new transfers to Ace, and he soon put the matter behind him. 

He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds as if to sort some things out in his head, and then strode towards the group of five and said curtly, "I'm in charge of this group from now on. If anyone has issues with that," Ace pointed towards the guy still in shock at having lost all his teeth. Everybody present gulped loudly and swiftly nodded their heads as if to confirm to Ace that they were okay with that decision. 

"Good!" Ace nodded, pleased that they were obedient. "As much as I hate working with other people, this is a foreign world, and we have no idea what to expect of the place. So, until we figure out what's going on, we have to stick together. Norman, you're the smartest in the group. What do you think we should do?" 

One of the other five immediately opened his mouth, "Actually, I placed higher in the math olympiad." 

Ace gave the guy a cold look that immediately shut him down. Norman looked towards that boy with a smug grin but quickly let it go and went into deep thought. Only after a long while did Norman respond. 

"First, I suggest we keep our noise and interference with the world to a minimum. This means as little noise as possible and as little movement as possible. We don't want to attract the attention of anything larger than a fly, and even then, I'd still be cautious of the fly." He turned to look towards the boy stuffing himself who by now had almost finished all the purple fruit, "But above all else, don't touch anything, since we don't know the chemical composition of any of this stuff, and for all we know, even though it might taste sweet, its poison." 

This caused the boy scarfing down the fruit to drop the leftovers as if they were singing him. He looked shocked towards Norman and screamed at him, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?!" 

Ace clicked his tongue, irritated that such noise was being produced. The boy realized he'd drawn Ace's attention, and he had no choice but to clamp down on his anger, fearing he'd end up like the guy still moaning about his lost teeth. 

"I agree with you, Norman," responded Ace. "Let's set up camp here and keep as low of a profile as possible. We'll use this large tree trunk to cover our backs. If by the end of the countdown we aren't back home, well, we'll think more about what follows then. Everybody place all the items you brought with you on the ground right here. I want to see what we're working with." 

"Great idea!" said Norman. In all honesty, he'd thought about that long before Ace, but he feared telling the other guys to do it since they never listened to him. But it seems they had no issues listening to Ace. A glimmer of hope ignited in Norman's heart, thinking their chances of survival just doubled with someone as reasonable as Ace in charge. 

Just as Ace was listing out the things worth anything to their survival, a loud sound traveled through the forest and continuously bounced off the large trees. 

"Eeek!" 

Ace was confused at the sound since that sounded like... 

"It's that woman," stated Norman as a matter of fact. 

 "A woman came with you guys here?" Ace was confused why this was the first time he'd heard of this. This seemed like an important detail to miss out on, an entire person. 

Another one of the guys answered for Norman, "When we first arrived, she began screaming at us, telling us to stay away from her and stuff. Saying how she knows how disgusting all of us are and that she's the unluckiest woman in the world to be stuck with us here." 

All the other guys chimed in, all painting a pretty disturbing picture of the woman. She seemed like someone he'd rather avoid, thought Ace to himself. 

"I think she's one of those, what do you call them? A misogynism, that's the word!" 

"Yeah, I think she hates men," added another. 

Norman frowned and an urge to correct the guys on their misuse of words arose, but gave up as soon as the idea arrived. Instead, he turned to Ace, "I know her. She's one of the school secretaries, and she looked like a loose cannon so I didn't stop her from leaving when she said she would. I just hope she doesn't bring trouble this way. And yes, I's pretty sure she hates men. She almost made me lose my scholarship one time." 

Ace looked in the direction the scream came from and made a quick decision, "Let's move camp a mile away from here. In case she drags trouble back here, we'll be long gone by then." 

From everyone's description, the woman didn't seem like she'd be cooperative anyway, so he didn't feel bad for her potential loss. He could feel an absolute desire to survive well up inside him and knew he couldn't fight against it. Since that was the case, he might as well play into that instinct and do everything in his power to survive. That was the goal Ace decided on for now, to survive the next two days.