Scouting Operation with Eggly

High above the forest, the robot eagle – Eggly – glided gracefully through the bright blue sky. With its shiny metal wings catching the sunlight, it scanned the ground below. As it soared, Eggly turned its head left and right, looking for any movement among the trees and bushes. Its artificial eyes were like powerful cameras, zooming in to see everything clearly. Down below, the forest was alive with sounds, but Eggly was on a mission: finding food resources for its master and his companions.

"Shit! I have a bad feeling since we mentioned the scarcity of food, but after living in this plane for about three days, we have never seen any living being other than the other players, right?" Levin asked frustratingly after they spent three hours staring at the sky with no result.

"I didn't pay attention too much, but I cannot remember seeing any small animals or even hearing birds chirping in the forest. That should be a strange thing, right?" Mira asked, unsure. She also helped the two adults watching the footage, trying to find something out of the constant green on the screen. "By the way, Uncle Chen Ze, how many food resources are left in your inventory?" She couldn't help but ask the crucial question.

"Hmmm… Let me think about it." The scientist pondered over the question. "Well, if I remember it correctly, I should still have about ten packs of instant noodles, about half of a dozen eggs, four canned meats, eight canned vegetables, five packs of ready-to-eat cereals, a bunch of dried fruits… What?" He asked, finally realizing that Levin and Mira were staring at him in disbelief.

Levin himself felt his mouth twitched, speechless about the man's description. If what the scientist said was true, he didn't know why the man was worried about food supply just like them both. "Okay, first of all, don't say something like that so easily. If the other players heard that, your life would be in danger." He advised Chen Ze, which the man just waved off nonchalantly. "Also, what kind of a fucked-up world did you live before? An apocalypse world where zombies running rampage?"

To his surprise, Chen Ze answered, "Well, apocalypse is not a bad word to describe it. But Zombie? Really? What are you, an eight-year-old kid?"

Once again, Levin had to hold back the urge to beat the man down on the spot for his snarky comment. However, Chen Ze's words at least confirmed Levin's guess that the scientist came from an apocalyptic world where the need to gather resources was something important. Now, the question was, what kind of apocalypse did his world suffer? Is it from a natural disaster like Mira's? An alien invasion like him? Or the other type of disaster?

 They spent the next fifteen minutes in silence, and honestly, things got pretty boring there. Levin even had half of his mind going outside, looking for a player to hunt to get his part of the agreement with Chen Ze done. However, right before he could do that, Mira suddenly said something that attracted his and Chen Ze's attention.

"Uncle, can you make Eggly turn back for a moment?" She asked.

Chen Ze rose from his sleep immediately, asking, "Have you seen something?" Levin also did the same, approaching the screen eagerly.

"Um… I am not sure, but I think I saw something moving there." She answered, uncertain.

"Well, what is a better way to confirm it other than checking the source directly?" Chen Ze said before operating his laptop, controlling Eggly to turn around and go to the spot where Mira was asking for.

Eggly just did what Chen Ze was commanding from about a mile away, gliding over the treetops, its sensors scanning for the thing that Mira just seen. Then, to their surprise, they spotted a deer grazing peacefully in a sunny clearing. The robot's camera focused on the deer, capturing the beautiful sight.

"That is a deer!" Levin jumped in excitement, finally finding something after slow and boring hours of waiting. "That is a fucking deer! We finally find something here!"

"More than that!" Chen Ze continued, his eyes shone with the same excitement. "Deer is a social animal! They usually move together as a herd! They are also living in ecotones, so we are so close to finding wildlife here!"

The ecotones that Chen Ze mentioned were a transitional area between forest and meadow where so many herbivore animals usually lived in. They used the forest as a cover to protect themselves from their predators while the meadow as their food resource. That was probably the best place to find how the circle of life worked.

As Chen Ze tried to control Eggly to get closer, they all stared at the screen in tension. After all, this might be their biggest answer to the food resource problem, and they couldn't let this chance get away so easily. Unfortunately, they were too eager, flying too close to the deer.

The deer suddenly lifted its head, spotting the metallic bird above. With a quick jump, it dashed away into the thick trees, bounding through the forest in a blur.

"Fuck! It is running away!" Levin cursed out loud. "Chase it!"

"I fucking know it!" Chen Ze yelled back. Without wasting any time, the scientist quickly sat down at his laptop and began to control the eagle. His fingers flew over the keys, guiding the eagle to follow the deer through the trees.

Eggly swooped and turned, trying to keep up with the fast-moving deer. But navigating through the forest was tricky. The trees were thick, and the eagle had to dodge branches while keeping an eye on its target.

"Come on, Chen Ze! The deer is getting too far! You have to keep the distance close!" Levin urged, starting to panic.

"Oh, shut up! Let me concentrate!" Chen Ze cursed, starting to sweat too. Eggly was fast, but the deer was quicker, darting left and right. As they zigzagged through the forest, He felt the pressure of the chase.

However, just when Eggly was closer to the deer, everything went dark. The screen on the laptop went blank, and a loud beep filled the room. For a moment, a pin-drop silence fell in the room as Levin and Chen Ze stared at each other. Mira who didn't know what just happened also stared at the two adults, looking at them with an unsure expression. The silence was finally broken as Chen Ze cursed out loudly.

"Fuck! No, no, no!" The scientist yelled. "We lost the signal to Eggly!"