"I say, Astral."
Yuma Tsukumo was currently glaring wide-eyed at a crooked tree in front of him.
"There had to be something wrong with this island, this forest, right?"
He swore he had carved a mark into the bark five minutes ago—Yuma considered it a genius idea he had picked up from a TV show. That way, if he doubled back through this forest where every fork looked exactly the same, he would at least have markers to help him tell them apart.
Yet the mark he had made not long ago now looked like some brat's graffiti, as if it were mocking him no matter how he looked at it.
The ghostlike Astral floated beside him, his arms folded across his chest and his expression calm.
"No, I think your sense of direction is simply terrible, Yuma," Astral said leisurely. "At least from what I can see, there is nothing strange about this forest. It is not some barrier that traps people inside.
I think you are simply lost, Yuma."
"Ahhh, don't say it out loud!"
Yuma clutched his head. Right then, the rumbling of his stomach joined the scene at just the right moment, louder than the harsh cawing of the crows flying overhead.
That made it even more humiliating.
Yuma sprawled flat on the ground.
"I'm so hungry... I really want Grandma's Duel Rice Balls."
Astral floated closer to him.
"Yuma? Hey, Yuma?"
"..."
After lying down for only a moment, Yuma felt the Side Effect of the energy he had spent in the fierce battle catch up with him. At first, the hunger was only a fine stabbing pain deep in his stomach, like a dull knife slowly sawing through the walls of an empty cavity. He tried swallowing to ease it, only to discover that