Management

Two weeks later, under the rescue captain's command, a small camp had been built.

The camp was located on a sun-facing mountainside, where it would not be washed away by rain.

A crude wooden fence surrounded three cabins.

The cabins stood a full three meters above the ground, protecting against snakes and insects.

Getting bitten by a venomous snake here almost meant death.

A vegetable patch had been cleared. Some vegetable seeds had been found in one hiker's backpack; supposedly, he had planned to scatter them in the wilderness and come back in summer to pick melons...

Strips of smoked meat hung neatly beneath the eaves, black and dry.

Beside a campfire in the middle of the camp, everyone was drinking wild vegetable soup for breakfast.

"Can't we add some meat?" A girl looked pleadingly at the captain.

"No. Game is limited. That meat is being saved for emergencies; only sick people can have it." The rescue captain frowned deeply and poured the bitter vegetable soup into his mouth.

At first, hardly anyone had been able to stomach it, including the rescue team members.

But after going hungry for a day, they had swallowed it anyway.

"Still no contact with the outside?" someone asked.

"No. The exploration team has searched as far as a hundred kilometers and found a boundary. It's a vast area of dense fog. We tied ropes around ourselves and entered it; no matter which direction we walked, we always eventually came back out," someone said, shaking their head.

"I think I read about something like this in a secret account. Something like this happened over in Miken too. A sea of fog sealed off an entire state, and anyone who entered died. The fog here is less dangerous by comparison."

"I know about that too. That's