Worn down both mentally and physically, Gareth was still deep asleep when a sudden voice woke him from his slumber. Still half asleep, he looked at Adam running toward him.
'Did something happen?...' The worry instantly brought him back to reality.
Standing on his feet, he looked as Adam appeared in front of him and began speaking, "Teacher... It's gone... the corpse is gone."
He could clearly feel a hint of fear in his voice.
'Gone!? What!?' Looking at him with concern, Gareth asked, "What do you mean gone?"
"Teacher. Both of their corpses have vanished. They aren't there, where you had placed them last night."
This time, the boy explained in detail as both of them began to move toward the inner part of the cave.
Hastening his feet, Gareth couldn't help but have worried thoughts as well, 'How could it disappear like that... I personally put both of the bodies to the side. Did a monster enter the cave!?'
"Are others safe?" he asked.
"Yes, Teach. Nothing happened to others. It's just the corpses," Adam replied.
"Thank God!" Heaving a sigh of relief, he increased his speed.
As being close to the corpse could make the students uncomfortable, he had decided to place them quite far away from their sleeping area. It was near where the rubble of armor and weapons was.
As he got closer to the area, there was already a crowd surrounding the place. Everyone was trying to figure out the cause one way or another.
Seeing Gareth coming their way, they moved out of the way and began asking questions.
"Sir, they aren't here!"
"Yes! I got the news..." he replied.
"Do you think the monster did this?" Someone asked.
"How can they disappear it… like this!?"
Questions were flying his way, but Gareth just nodded his head and moved closer to the pile of trash and asked, "Had anyone seen anything unexpected... any movement... anything abnormal of sorts?"
As he looked around the area, he soon realized Adam indeed was telling the truth. Both of their dead bodies were nowhere to be seen. Not only were they gone, but there wasn't a single trace of them left in the cave anymore.
If a monster had eaten them, it did a pretty good job, as no piece of flesh is on the ground. One can't even find any traces of their hair. Forget that... the blood that had dropped from their injuries was gone as well.
It was as if... as if they had vanished straight into thin air.
"No, Sir. We were asleep… hmmm! I couldn't remember anything useful. Everyone else saw nothing as well."
The boy replied as others shook their heads as well. No one had seen anything.
"Huuu! Take a look around the cave and tell me if you notice anything out of place..." Staring at the pile, Gareth asked them to check the area to be double sure.
"Okay, Teach... will do."
The cave exploded into a mayhem of activities as everyone began looking for things that could give them any clues.
A monster!? But how?... I was asleep, but there is no way something could enter from the door and I wouldn't notice...
Being an ex-soldier, he was sure of his sensitivity toward foreign sounds during his sleep. And thus, he was almost sure that something hadn't entered from the front part of the cave.
'Which leaves…' Thinking, he turned his head around and looked at the opening which led further inside the cave.
Moving, he got closer to it, trying to check for any disturbance or anything out of place inside the tunnel, but even after looking for minutes, he couldn't find anything worthwhile.
There were no clues at all.
'Did they really disappear into thin air or what?'
As he was pondering over the question, the group of children returned to him. One by one, all of them shook their heads.
"Nothing... Teach," Adam replied.
"Same here..."
"Even with my ability, I couldn't find anything..." someone commented, fixing his glasses.
"Hmm! But how come the corpse just disappeared like that?" a boy asked, looking at Gareth.
That's what I'm thinking as well… Gareth was about to reply, but the boy's friend chimed in.
"What do you mean, how? Did you forget we aren't on our planet? This is a world that doesn't run on our logic."
"Right!?" Nodding his head, he looked at the group and asked another question, "Doesn't that mean this place isn't safe as well?"
Hearing the question, everyone began thinking the same. It wasn't that they hadn't thought about this themselves. No, they had long thought the same and were silent just because there weren't any better options.
So, they had decided to collectively choose silence and pick the lesser evil out of two. But now that someone had brought up the question, it was time to make a decision.
'He is right, a monster or something that can make things disappear like that isn't something we hope to fight. What fight?... when we don't even know what it looks like?'
Like the others, Gareth was pondering what to do as well. Looking at the state of the children, he finally made a decision.
"We won't stay in the cave," he announced.
It was sudden, and thus, everyone was taken aback for a second. Some understood the decision quickly, while a few voiced their opinions.
Adam was one of them, "But, Teach, the monster outside!?"
"Yes, there is no way we will move outside without being noticed!" another one added.
'Yes, he is right. With a group this big, there is no way we can move without getting noticed by the monster. And that's why…' Thinking, he looked right past them.
And there, at the left side of the cave, there was a section leading somewhere else.
It wasn't the only passage either; there was one on the right as well, but instead of being on the wall, it was on the ground and led directly below the cave.
Before settling in, Gareth had personally inspected the tunnels. And like their resting spot, everything else appeared long abandoned as well. The tunnels were blanketed in a thick layer of dust, untouched for what seemed like decades.
It gave him confidence that no monsters had been moving through the area recently. Looking at of pile of broken trash he added, "We will move inside that tunnel and see where this cave leads to."
Even with all this, he hadn't taken this decision without any consideration or rashly. No, Gareth had put quite some time and thought into this.
If the disappearance incident hadn't happened, he had planned to move further into the cave when everyone got a little familiar with their abilities and had adapted to the environment a little more.
But alas, nothing ever goes according to plan; everything merely dances along the thread woven by fate.
As he was thinking, something suddenly felt odd to him.
'Talking about adaptation... aren't they adapted a little too quickly…' he thought, looking at them.
And the more he looked, the more true it seemed. They seemed to digest that there are monsters living beside them pretty quickly. Not only that, they were able to move on from their friends' deaths quite quickly.
He himself was their age once, so he knew how teenagers think… but,
'Hmmm! Humans are indeed adaptive. It's fortunate that they had adapted rather quickly…' Sighing, he looked at them and waited for their answers.
As they were a group of twenty people, there were quite a few different opinions, but in the end, they all collectively decided to listen to Gareth, an individual with real-world experience.
"So, it's decided. We will move... but before that, I would like to know about your abilities," he asked, as almost all of them nodded their heads.