Elira woke before the sun.

  The camp lay quiet, fires reduced to embers, breath fogging faintly in the cold air. The forest pressed close around them, unchanged and indifferent. She sat up slowly, letting the stillness settle into her bones. She did not need the System to tell her what day it was. Everyone felt it now, the weight of time pressing harder with each passing dawn.

  Day twenty-five… Just five days to go.

  She rose, pulled on her gear, and stepped outside her shelter. Sentries nodded as she passed, familiar faces, fewer than there should have been. Her eyes flicked briefly to the translucent numbers hovering at the edge of her awareness.

  [Tutorial Participants: 1,742/10,000]

  Gareth would use that number. She knew it. Fear always did. She pondered on the upcoming day. Wondering if what was coming was something that Kaizer would want, or if Gareth should have just been eliminated immediately.

  Aaron was already at the central fire, sharpening his blade in slow, deliberate strokes.

  “You’re up early,” he said without looking up.

  “So are you.”

  He gave a faint shrug. “Figured today was coming.”

  Elira stopped beside him, her gaze fixed on the camp as people began to stir. “Kaizer told me this would happen,” she said quietly.

  Aaron did not ask how. He did not need to. He knew Elira had her quirks, she was an extremely competent leader and administrator who also pulled her own weight in monster hunting. But Aaron also knew she had a few screws loose… Hell, who didn’t after being thrown into this place.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She nodded once. “I am.”

  By the time the sun crested the treeline, the camp had gathered. Gareth waited until everyone was present. That alone was a skill. He let the unease build, let people look for direction before offering it. When he finally stepped forward, his voice carried without strain, smooth and confident.

  “We’ve done well,” Gareth began. “Better than most.”

  Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd.

  “But let’s stop pretending this is sustainable,” he continued. “We’re nearing the end of the tutorial. Twenty-five days gone. Five left.”

  People shifted.

  “The world beyond this place still exists,” Gareth said firmly. “Governments didn’t disappear. Militaries didn’t vanish. They’re adapting, consolidating, reclaiming control. Why are you trying so hard to level, when you’ll be getting back to your normal jobs in a heartbeat. Sure… There will be less people, that just means more resources to go around.”

  He gestured broadly toward the camp. “This place was never meant to be permanent. It’s a stopgap. A shelter born of chaos.”

  A few nods followed.

  “When the tutorial ends, order will return,” Gareth said. “Weapons will be reclaimed. Supply chains restored. Authority reestablished.”

  He leaned forward slightly.

  “And when that happens, the people with experience, organization, and legitimacy will be the ones shaping the future.”

  His eyes swept the crowd.

  “Hunters are tools,” he said plainly. “Assets. Necessary, but not leaders. People are leaders. They will be elected like usual. Follow me, I was a leader in the past and I will resume my position on the other side.”

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  A ripple of discomfort passed through the group, but Gareth pressed on.

  “You want to trust instinct and strength? Fine. But that leads to warlords. Fragmentation. Endless conflict. You’ll have a tyrant on your hands before you know it. You’ll have slaves. People like Kaizer will make you a slave.”

  Gareth was in full swing now, he hadn’t noticed the darkness among the previous survivors of Kaizers wrath. The dark of knowing what Kaizer had saved them from.

  His voice rose.

  “The old world worked because power was centralized. Because rules mattered. Because people in charge weren’t the ones swinging weapons.”

  He spread his hands.

  “Follow me, and when this ends, we reintegrate. We survive. We go home. We will become the leaders and resources, together, with me as its lead.”

  Silence followed. For a moment, it felt like he had them, at least enough of them.

  Then Elira stepped forward.

  “You’re right about one thing,” she said calmly. “This camp was never meant to be permanent.”

  Gareth smiled faintly.

  “But neither was the old world,” she continued.

  A stir ran through the crowd.

  “You keep talking about what will return,” Elira said. “Governments. Militaries. Order. You talk about slavers, what you accused your benefactor of becoming… a Tyrant. Do you even know what he saved this camp from. HE saved this camp from the exact people you are talking about.”

  She tilted her head. “We survive and thrive because Kaizer allowed it. He could have killed us all that day, lord knows he had every right to with what he witnessed.”

  Someone spoke up. “We’re still here.”

  Elira nodded. “Exactly.”

  She turned slowly, addressing the camp.

  “Whether you want to believe it or not, the government cant do shit for you anymore,” she said. “This system took us, from all over Australia, and I’m willing to bet, the world. It took us from our homes, our jobs our businesses, anywhere we were and it transported us here. Gave us strength, told us to survive. What do you think is next, you go back to the way things were… No we adapt.”

  Gareth scoffed. “Adaptation isn’t governance.”

  “No,” Elira replied. “But it’s leadership.”

  A voice from the crowd, shaky but loud enough to carry. “My guns don’t work anymore.”

  Heads turned.

  Aaron stepped forward. “They don’t,” he said evenly. “I tried. Fired a whole clip of Smiths police gun straight at a basic wolf. Didn’t even phase it.”

  The silence that followed was heavier than fear.

  Gareth opened his mouth, but Elira raised a hand.

  “You’re selling us a future where power belongs to people who no longer understand how the world works,” she said. “You want hunters to be muscle and nothing more. You think the governments just going to come back, swoop in and save us. Fact is, government means shit when people are beginning to have the power to throw fireballs. What happens when they can throw missiles?”

  She met Gareth’s eyes.

  “Kaizer was the strongest of us, and he showed us the way. Contribute and grow. The people around us are not tools, they are there to help, to share and grow together.” she said. “He showed us there can still be good in the world, even if power is the absolute truth.”

  Mira stepped forward, tears streaking her face.

  “He betrayed us!” she screamed. “He wrapped my arm, fed us and coddled us, then spat in our face by refusing to help us.”

  Another voice followed, quieter but no less sharp. “Why should he help you if you refuse to help yourself? You’ve been running around camp telling us how good Gareth is, how he can lead, but he’s done shit since getting here besides eat our food and sow seeds of resentment within the children’s minds.”

  Elira seized it.

  “Yes,” she said. “They will. Tyrants will rise in this new world. There’s no doubt. Words won’t stop them, strength will. We each need to gain our own method of strength to be able to come together, we must trim the fat so to speak.”

  She looked around the camp.

  “And if every settlement is learning the same lesson, if power now comes from strength and skill…”

  Her voice dropped.

  “Will there even be a government left to reclaim control?”

  The crowd went still.

  Gareth laughed, sharp and brittle. “So this is it,” he said. “You’re choosing chaos.”

  “No,” Elira replied. “We’re choosing reality.”

  Aaron stepped beside her.

  “Anyone who wants to leave with Gareth can, but we will no longer stand for this kind of underhanded usurpation,” he said evenly.

  No one moved.

  Gareth’s smile faltered.

  “You think this ends well?” he snapped. “You’re tearing people apart.”

  Elira shook her head. “You did that when you asked us to abandon our goals, essentially made Kaizer a pariah, when he is a hero.”

  Silence.

  Gareth looked around again, searching for support. He found none.

  Elira’s voice hardened, not with anger, but with finality.

  “You’re exiled.”

  The word struck like a dropped blade.

  “You will leave the camp before sunset,” she continued. “You can take what you can carry. Supplies are over there. Anyone who wants to go with you is free to leave.”

  Gareth stared at her. “You’re sentencing us to death.”

  “No,” Elira said. “I’m giving you the same chance the world gave all of us. You came to an already established camp thinking you could take over from the first day. Now, you can leave with all the people who think you’ll lead them into the future.”

  She turned slightly and pointed east, toward the darker stretch of forest beyond the river.

  “You wanted to lead,” she said. “So lead.”

  A few people shifted. A handful hesitated.

  Those who knew what lay in that direction said nothing.

  Gareth’s jaw tightened. “Anyone with sense will come with me.”

  Silence.

  Not a single person from the original camp moved. Only a few followed, one of those being Mira. Some of the children began to follow but Gareth gave them a speech about coming back for them once things were set up. Mira seemed to believe that, but it was clearly a falsehood. He meant to leave them here. They would just slow him down.

  Elira did not stop them.

  She watched as Gareth gathered his followers, their faces tight with fear and hope in equal measure. They did not know where they were going. Only that they were leaving.

  By sunset, they were gone.

  The forest swallowed them quickly.

  Night fell.

  The camp settled into an uneasy quiet, not broken, but changed. Elira stood alone at the edge of the clearing, staring into the trees Gareth had vanished into.

  Aaron approached, “You think they’ll be alright?”

  “No, they’ll probably all be dead by the end of the day, Gareth can talk but he can’t lead. Not a single one of them is strong enough to face the monsters out there now. Surely you’ve noticed them getting stronger as time has passed.”

  With a regretful sigh, Aaron turned back to the camp.

  She thought of Kaizer. Of the way he watched before acting. Of the choices he made without spectacle. Of how he understood that power did not need to announce itself.

  Would he have done the same? Who knows… but at least she felt she’d done the right thing.

  “Come back alive,” she murmured, not to Gareth, but to Kaizer. “I’ll make a place for you to return to.”

  The forest gave no answer. But Elira stood a little straighter anyway.