Rules Ch.326

Chapter 326: Into the Forest (6)

Faced with Everly’s question, Anthony thought for a moment before giving an answer that perfectly matched his all-American tough-guy image.

“I’m going to rescue Terry and the others.”

“Are you serious? There’s no way you can take on that many cannibals by yourself!” The coach was so shocked his jaw nearly dropped.

Anthony offered him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, but I can’t just stand by and watch nine survivors get captured and eaten by cannibals. I’m going to follow the trail those Caribs left behind, find where they’re living, and look for an opportunity to rescue Terry and the others.”

“Of course, I’m not stupid enough to charge in head-on. Even so, it’ll be an extremely dangerous trip. You don’t have to come with me. Just stay here and wait for rescue.”

Everly wasn’t surprised by Anthony’s answer in the slightest.

Ever since First Blood, Americans had been obsessed with creating this kind of protagonist: the stoic lone wolf who kept his promises and never compromised his own sense of justice. Judging by both his appearance and his background, Anthony had clearly been modeled after that archetype.

Choosing to risk his life to save people he barely knew?

That was exactly what a hero like him would do.

As for the heroine, Sophia, she approached the problem from a different angle.

“I’ll go with Anthony to the cannibals’ settlement.”

“The helicopter we saw earlier was far too strange. It flew directly over the crash site without stopping for even a moment. It was flying low as though it were searching for something, yet it completely ignored our attempts to signal for help.”

“It was almost as if the people on board had been blinded by some unseen force… as though they simply couldn’t see anything unusual below them.”

That observation reminded Sophia of the question that had been bothering her earlier.

Back in the fifteenth century, European colonizers had slaughtered the Carib natives under the banner of “eliminating cannibals.” From then on, the cannibals of the Caribbean islands had seemingly disappeared, remaining unseen for more than six hundred years.

Suppose that, back then, a group of Caribs really had managed to escape the colonizers’ guns and cannons and fled into this forest in North America. If that were true, then how had they concealed themselves for so long? How had they remained hidden from the outside world for six hundred years?

“When we left,” Sophia continued, “there were at least sixty or seventy bodies still inside the plane. The fact that they managed to carry away every corpse and all the survivors in such a short time means the Carib tribe in this forest must be quite large.”

“This forest is certainly vast, but it’s not so remote that it’s been completely cut off from civilization. Over the past six hundred years, people would inevitably have entered it out of curiosity, for surveys, or simply to challenge themselves. Logically speaking, a tribe of cannibals this large should have been exposed long ago…”

“Unless they possess some kind of extraordinary power that prevents outsiders from discovering them.”

“Extraordinary power?”

“That’s right.”

Sophia picked up a stick from the ground and drew a familiar-looking symbol in the mud.

It was spindle-shaped, resembling a vertically opened eye. Not long ago, the four of them had seen nearly identical totems painted on the chests of the three slain tribesmen.

“It was this symbol that allowed me to identify those primitives earlier. A friend of mine participated in the excavation of a Carib archaeological site in Cuba seven years ago. Among the ritual artifacts unearthed there were totems very similar to this one.”

“According to the findings, it represented the Caribs’ god of the hunt, Oseiwa.”

The Caribs practiced a monotheistic religion. In their beliefs, the sole creator and ruler of the world was the deity known as Oseiwa.

One theory among scholars holds that this one true god may have been connected in some way to the Taíno forest deity, Oseyn. After all, the Caribs and the Taíno lived in neighboring regions, the names of their gods were strikingly similar, and their divine domains largely overlapped.

Both Oseiwa and Oseyn were regarded as lords of the forest, presiding over hunting, the wilderness, and the powers of witchcraft.

Everly immediately caught the key point.

“So Oseiwa is the evil god you mentioned earlier?”

Back in the forest, Sophia had described the Caribs, according to the Taíno, as “red-skinned people who worshipped a terrifying evil god.” Now she was saying that the Caribs practiced a monotheistic religion. If they worshipped only one god, then that “evil god” could only be Oseiwa.

Sophia nodded.

“That’s right. According to legend, Oseiwa is a cruel and tyrannical deity who delights in slaughter and revels in war and conflict. To please Oseiwa, the Caribs would deliberately invade other tribes—they referred to these invasions as ‘hunts.’”

“After defeating a tribe, the Caribs would kill and eat all the male captives, then smear themselves from head to toe with human blood. It was a special ritual taught by Oseiwa himself. Through it, the Caribs believed they could draw strength from the flesh and blood of the dead, making themselves even more powerful.”

For years, Sophia had regarded the practice as nothing more than primitive superstition.

But after encountering the Caribs up close—after witnessing the tremendous strength that belied their physiques and the astonishing toughness of skin that even blades struggled to pierce—her opinion had changed.

She now strongly suspected that the Caribs truly could grow stronger by eating human flesh and bathing in human blood. Otherwise, there was simply no way to explain what she had witnessed in the forest.

And if the ritual itself was real, then perhaps Oseiwa—the evil god who had supposedly taught the Caribs the ritual of cannibalism—wasn’t fictional either.

Sophia was an anthropologist. Because of her profession, she frequently participated in archaeological excavations. And in a field that constantly dealt with ancient tombs, death, and human remains, one inevitably encountered things that science simply couldn’t explain.

Therefore, despite being a highly educated member of the middle class elite, Sophia herself was not a pure materialist.

She had her own understanding of how the world worked. She believed that certain supernatural forces did exist, but she was also not the type to blindly fall into the traps of so-called “fortune tellers” or “spiritual mediums.”

“If Oseiwa truly exists, then as a deity who governs witchcraft, hiding the Caribs and preventing the outside world from discovering them would obviously not be difficult.”

“I think that’s why the rescue helicopter ignored our attempts to signal it and flew away right over our heads. They were affected by Oseiwa’s power and simply couldn’t see the wreckage below.”

“T-then…” The coach stared in shock. “Doesn’t that mean that even if we wait beside the plane wreckage until the end of time, the rescue team still won’t be able to find us?!”

Sophia confirmed the coach’s guess.

“That’s why I’m going with Anthony to rescue them. If we’re lucky, we might find a way at the Carib camp to break whatever force is hiding the cannibals from the outside world. Even if we’re unlucky, at the very least, we can save our companions.”

There was an even worse possibility that Sophia didn’t mention:

They could fail to rescue anyone, and instead fall into danger themselves, becoming captives alongside the others.

However, judging by the resolute expressions on Anthony and Sophia’s faces, even if things ended that way, they probably wouldn’t regret their choice.

The coach was moved by the protagonists’ noble character. He turned his gaze toward the only person who had yet to express an opinion—Everly. His eyes were filled with hope.

“Hey, Everly, what do you think…? Don’t tell me you’re going with them to save people too?”

Receiving the coach’s questioning gaze, Everly put on her usual cold expression and nodded firmly.

“Yes. I’m going too.”

It was the obvious choice—

Horror Movie Survival Rule #2: Stick close to the protagonists.

Horror Movie Survival Rule #11: Never split up or act alone.

Horror Movie Survival Rule #21: Stay as far away from Black people as possible.

If Everly didn’t go with Anthony and Sophia, she would automatically end up paired with the Black coach instead (unless she knocked him unconscious and prevented him from following her). That would mean violating three survival rules at once.

Besides, if she abandoned the protagonists, Everly would have to attempt crossing this enormous forest on foot.

A human’s travel speed through dense and complicated woodland was roughly one to three kilometers per hour.

Before the crash, Everly had glanced down at the forest from the sky. The vivid green stretched endlessly beneath them, extending all the way to the edge of her vision. She couldn’t see where it ended.

Even if there were no primitive tribes hiding inside this vast forest, without food, water, or proper equipment, it would still take her more than ten days of walking day and night to make it through.

And if she had to avoid cannibals along the way, it would take even longer.

Everly was in a hurry to reach Miant Port and find the broker who could help her acquire a boat. After renting one, she would still need to complete various vessel entry and exit procedures (which required the boat owner’s personal appearance), then sail to the Bahamas.

Today was November 14th. There were only a little over twenty days left until December 11th.

If she crossed the forest on foot at top speed, she could technically still make it in time.

The problem was that any unexpected incident along the way could delay her journey.

The transit of Venus only occurred once every hundred years. If she missed it, Everly wouldn’t even have anywhere to cry.

Of course, there was another possibility.

She could simply do nothing and let the protagonists venture into the dragon’s den themselves. With their protagonist powers, perhaps Anthony and Sophia would directly shatter the “hidden barrier” that Oseiwa had created to conceal the cannibal tribe.

But Everly hadn’t read the original story.

She couldn’t be one hundred percent certain that this would happen.

So, to guard against the worst-case scenario, this trip into the dragon’s den was something she absolutely had to undertake.

Everly had items like the chameleon skull and the Holy Tree bracelet with her, and she was also carrying a mirror. She wasn’t completely without means of protecting herself. That was one of the main reasons she dared to choose to follow them.

Her thoughts were complicated and numerous, but when it came to the Black coach, Everly only needed one sentence to extinguish his desire to avoid the danger.

“Without Anthony leading the way, do you really think the two of us can successfully make it out of this forest?”

—Actually, they probably could.

Everly had systematically studied wilderness survival skills and possessed plenty of practical experience.

But the coach didn’t know that.

If he had previously still held some unrealistic fantasies about hiking through the forest, then his earlier experience following Anthony to search for food and water had completely shattered those illusions.

The forest was filled with dense thorns and had no existing paths. Venomous insects and snakes hid beneath the low vegetation, meaning every step had to be taken with extreme caution. Earlier, the IT worker had nearly been bitten by a venomous snake.

The trees were far too dense, their enormous canopies blocking out the sunlight. The surrounding environment was also extremely similar in every direction, making it easy to lose one’s sense of direction while moving through it.

And even putting all those problems aside, simply finding food and water was no easy task for complete amateurs…

Without Anthony, the coach and Everly truly had almost no chance of making it out of the forest.

Once he understood all of this, the coach immediately fell silent.

He looked toward Anthony—the only person in their group with extensive wilderness survival experience—and tried to make one last argument.

“Anthony, could you take us out of the forest first, then come back to save them…?”

The answer was naturally no.

The forest was simply too vast.

If Anthony first escorted the others out and then returned to rescue the captured survivors, those people would probably have already become meat inside the primitive tribe’s stomachs, long dead beyond saving.

“Oh… oh, fine. Whatever. You people are impossible.”

Realizing that he had no one backing him up, the coach finally gave in.

He raised both hands and shrugged exaggeratedly, pretending to be relaxed. In a self-deprecating tone, he said, “Since all three of you are determined to go save them, I guess I can only see this through with you. After all, hey, many hands make light work. One more person means one more bit of strength.”

And with that, the team reached a unanimous decision.

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**TN

Horror Movie Survival Rule #21 – It’s because they always die first in horror movies