Book 3: Chapter 1: Part 4
The situation around began to move, without bearing any results Hirata's team returned to base. The trio was surprisingly in an uplifting mood. Hirata and the others were talking about something with great fervor.
“It is a river!! A river!! What a beautiful feeling it is! It looks like there is an equipment! It seems that we will be able to have an exclusive possession of a mechanism! From here it is only a ten minute walk, so let's go all together at once.”
Ike's team had left earlier for a search mission, they may have found out that spot already. And it seemed that they were guarding it so that other classes won't snatch it away.
“This is a glorious achievement, if we can maintain the source of the river, our situation may vastly improve.”
It seems like as we came to find this spot originally, it was already decided that this would be the place of our base camp. Of course I thought it was because of the terrain and the environment, but it seems that it is just the first step forward.
“Still, there are 2 teams that haven't returned yet, I guess it will be a trouble if no one stays here to wait for them”
The clock showed that it was almost 3 o'clock, we might not be able to hold on the original schedule, besides, there are countless possibilities of where they could be wandering in this vast forest.
“I'm sorry Hirata, Kouenji, too, because it is my fault, in the middle of our expedition, I trailed off the road”
“Ah, If you are talking about our little Kouenji, he returned alone a little while ago, he wanted to go and swim”