Day 5
Morning 4:00 am
Three rows of thirty men, all in green-gray camouflage pants, dark green T-shirts, military boots, and bandaged hands, stood at attention, listening.
"I hope you all are refreshed from yesterday's bath," General Arjun began, voice as casual as ever.
"Today is an important task, so let's skip the jokes and get serious.
This will be your final elimination round—after that, proper training begins."
The atmosphere immediately turned sharp.
"So give it everything you've got.
The task will last three days and two nights. You have to survive in the jungle. Unlike the previous solo tasks, this one will be team-based. You'll be divided into teams of five, so that makes six teams in total. Each team will be dropped at a different location inside the forest and given a flag. Your goal? Collect as many flags as possible. The team with the most wins.
Each of you will be given a watch with an emergency button. Press it, and you'll be immediately extracted—but that also means instant elimination.
The forest spans about 500 square kilometers. Besides rival teams, you'll also be dealing with wild animals, insects, marshes, and whatever else nature decides to throw at you.
You can form teams yourselves. Those who don't manage to, report to the instructors.
You have two hours before it starts.
And I hope none of you get eaten by tigers in there.
Love you all." General Arjun ended it with a smirk.
Dev was quietly processing everything, eyes sharp and mind already moving.
[Dev POV]
"You handle the team. I've got a few doubts to clear first," I told Karan, then made my way toward Rana.
"Sir," I called out.
"Oh, Dev. You look like you're doing great," he said, half-sarcastic, half-genuine.
I ignored the tone.
"How exactly does elimination work in this round?" I asked.
He stared at me. "What do you mean?"
Yeah, right. He totally got what I was asking.
"I mean… is elimination individual, or does it apply to the whole team?"
That's the critical point.
Say a weakling tags along with strong teammates and gets carried the whole way. Or a strong candidate ends up in a team full of liabilities. Sure, they gave us the freedom to form our own teams—but it's only been five days. We barely know each other. I've observed a lot of them, sure—but each task was different. And I haven't really talked to most of them. I've been too focused on myself, never considered the possibility of team-based tasks.
"What do you think?" Rana replied, expression unreadable.
"Okay," I said, nodding, and turned back toward Karan.
Answer? He told that..
I walked back to Karan.
"I'm not able to decide teammates," he said.
"These three came up and asked to team up," he added, pointing.
I looked at them. They looked absolutely wiped. Like, yes, we've all been grinding hard for five days—but we got rest. Karan still looked like he could run 60km if someone asked. These guys? They'd probably break down on the first hill.
I gave Karan the "seriously?" look.
"Sorry," I said to them, then pulled Karan away.
Now, who to go to?
"Vikram," I muttered.
There he was, standing like he always did—loud silence.
"Got a team?" I asked.
"Oh, you're still alive, kid?" he said.
"Kid?" Karan raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, he's just 18," Vikram replied.
"What? I thought he was just into skincare. That's why he looks so fresh," Karan joked.
Okay, he's dead. If we survive the jungle, I'm taking him out next.
"Your whole family's a kid. Shut up. You joining or not?"
Vikram smirked. "Sure I only know you who wanna talk to me."
That made three. And as much as I wanted to tape Vikram's mouth shut, the guy had energy. After all that training, if he's still talking, that's something. Could be useful. Or at least entertaining.
Now we needed two more.
I already had two in mind—the twins. They were always among the first to finish tasks. Not random.
We walked up.
"Hey."
"Hello," one said. "Hello," the other echoed.
"Wanna join us?" I asked. I was already thinking of reasons to convince them.
"Sure." "Sure," they said in sync.
Wait, what?
That was too easy. My trust issues immediately flared.
"Don't overthink it," one said. "You're the first proper team that came to us. Everyone else was just solo guys wandering around. Figured going with a full team is better."
Alright. Makes sense. Still… keeping one eye open.
[Dev POV Ends]
"Let's do introductions," Vikram said.
"I'm Vikram Rathore, from Haryana. I wanna be a legendary Para SF soldier like my dad—blah blah"
"Okay, stop," Karan cut in, clearly already annoyed.
"I'm Karan, from Uttarakhand. And I just love guns."
"I'm Vivaan, and this is my brother Nivaan. We're from Rajasthan. I'm the older one—by one minute," Vivaan said right after Karan's intro.
"And how do we even tell you apart?" Vikram asked.
"Vivaan combs his hair to the left, I do it to the right," Nivaan replied this time.
"Dev from Delhi. Let's go get supplies."
Soon, the five of us picked up our supplies and were taken to a military jeep.
In the jeep, the five of us were getting familiar with each other and checking supplies.
The supplies included enough food for the day, their knives, three tents, their flag, watches—and that's all.
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a/n: I have already applied the book for contract and is waiting for it so their may be delay in chapter but I will try to publish a chapter per week. But please support the book share it, and provide with powerstone and and it to collection