In the end, Jake, Lana, and Louise didn't find any sign of civilization or traces of humans until noon. However, as they grew close to the nearest mountain, they found a river that came from there and was flowing toward the south.
"Yay, I can finally clean myself," Lana said. "Jake, don't you dare peek on us."
"You have some nerve in bringing that up so directly," Jake said. "You are also pretty stupid in thinking of taking your clothes and jumping into a river on an alien world."
"Do you think it is dangerous, Louise?" Lana asked.
"I can't smell anything weird in the area or in the water, and the water is as transparent as it can be…" Louise said. "Honestly, I have no idea…"
In the end, the girls hesitated over even touching the water, but then Jake approached and drank some. As usual, he doesn't consider the consequences too much. Still, Jake assumed that it was fine to eat it since he could see some underwater plants. Another reason Jake assumed that was because of the fact that he realized the path of the river was actually man-made. Someone wanted the river to flow down south…
"I am going south for a while. I will return in half an hour," Jake said.
With his speed, Jake will be able to cover a lot of ground. So it was the perfect chance to do exploration by himself while the girls bathed themselves. Thanks to Dash, Jake could run at inhuman speeds, but things weren't so simple. Since he wasn't used to running like that with his natural body, he tripped and rolled on the ground several times. Fighting without getting used to that new body probably wasn't the best of ideas… Nevertheless, Jake ran several kilometers in just fifteen minutes, but he didn't find any sign of humans.
"If I keep going, I am certain that I can find something, but I can't proceed on my own now," Jake thought.
Jake wondered if he couldn't change his plans and then do that after regrouping with Lana and Louise. After all, the next missions probably will take more than five hours to complete. Still, he couldn't decide that by himself since the girls went as far as leaving everything behind to help him. In the end, Jake ran back toward where he left them, but after a couple of minutes, he was forced to stop since he saw some clothes going down the river. They were Lana and Louise's clothes.
"Those two…" Jake said and then face palmed. "How dumb does someone needs to be to let that happen and not notice it? I am starting to doubt whether they will be of any use here."
After getting the clothes, Jake returned back to where they were, and as expected, they were panicking since they couldn't see their clothes. While Jake was too far away to see any of their parts in detail, he couldn't help but smirk. It was the perfect chance to see them naked, but it would be hard to play dumb later since he was carrying their clothes. In the end, Jake put their clothes together and then tossed them with all his might in their direction. They heard the sound of their clothes falling nearby, and after a couple of minutes, Louise succeeded in drying them with magic. Once they wore them, Jake returned. It was a pity, but… it couldn't be helped.
"How careless…" Jake said after he approached.
Lana and Louise couldn't even protest since Jake saved their skin on so many levels that they could only keep their heads down and listen. He left them for a couple of minutes, and he returned already, cleaning one of their mistakes.
"Anyway, I didn't find anything," Jake said. "So, we need to decide if we will keep going downstream and see what we can find or select a mission and then look for other humans before clearing it."
"Usually, you wouldn't ask for an opinion, so why now are you asking?" Lana asked.
"I am trying to be considerate since, as you know, things are more dangerous than before, a lot more," Jake replied. "We don't know what might happen if we fail or if we die here, so we might as well decide this as a group since we will probably share the same fate."
"Investing too much time on a single path doesn't seem like a good idea, right?" Louise asked. "I think we should select a mission and then look for humans while we strengthen ourselves. Besides, we need to be careful with who we meet from now on."
"What do you mean, Louise?" Lana frowned.
"If we really are no longer on Earth, then it means the laws of there no longer apply here, we are pretty much free to do whatever we want, and no one can stop us. That also applies to other humans. She is afraid that we might find trouble if we find some humans as well," Jake explained. "I suppose that makes sense. I was planning to gather Intel first, but I guess this is a better idea."
"Aren't you two a little bit too paranoid?" Lana asked. "Even if humans can do whatever they wanted, they were still raised on a society based on rules… they wouldn't abandon that so easily and so fast."
Louise wanted to believe that, while Jake didn't believe in the slightest. He wasn't much better, but he knew that humans would do all kinds of atrocities if they were put against the wall for their own sake or benefit. If that weren't the case, humans with his few thousand years of history would have reached a point by now where they would be able to live in harmony for the sake of their species and society, but that wasn't the case.
Still, those two decided not to share those kinds of dark thoughts with Lana. She wanted to be a doctor for the idealism of the idea of helping people when they need the most, so she was an idealist woman herself. So, that kind of thing was the last thing she needed to hear…
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