Caelus continued his curing of the human before him.
After the human was cleared off the virus, he stood up and looked for Hikari.
It wasn't hard to find her as she was taking care of those who already woke up but still wasn't in a good condition to stand up.
Not everyone was like Chester who could stand up as soon as they woke up. Almost everyone needed some time of rest and intake of food before they could stand up.
"Hikari-neechan." He called out to the heroic lady.
After his feelings settled down, he realized that the lingering feeling of comparing her to his fiancee vanished altogether. Now, he was back at seeing her as a heroic lady who was truly admirable in this chaotic world.
Hikari immediately turned to look at Caelus. Her braided hair had random strands poking out. Caelus felt laughing since she looked kind and innocent whenever she tried to support anyone she could.
Yet, thinking about his ruffled hair that needed trim and his growing stubbles, he knew his image was nowhere better than her.
"Oh, you're done? I would like to ask you to rest… but I'll be shameless. We don't have that much to cure everyone." She said as she walked over him. Her brown eyes that had a slight tint of red were shining with kindness, concern and guilt. She actually looked considerably paler than before for lack of rest.
"It's fine, it's fine," He smiled as he shook his head. The lady seemed to be in complicated emotion because she wanted to let him rest but at the same time, heal everyone. "I'm here to talk about something else."
"Hm? What's it, kohai?"
He smiled sheepishly hearing what she called him.
The two grew considerably closer after this incident.
For Hikari, he was like a little brother, while for Caelus, after getting over the overlapping image of Annie and Hikari, he felt like she was an older sister who was mature and caring.
Every time he saw her beaming eyes, Caelus felt positive with everything around.
It felt like Asahi's passive skill, Holy Presence cleansing him. However, the cleansing feeling was slightly different. Asahi's Holy Presence was a feeling of his soul healing. For Hikari's presence… it felt like he could start viewing things positively. It was affecting his mentality in a new positive light.
"I've got word from Sanctuary that Asahi, Gouki and Akihiko together with Asahi's group reached the shelter already. I was wondering if you would like to invite the Science's Will group. You can lure them with technological items that use Mana as a power source.
"Also, if they knew how to create technological items, they could start doing so. Machinery should work inside the shelter. We can think about how we could cloak the item to last outside the shelter later."
"Hmm?! That sounds amazing. I know they would love to go there!"
"Great. Once everyone is healed, we will go there. But we need to tread carefully, Dragon Riders and monsters are still everywhere. We don't want to meet them…"
"Yes, meeting those other species could cause us doom," Her face darkened considerably. For a moment, Caelus felt a shiver looking at her deadly eyes. "Actually, the virus was also caused by another race. But enough about that, we should also plan accordingly."
"Don't worry, I'll ask Sanctuary to contact you in case of an emergency. She should be able to guide you to the shelter without worry even if I wasn't there." He said jokingly.
"Don't jinx yourself. I'll talk with Alisa and Chester once they're back. We need a plan. Also, since we have many people with us, we need a distribution of strength…" she kept muttering to herself about the plans they needed that Caelus knew she wasn't talking to him anymore.
Smiling while shaking his head, he proceeded back to the makeshift medical area.
It's better to use his power on curing as many infected as he could than listening to Hikari's muttering.
Knowing her, everything she said was just a suggestion and wasn't final yet. She would need Alisa and Chester input on the matter before deciding.
***
Caelus used more than one month to fully heal everyone.
During that whole month, Hikari, Alisa and Chester created a plan on how they would distribute people, food and everything else. It was amazing to know that everyone of the hundreds of people have their Inventory making it easier for them to travel with supplies.
It was a migration plan with four hundred people aboard.
Thinking about how many people he had cured, he didn't expect no one would die at all. It felt like a miracle because he used
After suffering the virus attack that was caused by another race, the group was happy to move somewhere that has a barrier, safe and secure. They were even glad to know there was technology that uses Mana as its power source!
They just had to study it.
While on the topic of Mana, Caelus decided to teach them the basics of harvesting Mana and strengthening their own. Or Energy Harvesting depending on which they were compatible.
After Hikari and Alisa got the gist of the technique, he left them alone to teach everyone about Mana harvesting and continue curing the infected.
As it turned out, even after Alisa and Hikari's study, no one except Caelus could cure the zombie virus.
No one was even successful in learning his Qi technique.
After more than a month and when everyone was healed, they still took two more weeks before everyone was ready.
It was a good thing that the Science Will's group had enough God Points and also grinded some on the Common Zones before they set off.
Hunger was never a problem to them at all.
The only thing they were really worried about was coming across the Dragon Riders species which was hostile to humans.
Their hostility was simple to understand.
It was because after the merge of the Earth and Elsia—the world of Dragon Riders; the Dragon Riders didn't want to share the world to other beings.
They wanted the world for only themselves.
Even when anyone wanted to talk with them, they refused diplomatic talks.
For the Dragon Riders who tamed dragons, violence is the only solution. Beat them to submission it one must.
It was contrary to humans' belief at all.
So, Chester's group of warriors were tasked to make sure there wouldn't be any Dragon Riders who would attack their Researchers group. The researchers don't have attack or defense power at all. They had to rely on the warriors to survive in the outside world.
With everything arranged and with everyone on top of their health, they set off towards Sanctuary Shelter.
It was a windy day when they finally decided it was time to go. The traces of chill were slowly melting away making the temperature almost like the winter season just passed. If Caelus would compare it to the previous month and season, it should still be mid-winter as it was still in February. Yet, it felt like the season was actually spring already.
Everyone was just beaming with passion towards the adventure that would come ahead.
The big group was on high alert while traversing the vast wilderness and ruins.
Caelus, who didn't have time to observe the location before, had finally noticed how the place chosen by the Science Will was better than others. Unlike other places where trees and buildings were merged, this place actually was a vast farming area that didn't merge to anything at all.
Grasses, trees and other vegetation were slowly starting to bloom as they were left unattended for quite some time.
"Amazing… how come this place didn't merge with anything from Elsia?" He unconsciously muttered.
"Haha! You noticed it too, young man! You're smart compared to others of your age," Alisa's eyes twinkled.
Caelus shivered uncontrollably.
He already regretted how he invoked the inner mad scientist inside Alisa. "We actually studied it before. We didn't reach conclusive evidence, but we do have a theory!
"In our theory, almost all our world has something that overlaps others. The other world, which is Elsia, actually has a vast ocean and forest, while our world, Earth, has lots of buildings! This place, however, is just plain farmland! In one theory we have, it could be possible that the other world has a smaller diameter compared to Earth, and as such, Earth's other land were able to be retained. But of course, this theory still needed further studying. For now, we don't even know the diameter of the new world!
"Another theory presented from our group is that compared to other places, this place was placed in the Hidden Zone that had collapsed. You know how Hidden Zones are Special Zones, right? Oh, you referred to them as Uncertain Type before! Well, with that as a basis, we thought it's quite possible that the area was preserved because of that.
"According to Hikari's testimony and others who were able to survive the Hidden Zones, Hidden Zones are very different from the Common Zones, or the normal one. Hidden Zones or what we usually call Special Zones were actually able to preserve the place. After the Zone Barrier vanished, the area where the zones are were also preserved.
"Of course, both are still theories, that's why we needed more study in it. Ahhh! I can't wait to see the technology your Sanctuary Shelter has to offer! I'm still thinking how the Zones are actually a passage of portal..."
Caelus awkwardly chuckled. More on instinct than his brain exploding from information overload.
This time, he had it easy because he understood what Alisa was saying. And she was right, they needed to do more study to understand what Super Phenomena is.
"Anyone have tried questioning the System when they rank up?"