Chapter 11- The Northern Star Settlement
"Woah! This place is huge!" Edward whistled with an excited look on his face. He was akin to a kid that was brought to the amusement park.
The Northern Star settlement is one of the many settlements scattered across the Forbidden Lands. Although they are called 'settlements' they can also be considered to be cities for the unfortunate people who couldn't enter one of the Cities ruled by the great clans.
The settlement was massive with walls erected around it to stop the Zombies and other dangerous creatures from entering it and wreaking havoc.
"How do they even maintain such places?" Edward asked.
"Settlements have people called 'Hunters' that are responsible for going out to hunt, gather useful items, and return them back to the settlement. The whole settlement relies on whatever they find in the outside world to maintain it. There are also rare cases of transactions between settlements but they are very hard to do and only happen when the two parties agree on them."
"I see…" Staring at the walls, Edward was lost in his own thoughts for a second until Sali tapped his shoulder.
"Let's go." She said as she walked ahead of him.
"Hey, wait!"
The two then approached the settlement. The metal gates soon appeared in their vision. As they got closer and closer, two guards appeared holding guns in their hands. From what Edward could see, the guns were very advanced and definitely didn't exist back in his old world.
"Stop there!" One of them shouted as he pointed his gun at the two siblings.
"Don't move, Asher," Sali said as she lifted her arms in the air.
"We are not infected. We have been traveling for a while now and we want to enter the settlement."
The two guards squinted their eyes before one of them lifted the collar of his shirt to talk to someone on the receiver.
"We have two want to access the settlement. The possibility of being infected is very low. We will still scan them just in case. Roger."
"Roger." The other side replied positively.
"Put down your weapons and any belongings you have. My partner here will scan you in case you were injured by a Zombie. The effect of the bite usually starts immediately. But there were cases of people taking a long time to turn into Zombies."
"It's fine. Put down the weapon, Asher."
After that, the other guard approached them and pulled out a long, rectangular object that looked like a scanner used by police back on Earth albeit more advanced looking.
The man then ran the scanner over Edward's body. Luckily, no dinging sound echoed in the place.
At that moment, Sali weirdly exhaled a long sigh as if she was holding her breath secretly. Edward didn't think much of that.
Then, the man moved to Sali and started scanning her.
'*Whistle* What a jaw-dropping beauty.' He thought in his head as he looked at Sali's seductive body.
"Hey, girl. Do you two have any place where you will stay when you enter the settlement?" He asked.
"No."
"Oh, that's a problem. You see, the inns we have are always full. It would be hard to find a place to spend the night. So, how about you stay at my house? I even have a working heater."
'This bastard…' Edward clenched his teeth as he saw through the man immediately. It was obvious that he was simply looking for a way to sleep with Sali and he wasn't even trying to hide his intentions.
"No. It's fine, we won't be spending the night in the Settlement." Sali replied as she puffed out a cloud of smoke from her cigarette.
"Why would you not? It's better than staying outside where danger is everywhere."
"We have been living outside for almost a year. We can handle ourselves."
'Tsk, this bitch. Just shut up and let me fuck you!' The man yelled in his head as he got irritated by her refusal.
'Well, whatever. I will just touch her body and pretend that it's just a scanning procedure.' Finding another way to reach his goal, the man snickered secretly as he started running the scanner over Sali's body.
However, from the first look his hand was awfully close to her. Then, it suddenly moved even closer, intending to gloss over her chest as if by mistake.
At that moment, Edward couldn't hold himself anymore and extended his arm to grab the guard before he could do anything disgusting.
"Oi, knock it off." Catching his hand before he could do anything, Edward glared at him.
"Huh?! What the fuck are you doing, kid?"
"Don't pretend as if we don't know what you want to do."
"Don't touch me, kid! This is against the rules!"
"We are outside the settlement, there are no rules here. So, either do your job properly or I will deal with you myself."
Even though Edward was a very shy person, seeing Sali about to be touched by someone like him made Edward's blood boil with anger.
Meanwhile, Sali who was watching this interaction had a surprised look on her face.
"Knock it off, Danny. We want no trouble. You remember what the boss said, right?" His friend came in to stop the fight before it starts.
"Tsk! Fine!" Clicking his tongue, the man shook Edward's hand off and continued scanning Sali, appropriately this time.
"You can move." He said and turned around to leave.
As he walked away, Sali bent to the side and whispered in Edward's ear.
"Thank you for protecting me~ You were really cool there."
"H-Hahaha, I just did what I thought was right. Don't mention it."
"Fufufufu!" Chuckling happily, Sali picked up her luggage and then moved toward the gate.
Soon, the doors opened slowly, allowing the two siblings inside.
What welcomed them inside was the view of a bustling city, filled with people. A big market was taking place in the heart of the settlement as all kinds of people came and went, selling and buying all kinds of things.
"Oh, lucky! We came at the right time for the weekly Market." Sali said.
"Oh, a weekly market. Then, why don't we roam the settlement and check things out for fun?" Edward suggested.
"Good idea! But, not before we see a doctor first."
"Ugh, fine…"
"I won't be able to calm down until you restore your memories."
'Well, it's pointless to do that since the memories never existed in the first place.'
***
Somewhere unknown, a hooded figure was talking with someone else over the phone.
"Did you locate them?"
"Yup yup~ I can see them as clear as the beautiful night sky~" The mysterious person replied in a playful tone.
"Don't forget. Our target is the kid. His sister is disposable. Don't allow them to run away."
"Hai hai, captain~ The two fishes won't escape the pond. They are already trapped." Licking their tongue, the mysterious person cut off the call and then murmured.
"This is going to be fun~~"
Staring at the Settlement from afar, they giggled before they jumped down from the tree they were standing on and walked toward the gates.