Elena had been feeling too comfortable living in the cabin house. She woke up cooked food watched the destruction around the world in the system panel, did some exercise ate food again, and slept.
She felt very frustrated as she could do nothing but wait till the catastrophe passed, while she was glad to be in a safe place and have food to fill her stomach.
All of it was only possible because of Connor, while she hated to admit that Connor had managed to impress her, but she wasn't going to let herself be dependent on a man.
She wanted to be a strong and independent woman, like her mother. She also felt like she had to repay Connor for all his help. making up her mind she decided to visit the place alya had been staying.
"Hey, I'm thinking of leaving the island," Elena told Alya decisively.
"W-what? Why? Can't you just stay here? Are you going to leave me alone?" Alya responded, her voice tinged with fear at the thought of being abandoned.
"Connor has already left the island. I have searched for him everywhere but I could not find him. He probably thought of exploring the place outside in search of finding weapons to fight and rations to eat for the future. I don't want to rely much on him, so I will also go outside and bring my own stuff here and make this place our stronghold." Elena reasoned
"But let's wait another day; the worst of the disasters seems to be almost over," Alya tried to convince her. Then she added, "Also, I don't feel so good. I think I have a fever. I've been feeling hot for the past two days."
"I've been feeling hot too, but I don't feel weak. It might be because of that mana energy the system mentioned yesterday," Alya replied, hesitant to see Elena leave.
"That could be it, but we'll need time to adapt to this mana energy. It's like a sixth sense that's becoming a part of us, but it doesn't mean we've become stronger," Alya reasoned, trying to dissuade Elena.
Elena took a deep breath. Alya knew this gesture well; she did it whenever she had a lot more to say, bracing herself for the lecture to come.
"You need to adapt, Alya, and I'm not just talking about mana," Elena began firmly. "I'm talking about your laid-back attitude. The world is changing, and we need to grow stronger, or we won't survive. If the government somehow manages to restore order—which seems impossible—there will be camps and fortresses where the weak survivors will be treated like slaves"
Elena delivered this sternly and in a single breath. After a pause, she continued:
"Do you really think everyone is just waiting for the disasters to pass? No, I'm sure there are strong-minded people already adapting and evolving, as Uriel mentioned. You might not like the new world that's coming, Alya, but we have to accept it."
Alya knew that everything that came out of Elena's mouth was the harsh truth that she refused to accept.
She had always lived a comfortable and caring life with loving parents and a reliable elder brother who spoiled her a lot. Right now, it was too difficult for her to change. She thought of her crush, Ethan, and wondered how he was doing. Was he dead, or was he also fighting zombies or fallen, as Uriel would say?
Resolved, Alya spoke to Elena, "Then I will come with you. I refuse to become a slave. I also have a family to search for and protect. I refuse to always be sheltered and protected."
Elena appreciated her response, but she didn't give in easily. She needed to remind Alya of what to expect outside.
" I may not be able to protect you and also might leave you to die if my own life is at risk, Do you still want to come ?" she asked Alya.
" I... I know I would be useless, but I also know you would never abandon me. I will do my best not to be a burden," Alya said, her voice wavering with hesitation.
"Alright, Alya. Pack some food for yourself. We are leaving in half an hour," Elena replied, her tone firm yet reassuring.
They got ready and left the island together.
"Where do we go from here?" Alya asked, unsure of their next move.
"I know a pharmacy nearby. Why don't we go there first to gather medicine and first aid kits?" Elena suggested, outlining her plan.
"That's a great idea. While we're at it, we should also look for some clothes," Alya added, but her voice faltered as she glanced at Elena with concern.
Summoning her courage, Alya argued back, "What? Are clothes not essential for survival? We can't wander around in torn clothes with men staring at us."
"We need protective gear, like helmets and such," Elena acknowledged with a sigh, realizing Alya had a valid point.
They both departed while maintaining high caution. On their way to the pharmacy, they found a wrecked supermarket and entered the store by breaking the glass door which lost its auto-sliding function after the power loss.
Alya grabbed some rations and other clothes while Elena took some chemical sprays and kitchen knives and a cricket bat. That was all they needed for now as they left the store while remembering the way to it. They could later come here with Connor and plunder it.
All the roads were deserted with no signs of life, or so it seemed until they both heard a woman screaming for help.
They looked at each other, unsure of what to do next when Alya spoke up first. "We should help them. Maybe they can be of use to us later on," she reasoned, which impressed Elena.
She knew the naive Alya would never say something like that, which meant she was starting to change.
A smile formed on Elena's face as she replied, "I was going to help them anyway. But first, let's get ready to fight. We need to be prepared to kill, to take a life."
Both of them slowly started moving towards the source of the scream. When they reached the area, they found a man on the ground bleeding all over while a woman was locked inside a car with two zombie-like beings trying to break the door.
Elena deduced the two to be the fallen ones and turned to Alya, pointing at the debris around them.
"I will take on both of them from the back. All you have to do is throw these stones at them if they come close to harming me."
Alya nodded, picking up a hand-sized stone. "How will you attack both of them at once?"
Elena pointed at her bat. "I will try to approach them stealthily and hit them in the head. As per the movies, their heads must be a weak spot. If they are alerted, you need to be ready to throw these sharp stones at them any moment they try to hit me. Are we clear?"
Alya nodded as Elena approached with bare feet to reduce the noise.
As she came near, the woman inside the car turned to look at her. She didn't say anything, but the two fallen followed her gaze and became hyper as they charged at her.
"Tsk," Elena clicked her tongue at the failed stealth attack and held her bat ready to hit the zombies, while Alya also got up, ready to throw the stones at them from a safe angle.
Bang!
Bang!
Hot blood splattered over Elena's face and clothes when the fallen's heads were shot with gunfire.
Elena and Alya looked around, trying to find the one who took the shot but could not find anyone.
"Honey!"
The woman in the car came out and rushed towards the bleeding man who seemed to be her husband.
She was in a panic as she looked at Elena and asked, "Do—do you have some medicine? He was only scratched by them and then they left him." She reasoned that he wasn't dead and pleaded with Elena.
Alya came out of hiding and asked Elena, "What do we do now?"
"Well, we were about to get some medicine in the pharmacy, right? Let's go get them," Elena said and looked at the woman. "If you can carry him, we can treat him there. We may not be expert doctors, but I have been trained in first aid practice."
The woman agreed and told them to rush as her husband was losing a lot of blood.
Alya took out a piece of cloth and pressed it against the man's wounds where the bleeding was worst.
As they were on the way, the woman suddenly screamed. When both Alya and Elena looked back, they saw the man had turned into a fallen and was biting the woman's flesh.
Alya started panicking, but Elena was quick to take action. She struck the bat at the man's head, but it wasn't enough to kill him. Elena quickly took out the kitchen knife from her pocket and stabbed the man's head, ending his life.
[You have slain a Lv.1 Fallen human (Cody Hubert)]
[You have gained 3 SP]
"What have you done?" asked the woman who had also started bleeding.
Elena ignored the notification and looked at the woman.
Her gaze wasn't friendly at all as she took out the knife from the dead body.
"Wait, I..." The woman, realizing the situation, wanted to plead but had nothing to say to turn it around.
[You have slain a Lv.1 semi-fallen human (Chloe McKay)]
[You have gained 2 SP]
Alya was speechless by the turn of events as she looked at Elena. Elena looked back, her face red, still with a scary expression.
For a moment, Alya thought she was the next one Elena would kill.
Thump.
Elena dropped the knife and sank to her knees.
"Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh," she screamed, only now realizing what she had done.
Sometimes a human stops listening to the brain when its thought process becomes a mess and acts instinctively like an animal. Only when all the blood flow returns to normal do they realize what has happened and what is happening around them.
This phenomenon is known as the "fight-or-flight response" or "acute stress response".
This was what Elena was going through now.
Alya wasn't a psychology expert, but she realized Elena needed someone to comfort her now as she was totally shaken.
Elena was prepared to take the life of a monster, but was the woman really a monster?
Elena asked herself this repeatedly in her head while Alya just hugged her and said sweet words like, "It's alright," "You did nothing wrong," and "It was for our survival."
Her words seemed to work as Elena was starting to calm down.
********************************
A few minutes earlier,
Bang!
Bang!
"Now we are even," said a cloaked figure as he turned away and started walking.
After walking to a secluded place in the back alley, he opened a shelter gate to a garage where piles of fallen corpses lay. There were dozens, all naked with severed limbs and heads.
Closing the garage, the man muttered, "Record":
[
Name: Miyamoto Shin
Race: Human
Class: None
Subclass: None
Level: 9 ( 0/1000)
AP: 0
Attributes:
->Strength: 28
->Endurance: 13
->Stamina: 25/27
->Agility: 44
->M.P: 36
->Mana: 228/228
Weapons(0) Equipments(0) Skills(0) Weapon Arts(0)
]
Shin had a complicated smile on his face as he gazed at his record.
He took out a piece of meat he had set on a pan for grilling and ate it.
[You have gained +1 Agility]
"Ahhhhh," he exclaimed with a mixture of ecstasy and the feeling of growing stronger.
"If only my momma knew human meat was this potent, she could've fed it to me all my childhood, right?" Shin asked, looking at the severed heads.
"What, it was a good joke. So what if it was a bit dark? You could at least show some reaction." Angered by the lack of response, he took out a knife and stabbed the heads until they were unrecognizable.
"Huh, how could I forget? The dead don't smile," Shin realized.
"Oh, you poor things. I am so sorry. It's just... I am quite bored with no audience to entertain, no people to watch my glory " he said with a sad tone filled with loneliness.
"Finally, I found you, You are definitely the one" A voice came out of the blue, startling Shin. He gripped the knife tighter as he looked around.
"Don't be afraid of me. I can't harm you," the voice said again, this time even closer, as a small girl with black bat-like wings manifested beside him.
"Who are you?" Shin asked, sensing that the tiny girl gave off the same aura as the fallen humans he had killed.
"I am a Pixie, or I was one until I lost my mind and will," the Pixie sounded sad as it spoke about itself.
"Don't you have a name, or did you forget that when you became a fallen?" Shin hadn't become this strong with his devilish persona alone. He was smart, too smart; he had been the top-ranked student in the Politics department at Cambridge University.
From the clues, he could easily tell that the Pixie had fallen, but many more questions swirled in his mind—thousands, if not more.
"I did forget my old name, but my master gave me a new identity, when he imposed his will upon me," the fallen Pixie said with a smile as it spoke of its master.
"You may call me Kiara." After introducing herself, she continued speaking of her former master.
"My master was a 3rd stage Transcendent-ranked being. Before his death, he told me to come to this place at the exact time your world integrated with Uriel. I know you have many questions, but let me first explain why I came to you"
After receiving a nod from Shin she continued.
" My master, before departing, tasked me with finding you, his successor. You will inherit all of my master's treasures and Weapon Arts to further your strength. From now on, my sole purpose will be to serve you."
"Hoh, Omoshiruina (Oh, interesting)," Shin chuckled. 'Who died and left their property to me?' he wondered.