It took about a week to travel to Busan. If Zin was traveling by himself, it would have taken a shorter ti, but since was Leona following him, he had to pace himself for her.
Leona followed Zin with all her might. During their trip south, Zin had to decide whether to fight off the monsters or not.
There were so Points and towns along the way, but Zin and Leona weren’t welco as they didn’t need a hunter.
“Such hospitality, pffft.”
“Smaller villages tend to be unwelcoming. Ard Point was more of an exception.”
“Do they think you’re a Reaver even though you’re with a kid like ?”
“Never hurts to be extra cautious.”
Leona was frustrated that the villagers didn’t welco them, and she flipped her middle finger at the villagers who were watching them leave.
“B****es! You better hope for a good life!”
Leona cursed and spat out. They were almost out of food to the point where they had to hunt monsters for their als, but the villages still didn’t accept them.
“You are one picky eater, kid.”
“I’m really not picky. But the food you suggested… they’re just nasty.”
“What did you eat when you were roaming around? You haven’t starved to death, so you must have eaten sothing to survive.”
“Any edible grass… stuff like that. I couldn’t hunt monsters, and I didn’t want to eat them either.”
“It may taste bad, but you need to eat enough protein at your age.
You gained so weight while traveling with . It tells that you didn’t eat enough before.”
Leona was gaining weight, and she was adding so bulk to her arms and legs. Zin didn’t skip any als, and Leona kept consuming protein and fat-eating at. Leona was getting more fit than before.
“I definitely feel less fatigued than before…”
It was obvious that she’d gain more energy by eating at. Although it wasn’t tasty, Zin fed nutritious at to Leona.
“Eh. I’m getting used to the at anyway.”
Leona said with a bright smile. There was no point in being sad, and it was better to have a positive mindset. Leona firmly believed that her mood and feelings impacted her health.
Zin smiled and replied:
“Well then today, we’ll have so poisonous dog ribeye steak sautéed on ghoul oil.”
“… You’re fooling around, aren’t you?”
Leona replied with an upset voice, and Zin added:
“It’s a diet plan that’s full of nutrients. You should be thankful.”
“I feel like barfing just by listening to it!”
“It would be funny to see that.”
Leona was fuming, yet she had no choice but to eat whatever Zin prepared.
And Zin actually served up so poisonous dog ribeye steak sautéed with ghoul oil.
Leona chewed on the at that looked as if it ca from the devil’s pan, and comnted that it was actually pretty good.
After eating an early dinner, Leona and Zin moved on.
“Where would Charl be now?”
“Well, we’ll et her if we have the sa destination.”
But, Zin was sure that Charl was heading to the BMCP. Either Charl or Zin could arrive there first.
However, if they were to et with Charl, Zin wasn’t sure how she’d react.
“Hmm…”
Leona looked around and walked.
Around them, there were ruins of a city with collapsed buildings.
“Watch your step. There might be sinkholes.”
Collapsed cities were more dangerous than the wilderness. Especially in bigger cities, where one could find sinkholes where basents had collapsed. And it was common for the ground to sink when soone stepped on weak spots.
Just like an abyss, Leona and Zin ca across multiple giant holes.
They looked like tunnels cut vertically across the city.
“My hotown had a similar atmosphere.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, many kids went far out to play and got killed as the ground collapsed. I know a bit about sinkholes. You don’t have to worry about .”
Zin and Leona walked through a firm path between sinkholes. Zin walked carefully, and so did Leona.
“Going far away from the village… kids.”
It was very dangerous to stray from the village.
“Well, kids always played treasure-hunting gas.”
“Treasure?”
Zin wondered how kids would hunt for treasure in these ruins.
“Well, if you search very well, there are things that adults don’t care about much.”
“What would that be?”
“Stuff like dolls, toys, hairpins, or clothes. Shoes. Adults don’t care about those, but they’re valuable to kids.”
Leona pointed at the buildings and their windows. Kids searched those places to look for treasure.
They were searching for their treasures, not the adults’ treasures.
There were many treasures for the kids that adults didn’t care about.
“The rare items were things like plastic robots. Especially if they were transforming robots. When soone found one, the kids would fight over it. The robot would get destroyed as they fought over it. The kids would destroy it if they couldn’t play with it. The kids would cry and yell, and on the next day, they would look for treasure again… Doesn’t that sound silly?”
Leona giggled as she rembered her past. They were innocent but silly kids. Zin said to Leona:
“I guess you had so fond childhood mories with your friends.”
“…”
At Zin’s words, Leona’s face beca gloomy. Before she was singled out, she’d had so good mories with her friends. And she was happy thinking about those tis.
“I was a kid, so I played with them. But it got old and boring. So, I stopped playing.”
Zin knew that Leona was lying and trying to act happy, but he didn’t point it out. Leona was still a kid. It didn’t look good that Leona was trying to think about her sad past.
Cities were built to utilize spaces as efficiently as possible. There were buildings constructed, and holes drilled. After the collapse of the cities, old structures fell down. Zin and Leona had to walk cautiously to make sure they didn’t pass a weaker area of ground. By contrast, mountains and fields were safer.
Cities had many spots to hide in, and people hid in those places to take cover. But monsters also hid in those places, waiting to attack.
Ruins were the perfect places for monsters to hide for an ambush. And it was the sa for humans.
In the wilderness, one had to watch all four directions, but in the city, one had to also look above and below.
I don’t think there’ll be much here, but…
Zin was carefully scouting the surroundings. The sun was setting, and they had to find a spot to rest through the night.
Zin and Leona kept walking through the ruins until it grew dark.
There were no monsters, and so wild cats were walking back and forth between buildings, owing as they did so.
And all of a sudden, Leona shouted:
“What…!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I see sothing here…”
Leona bit her lip as she looked around.
“It’s so familiar…”
Leona pointed at a statue that fell down. It had rusted over so it was hard to figure out what it was, but Leona talked as if she already knew. Zin understood what was going on.
“Was this your hotown?”
“It looks very familiar. All the cities looked the sa, so I wasn’t sure… But now I know after seeing this…”
In the body of the statue, there was a word engraved on it –
“Mok-Gol”
“Hmm, you said that you didn’t want to co back to your hotown, right?”
“Well, I didn’t an it that way…”
Leona started carefully looking around as the sky turned dark.
“The fact that we can see this statue ans that we’re in the middle of the city.”
However, it was dark all around without a single light turned on. They were in the center of the village, but there was no one to be seen. Zin hadn’t even passed a trash wall.
Leona’s hotown was a village without a wall. As Leona gazed at the statue, she smiled.
“Everyone must have died.”
Leona shrugged, and she didn’t look sad or mad at all.
Sohow she had co back to her hotown which was now a pile of ruins.
“It’s common.”
“It must have been a while ago since I don’t see any corpses.”
There was no way to figure out if monsters or Reavers had destroyed the village. But it was probable that they’d destroyed everything.
“I know the place inside out, so why don’t we rest since it’s dark?”
“Yeah, it’s ti to rest…”
Leona was brave enough to suggest staying the night among the ruins of her hotown. Other people would have tried to leave the town as soon as possible, but Leona did not display any sadness, fear, or terror.
To top it off, she added:
“If monsters, not Reavers, destroyed the village, I know of a place where we might find sothing to loot.”
Zin nodded as she smiled.
“That’s great.”
Leona and Zin didn’t have much in common, but when given the opportunity, they were always ready to scavenge the area.
Leona picked the fourth floor of a building that used to be a supermarket as their place to stay.
“The other buildings looked unstable, but this building was the most stable and was also the tallest. The other buildings looked like they’ve collapsed.”
All the windows were shattered, and the wind was blowing in, but Leona knew that picking higher ground was good. Leona’s survival instincts surprised Zin once again.
Leona was in charge of scouting the area, and Zin decided to watch out for any incoming monsters or Reavers.
Zin watched Leona walk to the first floor of the building.
Zin thought that Leona must have started roaming the wilderness a couple of years ago. And it appeared that the village of Mok-Gol had collapsed quite a long ti ago.
Most of the items would have already been looted, and most of the food would have gone bad.
Zin wasn’t at the highest point of the city but most of the buildings had collapsed, so Zin had a clear view of the area. Even in the dark, his good vision could scout the area. He had slightly better vision than most people.
And small differences like that were worth a lot.
It looks like the cats have taken over the village.
Zin nodded slowly as he watched the cats stroll through the ruins at night ti. No dogs were around. Wild dogs didn’t bark as long as they weren’t provoked. They ford packs to hunt, but there were no signs of a pack of dogs.
They could use the cats as food, but Zin decided to wait for Leona to co back.
There is no benefit in hunting cats.
Though weak, cats had spiritual power, and they were used in so magics. It wasn’t good to hunt for spiritual monsters in a place so steeped in death.
And it was a dangerous action to take in a village full of cats without the presence of a single wild dog.
Zin did not take actions that were considered unlucky as a superstition.
After monsters appeared in the world, the line between fact and superstition grew vague. So superstitions beca facts, and so facts beca lies.
Science beca a religion, and was no longer generally trusted.
And Zin didn’t know how to trust it anymore as well. As a person who had witnessed many tragedies stemming from superstition, he knew what actions to avoid.
And at that ti, Zin heard a sharp noise.
Kyaaaang!
It ca from far away, and Zin looked at the direction the sound ca from.
Gyaaaaong!
It was a sound of an alard cat. He took out a monocular, and looked at the area. It was dark, but the moonlight provided enough light for him to see.
He spotted a cat—an arrow had struck its side. It was trying to climb a wall, and then fell down.
There were five n with bows, and they were killing the cats. Each of them carried a sack, and after pulling out the arrows from the dead cats, they put their corpses into the sacks.
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