Jasmine bit her lip, and she sighed. "When did you find out I didn’t tell you the truth, Miss?" She paused, sneaking a glance at Zerra’s face and scratched her head. "I don’t an to question you... I will tell you about our origins now."
In less than a minute, Zerra witnessed the myriad of expressions on Jasmine’s face. She was a little amused. "Since we first t."
They both were startled, widening their eyes and exchanging glances.
Zerra continued. "It’s obvious the tourist survivor you are talking about is only your other companion. The two of you seem to be local."
Despite Jasmine’s arrogant words, she could still detect anxiety in her words during that ti. She was nervous about sothing. As she talked about them being tourists who lost their families because of the apocalypse, she sensed the lack of sadness.
Instead, she was furrowing her brows occasionally as if she was pondering over the words she wanted to say. It ant she wasn’t telling her own story or was just making up one.
Jasmine and Collin had awkward expressions on their faces. Collin opened his mouth first, "Actually, we are a local tribe, Miss."
"Our tribe is divided into two. Inner tribe and outer tribes. For the inner tribes, they live in nature. Did you see the high mountain from the beach? That’s where they live. They rarely interacted with the outside world."
Zerra had heard of such tribes too, so she nodded. They were the kind of people who weren’t touched by the latest technology before the apocalypse.
Collin continued, "We are part of the outer tribe. Most of us in that small settlent are the outer mbers except for so people of this city and the surviving tourists."
"Most of them do not know about this?" Zerra wondered, referring to the city people and the surviving tourists.
"So of them know about this... but don’t give us a good outco. So of them were making trouble, wanting to go to the inner tribe." Collin shook his head. "After they were there..." he trailed off, his expression unpleasant.
Jasmine nodded. "We prefer to hide this fact so that our inner tribe can live peacefully."
Zerra thought about it. Since they were a tribe who hadn’t been influenced by the outside world, they must have known how to make themselves self-sufficient.
They just had to deal with the zombies or mutated beings. However, if they lived in the mountains, they might only need to deal with the latter. A tightly sealed tribe made it easier to reduce the risk of zombie virus infection.
If these people were used to hunting for food, they should have the ans to protect themselves too. In addition, they also must have awakened so ability.
Such a tribe was indeed tempting, like a safe haven in this apocalypse. Even if their source of food from hunting animals was no longer possible, they should still have so stored supplies.
"So, you go rob people?" Zerra asked.
The two of them froze, a little pale. They were still not good people because of their actions, but such a thing was still understandable during the apocalypse.
They revealed bitter faces, and didn’t even say anything to defend themselves.
"Your supply is not sufficient?" she raised her eyebrows, probing.
"The inner tribe often helps us by delivering so edible plants and other food supplies..." Jasmine paused. "But that’s still not enough. After all, there are too many people."
From Jasmine words, Zerra could roughly grasp what kind of power the inner tribe mbers might have awakened.
The wood ability.
They were close to nature, and that was not surprising if they did. The pollution level of zombie viruses around this area might be lower than other places too.
"We can’t ask them for food continuously, so we try to find other ans of acquiring food supplies," Jasmine added.
Even if the ans weren’t morally acceptable, they still put their small community’s interests above others. Zerra had sensed that their dead companion might have thought differently. He wanted the food for their small group only.
However, judging from how they quickly accepted his death, they might not have gotten along as well as she thought.
As they walked, unknowingly, they had walked a bit far, deeper into the city. Because of the serious topic, they didn’t even feel the nervousness because of their current surrounding.
Jasmine and Collin were only thinking how to tell Zerra the truth about their origins. Of course, they needed to exclude important information and not allow themselves to make a slip. Anyway, she didn’t look like soone who would covet their little supplies.
"But the supplies you gave could help us for another year. Thank you, Miss." Jasmine lowered her head, a bit ashad of their earlier plot. Zerra had told them how much supplies she had put in their empty warehouse.
She was quite generous, and it made them guilty. She even provide their daily als, and they felt like they were freeloading off her. So they planned to help Zerra with whatever mission she was doing in this place.
"Are you looking for sothing specific, Miss? There are only broken things in this city..." Collin trailed off. "But we will help you if we can find whatever it is you are looking for."
After scanning so housed to no avail, Zerra decided to tell them the truth, "I am looking for a map."
"Map?" They sounded taken aback. They instantly knew why she was searching for one.
"Actually–" Collin’s words were interrupted when they suddenly heard beast-like roars. It wasn’t just one or two. From the sounds of their roars and draggy footsteps, therr might be hundreds or even thousands.
Their scalp tingle when they turned around and saw zombies on the road still a few hundred ters around. They were so dense that they could sll the rotten flesh from their current position.
Only then did Jasmine and Collin rembered they were in Tidebreaker City–a ho for thousands of zombies. They both swallowed, sneaking a glance at the silent Zerra who was frowning deeply.
She was still standing there, unmoving, so they couldn’t run away and left her there alone.
"Miss, should we run...?" Jasmine hesitated to ask, but she finally did. No wonder they only occasionally encountered a group of less than ten zombies on the way, the rest of them had gathered sowhere.
Zerra narrowed her eyes. She saw so people running from the zombies. They were full of dirt that one would mistake them for zombies if not for her who could differentiate them using her zombie control.
In another word, she sensed she couldn’t control them.
There were around four people in total.
"Do you recognize those people?" Zerra suddenly asked.
Jasmine and Collin were a little bewildered, until they followed the direction she was pointing at.
"The zombies are chasing after the four people." She muttered. In the face of so manh zombies, unfortunately, she couldn’t control them or it would have been too obvious.
"We don’t know them." Collin sounded unsure and changed his words. "Unless we can see their original appearance."
The two were visibly shaking now, a little pale, not understanding why they just stood there stupidly while waiting fot the zombie army to reach them.
As the four people close by, Zerra quickly ordered them. "Run! Run as far as you can!"
The two didn’t hesitate any longer when they saw Zerra running. It was still in the morning and they were still full of energy, luckily.
When they weren’t noticing, she slowly ordered so of the zombies to stop chasing them or slow down their steps. Such a massive crowd, even she could feel the hair on her skin rising.
They kept running, because once they stop or even slip on sothing, they would be eaten that not even their bones will be left.
Soon, thanks to Zerra’s control over the zombies, they quickly arrived at the gate of the Tidebreaker City. The zombies chasing over them had reduced a lot. Originally, Zerra wanted to reduce the number further, however... she sensed sothing peculiar.
There was so kind of force which was trying to fight her to control the zombies. It was similar to the sensation when an ability user from Henry’s group had turned into a zombie and tried to control her back then.
Fortunately, her power was higher, so she wasn’t influenced much by the zombie. This might be the ti when zombie kings started to appear.
That zombie might be one.
She tried to spot the special zombie among the hundreds of them. Her brows furrowing, deep in concentration.
"Miss, why are we stopping?" Jasmine gasped, stopping beside her.
Unfortunately, because of the sudden interruption, ger attempt to spot that zombie was noticed by the other party.
She was quite surprised by the zombie’s perception. It was quite powerful.
"They are retreating? What happened?" Collin widened his eyes, pointing at the zombies. All of them were heading to the direction where they had co from except for the four people.
When the four people beca near, Zerra heard an unfamiliar voice calling her na.
"Zerra?"
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