Leon walked up to the door and opened it without rushing. Standing in the doorway was a girl with light brown hair tied into a simple ponytail, hovering there with a hint of uncertainty, cradling a small black kitten in her arms.
The kitten, as if sensing sothing unnatural, snapped its eyes open. Its gaze turned alert in an instant.
"Hey, Elena," Leon said evenly. His eyes flicked to the cat, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "Looks like that scroll skill is working pretty well."
Leon's smile widened, because in that mont, the offer felt absurdly normal, almost soothing after everything he'd been through. He lifted a hand slowly, about to touch the black fur…
And sothing happened that he absolutely didn't expect.
The cat moved.
No wind-up. No visible motion. One mont it was in Elena's arms, and the next it was on top of her head, claws buried in her hair, leaning toward Leon with bared fangs in a clear warning.
Leon froze.
Not because he was scared.
Because he hadn't seen the movent at all.
And that was sothing that had been happening less and less lately, ever since his Agility and perception had climbed so high.
He narrowed his eyes, looking at the kitten again, not as a normal animal anymore, but as sothing that could instinctively recognize danger. And at the sa ti, he felt it was mutual. The cat was reacting to the pressure Leon gave off, his essence, his presence. A shiver ran through the small black body, and its fangs slid out even further.
"Hey." Elena sounded genuinely annoyed as she reached up. "Behave. You don't bare your teeth at every person who wants to pet you. And stop climbing into my hair, do you have any idea how much it hurts when you dig your claws into it?"
She grabbed the cat and pulled it off her head, bringing it back into her arms. The cat only huffed, turning its snout away with theatrical offense, making it painfully clear it had no interest in Leon whatsoever.
Leon looked at Elena with a mix of amusent and mild confusion, because one very specific question popped into his head.
"You just said he's cuddly," he pointed out calmly.
Elena flushed for a mont, then imdiately started stroking the kitten along the neck and back. And, as if to spite the entire situation, it began to purr within seconds, settling comfortably in her arms, completely ignoring Leon, like the earlier warning had never happened.
Only then did Elena seem to rember sothing.
Her eyes jumped to Leon's face, then lower, and finally locked onto his legs. Her expression shifted sharply, because only now did it hit her why she'd co.
"Leon…" she said quietly, worry seeping into her voice. "You… yesterday you…"
She cut herself off, staring at him like she'd just realized he shouldn't be standing here at all. When she looked at his legs again, she saw sothing that didn't match her mory from the day before.
Elena stared longer than was polite, but she couldn't make herself look away. Yesterday Leon had barely been able to stand, and his feet had looked like sothing that needed to be immobilized, wrapped, and left alone for weeks.
Now the injuries were still there, it hadn't vanished like magic. In a few spots the skin was still red, thin and delicate, like it had only recently grown back. Here and there, remnants of dead tissue were peeling away, revealing a lighter, fresh layer beneath.
But the overall picture wasn't "critical injury" anymore.
It looked like healing.
And that was the unsettling part.
Seeing her face, Leon spoke calmly, almost too casually, like none of this was strange.
"You don't have to worry anymore," he said. "I told you it was minor. Two, three days and it should be fine."
The words ca out light, but inside he felt that sa ugly stab he couldn't shake, the awareness that people had seen him like that, and they'd rember him not as soone who stood and fought, but as soone who could barely walk. That thought was still harder to swallow than the pain itself.
"Why did you co, anyway?" he asked after a mont, steering the topic away.
Elena still looked completely thrown. The healing rate was inhuman, and only now was she starting to understand that "gaining levels" and "getting stronger" didn't just an more strength or faster movent, it ant things she'd never even thought about before. Regeneration. Resistance. A body repairing itself at a speed that shattered everything she believed was possible.
A beat later, like sothing finally clicked, she flinched slightly.
"Oh, right." She lifted her gaze. "Adam and Marek want to hand out breakfast again."
"So it's morning already," Leon muttered.
Then he nodded.
"No problem," he said. "They can co by."
Elena lingered like she wanted to ask more, but in the end she just nodded and backed away, heading off to tell Marek and Adam.
A short while later, the café where Leon had spent the night began to fill, people slipping in quietly, not chatting, not rushing. They took seats and ate whatever could be prepared. The atmosphere was heavy and muted, less like a café and more like a ss hall in a bunker.
After a few minutes, Leon felt the presence of so many people start to crawl under his skin. No one was asking him for anything, but the looks were enough. Half-stolen, cautious, curious, afraid. It made sothing tight coil under his ribs.
So without a word, he grabbed his portion and stepped outside to the basketball court, where it was cold, quiet, and, most importantly, empty.
He sat on a bench and ate slowly, letting his thoughts settle.
A mont later he noticed Elena walking toward him, a faint smile on her lips as she adjusted her ponytail with one hand and carried a bowl with the other.
"Can I sit?" she asked, stopping beside him.
Leon nodded without speaking.
She sat and set the bowl down, then started feeding the kitten. It sniffed the food, made a face, huffed dramatically, and turned its head away like it had just been personally insulted.
A small vein popped on Elena's forehead almost instantly.
"Could you be a little less picky?" she snapped. "You don't want to eat, you don't want to be around people, you don't want anyone to touch you… seriously, what am I supposed to do with you?"
The cat didn't care.
It vanished.
Just, gone. And in the next mont it reappeared at Elena's feet, curled into a ball and ready to sleep, as if the whole situation had been a waste of ti.
Leon raised his eyebrows, staring at the spot in disbelief.
That has to be teleportation, he thought. No way its Agility is so high I can't even see the movent.
The cat cracked one eye open, glanced at Leon, then closed it again, clearly deciding this human no longer deserved its attention. Still, there was sothing almost smug on its little face, like a tiny proud smile.
Elena sighed, stroked it lightly with one hand, and kept eating with the other. For a while, they sat in silence, broken only by the sounds of food and distant movent.
By the ti Leon was nearly finished, Adam, Marek, and Patrycja approached from the café, their faces a mix of interest and worry.
"How do you feel?" Adam asked imdiately. "You okay?"
But as they got a better look at him, their expressions shifted into genuine shock. Leon looked way better than he should have after what they'd seen the day before.
Leon waved it off like it was nothing.
"Don't worry," he said. "Two, three days and I'll be fine."
All three exchanged looks, visibly rattled. Only now were they starting to understand that besides his Agility, Leon's Vitality had to be absurdly high if his body could recover at that speed.
Leon suddenly scanned the area, as if sothing was missing.
"Where's Natalia?" he asked, brow creasing slightly.
Patrycja spoke first, scratching awkwardly at her light blond hair. Her young face had that expression people made when they were trying to describe sothing serious but weren't sure it could even be called normal.
"There've been so many zombies gathering around the gym since yesterday," she said, looking at Leon. "Natalia said it's better if she clears the area alone, and we're supposed to keep things orderly and hand out food so no one panics."
Leon listened in silence, then nodded. He'd seen Natalia in action. He knew normal zombies, even in large numbers, weren't a real threat to her. And her fighting style was clean and rciless enough that the area around the gym would probably be empty again soon.
"Makes sense," he said shortly, returning to his food.
In his head, he added sothing else.
Even if he still didn't like her, and couldn't forget how easily she looked down on people, he had to admit one thing.
She was strong. Really strong.
And right now, that mattered more than liking soone.
***
Natalia stood motionless on her high, transparent ice stilettos. In the morning light, they shimred with a cold blue gleam, like they'd been carved from pure ice, and yet didn't belong to this world at all.
Dozens of dead zombies lay scattered around her, frozen mid-collapse in grotesque poses, their bodies dusted in frost and ice as if death had co suddenly and refused to let them finish even a single movent.
The air was heavy with cold. Steam drifted from her calm breaths, and she stood in the middle of the slaughter without a trace of fatigue.
But her pale blue eyes weren't on the corpses.
They were fixed on an older man standing several ters in front of her, the only living figure there, looking almost absurd against the field of frozen dead.
Natalia narrowed her eyes slightly. The temperature around her seed to drop another fraction before she spoke, her voice calm and cold, stripped of curiosity, filled only with ice-clear vigilance.
"Who are you?"
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