Chapter 46: First Battle!

"Hey brother, Victoria, do you guys think this red sky will ever clear up?"

"I can’t imagine that we’ll never see the blue sky again. Just thinking about it, I can’t help but feel a bit depressed."

"If I had known, I would have taken a few more pictures outdoors."

"Sigh....."

Exaggeratedly waving her hands in frustration, Elena looked at the red sky above her head with a frown.

Ever since they had stepped out of the shelter, what they saw was just one grim scene after another: corpses of people mauled by monsters, collapsed buildings, abandoned cars.

Adding to the red sky above their heads, the whole world was covered in an eerie tint.

And Victoria, while still playing with an ice shard floating in her hands, nodded in agreement with Elena.

Although they had known beforehand that the apocalypse was going to be dangerous, hearing about it and experiencing it were two separate matters.

They had passed so many corpses that she wondered if she would have survived if Ethan hadn’t persuaded her to move with him back then.

If she had refused, then perhaps not only she, but all the kids in the orphanage would have died too.

Thinking of this, she gave Ethan a light bow with a thankful smile on her face.

"Hey now, no need for thanks. All of us have to rely on each other from now on."

"As you can see, the state of the world is already deplorable, and it’ll probably get worse than this."

"With how dark human nature is, hopefully we won’t end up needing to take out more humans than monsters," said Ethan.

However, when he thought of Elena’s words about the red sky, he shook his head sadly.

Even in his ten years of experiencing the apocalypse in his past life, he had never once heard about the red sky clearing.

At one point, people even began to forget how a blue sky looked, and children born during those ten years didn’t believe it had ever existed in the first place.

A truly sad time to be alive.

’But then again, I did hear that the secret to the apocalypse, as well as the red sky, lay at the top of those black towers.’

’Unfortunately, back then, I lacked both the power and the position to check it out.’

’Maybe this time I can take a look!’ he thought as he stared out into the distance.

Burning with ambition, Ethan took out the Map of Safety.

If he wanted to get to the black tower, then he needed to increase his strength.

And what better way to increase his strength than a bit of farming?

"Hey, both of you get ready. I can see a small horde of enemies about five minutes away from here."

"Judging from their size, they should be Mana Zombies. Whatever it is, just remember it’s hostile."

"What we need to do now is attack and collect their mana cores."

"Do you understand?" asked Ethan.

To which both of them replied at the same time:

"Yes!"

"Don’t worry, brother, you can count on us! I wonder how much stronger I’ll be after using my abilities!" yelled Elena.

By her side, Victoria didn’t say anything, but by the long ice sword in her hand, Ethan already knew what she meant.

"Alright then! Let’s go!"

Walking toward the enemies, the three of them prepared to fight.

........

[Blue Star, Emerald City]

Just like Ethan had guessed, the enemies they were about to face were Mana Zombies.

Standing amidst a pile of rubble from a collapsed building, thirty Mana Zombies growled as they patrolled the area, looking for something to attack and mana to absorb.

And hiding behind a large dumpster not too far from the Mana Zombies, a group of four people cowered, covering their mouths with fear in their eyes.

Two boys and two girls, each extremely terrified by what they were witnessing.

"Damn it, Terry! If it wasn’t for you, none of us would have been here!"

"Damn you, glasses! Next time why can’t you do our homework on time? Why did you let them kick us out of the school?"

Pulling on one of the boys’ hair, the other boy growled in anger.

These four were Alex, Terry, Anissa, and Clara, a group of high school students from a school not too far from here.

The three of them had come here to bully Terry because they had previously been expelled after getting caught bullying him.

Because of that, they had planned to spend New Year’s Eve beating him up behind this dumpster.

After all, Terry was an orphan, and no one would care about him.

Fortunately, just before they could start hitting him, the apocalypse came, knocking the four of them unconscious.

Now, only upon waking up did they find themselves surrounded by man-eating zombies.

"Yeah, Terry! Alex is right, this is all your fault! I can’t die here because of you!"

"Yes, Terry! Why don’t you make yourself useful for once in your life and go die as a distraction?" cursed Anissa and Clara, their fingers still shaking in shock.

For a moment, being grabbed by the hair and abused by the girls, Terry almost gave in and used himself as a distraction.

However, just before he could, Alex’s shocked voice attracted their attention.

"W-w-what the hell is that!? A goddess?"

Pointing forward, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

A girl with ice-blue hair and an ice sword in hand was slaying the zombies like cutting through butter, the very same zombies that had made them hide in fear.

Looking at her in action, how could they not be shocked?

Only Terry, whose hair was still being grabbed by Alex, was shocked for a completely different reason.

’Wait a minute... isn’t that Sister Victoria?’

’Impossible! It can’t be!’

Remembering the big sister who had always taken care of him when he stayed at the orphanage, he wondered if his glasses were playing tricks on him.