Dia’s face contorted into a microscopic grimace of pure disgust.
’I would sooner throw myself back into the zombie horde than utter those syllables.’
While Dia was having a silent, stubborn argument with a digital marshmallow, Adrian was busy conducting his own intense internal analysis.
He watched the tiny girl.
She hadn’t screamed or cried.
When she woke up, she hadn’t rubbed her eyes and babbled for her mother. She had scrambled backward with the clumsy execution of a five-year-old, but with the calculating intent of a seasoned veteran.
And now, she was just standing there, her small face completely devoid of standard child-like emotions, staring at his forehead like she was trying to solve a complex algebraic equation.
Adrian took a slow, deep breath, testing his lungs.
Perfect.
No rattle. No pain.
The neurotoxin was gone, replaced by a thrumming core of pure elemental power.
He was a warlord.
He survived by reading people, exploiting weaknesses, and eliminating threats.
But as he looked at this malnourished, filthy child wearing shoes that were practically falling off her feet, his razor-sharp instincts flatlined.
She had saved his life.
He didn’t know how, though the magical, glowing dinosaur bandage currently adhering to his forehead was a strong clue, but the how didn’t matter.
In the apocalypse, power was everything.
Miracles were rare, and those who could perform them were usually hunted down, enslaved, or dissected.
’If I ask her what she did,’ Adrian thought, his eyes softening slightly, ’she might panic. She might think I want to exploit her.’
’She’s just a child.’
’A child who somehow survived the outbreak, wandered into a subterranean death trap, and decided to share her magical healing powers, and her strawberry milk, with a dying stranger.’
He made a decision.
The Reaper of the Wastes buried his intimidating aura.
He consciously forced his broad shoulders to drop, relaxing his posture to appear as non-threatening as a man covered in blood could possibly be.
He coughed again, gently, to ensure he had her full attention.
"Hey there, kiddo," Adrian rumbled.
His voice was deep and gravelly from disuse, but he purposefully softened the edges, making it sound more like a tired bear than a wrathful god.
Dia blinked.
’Kiddo. A colloquial term for a juvenile goat, frequently applied to human children to establish a disarming, informal dynamic. He is attempting to pacify me. Excellent. The transport unit is being compliant.’
"Are you... the one who helped me out?" Adrian asked, gesturing vaguely to his chest, carefully avoiding pointing at the neon pink dinosaur on his forehead.
He knew it was there.
He could feel the adhesive pulling at his skin.
It was an assault on his dignity, but it was a badge of honor he would wear to his grave if he had to.
Dia hesitated.
The System was violently flashing green arrows pointing at Adrian, a digital cheerleader urging her to speak.
She opened her mouth, intending to deliver a concise, factual report:
’Yes. I applied a reality-altering adhesive provided by an extra-dimensional intelligence to halt your biological degradation. Now, fulfill your end of the symbiotic contract and act as my physical shield!’
However, her brain-to-mouth interface was currently routing through a five-year-old’s vocal cords.
"I..." Dia started, her voice coming out as a tiny, high-pitched squeak that mortified her deeply.
She cleared her throat and tried again, forcing the words out slowly.
"I put... the sticker on you."
Adrian’s heart did a strange, painful little lurch.
’A sticker.’
She called a legendary, flesh-knitting, death-defying artifact a sticker.
"It’s a very nice sticker," Adrian said solemnly, completely deadpan, nodding his head.
The Brachiosauruses shifted with the movement of his brow.
"Thank you. I think it saved my life."
Dia nodded curtly, accepting the gratitude as her due.
"Your structural..." She paused.
"Your body was breaking. The sticker fixed the leaking."
Adrian suppressed a chuckle.
Leaking.
That was one way to describe a massive arterial hemorrhage.
"Right. The leaking. How did you get all the way down here, little one? It’s not safe here."
"Aunt Martha threw me," Dia stated matter-of-factly.
The temperature in the garage seemed to plummet by ten degrees.
Adrian’s relaxed posture vanished in an instant.
The S-Rank lightning core in his chest flared, and a microscopic web of blue electricity crackled across his knuckles before he forcefully reined it in.
His eyes, previously warm, darkened into twin pools of murderous intent.
"She... threw you?" Adrian repeated, his voice dangerously quiet, lacking all the forced gentleness from a moment ago.
Dia, unbothered by the sudden spike in killing intent because it wasn’t directed at her, simply nodded.
"Yes. To distract the bad smelling corpses. It was a wrong strategy. My body was insufficient to delay them for more than four seconds."
She paused.
"But the System—"
Dia caught herself.
Rule one of anomalous data: do not reveal the source of the anomaly.
"—I ran away. And then I came down here."
Adrian stared at her.
This tiny, fragile creature had been used as zombie bait by her own family.
She had run through the apocalypse alone, in the dark, and instead of hiding, she had walked up to a dying, terrifying man and saved him.
Any lingering doubts Adrian had evaporated.
He didn’t care where she came from, her origin, or such. He didn’t care if she was a mutated human or a divine being disguised in a Princess In Training shirt.
She was his now.
He would tear this broken world apart with his bare hands before he let anyone, let alone her garbage relatives, ever touch a hair on her head again.
But Adrian was a tactician.
He couldn’t just scoop her up; he might frighten her.
He needed to establish trust.
He needed her to want to stay with him.
"I see," Adrian said smoothly, burying his rage deep within his chest, saving it for the day he inevitably met Aunt Martha.
"Well, you’re very brave."
Dia shifted her weight from one squeaky sneaker to the other.