Left.
Right.
Upper floor.
Emergency exits.
Staircases.
Potential choke points.
Then—
A flashing red window appeared directly in front of her face.
Dia blinked.
[SYSTEM EMERGENCY QUEST TRIGGERED!]
The marshmallow mascot appeared wearing a tiny SWAT helmet and holding a digital megaphone.
[WARNING, HOST!]
[The biological entities detected in the northern quadrant of this structure are NOT undead!]
Dia’s eyes narrowed.
[THEY ARE HUMANS!]
Humans.
That wasn’t inherently threatening.
Or... Was it?
The mascot leaned closer.
[Oh, Host! You adorable little logical dumpling!]
Dia’s eye twitched.
[Humans are MUCH scarier than zombies in the apocalypse!]
[These humans have established a hostile territory inside the sporting-goods store!]
[They possess firearms!]
[Bad attitudes!]
[AND ZERO AESTHETIC TASTE!]
Dia stared blankly.
The final classification is irrelevant.
[They are tracking your Guardian’s movements!]
Dia’s expression immediately sharpened.
[OBJECTIVE: Warn your Guardian!]
[Do not let him get ambushed!]
Then came the reward.
[REWARD: 1x Pack of Premium Chicken Nuggets — STILL WARM!]
Dia’s eyes widened by approximately two millimeters.
[1x Pair of Indestructible Toddler Combat Boots!]
Her gaze dropped toward her ruined sneakers.
[+50 System Coolness Points!]
She ignored the final reward.
Chicken nuggets.
She had read about them in the laboratory.
Processed poultry.
Breaded.
Deep-fried.
Nutritionally questionable.
And yet...
Chicken nuggets.
Dia tightened her tiny arms around Adrian’s neck.
She leaned toward his ear.
"Uncle Adrian."
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"Do not move."
Adrian immediately stopped.
"What is it?"
Dia lowered her voice.
"Humans."
His expression changed instantly.
"They’re armed?"
"Affirmative."
"How many?"
"I cannot determine the exact number."
Dia paused.
"They are located in the northern quadrant. Inside the sporting-goods store."
Adrian’s eyes flicked toward the northern concourse.
His grip around her tightened slightly.
"Hostile?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"They are tracking our movements."
"And Chicken Nuggets..."
"..."
Adrian didn’t ask how a five-year-old had detected armed humans across an enormous shopping mall.
At this point, he had already accepted the fact that Dia could produce magical stickers, possessed a spatial ability, and spoke like a miniature military computer.
If she said there was an ambush, there was an ambush.
His posture shifted.
The arm holding Dia moved slightly, positioning her behind his armored shoulder.
He turned his body into a shield.
"Good intel, little scout."
A dangerous smile appeared on his face.
Zombies were boring.
They didn’t plan.
They didn’t betray.
They didn’t understand fear.
But humans were different.
And Adrian was very, very good at dealing with humans.
He studied the northern concourse.
The sporting-goods store was large enough to provide an excellent sniper position.
Multiple entrances.
Elevated balconies.
Rows of shelving.
Plenty of cover.
Perfect.
"Change of plans."
Adrian’s voice dropped into a quiet, dangerous murmur.
"Shopping can wait five minutes."
Dia blinked.
"Why?"
Adrian smiled.
"Uncle Adrian needs to have a polite conversation with the locals."
Tiny blue sparks danced across his fingers.
Dia stared at them.
Then nodded.
"Understood."
She pulled an imaginary pair of safety goggles over her eyes in her imagination.
"I will monitor the perimeter."
Adrian chuckled.
"And the chicken nuggets?"
Dia’s expression remained perfectly serious.
"Those are a high-priority objective."
Adrian’s grin widened.
"Roger that."
He shifted Dia securely against his side.
Then he turned toward the dark northern corridor.
His footsteps echoed through the abandoned mall.
Slow.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
The Thunder God stalked toward the armed survivors.
And behind him, the five-year-old girl who had somehow survived a laboratory, an apocalypse, and a family that tried to feed her to zombies watched the corridor with solemn concentration.
She had only one thought.
Please let the chicken nuggets still be warm.
***
The Starlight Galleria’s northern concourse was shrouded in heavy shadows, the vaulted glass ceilings above completely blacked out by a thick layer of apocalyptic grime and roosting mutant crows.
Adrian Pendelton, Vanguard Commander and newly minted Thunder God, melted into the gloom with the practiced ease of a man who had spent his entire adult life hunting things that wanted to eat him.
He was a terrifying specter of violence, his massive frame completely silent, the heavy steel wrench gripped in his right hand ready to cave in skulls.
Tucked securely against his left hip, his five-year-old tactical radar, Dia, rode along in absolute silence.
Target distance: Forty meters, Dia communicated via an intricate system of precisely timed shoulder taps they had developed exactly two minutes ago.
Multiple biological signatures.
Elevated heart rates.
Scent of cheap body spray and stale synthetic cheese.
Adrian nodded, blue lightning dancing across his retinas.
He rounded the corner of an overturned pretzel kiosk, ready to unleash a barrage of S-Rank devastation upon the ambushers.
Instead, he found a scene that completely short-circuited his instincts.
There were no snipers perched in the rafters.
There were no hardened raiders polishing machetes.
The woman with the paper bag clutched her pearls, literally, she was wearing a pearl necklace over her tracksuit.
Huddled in the center of the concourse, barricaded behind a pitiful wall of overturned massage chairs and plastic mall-cop barricades, was a group of roughly fifteen people.
And they were in an absolutely pathetic condition.
They were crying.
A middle-aged woman in a bedazzled tracksuit was hyperventilating into a paper bag.
A teenager in a video game t-shirt was rocking back and forth, clutching a heavily dented golf club.
As Adrian’s imposing silhouette stepped into the dim light cast by a battery-powered camping lantern, the entire group shrieked in unified terror.
"P-please!" an older man wailed, throwing his hands over his head and diving behind a massage chair.
"Don’t hurt us! We don’t have anything! The monsters took it all! Take the massage chairs! They have built-in Bluetooth!"
Adrian stood perfectly still, his heavy wrench hovering in the air.
"Relax," Adrian grunted, his voice echoing in the cavernous mall. "I’m not here for your Bluetooth massage chairs. We’re just looking for supplies."
The group collectively exhaled a ridiculously exaggerated sigh of relief.
He blinked.
He looked at the crying civilians, then looked down at the tiny, deadpan girl clinging on his hip.