She didn’t know what a daddy was.
She knew what an uncle was.
Maybe.
"I’ll call him Uncle."
[Perfect!]
[Reward: 1x Bottle of Premium Strawberry Milk, 1x Unlimited Wet Wipes Dispenser, and your continued survival!]
Dia ignored the melodramatic description of the target.
Her eyes zeroed in on the most important piece of data. "Strawberry... milk?"
Dia’s eyes widened.
"One bottle?"
[Yes!]
"How much?"
[Enough to fill your tummy!]
Dia nodded seriously.
"Mission accepted."
[It is delicious! It tastes like liquid joy!]
"Acceptable." Dia nodded solemnly. "I will secure this biological transport unit. But how do I bypass the..." She gestured to the twenty zombies drooling on her pink bubble.
[Leave that to me! Activating: TODDLER’S WRATH (Knockback Effect)! Brace yourself, Host!]
"Brace my—"
BOOM!
The pink bubble abruptly expanded outward like a detonating bomb. A shockwave of pure, glittering kinetic energy blasted through the alley.
The horde of zombies wasn’t just pushed back; they were launched.
The businessman, the yoga mom, and the fast-food teen flew through the air like ragdolls, crashing through the windows of adjacent buildings or splattering against the far walls in a rain of grotesque, undead confetti.
The alley was instantly cleared.
Dia stood perfectly still, her messy hair blown back by the concussive wave. She looked at the devastation, then looked back at the bubbly, pink holographic screen.
"What was the blast radius? Did I do that?" she murmured, taking a small step forward.
[Yes!]
Dia’s eyes sparkled.
"Again!"
[No! That’s enough Toddler’s Wrath for today!]
Dia pouted.
"But it was fun."
[We can do it later!]
Dia smiled.
Then remembered something important.
"Strawberry milk."
[Time is ticking, Host! 5 minutes until the target bleeds to death! Follow the shiny arrow!]
She didn’t waste another second.
She patted the dust off her oversized t-shirt, adjusted her too-big sneakers, and began to trot purposefully in the direction of the golden arrow.
Dia started walking.
She stepped carefully over the debris.
Then stopped.
A severed arm lay across the road.
She stared at it.
She walked around it.
She didn’t want to step on it.
Her little legs were already aching.
After several minutes, she looked at the System.
"Is it far?"
[Very close!]
"How close?"
[One block!]
Dia looked around.
The ruined city stretched in every direction.
"What’s a block?"
The System fell silent.
[...Approximately a few minutes of walking.]
Dia’s shoulders drooped.
"That’s far."
[Host can do it!]
Dia kept walking.
She stumbled once.
Then twice.
She stopped to look at a burning car.
She stopped again when she saw a bright red balloon floating from a broken shop.
She almost chased it.
Then remembered the mission.
"Uncle."
She continued.
As she navigated the debris-filled streets, dodging overturned burning cars and stepping carefully over severed limbs to keep her shoes clean, her mind raced with calculations.
She needed to secure this ’Guardian.’
According to the System, this entity was currently bleeding out on the floor of a dusty, cold garage due to ’betrayal.’
Dia frowned. Betrayal was inefficient.
Why would humans waste energy betraying each other when there was a clearly defined external threat consuming their biomass?
That was so illogical.
However, an injured target was a compliant target. If she saved this entity’s life, she would establish a dominant symbiotic relationship.
She would provide the medical intervention (the ’Magic Band-Aid’), and in return, the entity would provide perimeter defense, physical transportation, like carrying her, because her legs were already tired again, and most importantly, the strawberry milk.
The entrance yawned before her.
Dark and cold.
Dia stood at the top of the ramp.
A strange metallic smell drifted upward.
It felt like a mix of copper, smoke, and something else.
A faint crackle echoed from below.
Crack.
Crackle.
Dia hugged herself.
"System," Dia whispered as she approached the gaping, dark entrance of an underground parking structure. The golden arrow pointed directly downward into the pitch-black abyss.
"Is he scary?"
[Very.]
"Will he hurt Dia?"
The System became unusually serious.
[No.]
[He will protect you.]
[Oh, he’s a total beast! S-Rank potential! Currently unlocking a destructive elemental ability! He’s grumpy, ruthless, and terrifying! He’s going to be the absolute BEST Uncle!]
Dia stared into the darkness.
She didn’t know why, but something inside her chest felt strange.
Warm and hopeful.
She stood at the precipice of the dark ramp leading down into the garage.
Far below, she could hear the faint, ragged breathing of a man struggling to cling to life, accompanied by the occasional, menacing crackle of raw electricity.
She reached into her pocket, where the System had materialized a single, ridiculously brightly colored Band-Aid covered in cartoon dinosaurs.
Dia stared at it.
"...This is the medicine?"
[The System’s Magic Band-Aid!]
[One application can heal almost anything!]
Dia nodded.
She took a deep breath.
Her tiny shoulders squared.
She was scared.
But she wanted the strawberry milk.
And maybe...
She wanted someone to protect her, too.
Subject 404, now Dia, squared her tiny shoulders. It was time to go acquire her first sack of rations.
She stepped into the darkness.
The sound of ragged breathing echoed from somewhere below.
A man’s voice followed.
Weak, cold, and angry.
"...Just let me die."
Dia stopped.
Her little eyebrows knitted together.
"Don’t die yet, target," she muttered to the darkness, her voice deadpan. "I have not yet authorized your expiration. I require my strawberry milk."
***
The air in the parking garage of Sector 4 was thick enough to chew. It tasted of pulverized concrete, raw sewage, and the unmistakable, metallic tang of arterial blood.
Adrian Pendelton, former Commander of the elite Vanguard Squadron and currently a rapidly cooling corpse-in-waiting, lay pinned between the blown-out chassis of a burned sedan and a cracked concrete pillar.
He was dying.
It wasn’t a poetic, cinematic fading of the light; it was a gritty shutdown of his biological systems.
His lungs rattled with every shallow pull of air, bubbling with the blood seeping from the massive, jagged laceration across his chest.