There was a saying everyone knew in the apocalypse.
Never trust zombies. Never trust strangers. And above all...
Never trust teammates who smiled too much.
Sadly, Ethan learned that lesson five seconds before he died.
"We’re almost there!" someone shouted ahead. "The helicopter is waiting!"
A faint smile spread across Ethan’s exhausted face. After three years of surviving the apocalypse, three years of endless running, fighting, and watching the world crumble, they had finally reached the military’s evacuation point.
They had actually made it. Ethan tightened his grip around the bloodstained machete in his hand, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest, yet he forced himself to stay on his feet.
Behind him, however, thousands of zombies surged through the shattered streets like a black tidal wave, swallowing everything in their path.
Ethan came to a stop and turned around. "Go!" he shouted. "I’ll hold them back!"
His teammates froze. "We’ll come back for you!" someone yelled.
Ethan let out a tired chuckle.
"No, you won’t if you keep standing there."
Despite everything, he still couldn’t resist teasing them. It had always been this way.
Whenever the team found themselves cornered, Ethan was the one who stayed behind. He charged into danger first, retreated last, and somehow always managed to drag everyone else back alive.
Not because anyone expected him to it was simply because he was the strongest and so if someone had to buy them a few extra minutes...
He was the obvious choice.
The team leader looked at him with reddened eyes. "Thank you, we owe you everything."
Ethan rested the machete on his shoulder and grinned. "You can repay me by surviving."
The group nodded before sprinting toward the rooftop. Only after they disappeared did Ethan turn to face the approaching horde.
His hands trembled from exhaustion. Blood seeped through countless cuts across his body, and the pistol strapped to his waist had long since run out of ammunition, only the machete remained.
He let out a slow breath. "Come on, then."
The first zombie lunged.
The blade flashed through the air, cleanly separating its head from its body before the next monster rushed forward. Ethan kept moving, cutting down one infected after another as blood splattered across his face and soaked into the cracked pavement beneath his feet.
Minutes blurred together and his arms grew heavier with every swing, while his vision slowly lost focus. Even so, he refused to retreat.
By now...
They should have reached the helicopter safely. The thought eased the weight pressing against his chest.
Good.
Then this hadn’t been for nothing. The roar of helicopter blades echoed across the ruined city.
Ethan instinctively looked up.
The rescue helicopter hovered above the rooftop, its spinning rotors scattering smoke into the air.
Relief flooded his face.
"They came back..."
He actually laughed at himself.
See?
And here I was thinking they’d leave without me.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when his smile slowly disappeared.
Standing beside the open cabin door were the very people he had protected for the past three years.
None of them looked relieved or desperate. They simply looked down at him with expressions he couldn’t quite understand.
Pity.
Regret.
Distance.
The team leader slowly raised his rifle.
"...Sorry, Ethan."
A gunshot shattered the air.
Pain exploded through Ethan’s shoulder, forcing him back several steps. Before he could process what had happened, a second shot rang out.
His leg gave way beneath him, he crashed onto one knee as the surrounding zombies closed in.
For a long moment, his mind was completely blank.
"W-What are you doing...?"
No one answered immediately. The woman whose life he had once saved from a zombie swarm lowered her head, unable to meet his eyes.
"If we bring you with us..." she whispered, "...they’ll eventually trace us through you."
Only then did Ethan notice the bite mark hidden beneath the blood staining his sleeve. It must have happened during the fight.
He hadn’t even realized it.
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"So..."
"So that’s how it is."
The team leader looked away.
"You’ve always protected us."
"But we can’t risk everyone for one person."
The helicopter slowly began to rise causing Ethan to laugh, the sound echoing through the ruined streets, hollow and strangely calm. For three years, he had shared every meal, fought every battle, and risked his life without hesitation to keep them alive. Somewhere along the way, he had convinced himself they were more than teammates.
He had thought they were family.
Turns out...
He had been the only fool who believed that.
The helicopter disappeared into the smoke as the zombies closed in from every direction. Ethan slowly shut his eyes.
"I’ve been such an idiot..."
If there was another life...
He wouldn’t spend it sacrificing everything for people who would abandon him the moment he became inconvenient.
Next time...
He would live for himself.
The first zombie reached him then darkness swallowed him whole.
...
"Ethan."
A cold voice cut through the darkness.
"Ethan Ashford!"
Someone tapped lightly against a wooden desk.
His eyelashes fluttered.
"Wake up."
The growls of zombies vanished, replaced by the murmur of dozens of unfamiliar voices. Ethan slowly opened his eyes only for them to land on a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
It was beautiful.
Expensive even.
And, most importantly...
Definitely not something you’d find in a zombie apocalypse. His gaze slowly drifted across the spacious lecture hall.
Polished marble floors, dark wooden desks, students dressed in immaculate academy uniforms.
No blood. No corpses. No zombies trying to eat his face.
"..."
Well.
That was a pleasant change
At the front of the classroom stood a silver-haired instructor, who adjusted his glasses before fixing Ethan with an impatient glare.
"If you’re done sleeping, perhaps you’d like to explain why you’re late for your own engagement dissolution ceremony."
Ethan stared at him.
Engagement..
Dissolution?
"...What?" What the hell was going on?
A splitting headache exploded behind his eyes and instantly memories that didn’t belong to him surged forward in a violent torrent—Guides, Sentinels, compatibility tests, the Ashford family, endless ridicule, a broken engagement...
By the time the pain subsided, only one conclusion remained.
He had transmigrated.
And of all the people in this world...
He had become the weakest Guide in the entire Empire.
Ethan closed his eyes for a long moment.
Then he sighed.
"...You’ve got to be kidding me."