Sometimes I think about how strange it was that most of my adult life had been spent worrying about things that, in hindsight, were completely survivable. Don't we all?
Missing a deadline felt terrible. Getting chewed out at work ruined an afternoon. And, well, in spite of all that, even the worst days usually ended with me going home, showering, lying in bed and repeating that cycle. A monotone, sometimes eventful, sometimes not, kind of life.
I missed that.
The privilege of assuming there would be a morning.
...Ahead of me, as clouds cover the sky, North Lincol's temporary hospital was coming apart within a blanket of darkness.
"Inside!" I called out to Luna.
We were moving again.
The gate disappeared above me, as Lunallu sprung metres into the air like a pole vaulter.
For one horrible second, the crowd dropped away and the upper edge of the temporary barricade rushed underneath us.
We landed inside. People were everywhere.
Stretchers had been pushed against the walls to clear the central walkway. Nurses shouted destinations over the noise, trying to separate walking patients from the injured while EDF personnel dragged barriers into new positions. An ambulance crawled through the compound with people pressed against either side of it, its driver leaning on the horn even though nobody had anywhere to move.
Lunallu carried me another twenty metres before turning behind one of the temporary medical tents.
The pressure around my body disappeared.
My legs worked again.
She set me down.
I caught the side of the tent before I fell.
"...Warn me before you jump next time."
Lunallu brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
She looked entirely unbothered.
I'd probably never understand what's in her head.
I looked back toward the entrance, where gates were still open.
That seemed like a problem. More civilians were pouring in while EDF troops tried to slow them down, but every time they narrowed the entrance, another ambulance or group of wounded soldiers needed to pass through. Nobody seemed to know whether the priority was keeping people outside, getting them inside, or getting everybody already inside somewhere else.
Worst of all, some of them might have already been bitten.
I know the kind of selfish idiots hiding it. These people were responsible for the annihilation of surviving settlements in zombie stories.
Hana.
I moved toward the covered walkway, with Lunallu close behind. Some eyes fell on her as we passed by.
A nurse nearly collided with me carrying a plastic crate full of gauze and saline.
"Sorry—hey!"
She grabbed my sleeve.
"You walking wounded?"
"No."
"Then don't stand here! West side if you're evacuating!"
"I'm looking for someone."
"You're better off looking for them on your own, young man!" The nurse took a glance at my companion behind me, then quickly strode past me.
"...If they haven't moved, try the family holding area." I heard the voice trail away into the human sea.
Family holding area...
Lunallu poked my back and pointed across the compound.
Across the compound.
I nodded without questioning her.
We moved immediately. Lunallu kept watching the soldiers instead of the crowd. Not staring, just noting where they were going, where rifles were pointed and which parts of the compound people were being pushed away from.
"The soldiers are closing sections behind us."
She was right. A pair of EDF personnel had dragged a metal barrier across one of the side corridors. Another group was moving patients out of a treatment tent near the northern fence.
A scream came from somewhere behind the treatment tents.
Nobody around us reacted immediately.
There had been too much screaming already. Then another scream followed. Closer. My fears might've been realised sooner than I thought. A nurse ran out of one of the tents, blood covered one side of her uniform.
"SECURITY!"
That got everyone's attention.
Two EDF soldiers pushed past us.
The crowd slowed. People started looking back.
I couldn't see what was happening, but somehow, I knew.
"Keep moving!" someone shouted. "KEEP THE WALKWAY CLEAR!"
The order worked for about three seconds. Then a gunshot went off inside the tent. People surged away from it. The entire walkway shifted sideways. I got carried with them.
"Luna—"
Her hand caught the back of my field pack and pulled me out before I went down.
Someone slammed into my shoulder. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Lunallu narrow her eyes.
But too much was happening. A child was crying somewhere below waist level.
Another gunshot. Then three.
The crowd broke, and people started running.
I caught a glimpse through the opening. A man in a hospital gown had one of the soldiers pinned against a table. Another patient was on the ground behind him.
The man moved wrong.
Feral. Violent.
...Infected.
The soldier shoved the patient away and fired at point-blank range.
The body dropped.
That should have solved the immediate problem.
Instead, somebody shouted from deeper inside the tent.
"THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!"
The crowd around us panicked properly this time.
Lunallu pulled me toward the wall calmly, but with a powerful force.
"Doctor, what's the next plan?" Her eyes looked at me quietly, as if both appraising and accepting.
Even amidst the chaos, Lunallu was fully unbothered. It might've as well been. In her worldview, a zombie apocalypse must've seemed like a primitive issue.
It felt like some sort of test.
What should I do? ...What can I do?
We weren't getting through the central walkway anymore. People were coming toward us now, running from the treatment section while others still tried to move in the opposite direction toward the school hall. Two flows colliding in a space built for one.
I looked up.
There was a narrow path between the back of the medical tents and the fence.
"There."
Lunallu followed my finger.
We slipped through before the crowd sealed it.
The path was barely wide enough for two people. Medical supplies had been stacked against the tent walls, forcing us sideways around boxes and folded stretchers. Somewhere to our left, staff were shouting for bitten patients to identify themselves.
That request did not sound remotely enforceable anymore. The noise outside changed. Gunfire.
Not from inside the hospital, but from the road. The wave had caught up.
I didn't need to see it, and everyone else heard it too. People near the gates began pushing inward harder. The fence beside us shook when somebody slammed into it from the other side, but I kept my gaze forward even through a flinch.
The narrow path eventually opened behind another row of tents, though calling it open was generous. Two hospital beds had been shoved against the fence, one still carrying a pile of discarded, stained blankets. A man in an EDF uniform was sitting against the wheel of the other bed while somebody wrapped his forearm.
Past them stood the side of the school hall.
Someone had taped a handwritten sign onto the wall.
FAMILY HOLDING / RELOCATION
Half the paper had peeled away in the humidity.
"There." I pointed. Lunallu followed without comment.
The side entrance was locked.
A volunteer inside noticed us through the narrow glass panel and shouted something I couldn't hear. He disappeared, then returned and opened the door barely wide enough for us to squeeze through.
"West exit," he said immediately. "Everybody's being moved."
"I'm looking for someone."
"So is everyone."
"Hana Mori. Seventeen. Lincol East. Her mother was brought here from Central General."
His expression changed slightly.
Not recognition. Sympathy.
Which was worse.
"I don't know. Check inside, but you need to be quick."
That was enough.
The hall smelled of sweat, disinfectant and old wood. Hundreds of people had probably passed through it since the outbreak started. Families sat on bags against the walls. Volunteers moved between them with clipboards that seemed increasingly useless. Somebody had dragged three whiteboards to the front and covered them in names, arrows and destination codes.
They're not fully aware of the looming danger, even though they've heard it.
Complacency.
"Hana!" My voice vanished into the room.
A few people looked over.
No Hana. I walked faster.
"Luna, yellow school shirt. Black skirt. Around here—"
I stopped myself.
There were six girls wearing roughly that description within sight.
"Hana!" I pushed between two rows of chairs.
...
There was no reason to panic yet. The hospital had been moving people. Maybe she had already been evacuated west with her mother. Maybe they were somewhere safer. Maybe—
"—Doctor."
Lunallu touched my shoulder.
I turned.
She pointed toward the far end of the hall.
A girl had just stood up between two families.
Black hair. School uniform.
For one second I couldn't see her face because somebody moved between us.
Then she stepped around them.
"Hana!"
Her head snapped toward me.
I don't think I'd ever been so happy to see somebody since forever.
She didn't smile, but still she ran. Not very far. There were too many bodies between us for that, but she shoved through the gaps with one hand raised above her head until I finally caught her wrist and pulled her the rest of the way.
For a second, I thought she was going to hit me again.
Instead, Hana grabbed the front of my shirt.
"Where did you go?"
Her voice came out smaller than I expected.
"I'm here." I didn't give an answer.
Hana's fingers tightened around my shirt, then her eyes moved past my shoulder.
Lunallu stood a few steps behind me, her hair bright enough to look almost artificial beneath the fluorescent lights. People nearby were already staring at the chains around her clothes. No, even besides that, she stood out.
Hana's eyes went from Lunallu to me. Purple.
I saw the conclusion arrive.
"...Is that—"
"Later." For once, she didn't argue.
"Mum's here."
She pulled me with her.
Hana's mother was sitting against the wall with a hospital bag between her feet, the bandage around her arm replaced with something cleaner than before. She looked exhausted, though the moment she saw me, she pushed herself upright.
"You came back, young man."
Another burst of gunfire sounded outside.
Closer this time.
The hall seemed to inhale.
Dozens of conversations dipped at once before slowly starting again, quieter than before.
People knew.
Maybe they didn't know exactly what was happening at the entrance, and yet they stayed here, only further away from it.
A volunteer rushed past us.
"West exit! If you're ambulatory, west exit now! Don't wait for your section!"
There was a commotion.
"NOW! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!"
That finally broke whatever complacency remained. That did it. Everyone had spent four days learning what that tone meant.
People stood. Bags were grabbed. Children were lifted. Wheelchairs turned awkwardly between chairs. The neat little family groups scattered into one larger mass heading in roughly the same direction.
Hana's mother tried to pick up her bag.
I took it first.
"I'm fine."
"No, it's okay. You need all the strength you can get."
"...I'll leave it to you, thanks..."
We moved.
Lunallu stayed behind us.
The west end of the hall had two sets of double doors leading into another covered passage. EDF personnel had started pulling tables aside to widen the route, but there were too many people reaching it at once.
Someone tripped. A man shouted not to push. Everybody pushed anyway. Hana stayed close to her mother, one hand wrapped around her good arm. I kept looking back. The treatment-side doors were still open.
That bothered me.
A soldier ran through them.
Then another. The second one slammed the door behind him.
"LOCK IT!"
A volunteer fumbled with the latch.
Something hit the other side.
Once.
Then again.
The entire door shook.
Nobody needed an explanation.
...Shit! They're here already!
The crowd surged.
I nearly lost Hana in it.
"Hana!"
"Here!"
I saw her hand.
Her mother was being crushed sideways between two people.
Lunallu caught her before she went down.
That was when I made the decision.
One person.
"Luna."
Her eyes found mine immediately.
"Take her mother through."
She could only take one person with her ability, Refraction.
Hana looked at me.
"What?"
"Get her through the doors to somewhere safe."
Those purple eyes pierced through me again, her thoughts unreadable. For a moment, I thought I could understand why her epithet was "The Violet Warden".
"Turn invisible, we'll follow."
"W-What? Young man—"
Lunallu nodded lightly.
"Let's reconvene later."
Her mother, realising something, quickly shook her head.
"No, stay together—" But she couldn't shake off the strength of the beauty called Luna.
Hana too, wanted to say something, but then another impact rattled the treatment doors.
A pane cracked, and screams intensified.
Lunallu's chain tightened around Hana's mother's wrist. The woman barely had time to protest before electric arcs ran along the links. Her outline blurred. Then Lunallu bent, slipped one arm behind her knees and lifted her clean off the floor.
"Wait—!"
The rest vanished with them.
One moment there were two people in front of us.
The next there was nothing except the crowd folding awkwardly around a space nobody realised was occupied. Some nearby noticed, but surely, the confusion of this incident would wash over this moment.
Hana stared.
"Your mom's safe with her. Move!" I grabbed her hand.
The Map had originally only been useful for locating the drops. Now Lunallu's position moved across it too, courtesy of the Party.
But for us, there wasn't time. We pushed forward.
Without Lunallu beside us, the crowd felt different immediately. One person shoved. The people behind them moved with it, and suddenly the whole crowd seemed to shift at once. This force rippled through the crowd, knocking people off their feet.
"Mister!"
I gripped Hana's hand tighter. And she gripped it back, fully entrusting herself to me.
The treatment door shook again. Wood splintered around the latch.
Someone rammed into Hana from the side.
"Urk!"
"Hana!" I pulled her back. A man ahead had fallen and two people were screaming at everyone to stop, while everyone behind us kept pushing because they couldn't see him.
I could barely see anything myself.
Five metres. Maybe six. The west doors were right there. I could see the corridor beyond them.
Then, the treatment door gave way.
The damaged latch had torn free.
The door flew inward, struck the wall, and a woman in blue medical scrubs stumbled through with half her face covered in blood.
A soldier followed immediately behind her.
"BACK! BACK!"
The woman turned.
Too fast.
She threw herself onto someone.
The scream that followed changed the whole room. The neat pressure toward the west doors became sideways movement, backwards movement, bodies climbing across chairs.
Hana's hand slipped.
I caught her fingers.
Then somebody slammed between us again.
"F-Fuck! Hana!"
"I'm here!" I saw her shoulder.
Then lost it.
Someone drove an elbow into my chest. My bag snagged against a chair. I tore it free and shoved through after her.
"Hana!"
"Here!"
She was only a few metres away.
It felt much farther.
More infected came through the broken doorway.
I couldn't tell whether they'd already turned inside the treatment section or come in from outside with the retreating crowd.
It didn't matter.
An EDF soldier fired. One of his shots buried itself somewhere in the ceiling when somebody hit his arm.
"GET DOWN!"
Nobody got down.
People were running everywhere.
...Hooh... I exhaled deeply.
I drew the PZ400.
Hana reached me. I grabbed her arm.
"Don't let go!"
Three metres. The west doors. Almost.
Something crashed behind us.
I looked.
An infected man had gone over a row of plastic chairs and landed on his hands.
His head snapped up.
Not toward me.
Hana.
"Run!"
I raised the pistol.
No shot.
Two civilians crossed in front of him.
The infected lunged.
I moved sideways.
Still no shot.
Hana looked back.
She shouldn't have.
She saw it coming and froze for barely a second.
...But a second too long. The man hit her.
They went into the chairs together.
"HANA!"
I fired.
The round went wide. Somebody screamed beside me.
I forced myself closer.
The infected had one fist tangled in Hana's shirt.
She shoved its face away with both hands.
I saw its mouth open.
"GET OFF HER!"
Second shot.
Shoulder.
Useless.
Hana screamed.
The sound went through me.
I fired again.
The infected jerked and collapsed across her.
Hana kicked its body, with tear-filled eyes.
I dropped beside her and dragged the body away.
"Hana!"
She pushed herself upright.
"Nngh... ...I-I'm fine."
"Hana, that's—"
"—I'm fine! I swear!"
Blood covered one side of her drenched uniform.
I grabbed her shoulder.
She hissed.
My hand stopped.
There was a small tear in the fabric.
Right where the infected's mouth had been.
I pulled the cloth aside.
Hana saw my face before I could control it.
Her own expression changed.
Four broken crescents sat against the skin near her shoulder.
For a moment, the room disappeared.
Gunfire became something far away.
People were still screaming.
Somebody was shouting for everyone to move.
I heard none of it properly.
Hana looked down.
"Oh."
That was all.
I stared at the wound.
Maybe it hadn't broken skin enough.
It had.
Maybe there was some—
No.
Stop.
Think.
Lunallu.
Zombies.
Kill.
Trauma kit.
Nanohealing pills.
Should find them fast.
Or summon.
That's right. Summons.
I killed a zombie, so maybe I got some currency.
Maybe—
"—Doctor!"
Lunallu. Somewhere ahead.
Her voice reached me through the crowd.
Hana looked toward it.
"...Mum?" She asked weakly.
I swallowed.
"We got her out."
"You're... sure?"
"Yeah, so all that's left is...!"
Hana grabbed my sleeve.
"Then don't call her back."
I looked at her.
"Don't call her back here." She repeated, with an enduring frown.
Another infected went down under EDF fire near the treatment doors.
The west corridor was beginning to clear only because everyone who could reach it had already run.
"...I understand. Let's find someplace quiet."
"...Okay."
Hana stood. Her knees almost gave out.
I caught her.
"I'm fine."
"Stop saying that."
She didn't answer.
I put her arm over my shoulder.
We moved toward the west doors.
Every step felt wrong.
Still people shoving past us.
Still soldiers shouting.
Lunallu appeared near the other end of the corridor. A violet shimmer peeled away from empty air and suddenly she was there, alone.
Her eyes went to Hana's arm, covering her shoulder in a pained expression.
"I brought her to a maintenance room across the next block. It locks from inside. I told her to barricade it after I left."
Hana was staring at Lunallu now. Many thoughts must be going through her mind right now, but she was uncharacteristically silent. I looked back toward the hall. More gunfire. The EDF line inside wouldn't last forever.
"There are rooms beyond the courtyard."
Lunallu turned toward the corridor she'd come from.
"Let's go." I had Hana leaning against me, and for reasons I couldn't explain even to myself, I didn't want her disappearing from sight.
We crossed the courtyard through a side passage while everyone else fled toward the larger evacuation route.
The noise slowly receded. Behind us, hundreds of people. Ahead, classrooms. Dark windows. A vending machine humming beside an empty noticeboard as though school might resume on Monday. Lunallu tested the first door. Locked. She didn't look for a second one. The door was blasted away with a punch. Desks had been shoved against one wall to make room for medical supplies. A thin mattress sat beneath the windows, probably used by some exhausted volunteer before.
Good enough.
We went inside.
Lunallu pieced the door back carefully, leaning it against a few tables so it wouldn't fall off.
It was quieter now. I could hear Hana's laboured breathing, and a faint hum coming from Lunallu's equipment.
I lowered Hana onto the mattress.
She stared at the bite. I crouched beside her. My hands had started shaking again. I hadn't noticed until then.
"It's longer than expected, huh, haha..."
I looked at her, and realised what she was saying.
She looked at the windows.
Rain had started tapping lightly against them.
I hadn't even noticed it beginning.
I wonder if rain does anything to zombies.
"Hey mister, when's the fastest someone turns?"
I didn't want to answer.
"Uncle."
"..."
"Jun Tae-yoon."
Lunallu's eyes shifted toward me.
"...Minutes."
She nodded.
"Longest?"
"Hours."
Another nod. Casually asked, as if she were asking about the last train.
Lunallu stood near the door.
Quiet. Watching. I looked at her. For one stupid second I expected something. A solution. She was from the future. From another world. She could turn invisible. She threw infected adults around like luggage. Surely something in that impossible world could fix a bite.
"Luna."
She looked at me.
"Do you have anything that can stop an infection?"
She stayed by the door.
"What kind?"
I had explained the zombie outbreak roughly within the white space, but there were many holes to fill when you started explaining.
"...I'm... not sure. But you've seen what it does to people."
Lunallu moved closer, and crouched beside Hana. Her fingers hovered near the wound without touching it.
"It's biological in nature."
Lunallu examined it for several seconds.
Then looked at me.
"I have nothing suitable."
My heart sank.
Hana laughed once, quietly.
I sat down beside her.
There were things in the System.
There had to be.
...Whitewing Mercy.
Levels. Of course, using experience. From killing zombies?
Lunallu is currently... LV2.
Three levels away.
If levels worked the obvious way, then killing infected should increase it. We'd already killed several together. Maybe stronger enemies gave more. Maybe there were experience requirements I hadn't seen yet. Maybe if Luna went outside right now and—
I stopped. No.
Actually, why was I stopping?
There were infected everywhere.
"Luna."
She raised her head.
"Can you secure this block?"
Her sharp, bright eyes moved toward the ruined door.
"How far?"
"The corridor. Courtyard too, if you have to. Kill anything infected that comes near here."
Her eyes met mine. Something shifted in her expression. It wasn't hesitation. More like she was reconsidering the amount of force I had permitted her to use until now.
Then she nodded.
"As you wish, Doctor."
She stood.
For a moment, however, she didn't leave.
Those eyes settled on me strangely.
Not Hana. Me.
I didn't understand why.
There wasn't enough room in my head to care.
"...Please."
Lunallu turned.
Her chains made a faint metallic sound as she stepped through the makeshift doorway, and a few seconds later she was gone.
The first crack of electricity came from somewhere down the corridor.
Then another.
Yes, I'll level Lunallu up. Then unlock the banner. Get enough Z-Chips. Pull. And then—
"—What are you thinking about?"
I looked at Hana.
She was watching me.
"Nothing."
"That's definitely not nothing."
I didn't answer.
She looked toward the doorway, where another dull impact sounded somewhere beyond the corridor.
"...Hey mister. Is, uhm, magic real?"
"..."
"Are you going to use magic to turn me back to normal?"
There was a tiny smile on her face, but it was too careful. The sort people made when posing a rhetorical question.
"I don't know."
But still, she couldn't keep her disappointment from showing.
"That's not very magical."
The smile faded.
Rain ticked against the windows. Somewhere farther down the corridor, something struck the floor hard enough to rattle a loose pane in the doorframe. Lunallu, probably. She was still clearing whatever came close. Zombies were flooding everywhere, I'd bet. At least here, we're safe.
Hana looked back at her bite.
"So there isn't a spell."
"I didn't say that."
She thought about that for a while, and struck off each finger as if recounting something.
"No, that shouldn't be right. Uncle, you are a real magician."
Well. I had things that looked like magic for a while now. ...For example, this gun in my hand...
...
To the girl who hadn't even come of age, it must've looked like magic.
I rubbed my palms against my trousers.
"There are things I can do."
Her eyes lifted.
"Things?"
"Things."
"Of course you're not going to tell me."
She pouted, yet didn't push. She'd never pushed me for answers ever since I'd saved her.
"I expected as much, adults are liars. My father was a liar too."
"..."
Another few seconds passed.
Her fingers moved against the mattress until they found the edge of my sleeve. She burrowed her head deeper into the mattress. She was panting. I could see black veins crawl up her face.
Level 3.
And even if she somehow hit five tonight... I don't have enough Z-Chips.
We don't have enough time. There's never enough of anything when you need them.
"Hey mister."
I held the PZ400 firmly in my hand.
"Do you like me?"
"Hah? You're like a kid to me."
"I think I like you."
...It loosened slightly.
"Talk in your dreams when you're sleeping, brat. Also, don't you have a boyfriend waiting for you, y—"
"—Brandon's dead."
"..."
Hana stared at the ceiling.
"He was at school when it happened. We were supposed to meet after class."
Her voice had started coming apart at the edges.
"I kept thinking he'd message me. Even after Mum did."
...
"He was annoying."
...
"Always late."
...
"I liked him anyway."
...
"I liked heroes since I was little. Watched all the shows that boys liked. Hehe... Brandon saved me before too. Maybe that's why I asked him out."
Her fingers tightened around my sleeve.
"When you saved me that night, I thought... you were kind of cool too."
The black veins had reached beneath one eye now.
Hana swallowed nervously.
"Haha... you're so quiet uncle. I guess you really don't like me that much."
"...I've only known you for four days."
She gave the faintest little laugh.
"You're really bad at comforting people."
...
"Aah-ahh... I thought I would make your heart race at least. You're really cold, uncle."
She clenched my free hand, and interlocked fingers.
"...Really cold... uugh..." She spat out something black. One of her legs twitched.
I checked the chamber.
"Hey, will it hurt?"
"I don't know. A headshot does it."
"Hehe... you take more than one shot."
...
"So..."
She held the barrel, and pointed it at her decaying forehead.
Her breathing came faster.
"One shot, ...okay?"
"...Okay."
"...One last thing."
"What is it?"
"It's.... haah, haah... a lot to ask, I... know... but... haah, haah..."
As she raised her face, I could finally see the tears falling uncontrollably from her eyes.
"...Take... Take good care... of... my mum, okay?"
"...Okay."
"Uncle? ...You're not saying... anything... haha... haaah... but... do so anyway... okay?"
Her eyes were already shut, amidst her rapid panting.
"I... really..."
Her words stopped there.
"...Rrraaaghh—!"
Her head jerked at the exact moment my finger tightened.
—BANG.
The sense of Déjà vu overwhelmed me. But the shot went wide.
Continued to move even as I pinned it down.
Threw my gun away.
Gagged its mouth.
Straddled the body, with both hands.
I choked its neck.
Strongly.
"G-Gra..aa...aaah..."
I squeezed harder. My arms shook.
Until I heard a snap.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
...
... ...
... ... ...
How long had passed?
I could feel a presence behind me.
"Luna."
I heard movement.
I was hugged from behind.
"Humans are weak." I released my grip from the corpse.
"That's why they stick to other humans."
Her arms remained around me from behind, loose enough that I could have pulled away whenever I wanted.
"...That's what we're supposed to do, right?"
My voice sounded strange, turned hoarse from all the screaming.
"...Hana was weak."
"A seventeen-year old girl, in the face of a zombie apocalypse? Can you fucking believe it? It's the hardest difficulty."
I looked down at her. My fingers tightened against my knees.
"...And I was weak too."
I laughed quietly. Ah. My vision is blurry.
"I had... everything. But I couldn't stop being weak."
Yeah, I could've done better. If I let Luna take on the zombies, maybe she could've killed them all.
If we took a detour and looked for some of the medical supplies.
If I didn't look for Lunallu first, and stayed with her.
...
... ...
This world. It's messed up. Everyone is weak.
To paint my weaknesses, I fed my own vanity and treated it like a game.
No. It's not a fucking game. So.
In this real world, this ability of mine.
This gacha system. This other world that I will draw power from.
“I'll do it... whatever it takes...”
My throat tightened.
"In this wretched world... I'll become a fucking hero."