“No matter what, I still have to thank you,” June insisted.
Leon didn’t say anything more and simply accepted her gratitude.
“Here. Consider this my way of thanking you.” June pulled a bag of chocolate from a drawer and tossed it to him.
Leon caught it and gave her a surprised look.
It was a large bag containing quite a few pieces.
This was no small thank-you gift.
“Then I won’t say no.” Leon accepted it without hesitation.
After all, it had been a long time since he’d eaten anything sweet.
Leon hid the chocolate under his clothes.
While everyone was still focused on the fire, he quietly returned to his room.
Eight in the morning on the fifth day since the Pokémon appeared.
Since the camp had switched to two meals a day, breakfast and lunch had been combined into a single meal served at ten in the morning.
Getting up too early would only make him hungry sooner, so Leon deliberately stayed in bed a little longer.
He secretly went to the aquarium to fetch some water and washed up.
But when he reached the camp, he was greeted by terrible news.
The faucets in the restrooms had finally run dry.
That meant the camp had officially entered a period of water shortage.
Perhaps the news had hit them especially hard, because Leon noticed that the survivors around the camp seemed noticeably more dispirited.
Until now, most of them had still held at least some hope that the Federation would eventually come to their rescue.
But once the water stopped running, everyone except the handful still clinging stubbornly to that hope had no choice but to start thinking about a future without Federation rescue.
All the able-bodied adults in the camp gathered in the conference room once again.
This time, the entire discussion revolved around water.
“There might still be water at the aquarium. What if we—”
Before the middle-aged man could finish, Ray cut him off.
“And who’s going to fetch it? You? You’re going to fight those monsters living in the water for it? Tired of being alive already?”
The others in the conference room nodded in agreement.
The aquarium was crawling with Water-type monsters.
They wouldn’t dare fight those things for water even if they had ten times the courage.
Having already stolen water from there once, Leon quietly tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
There was no way he was going to tell them he’d been using water from the aquarium.
He wasn’t naive enough to gamble on human nature in the middle of an apocalypse.
June sighed.
“Then we’ll have to step up our search for bottled water.”
Someone else spoke up.
“We can’t get into the supermarket, and the chances of finding bottled water anywhere else in the mall aren’t great.”
Leon, who had remained silent until now, suddenly said, “Vending machines!”
When everyone turned toward him, Leon calmly reminded them, “If I remember correctly, there are vending machines in the mall.”
“We’ve already cleared out the vending machines on the fourth and fifth floors. If we want to find more, we’ll have to search the lower floors,” Ray said.
A young man who had worked at the mall before the disaster added, “There are quite a few vending machines on the roof too. There’s even a large stock of drinks up there.”
Ray rejected the idea without a second thought.
“Forget the roof. I have no intention of becoming bird-monster food.”
Bird monsters hunted humans based on size.
If they ran into one while hauling water, Ray knew he’d definitely be the first to die.
He knew himself well enough.
Big body, slow runner.
He was practically a bird monster’s favorite meal!
June suddenly asked, “Leon, do you have any other ideas?”
Leon fell into thought.
With the infrastructure damaged, the best solution would normally be to find a new water source, but that option had been closed off from the very beginning.
In a world where you could run into wild Pokémon after walking just a short distance, ordinary people like them would be courting death if they tried to travel any significant distance.
And even if they did find a water source, actually collecting the water would still be a problem.
Pokémon would only be more densely concentrated in the water.
Besides, it wasn’t as if the mall had no water source.
The problem was that the water source it did have had already been taken over.
Even relocating somewhere else wouldn’t solve that problem.
That meant they would have to collect water themselves, but the bird Pokémon in the skies prevented humans from obtaining resources from above.
“Conserve as much water as possible, and then… search around the mall for more. That’s really our only option now. I remember there’s a water depot in Zone One that sells large water jugs wholesale.”
June shook her head.
“But Zone One is at least six hundred meters from the mall. We don’t even know if we could make it there alive, let alone haul the water all the way back.”
Of course she knew about the water depot in Zone One.
She even knew where the other water depots in the surrounding area were located.
But it came back to the same problem.
Right now, all they could do was hole up inside the mall and struggle to survive.
Going outside to search for supplies was already extremely dangerous, much less traveling that far.
“Then there’s nothing we can do.” Leon spread his hands, indicating that he was out of ideas too.
There was no way he was going to risk his life for the camp.
He already had Feebas.
As long as he could survive until Feebas evolved into Milotic, this hell-difficulty apocalypse would drop down to normal difficulty.
“All right. Everyone go eat first. We’ll head out after we’re done.” June looked exhausted, once again feeling lost about what the future held.
After everyone else had left, Leon looked at June with mixed emotions.
Someone with too strong a sense of morality and responsibility was destined to have a hard time ever being truly happy, especially in a world like this.
Leon couldn’t help trying to comfort her.
“There’s always a way forward when the time comes. You don’t need to think too far ahead. Just focus on surviving today and tomorrow.”
June looked up at Leon, a trace of bitterness crossing her face.
“I’m a law enforcement officer. I have a responsibility to protect civilians, but… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore. I really don’t know what to do.” As June spoke, she lowered her head onto the table and began quietly sobbing.
Leon started to step forward to comfort her, but after hesitating for a moment, he stopped himself.
“You’ve already done more than enough,” Leon said solemnly.
The camp under June’s management was unquestionably a rare exception in this apocalypse.
Those in power didn’t cruelly exploit those beneath them, the strong didn’t hold absolute power over the lives of the weak, and even the elderly and children were well cared for.
For people who were highly capable of surviving the apocalypse, a camp like this might seem burdened by too many liabilities.
But for the elderly and children, this place was a utopia amid the apocalypse.
Even if that utopia could collapse at any moment.
Leon actually had a far crueler suggestion that he’d chosen not to voice.
If June simply abandoned the elderly and children who had no ability to survive on their own, then with a gun in her hands, she could undoubtedly live quite comfortably.
But if June had truly been that kind of person, Leon would already have died the day he arrived at the mall.
Seeing her like this, Leon decided not to disturb her any further and turned to leave the office.
Breakfast that day consisted of two eggs and an ear of corn.
After collecting his meal, Leon returned to his room, slowly munching on the corn as he sprinkled fish food into the tank.