What a delicious smell!
Yuli’s small, pert nose twitched repeatedly as she caught the savory aroma of roast chicken sizzling in its own fat.
Wonderful. She never would have guessed the food in heaven would be this good. It wasn’t the light fare Lingling had made last night. This carnivore was ecstatic.
“Lili, wake up.”
A slender male hand settled on her shoulder and shook her gently.
Through the thin, soft fabric of her nightdress, the warmth of his palm reached her. Yuli gradually realized that she had not ascended to heaven. She was still alive.
Had she been saved?
Or had some kind of miracle happened by sheer luck?
The girl’s long, black eyelashes trembled lightly. Her eyelids slowly opened, and a vivid swath of red crashed into her blurry vision.
Blood!
That mantis monster!
Yuli jolted, all her awareness rushing back into her body. She lurched forward with a “whoosh,” nearly knocking her chin against the man in front of her.
“There’s a mantis monster!” she blurted out urgently.
Afraid she had not explained clearly enough, she hurriedly added, “A mutated mantis. It’s huge, as tall as an adult, and its arms are steel blades. Be careful!”
Once her eyes adjusted to the light, Yuli froze.
The young man before her was extremely handsome. He had flamboyant red hair, delicate features, and fair skin. There was a faintly bestial, inhuman quality in his amber eyes, and a whole row of silver bone studs pierced the visible rims of his ears.
He was beautiful in a slightly wicked way.
Only belatedly did Yuli realize that the red she had just seen was not the splattered blood she had imagined, but the young man’s hair.
He wore a black combat uniform edged in red. Half-crouching so that he was at eye level with her, he had one hand on her shoulder, while the solid strength of his arm supported her upper body as she sat up.
“Mantis monster…” The young man seemed rather interested in the term. A pleased hum escaped through his nose. “And then what?”
Yuli looked past him. The weeds nearby had already been flattened, making the surroundings look unlike the scene she had seen last night. Yet farther behind him, the weeds were still unnaturally tall.
The environment had not changed. She really was still at the place where she had encountered the mantis monster last night.
And then?
He was wearing a combat uniform, so he was definitely a Sentinel. Yuli, the coward, choked out, “Then you absolutely must not die…”
If even he could not defeat the mantis monster, there was no way she would survive either!
He looked incredibly strong, but what if—what if he was a pretty vase like her?
As Yuli thought this, she could not conceal the sorrow in her heart, and her expression grew increasingly miserable.
Her grief was so genuine that Tuolan froze for a moment. Then a smile spread across his lips, and the shape of his pupils shifted almost imperceptibly.
“Pfft—”
Behind him came another stifled laugh that could no longer be held back, as though someone had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“Haha, Guide Lier, what are you talking about?”
A tousle-haired boy of sixteen or seventeen suddenly appeared from somewhere. He held a roast chicken skewered on a tree branch, and his catlike eyes were bright and lively.
“What mantis monster? It died a long time ago.” The boy’s voice was light and teasing. He pointed toward the ground near Yuli’s feet. “It was only a C-rank mutated mantis. Forget the captain—even I could…”
Following the boy’s pointing finger, Yuli’s gaze met, completely unprepared, the greasy eyes of the dead mantis monster, which had been cut cleanly in half.
“Ahhh! Ma—!”
The empty ground directly in front of her toes was piled high with the severed limbs and remains of the mutated mantis. Quite a lot of pale-pink, ridged chunks were mixed into the mantis’s thick white blood. The visual impact was no less horrifying than the blood packs in any horror movie.
Mom, why does a mutated mantis have something that looks like human brain matter?!
Yuli was so frightened that she practically jumped like a startled rabbit. The red-haired young man reacted even faster. Before her head could spring up and hit his chin, his sturdy arms caught her back and the bends of her knees, swiftly lifting her away from the area.
He moved so quickly that Yuli had not even had time to react before the powerful inertia sent her cheek smashing into the young man’s broad, solid chest. Then his magnificent pectoral muscles bounced her right back.
She sat there in a daze. The second half of her shriek of “Mom” was shaken silent by the physical impact, stuck in her throat.
Ma… my goodness, that really is huge.
“Lili, what’s there to be afraid of when it’s just a corpse?” Tuolan was amused by her blank, dazed expression.
Being afraid of something alive was one thing, but how could she be afraid of something dead too?
“All right, Banwei, go do your job. You scared Lili.” He then spoke to the tousle-haired boy.
The boy named Banwei was visibly relieved.
Oh God, he would never admit that he had been frightened by Guide Lier’s sonic attack.
The fact that he had almost reflexively released his spirit entity, and that his hands had nearly trembled hard enough to drop the roast chicken, would definitely get him laughed at if he told anyone.
She looked so weak, but to be able to control the captain, this A-rank Guide really was terrifying!
“Sorry, Captain. I’m sorry, Guide Lier. I’ll give you one of my chicken legs later to make it up to you.” Banwei quickly made his escape.
“But I can only give you one leg.” After returning to the bonfire, Banwei turned his round eyes back toward them and emphasized to Tuolan, “Captain, I’m still growing!”
Tuolan’s beautiful amber eyes turned toward Yuli. “What does Lili say? Do you want a leg, or the whole thing?”
“…A leg?”
Yuli was still thinking about the mantis’s severed limbs and had not noticed how abruptly the topic had changed. Then she heard the tousle-haired boy shout excitedly:
“Guide Lier, you’re such a good person! I’ll be even more generous and give you an extra joint of the chicken neck!”
Tuolan gave a derisive laugh and called toward the other side of the bonfire, “Put extra cumin on mine, and sprinkle on a little more chili powder.”
“Yes, Captain,” answered a handsome, quiet young man.
Yuli came back to herself. The young man was still holding her in his arms, and her height had suddenly risen. With her broadened field of vision, she finally noticed that the weeds behind him had been flattened as well, clearing a circular area where the group had built a bonfire.
Six or seven people sat around it. They all wore identical black combat uniforms edged in red, leaving no doubt that they were a squad.
Yuli silently counted them. Including the red-haired young captain, the squad had eight people in total.
Considering that a standard team in the contamination zones of this world consisted of eight to ten members, this squad did not exactly meet the requirements. Two of its eight members were clearly underage boys.
Yet every one of them had a roast chicken in hand, making them look extraordinarily wealthy.
The handsome, quiet boy who had answered had two chickens roasting over the fire. His technique for turning them over and sprinkling on seasoning was highly practiced. The aroma of fat seeped from beneath the golden-brown, slightly charred skin, filling the air with the fragrance of meat.
These were all pure chickens untouched by contamination!
Lingling had told her yesterday that poultry and livestock would mutate after being contaminated and could not be eaten. In A07, the only uncontaminated meat they could eat was pork. All the other “meat” was imitation meat made from processed soy products, and its texture could not compare to real meat.
Lingling had also said that the honey-skinned Sentinel with the severely injured abdominal muscles at the hospital yesterday had returned from a contamination zone with a pure chicken, which he had handed over to the Sentinel Tower. It was valuable enough to require an exchange of merit points.
And now, this squad had at least one chicken of moderate merit value roasting for every member!
They had neither thought of taking the chickens home to raise themselves nor considered handing them over to the Tower. Instead, they had started roasting them right there in the wilderness. It was nothing short of extravagant and brazenly lavish.
Furthermore, when Yuli had stumbled upon them, they had not panicked. They had naturally treated her as one of their own and invited her to share in the “spoils.”
This reckless way of doing things gave Yuli the strong impression that they were the sort of people who lived for the fun of it.
So she immediately ruled out one correct answer.
This absolutely was not the protagonist’s elite squad.
Although the red-haired young man’s looks and bearing could definitely rival those of a male lead, in Yuli’s understanding, in novels with disaster settings like this, even if the male leads turned dark, they would only do so toward the vicious supporting female character. Their overall public image would always remain positive, and the squads they led should be the same.
Sai’en and his Heiying Squad were an excellent example.
On the first day Yuli had transmigrated into this world, the Sentinels from Heiying Squad had startled her in the hospital ward. They were tall, broad, and fierce-looking, with stern, cold demeanors. Like Sai’en, they seemed to be the type who were ruthless but sparing with words.
At the same time, however, the Sentinels of Heiying Squad had stood at attention with military precision for as long as they had remained in the hospital ward that day, as though they were carrying out a mission of offering condolences and concern with complete rigor. Their discipline was extremely strict, leaving a deep impression on her.
By comparison, Yuli felt that she might have encountered a squad with villain potential today.
A squad with considerable strength, at that!
The honey-skinned Sentinel who had handed over the pure chicken had been B-rank. Therefore, the red-haired captain should conservatively be at least A-rank. This squad of people who lived for fun might very well become one of the major or minor bosses who tripped up the protagonist’s group in the future!
Yuli could not see the novel’s actual plot, and the information she knew was truly limited.
But one thing was certain: this squad was very friendly toward “Youlier,” and the captain seemed quite familiar with her.
It was practically a powerful backer delivering himself to her door. Yuli’s feelings toward this group immediately grew much warmer.
When it came to staying alive, one could never have too many backers or connections!
Her eyes lit up with stars. She wanted to make small talk with the red-haired young man and strengthen the bond between these villains on the same side. “Um, thank you for saving—”
“Are you still scared?”
The moment Yuli lifted her head, the young man pressed it back down with his large palm.
“If you are, I can carry you around for a few more laps.”
They had reached the bonfire by then. The red-haired young man set her down on a large, raised rock. Yuli indeed had no way to walk on her own—when she had been dumped here yesterday, she had not even had slippers, and the soles of her feet were already filthy.
Perhaps afraid that she had not yet recovered, when Yuli raised her face and opened her mouth to thank him, the red-haired young man, as though soothing a child, clasped the back of her head and pressed her face back against his broad, muscular chest.
His forceful presence brought a profound sense of security. At the same time, it resembled the malicious sort of care a beast might show another’s cub, as if retaliating for her earlier embarrassment.
—Didn’t you get so frightened that you called for your mother? Here, your mother is right here.
Although he treated her kindly and spoke gently, Yuli inexplicably interpreted his words with precisely that mischievous meaning.
“N-no, it’s fine… I’m really not scared anymore.” Her cheeks grew hot. Suppressing the wild thoughts in her head, she slowly inched her head out from the young man’s chest.
“Is that so? What a pity.” Tuolan looked at her cheeks, which had taken on a pale pink hue, and smiled for some inexplicable reason.
The sound of that laugh made Yuli’s face burn even more.
Heaven above, although she was a girl who often liked videos of pretty men showing a bit too much skin, and who frequently dropped her dignity in the comments section, she swore that she had never intended to actually make a move. The last time her fingertips had touched Sai’en had been purely an accident caused by transmigrating into the book. She absolutely had not been comparing the widths of their chests in her mind just now.
Wait, Sai’en…
Yuli abruptly awoke from the orange-colored mess in her thoughts and rubbed her cheeks. She seemed to have heard Sai’en’s name just now.
“That’s right, Sai’en.”
“Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about you and him, Lili.” The red-haired young man seemed dissatisfied with her distraction. His handsome face moved closer to hers, and his long eyelashes brushed across her damp, heated breath, creating an almost imperceptible itch that made Yuli hold her breath.
She saw the beautiful eyes before her. The amber pupils slowly transformed into strange, molten-gold vertical slits.
Captivating. Eerie.
The faintly inhuman quality that had originally seemed incongruous about the young man became concrete in that moment.
Like a vicious beast lurking in the shadows, baring its fangs at her with a benevolent smile.
“Why did you attack him?” he asked, still smiling at her. “Lili, is my chest not good enough?”
Yuli: !
With that tone—so shameless and so much like a jealous primary partner—what exactly was his relationship with her original body?