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nFor a few seconds, Kairos and the others regathered their bearings. They had gotten out of the house and recouped themselves. The early rays of dawn were coming from a hole above them.

nBoth within the house and across the closed-in field, were countless corpses of these strange monsters, torn apart into two pieces messily. They look somewhat like people, but their limbs were repositioned to be like a horse’s, perhaps to make it better for four-legged running. On their backs, were strange long black things sticking out of their backs.

nIt seemed to be like hair but was also too thick and sturdy to be normal hair.

nAs for the killer, Kairos’ Dad, he had neat black hair like Kairos, but a short beard on top of that. He still had a suit on, but it was torn by the seams. He had a long bone that had been sharpened in his hand as well as two other sharpened bones attached to his belt.

nConsidering how it was covered in blood, that seemed to be his weapon of choice, and the surrounding bodies showed that it worked.

nKairos and the others ended up eating the rest of their readily available food, avoiding the topic of the argument they had earlier. Looking at the bone weapons his father had, Kairos couldn’t help but ask for one as well.

n“Hey, could I have one of those bones as a weapon?”

nSam, or Kairos’ dad, reached smiled.

n“I can actually create one right now from these corpses.”

nHe reached out with his free hand towards the thigh of one of the monsters, keeping it straight. A faint white light appeared around his hand, rotating almost like a chainsaw.

nWhen Sam’s hand was about ten centimeters away, it cut apart with almost no resistance. It took him only a minute or so to retrieve the bone and cut it up so that one end was sharpened like a sword.

nChase nodded with his chin in his hand.

n“That is a pretty strong ability.”

nSam laughed, holding onto the newly sharpened bone proudly.

n“It works pretty well when I use it with a weapon.”

nThen, he tossed the bone to Kairos, who promptly caught it. Kairos couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

n“If it really is that easy, then do you mind making Sydney one as well?

nSam nodded.

n“Alright.”

nAfter another minute, he made another sharpened bone and gave it to Sydney.

nThen, Sam looked at his son and spoke up.

n“You seem like you’ve been through a lot. What happened?”

nKairos sighed.

n“My first action was to meet up with Nicole and group up. From there, we went to grocery stores as pit stops on the way to the wilderness. Along the way, we met Chase, Tori, and a cult leader. Along the way, we lost someone.”

nHe indicated who Chase and Tori were through pointing. Kairos then shrugged his shoulders.

nSam thought for a moment before bowing.

n“…My condolences for Harold.”

nSydney and Nicole both seemed rather distraught but did not break down. As for whether that was because of their high willpower stat or because they accepted it, it wasn’t so clear.

n“As for how effective the plan of going to the wilderness was…”

nHe adjusted his glasses.

n“I’m sure you can see the mistake I made.”

nSam laughed.

n“It seems like it has been hard.”

nKairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.

n“And how about you? It seems like what you went through quite a bit.”

nSam sighed.

n“To be honest, that text you sent me basically saved my life, so thank you for that. At the time, I didn’t really think much of it, but decided to listen anyway. Your instincts seem to be extremely strong since you were able to predict it so accurately.”

nKairos pushed his glasses up.

n“More or less.”

nSam chuckled.

n“Anyways, as you know the place I work for is in the city and quite high in the building. There are windows almost all over, so it was actually a little hard to find someplace that was far away from all that.”

nHis eyes narrowed, while his tone dropped.

n“And it also meant that nearly all of my coworkers turned into those monsters.”

nHe shook his head.

n“At first, it was hard for me to believe what was happening, but seeing a giant overbearing red-skinned figure lunge at you sort of awakened me by force of panic. I ran, trying to flee the building, but then thought of your mother.”

nSam smiled.

n“And so, I rushed up to where she worked, and it seemed that she had the same idea.”

nHe pressed his lips together.

n“Unfortunately, while we were reunited, that didn’t mean the monsters behind the both of us would go away. While I ended up panicking, your mother seemed to… have another idea.”

nSam furrowed his brows.

n“She threw herself into a room that had glass panels, fully exposing her to the red sunlight.”

nHe paused for a moment.

n“I had no idea what to do.”

nKairos looked down slightly.

n“Is mother dead?”

nSam clenched his fist.

n“No, if she was only dead, then perhaps I could accept it.”

nHis eyes widened slightly.

n“She immediately began screaming in pain and smashed everything within the room violently.”

nHe took a deep breath.

n“While I was frozen in fear, the monsters closed in on me. I knew that I was going to die soon, and began to give up. But then, several red tendrils shot out of your mother before slamming into those monsters.”

nSam swallowed.

n“She smashed them into pieces and tore them apart so easily. My body was immediately covered in so much blood, stunning me.”

nHe wiped away a tear before it formed on his face.

n“Your mother… she began approaching me, but she wasn’t the same anymore. Her irises had become red, as did her long hair that used to be jet black. If it wasn’t for all the red tendrils coming out of her back, squirming with minds of their own, then it would’ve just looked like she got colored contacts and dyed her hair.”

nSam smiled bitterly.

n“But in the end, she saved my life. Though she changed, I couldn’t help but be worried for her and rushed over. I trusted that she wouldn’t kill me, but…”

nHe paused for a second.

n“She changed. There was a strange smile on her face, almost like she was dreaming. When I got close, she grabbed onto my shoulders tightly and dislocated both of them. But… she seemed to notice what she did and popped them back in.

nSam held onto the side of his head.

n“I tried talking to her, but it seemed like she couldn’t hear me. Instead, she began humming this strange tune as she carried me with her, saying something about the joys of killing.”

nHe blinked a few times.

n“Whenever we came across a monster, she would rip off all its limbs, then make me kill it. She broke off one of the chair legs and gave it to me as a weapon. Though I felt like this wasn’t right, I still did it in the end.”

nSam paused for a moment.

n“But what I didn’t realize was that she wanted to kill more than just the monsters. Even when we met with completely untransformed people, instead of saving them, she would dismember them as well.”

nHe frowned.

n“I… couldn’t bring myself to kill them, which seemed to make her really angry. She… grabbed onto my arm and made me kill them.”

nSydney let out a faint gasp.

n“Oh, dear…”

nSam sighed.

n“Like that, she rampaged throughout the building, killing many people and constantly bringing one for me to kill.”

nHe rubbed his forehead.

n“It went on for… so long. By the time we got out of the building, the real sun was already halfway in the sky. She charged off to kill some of the many monsters on the street.”

nSam blinked a few times.

n“And I ran.”

nHe laughed.

n“But it was only a few seconds later did I realize how stupid that was. She reached me in just a moment, easily slaughtering hundreds of monsters as she passed by. There was a sad look in her eye as she brought me in closer.”

nSam scratched the back of his head.

n“Then, she ran away, leaving me alone. I… apologized, but she was already too far away to hear me.”

nKairos let out a soft sigh.

n“But in the end, Mother is alive, right? That’s a good thing.”

nSam laughed quietly.

n“I just… think she is in a lot of pain.”

nA painful smile formed on his face.

n“After all, the husband she went through so much pain to save ran away from her.”

nAs Sam lowered his head, Kairos reached out with his finger, pushing against Sam’s forehead and lifting it back up.

n“If you feel so bad, then live long enough to apologize to her face.”

nSam smirked.

n“Hah. Why are you trying to cheer me up? I am your parent, not the other way around.”

nKairos shrugged his shoulders.

n“Maybe stop acting like a kid then.”

nSam rolled his eyes.

n“If anything, you are acting too much like an adult.”

nA small smile formed on Kairos’ face.

n“Anyways, we really should get out of here before those people come back.”

nSam raised an eyebrow.

n“Who?”

nChase sighed.

n“Crazy cult leaders.”

nSam nodded.

n“That does sound like something we should avoid.”

nKairos took the lead, leaping up through the meter wide hole and landing on the roof with the black carapace in one hand and a sharpened bone in the other. Soon after, everyone else followed.

nHe looked towards them.

n“Before we go, let’s refill our water bottles in the river and wash our hands a bit.”

nThere were no objections, so the group promptly did as he said.

nAs Kairos picked the black carapace and the sharpened bone up with his wet hands, he sighed.

n“If the wilderness isn’t exactly safe, then is there just no place that is safe?”

nSam screwed on the cap of a plastic bottle before putting it in Kairos’ bag.

n“The city should be pretty safe.”

nChase raised an eyebrow.

n“Isn’t that where the population density is the highest? There should be many monsters there, right?”

nSam nodded.

n“Yes. But my wife killed almost every single monster there, and the ones she wasn’t able to, ran away from the city. Even monsters really far away from her seem to have some sort of instinctual fear, making them run. So at least as of now, there are little to no monsters there, but many supplies.”

nKairos rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

n“But monsters are attracted by blood, so those corpses will surely lure a few there. That is, assuming that mother has already left the city to go somewhere else.”

nHe tilted his head at the same time.

n“But at the same time, we really need to get some more food, and it would also help us catch wind of where my mother went.”

nTori looked over.

n“So you are saying we should go to the city?”

nKairos adjusted his glasses.

n“Though I don’t think it’s the safest option, it’s probably better. If the city really was massacred, then that means most of the shops should still have food in them. Maybe we will even get some canned stuff.”

nTori smiled slightly.

n“I did always want to check out the city, but never had enough time before.”

nSam chuckled.

n“The city is really not what it’s cracked up to be. You see many tall buildings, but really it’s just an empty husk covering a long dead place.”

nTori pressed her lips together.

n“Well, I don’t think it could be very alive during the apocalypse anyway.”

nChase laughed.

n“That is true.”

nWith that, the group set off towards the city, with Sam leading the way.

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