“Aurora. Gabby. Thumbs.”

  Pandora’s voice cut through the post-feast chatter. She named the three most capable fighters in the room.

  “Get ready. We’re moving out.”

  “…Moving out?” Aurora asked, her confusion mirrored on the faces of everyone else.

  Pandora’s gaze slowly swept across every face in the dining hall. She spoke in a calm, clear voice: “Everyone… right now, we have made this manor into a safe harbor. A fortress.”

  She paused, letting her words sink in. “We cleared the path here. We proved that the monsters we once feared are not invincible.”

  “But,” she said, and all eyes locked onto her, “we can’t just stay here, enjoying this peace while the rest of the world burns. We have the strength. We have the responsibility to extend this safety farther out.”

  “We’re going to clear the rest of the Viscounty. We’re going to eliminate the zombies and find the survivors still trapped in their vilges.”

  “This isn’t a choice. It’s a responsibility.”

  Hearing this, everyone nodded, one after another. Most of them had been rescued themselves, so the speech resonated, stirring their sense of duty and honor.

  Of course, that was the speech. The reality was colder. The order of the manor… it was a house of cards, and she knew the wind was coming.

  It was highly unlikely the manor’s fragile peace could be maintained. The world would change. Everything would change.

  So rather than letting the people who followed her stay here, tidying up a doomed manor and performing chores that would soon be meaningless, it was better to…

  Let them go kill zombies. Let them acquire more of that precious “Corpse-Red Mist.” Let them stockpile the “capital” they’d need to survive the future.

  So, a hot bath… could wait.

  She would rather sacrifice a small luxury than waste the time of the people who trusted her. They hadn't done anything wrong. People like Betty were loyal and kind.

  Since they had chosen to believe in her, why should she waste their time on trivialities that were destined to be erased?

  And so, amidst a tangled web of gazes—confusion, worry, yearning, anticipation, blind adoration—Aurora once again put on the scarred armor that still represented her status. She led a temporary, hastily assembled team of two new knights and other survivors, setting off toward the nearby vilges that had not yet been cleared.

  She took on the core task of clearing the zombies, along with the secret responsibility of distributing and managing the absorption of the Corpse-Red Mist for each person.

  And Pandora, who had to return to the research facility after twelve hours to check on the “man,” did not leave with them. Besides, the Corpse-Red Mist in her body was long since “saturated.” Going would be useless.

  ………………

  She slept without dreams. A rare luxury for someone whose nerves had been pulled taut for so long.

  She didn’t wake at the first ray of dawn piercing the curtains, but slept until a time she herself found comfortable. The sunlight was no longer a pale gold but a bright, pure white, casting warm spots on the floor. Tiny, zy dust motes danced in the air.

  She didn't rush to the research facility, timing her arrival to the twelve-hour limit.

  She knew the man hiding in the shadows, whose name she still didn't know, had lost all initiative. A gambler who had pced his hopes in his enemy… his fate was already sealed.

  Pandora simply got up and, on the dusty antique bookshelf in her room, randomly pulled out an alchemy scroll she’d brought back from the Magistrate’s study.

  The pages were yellowed, the curls at the edges soft to the touch. Inside, hand-drawn diagrams of alchemical arrays and molecur structures stared back at her.

  She read slowly, carefully. Those obscure theories on alchemy were, in her eyes, like puzzles waiting to be unlocked. She tried to compare and verify these theories with the functions of her System, with the essence of Elsa, with the construction of the second-rank Live Iron Golem.

  It was a form of sorting. A form of preparation.

  Not until the sun reached its zenith did she slowly close the scroll and pce it back in its original spot.

  Only then did she set off for the research facility.

  The journey met with no further obstacles. It seemed the special bear-shaped zombie was truly one of a kind. After it was sin, the path to the research facility was clear.

  With no obstruction, she soon returned to the modern-looking building that stood in the center of the clearing, so jarringly out of pce.

  In the midday sun, the building looked even more conspicuous. Its smooth, grayish-white walls reflected a dazzling light, like a wound forcibly torn open in this primitive forest, a pce of life and decay.

  She once again stepped into the corpse-strewn cultivation room.

  The stench here was even stronger than yesterday, thick enough to make one gag. It was the stench of rot. Protein and tissue left to fester in the stagnant air, a sickly-sweet smell that turned the stomach.

  Pandora subconsciously covered her nose with her hand, her brow furrowed slightly. She didn't linger. Her gaze passed over the creatures destined to return to dust and fell directly on the second-floor room where the man was.

  It was quiet there. Just as she’d expected. No frantic roars, no mad gibberish, and no… signs of life.

  This time, there was no need to turn Elsa into a cannonball. The heavy alloy gate leading to the second-floor passage was wide open.

  Pandora walked up the dark, cold metal passage, her footsteps echoing in the empty space, unusually clear. She could feel that the air here was even more stifling than downstairs, mixed with a kind of… burnt, acrid smell.

  She quickly found the room where the man she had spoken to was located. The door was ajar.

  She shot a look at Elsa beside her. Elsa understood, moving forward silently and pushing the door open a crack. An even stronger, foul stench, a mix of several different smells, wafted out from the gap.

  There was no movement inside.

  In fact, there wasn’t even a “person” inside.

  Just a pile…

  Pandora’s gaze didn't waver in the slightest. She just watched quietly, watching that pile of rotting flesh, which only upon close inspection could one barely discern the traces of human remains.

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