But this was clearly the optimal equipment she had fine-tuned through countless training sessions and battles after joining Fire Moth!
With a flicker of doubt in her eyes, Elysia nevertheless continued her trek into Nagazora City.
Along the way, she encountered scattered Honkai beasts and Zombies, all of whom she dispatched with practiced ease. Yet, the further she ventured, the more a sense of unease gnawed at her heart.
Something wasn't right. A massive Honkai eruption had just occurred here; there shouldn't be so few Honkai beasts and Zombies roaming the streets.
Could someone have arrived before Fire Moth and cleared them out?
The thought crossed Elysia's mind for only a moment before she dismissed it.
That left likely only one explanation—for some unknown reason, the monsters weren't wandering the outskirts. They were probably all congregating in the innermost circle of the city.
Whether this was due to an order from the Third Herrscher or some internal shift within Nagazora City, Elysia couldn't say.
But if her analysis was correct, venturing deeper into the city alone was far from a wise move.
In her current state, being worn down by wave after wave of hundreds of monsters would put her at a serious disadvantage.
Just as Elysia considered retreating to the perimeter to regroup with Ato and the others, she caught an unusual sound nearby.
Her ears twitched. She quickly turned toward the source of the disturbance.
It wasn't a Honkai beast or a Zombie. It was human!
Elysia rushed forward. Fire Moth's mission in Nagazora wasn't just about eliminating the Honkai; rescuing survivors was an equally vital task.
As she rounded the corner, a baseball bat swung directly at her face.
Reacting instantly, Elysia raised her bow to parry the blow. She expected to deflect it easily, but was surprised when a jolt of immense force vibrated through her body, pushing her back.
That brief clash allowed both parties to finally see each other clearly.
"A person?"
The voice belonged to a boy with a youthful face and white hair.
He looked no older than a high schooler, still dressed in his school uniform. Behind him stood a purple-haired girl, her face pale as if she were injured.
"I'm Elysia, a combatant from Fire Moth. I'm here to handle the Honkai disaster in Nagazora. You two are survivors, I assume? It looks like she's hurt. If you trust me, I can take you to a safe place."
Elysia gave her right hand a small shake, trying to soothe the numbness from the impact.
The white-haired boy hesitated for a moment. However, when his gaze fell upon the wound on the girl's arm—and the ominous, spreading patterns crawling away from it—he gritted his teeth and nodded.
With Elysia leading the way and the boy carrying the girl on his back, the trio began to retrace Elysia's steps toward the outskirts.
During the journey back, the boy witnessed Elysia's true strength.
Seeing her effortlessly cut down the monsters that had forced him and the girl to skulk through the shadows of Nagazora, his faith in her story deepened.
He didn't let the fact that he possessed more raw power than Elysia go to his head.
He was, after all, just an ordinary student with brute strength he didn't know how to use, swinging a bat blindly just to escape the city center.
If he had even a fraction of her combat skill, he wouldn't be in such a pathetic state.
"By the way, I haven't asked for your names yet," Elysia said, glancing back at them.
By now, the purple-haired girl had regained consciousness, though her complexion remained ghastly. Elysia had already noted the injury on her arm.
It was clearly a wound from a Zombie; the skin was already etched with the telltale patterns of Honkai erosion. While a full recovery was out of the question, the erosion wasn't deep yet.
With Fire Moth's medical technology, they could at least suppress it for a long time.
"I'm Kevin. This is Mei. We're both sophomores at Chiba Academy. Miss Elysia... can you tell us what's happening to Nagazora? Why did disaster strike so suddenly?"
Kevin couldn't forget it. Just a few hours ago, he had been on the court playing ball. Then, a sudden gale had swept through, and the world had twisted into a nightmare.
Some of his teammates had suddenly collapsed in convulsions, their skin breaking out in the same patterns now on Mei's arm before they dropped dead. But that wasn't even the worst part.
The most terrifying thing was that some of them didn't stay dead.
They transformed, wielding weapons like scythes and bows that appeared out of nowhere, and began to slaughter anyone still drawing breath.
As soon as he realized something was wrong, Kevin's first thought was of Mei, who was still in the classroom.
He raced back as fast as he could, picking up a discarded baseball bat along the way.
Unfortunately, he was a step too late. By the time he reached her, Mei was already injured. He could only use his bat to clear a path through the monsters surrounding her and flee the academy.
They had been running ever since, right up until they ran into Elysia.
Upon hearing the boy's name, a strange sense of displacement flickered in Elysia's eyes. She muttered subconsciously, "Kevin? Why do I feel like it should be Kevyn instead...?"
Kevin blinked, confused. "Huh?"
"Oh, it's nothing. We'll be at the Fire Moth temporary camp soon. I'll get a doctor to treat your little girlfriend." Elysia quickly brushed it off, changing the subject.
"Li—Little girlfriend...?"
Kevin's face turned a brilliant shade of crimson. He desperately wanted to turn his head to see Mei's expression on his back, but he didn't dare.
In the six months they had known each other, she had gone from barely acknowledging his existence to sitting with him on school benches, talking about the universe and the stars—things he barely understood.
He could feel her attitude toward him changing.
The fact that Mei didn't speak up to refute Elysia was enough to fill Kevin with a quiet satisfaction. The rest could come later.
While Kevin was too shy to look at Mei, Elysia saw the faint blush creeping onto the girl's pale face perfectly. She sighed inwardly. Ah, the innocence of young love. Not like me...
Wait.
A flicker of confusion surfaced in Elysia's mind again.
What was she just thinking? Not like her? But in her nearly twenty years of life, she had never been in love, had she?
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL