3:45 p.m.
Inside Peterheim Middle School.
"Where is everybody? How come I can't see a single person?"
Having slipped in during the earlier chaos, Chen Mo scratched at the dragon horn on his head and surveyed his surroundings.
It was silent—so utterly different from the noisy, violent uproar outside. The school felt like a haunted ruin.
There wasn't a single figure in sight, not a sound to be heard.
Only Chen Mo walked alone through the school's central area, roaming as his eyes swept over the corridors and courtyards—yet wherever his gaze passed, shadows flickered and shifted, vanishing at the edges of his vision.
"Th-this way… come over here."
The faint call caught his attention. He looked over and saw Zoya in the distance, waving timidly while nervously checking around her. Chen Mo immediately jogged toward her.
Both of them had made it out alive. Zoya had wanted to properly talk—catch her breath, exchange a few words about surviving—yet Chen Mo opened his mouth and went straight to the point.
"Where's the food?"
After the fight, he'd already burned through everything he'd eaten earlier.
"…Come with me," Zoya said, the corner of her eye twitching. "But don't get your hopes up."
Zoya still didn't even know his name. In her mind, they should have been lamenting how hard it was to escape, then learning a bit about each other.
Instead, the man who—by build alone—looked like he should be a magnet for women showed not the slightest trace of relief at surviving. As if the city-shaking battle a moment ago had merely been a light warm-up before dinner.
Crack—
Zoya, still arguing with herself internally, led him to a classroom and pushed the door open. The students inside immediately focused their attention on him.
"Reunion? So this is what you meant, Zoya—"
"No. Don't you remember? Zoya said the mask was something he picked up. He's not infected."
"A man… then that's better."
To Chen Mo's surprise, after that initial flash of hostility, the students stopped paying attention to him.
He couldn't make sense of it. By all logic, these students should have been at each other's throats by now—beating each other bloody over food. Yet they were oddly tolerant of him, an outsider who could clearly steal their rations dry.
"I didn't tell them about your appetite," Zoya murmured. "They only know you're a man who barely escaped Reunion's pursuit."
She approached with three Ursus girls and dropped a pile of food in front of Chen Mo. While he ate, she began introducing the one Ursus girl who still looked openly unfriendly toward him—a teenager with dyed streaks in her hair.
"This is Sonia. You can call her 'General Winter' too. I was only able to join the self-governance group because of her—"
"Enough, Zoya. Spare us the speeches."
Zima—Sonia—had been about to sit down and eat with everyone, but the moment she saw Chen Mo slightly lift his mask and start devouring food like a starving ghost, her brow creased. Anna, standing beside her, immediately sensed the shift and tugged at Zima's sleeve.
"Don't do anything, Sonia. We still don't know—"
"Of course I'm not going to attack a half-dead hungry man," Zima snapped. "Do you take me for the kind of trash that does that?"
If Chen Mo had been a woman, burning through their dwindling rations like this, Zima would have already swung her axe on principle. But seeing how hungry he was, she limited herself to making her displeasure obvious.
"Gulp…"
Chen Mo froze mid-bite and turned his head.
A blond Ursus girl stared at the food in his hand, eyes wide and desperate.
"You want some?" Chen Mo asked.
He offered her the last remaining piece.
But the girl—clearly starving—shook her head frantically and backed away instead of taking it.
"N-no, you eat first," she stammered. "Rada… I'm a woman. Rada can go a long time without food."
It was a terrible lie. She was practically drooling—her mouth looked like it might bite his arm on instinct—and she was still insisting she wasn't hungry.
Chen Mo knew that this girl—later known by the codename Gummy, whose real name was Rada—carried psychological trauma. He didn't press her refusal. He simply shoved the food straight into her mouth.
"Mmph!"
"Eat," Chen Mo said flatly. "I don't want to get drool all over myself."
He rose to his feet.
Around them, the students' eyes drifted toward the table—now covered in crumbs and scraps—and their expressions suddenly became far less friendly. Their gazes began shifting back and forth… toward Zoya.
"So this is the 'man' you were talking about?"
"A man who eats as much as ten women—I've never seen that in my life."
"Zoya! If your dad doesn't show up and get us out of here, then you can pay us back for all the food that man just ate!"
Oh.
So Zoya had leveraged her father's identity as a military police officer to get these students—already short on supplies—to share food with an outsider.
Chen Mo rubbed his chin. Watching Zoya wilt under the accusations, he asked bluntly:
"Any news about your father?"
"…Yes. But—"
Zoya bit her lip, about to explain, when Anna—standing behind Zima—cut in.
"Not long ago, the Chernobog military police were still launching frequent attacks against the infected surrounding this school," Anna said evenly, her monocle catching a faint glint. "But their attacks have been slowing. And in the past few days, they disappeared entirely."
Unlike the other students, whose faces had gone dull with despair, Anna stayed calm.
Then her tone shifted.
"However, just now, an opportunity appeared."
She looked at Chen Mo.
"You were able to escort Zoya across nearly half the city. You also made her willing—without hesitation—to trade her future promise of saving her classmates in exchange for food… simply to fill your stomach."
"Therefore," Anna concluded, "the massive disturbance outside… was caused by you, wasn't it?"
Chen Mo—who had just eaten and was turning over ideas about his system's new function—nodded casually. Though, strictly speaking, he was only half full.
Seeing that he didn't even bother to deny it, Anna's suspicion turned into certainty.
She adjusted her monocle and studied him for a moment—tall, out of place among them—before turning to Zoya with a solemn expression.
"All infected near the school are in disarray right now. The Chernobog military police will seize this perfect chance to attempt a rescue again."
"As long as we're not at the absolute end," Anna continued, "Zoya—your father may be able to reach Peterheim Middle School today."
Zima swung her short axe up onto her shoulder. The dyed red streaks in her hair bounced with the motion, matching her blunt, decisive temperament.
"Even if they don't come today, I'm breaking out anyway. The food is running out. This is a rare chance—if we miss it, who knows how long we'll have to wait."
Then she pointed her chin toward Chen Mo.
"And you—man. I don't know how you made that kind of noise out there, but once we move, you stay behind me. I'll protect you. Don't you dare cause trouble."
Chen Mo snapped back to the moment. He smiled, not bothering to argue with the hot-tempered Zima.
"Then I'll be counting on you to protect me, Miss Sonia."
After that, he turned his eyes toward another building visible through the classroom window.
He'd noticed it on the way in: that building had abundant supplies. By rights, these students shouldn't have been reduced to rationing crumbs like this.
That must be the territory of the aristocratic students… and that white-haired Ursus girl.
Chen Mo hugged his tail against his chest and began wiping away the grime on it—quietly calculating something in his head.