There was no one that Blair knew. The only ones she could call acquaintances were Paula, her brother, and Dexter. Anna was dead and Joshua was gone as well, which reminded her of how fragile human life could be once again. What she didn’t understand was why someone would kill anyone in this kind of situation where every single person counted.

That left her roaming the streets all alone.

Even if she did know them, finding them was difficult. Falling asleep in the desolate building that she was sure only she inhabited meant that she didn’t know where anyone else slept.

There’d be another Wave today and no one knew when it’d start. If so many people died again, they wouldn’t survive 10 Waves. That meant they could be stuck inside the walls until… would it last forever?

Blair didn’t know what exactly would happen if they didn’t survive.

Her calculation from before was wrong, thankfully.

Roughly 4% of the people had died in the first Wave and over a hundred were missing for the second one. That put the losses at 14% at minimum. To upgrade to a Town, they needed to survive with a population of more than 25%. It was promising, but if they kept losing 10% of the original thousand every day, meaning a hundred people every day, they’d be left with 6% at the end.

This meant they needed a valid strategy to minimize their losses or they’d be done for.

There were others out in the streets. None went on with their life as they did on the first day. Too much had happened. Only two nights had passed since the apocalypse and a hundred had died in their zone alone.

New Ascot had a little over a hundred thousand people so that meant there were hundred something zones in total. If all of them had lost a hundred people, then they’d already lost over ten thousand people —that was a large number.

It was the kind of number Blair only saw in books on statistics, not in real life.

“You alright?” asked a familiar voice from behind. It wasn’t cheerful by any means but was lively. Blair turned and her eyes met Dexter’s. His glasses were gone, making his face look oddly empty. Some people with glasses looked hot when they took them off and some looked weird. Of the two, Dexter was clearly the latter, “Blair, right? Recognized you by the sweater.”

“Just barely,” grumbled Blair and took a sip out of her canteen. Her glasses, on the other hand, were tied to her head with a bandage that connected what little of the temple that was left on one side with the other temple.

It was tight and oddly annoying, but it kept her glasses where they should be.

That was good enough.

“Yeah, I can technically see that. You look roughed up. It makes sense to be, no offense,” said Dexter and shrugged, who seemed completely unshaken. His waiter’s suit was in pristine shape, unsullied by blood nor much sweat.

He probably reeked but Blair doubted her nose was picking that up.

“And you’re oddly clean,” she said and plugged the canteen. It had one of those caps that were supposed to be forced into the bottle after being pulled out, made of a rubber-like material. It made the canteen look almost military but it wasn’t the dark green she’d associate with army gear.

“What can I say? Dirty clothes are disgusting,” said Dexter and leaned close to her ear. Quietly, he whispered, “I actually found a decent place to bathe in.”

“There shouldn’t be any,” said Blair with furrowed brows.

“There shouldn’t be, yeah. One of the water pipes ruptured and made a decent-sized pond in one of the basements,” said Dexter and gave her a smirk.

“Sounds disgusting,” she said.

“Not as disgusting as not bathing at all,” said Dexter and shrugged with pursed lips.

Blair turned around, thought about leaving him to his own devices, but she promptly stopped. There was just so much dirt and grime on her. It made her whole body feel sticky and disgusting. Her hair was as bad as it could get and quite frankly, she was willing to give just about anything a try.

“Where is it?” Blair asked.

“Wait, I was… kidding,” said Dexter and let out a chuckle, “Oh, wait. Did you think I was serious?”

“I-” started Blair and clenched her fists, sending a dull ache through her left hand. It was getting less and less painful, her healing factor that was five times that of an ordinary human’s most likely playing a part in that.

No, she had to be calm.

“To my credit, I didn’t think you’d fall for that,” said Dexter, and the right side of his lips quirked up.

“Your sense of humor is… something,” said Blair and huffed.

“That’s why I never joke,” said Dexter and gave her a wink.

She promptly turned around and started walking away, not even slightly interested in his nonsense. If there was a word that could describe his joke, that’d be ‘evil’.

“Okay, okay, sorry. This time, for real,” said Dexter, and race walked in front of her, “I actually found a place with clean water. It’s not enough for a bath, but it’s enough to fill a few buckets. Some of the water pipes ruptured and turned into a small stream.”

“I’m not interested in your jokes, Dex,” said Blair, reluctant in believing him.

“I’m not lying now. Pinky swear,” said Dexter and stretched one of his pinkies up to her.

“You owe me something,” said Blair and put a smirk on her face. She couldn’t look like she was sad. It was either a poker face or a smile, never a frown.

Not when she could help it, at least.

Dexter gestured for her to follow and sped toward an edge of the Zone. It took them almost five minutes to walk there and there was little to no conversation on the way. Short, customary lines with just as boring and customary replies.

“It’s there,” said Dexter and pointed at a couple of people standing before what looked like a cliff. One of them was pouring a bucket of water over his head and the moment Blair saw that, her eyes brightened.

That was a lot of water.

It was silly how they never appreciated the little things in life: showers, baths, electricity, grocery stores, and snacks.

That reminded Blair of soy sauce.

There ought to be some of them around and if her memory served her right, they didn’t expire. It’d add a bit of flavor to the otherwise boring soup.

Then there was Spam.

People said that it could last a hundred years, but maybe two hundred and fifty was pushing it?

If only this weird time skip hadn’t taken everything away.

Even cars were turned into rusty garbage covered in vines with a distinct lack of any sense of homeliness. Whether the gasoline inside worked or not, Blair didn’t care about and quite frankly, no one seemed to.

Not when they were trying to survive every single day with no possibility for escape.

“See? It wasn’t a lie,” said Dexter and shrugged his shoulder.

“Yeah,” said Blair and crept closer to the cliff.

It was an abrupt and straight drop. If it could be described, it looked like a giant took a cleaver and cut it. It led to a bottomless pit that looked like it stretched on forever, and one of the water pipes was oozing out water into the depths. They were using a bucket with a string attached to its handle, making it resemble wells in the fantasy shows that Blair was allowed the luxury of watching once a year.

One misstep and she’d be dead.

Yet it didn’t scare her.

Not any more terrifying than fighting giant monsters for her life.

There was a small crowd, most of them done. There were no towels so most used their clothes for that purpose, leaving their upper bodies naked. It looked like one of those weird shows where people flaunted their muscles.

That’s where Blair found the Mayor.

He was the spitting image of a high school jock, but older. Or rather, he looked like one of the cool frat boys. Not someone that Blair would find herself talking to had the situation been any different but she had an idea, even if it was most likely a dumb one.

“Don’t fall,” said Dexter not-so-helpfully.

“The Zone is expanding,” said Blair and raised an eyebrow.

“Hmm?” asked Dexter with a raised eyebrow.

“I was right here when this thing started. There was no cliff,” she said and thought of all the implications. All this System nonsense was messing with the world too much. The paranoid side of her couldn’t help but think that something horrible could happen from all these modifications.

“Well, good for us. We got water out of it,” said Dexter and gave a nonchalant shrug.

“If it expands like this, then we’ll need a bridge to leave the area. It’s strategically useful against Monsters but if the bridge is broken, we may as well be fucked,” said Blair.

“We aren’t fucked now, right?” asked Dexter and Blair gave a reluctant nod. He put a smile on his face and spoke, “Then we won’t be fucked then.”

He had a point, even if his point was a bit too optimistic. Just because they couldn’t leave the area didn’t mean they’d actually be fucked. They’d only deal with the Dire Eagles too, so the Dire Wolves wouldn’t be much of a problem-

Eagles.

Wolves were only dangerous if you were on one of the lower floors.

What if they were on the higher floors and were ready to fight back against the eagles?

“You’re a genius,” mumbled Blair and gave him a pat on the back. No more, no less. He was still only an acquaintance and any more physical affection wouldn’t be right.

“I know I am,” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Blair and turned to the Mayor that was enjoying himself.

She had to wait until he was finished. It was proper etiquette. More importantly, she needed to tell him about the murderer on the loose. Who knew how many more they’d kill unless it was a personal grudge against Anna and only him.

“So Blair, have you killed any of ‘em?” asked Dexter awkwardly.

“You haven’t?” she asked, almost surprised. She’d assumed it was a given, considering the rules. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of Monsters, but that’s when she realized it.

There couldn’t possibly be a Monster for every single person —that’d be overkill.

And somehow, out of the two Monster Waves, she’d managed to kill two Monsters. One in each. That meant her luck was… awfully bad? Or was it good since she got Skills? Then again, she would’ve been in the hospital with the kind of injuries she’d gotten.

Vigor of Ancients was a lifesaver in a literal sense.

“Well, I’m a lover, not a fighter,” said Dexter with a cheeky grin on his face.

“Yes. Yes, you made that point clear,” said Blair and scratched the back of her head. How was she supposed to approach the man? This time, she was the one that was starting the conversation. It rarely, if ever, happened.

Before that, she had to look neat and that meant she had to at least fix up her hair. Even if it wasn’t combed, washing it would help her feel a tiny bit cleaner. She could possibly find a comb or use something else to substitute it.

Her reluctance to bring a handbag in fear of looking too girly was biting her back now.

There’d have been a snack bar or two in it too. If it got transported to the Tutorial with her, then it’d have mitigated the effects of the drastic time skip. Deep within her thoughts, Blair didn’t even notice the half-naked mayor walking up to them. Only after Dexter spoke up did she realize he was there.

“Oh, hey, Jerry,” said Dexter and waved his hand lazily.

“How’s the testing going?” asked the Mayor.

“Well, I figured out the Spells are more or less rock-paper-scissors when they’re being created,” said Dexter and gestured at his left hand aimed at the sky with his head, “Look.”

Inaudibly, he chanted a Fire Ball and the flames started to swirl. Before it finished forming, he raised his other hand and that’s when the air started to get a slight gray tint as if it had turned into water —that’s what happened when a Wind Blade was forming.

The tumultuous wind scattered the Fire Ball and only the Wind Blade was shot up to the sky.

“That’s basically common sense. Vacuums beat fire. What’s less logical is the fact that an Ice Shield forming disrupts the wind-drawing process of Wind Blade. I assume it’s cooling down the atoms and halting them in place, but that’s totally pseudo-science I made up on the spot because it’s definitely not Absolute Zero or something. It’s Magic so it doesn’t necessarily have to follow the laws of nature that we know either way,” said Dexter and as he spoke, his eyes darted all around, making it look like he had trouble focusing.

“Well, that’s good,” said the Mayor awkwardly and raised a finger. He swatted it in the air a few times and pulled out a pair of round glasses from his pockets, then handed it to Dexter, “Here. It’s almost as thick as yours so I grabbed it.”

“That’s… sick. Not in a good way,” said Dexter, almost as if tasting each word.

“They won’t need it now,” said the Mayor and turned to the awestruck Blair.

She’d seen her fair share of jocks but not half-naked like that. Seeing it in movies and in real life was different. Even more so when he was practically glittering from all the water. To add to that, Blair was more of a sucker for wet hair than she’d thought.

“Whatever. It fits,” Dexter said grumpily after putting it on.

“Well, if ya need anything else, you know where to find me,” said the Mayor and gave Dexter a wink, then promptly turned around to walk away.

“Wait a sec,” said Blair and her voice came out a bit cracked, making her face burn in shame —that was as bad a first impression as it could get.

“Hm?” exclaimed the Mayor and turned around with a raised eyebrow.

“I- Ugh, I thought of a decent plan that might help more people survive today,” said Blair, and the moment she started her sentence, she realized that her glasses were in a shabby state as well, kept attached to her head with bandages.

The thought of looting a corpse for their classes hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“Oh? Do tell. I was just thinking of going with the same tactic as yesterday. As in, guarding different buildings. That way we can limit the losses to only a few buildings,” said the Mayor, and that sounded oddly wrong, like cutting off a limb to protect the rest of the body from infection.

“I was thinking that we could get as high up as possible,” said Blair and licked her lips. They’d dried up, as they often did when she was nervous.

“Then there are the eagles,” said the Mayor.

“Yes, but from my estimation, there are fewer eagles than there are wolves. Being on the ground floors doesn’t mean we won’t be targeted by the eagles, but being high-up assures that we buy some time until the wolves make it up there and possibly keep the wolves coming out of a narrow tunnel, limiting the number of wolves we’ll fight at any one time. It’s a strategy that people used a lot in the past,” said Blair in one breath and found herself out of breath at the end.

“Oh, so we 300 them. That’s actually a really good idea,” said the Mayor and nodded his head reassuringly.

“300?” asked Blair, an eyebrow raised.

“The movie. With the Spartans,” he said.

“Oh, that. Yeah. I watched a movie like that,” said Blair with a faint smile.

It was a total lie.

She didn’t know the first thing about what he was talking about. She had watched a dozen movies at most and most of them were cartoons she’d watched back when she was in primary school.

“Well, I’ll try to arrange for it. What’s your name, by the way?” asked the Mayor.

“Blair,” she said a little bit too quickly.

“Blair, huh? Well, since you got a good head on your shoulders, why don’t you run for that recently freed-up Council position? Call yourself the tactician and all,” said the Mayor.

She almost accepted it but that’s when her face sunk. She knew Anna. She had to get her act straight. He was dead and she was the one who’d found his body. If she wanted the position, she’d have gotten the card straight from his corpse.

“No… No, I don’t think I will,” said Blair, imitating Dexter to her best, staring down at the ground with narrowed eyes. Lightly, she clenched her fists and loosened them several times. Her voice was weak and forced like there was a lump in her throat that she was trying to push past.

“That’s fair,” said the Mayor and nodded a few times before turning around.

“You alright?” asked Dexter from behind and patted her on the back.

“Yeah, yeah, I am,” said Blair, never meeting his eye. Her voice was softer than usual this time, but no longer forced. Then she mumbled, “I just… want some alone time. Please.”

Dexter helpfully stepped back and she returned to her nest.

In trying to keep her act straight, Blair had managed to completely forget to mention the murderer. Maybe after the next Wave.