After the Ethan-like guy left, Claire heard the sound of three massive beasts approaching. She mustered all her strength and will-power to get up; she had to protect the kids. And she did it; she left like her arm was melting while she used her bow and activated the focus skill with all her strength to kill the beasts. The kids looked at her happily, but soon they began to cry when she fell on the floor like a puppet without a master. Claire was dying, she knew it, and she only had regrets because she didn’t saw the kids in a safe place, because she didn’t saw her parents for the last time and because she didn’t apologize to Martin.

However, she didn’t die. She woke up one the next day feeling incredibly hungry but refreshed. The pain in her arm had disappeared, and she and the kids were in a luxurious room. The kids were sleeping near her, and there was a lot of food in the room. There were a lot of bottles of lemonade as well…

“Did I die?”

She didn’t expect to wake up in a place like that, but when the kids woke up, they explained to her what had happened. A scary-looking guy had helped them and healed her wound. On the next morning, he saw that scary looking guy, and he just had rescued two sisters from criminals. He looked like Ethan, but she was sure it wasn’t him. Ethan would never help others, much less put himself in danger to help strangers. But it was really him, he was as annoying as ever, and he even pretended that he didn’t remember her. But soon she forgot about that when he told her that he had met Martin and that Martin was dead.

For the next few days, Claire spent the next few days in a daze. Harry, Rose, and Sarah explained to her how to use the statue, and because of it, she discovered all her relatives were dead. In ten days, all the people she cared about had died. Her mind was in turmoil, but she couldn’t stay like that forever. The kids needed her, and the city still was filled with monsters. So, she had to keep moving and had to suppress her feelings. The chance was small, like a grain of sand, but she could revive them. The statue had that power; she just needed to obtain a few millions of evolution coins.

There was still hope, and Ethan showed that to her. He and Harry had obtained the evolution coins, to bring one person to that area. However, when Ethan touched the statue, she saw his face distort in many emotions. Ethan looked like a robot trying to show happiness, anger, and sadness at the same time. In the end, he didn’t transport anyone and just gave his coins to Harry. After that day, the Ethan who was willing to help others disappeared, and the grumpy old Ethan returned with full force.

Although Claire was still suffering from her numerous losses, she honestly felt Happy when Harry reunited with his mother and sister. It had been the first good thing which had happened in two weeks. According to them, their areas were in even more complicated situations. They walked for days searching for each other, but they didn’t find a single living soul. They only understood why after Harry transported them.

To let Sandra and Sabrina rest, they decided to take two days off; they had evolution points to buy the things they needed. So, that break was more than welcome. Meanwhile, Ethan began to do his own things again. He only returned late in the night, and he left before sunrise. Although she didn’t know him all that much, she predicted his actions to that extent.

After those two days, they reunited to decide what their next actions would be. They wanted Ethan’s presence and opinions, but he clearly didn’t want to see or talk to anyone for the time being. So, they decided to form a council. Sandra, Harry, Claire, Rose, and Sarah would discuss every night what they would do in the next day. They wanted more allies; hence, they needed to look for them. It was easy to find them thanks to the map on the ceiling, but they couldn’t pinpoint their locations outside the hotel.

They needed Ethan’s skills, but Claire knew he wouldn’t cooperate that easily. The others understood her explanation of what kind of person Ethan was, but Sandra was surprisingly insistent. For some reason, she really wanted to see him with them as much as possible, even if she had to force him. She was obviously thankful, but she was more interested in him than she was grateful. On the rare occasions she saw him, she studied him as if he was a unique animal.

After one week, they decided it was time to let Ethan know what they had decided and what he would have to do to contribute. In Claire’s opinion, giving him orders would only make things more difficult.

“We have to keep an eye on him,” Sandra put her hands on Claire’s shoulders. “If you feel indebted to him, you should make him stay with us as much as possible, even if he starts to hate us. This will help us, but this will help him, as well.”

It seemed Sandra was hiding something, but Claire didn’t ask what. Ethan was basically a teenager; extended periods of isolation wouldn’t help him. For some reason, his parents didn’t want to transport him to their area. But that didn’t mean that they also had to ignore him. In any case, only Sandra and Claire dared to give him orders, even though those orders would likely make him hate them. Only those two were old enough to do the necessary, even if they had to end up being hated.

But to Claire’s surprise, Ethan didn’t refuse the jobs. Even though he was very annoyed and extremely displeased, he did the job they gave to him. It was easier just to explain why he had to do this job, but since Ethan’s behavior always got on Claire’s nerves, she always ended up complicating things. She smiled to piss him off and said other things to piss him off too. She was trying to act like a big sister to him, but she was an only child, and Ethan was also the oldest son of three. So, their relationship became unnerving more than anything.

As for Sandra, she was determined to treat him like a soldier. That was very odd in everyone’s eyes, after all, Ethan obviously hated being ordered around, and she never acted like that to anyone else. Just like Claire had imagined, Ethan contributed a lot to their survivors’ camp, but he still treated everyone like strangers. He was always running away from others, but he never refused to help them. He was like a child who was too afraid to make friends, but he was even more afraid to be hated. When Claire noticed that, she decided to be more sincere with him. But that didn’t change a thing; instead, when she said what she was planning to do, he left without saying anything to deal with Ken’s gang.

Two days after that talk, she understood what he had decided to do and tried to inform the others. But then Ann appeared, surrounded by her big guards and with four jeeps equipped with machine guns. All the survivors got stronger physically, but they didn’t want to test their endurance against bullets. Luckily, Ann left after giving a single warning. Claire wanted to help Ethan, but they couldn’t leave the hotel so suddenly.

By analyzing the map on the ceiling, she saw a few dozen red dots disappearing in the north, and after ten minutes, another one disappeared. After that, nothing happened, but she saw on the map hundreds of survivors outside the hotel. They didn’t move for almost three days; it was almost madness considering that cold weather.

After two days, Ethan returned as if nothing had happened. And Claire immediately registered him in her Link skill; it was more than enough to keep an eye on him. But Sandra implicit gave him the order to stay in the hotel and help the other survivors. With that action, Claire was sure Sandra was hiding something; she was going too far by giving Ethan such orders. Claire already could imagine Ethan leaving that survivors’ camp and never return. He wasn’t that impatient, and Sandra was acting too harshly. Claire decided to ask why, and Sandra said that she knew his parents, but even so, it was too strange. And from that point onward, Sandra avoided the topic.

From that day onward, the time passed rather fast. Thanks to the survivors in the north, their days were filled with nothing but fights against monsters. They had to prepare for the battle against Ann and her minions, but the battle never occurred. Ethan discovered her spy and ended up getting teleported with him to her base. They rushed to help him after they saw the commotion near Ann’s camp, but when they arrived there, they only saw a sea of blood and corpses.

Again, Ethan single-handedly solved a big problem. But he paid a high price; he became indifferent to everything. As if he didn’t care about others anymore, his short temper disappeared, and when he received orders, he just analyzed them, thinking about how those jobs would benefit him. That scared everyone, but they had their own problems to deal with. They killed the people who Ann had brainwashed; they killed to help an ally, not because their lives were at risk. For the next few days, they analyzed their actions and their ideals. Before, they had decided that they would help every person they could, but only after dirtying their hands, they understood how shallow their resolves were.

For the first time, Claire understood the weight Ethan was carrying on his shoulders. The weight probably crushed his mind and was why he was acting so indifferent. He comforted her with some words, but she knew that he was just saying them. Claire hugged him to show him how important he was to her, but only that hadn’t been enough.

The next few days again passed in the blink of an eye, and then the tower appeared. When they confronted the twenty meters tall rat, they finally saw how damaged Ethan’s mind was. He grinned like a maniac in the middle of a battle where their lives were on the line just because he obtained an amazing skill. Before, when he was fighting, it seemed that he was struggling to stay alive. But now, he was enjoying battles as much as he enjoyed his lemonade. But they didn’t have time to correct his attitude; they had to organize many things and strengthen the fighters.

They lost twenty survivors on the first challenge of the tower, and many others had suffered mental damage. Sandra and Lucius recognized that they were more ruthless than idealistic, it wasn’t a crime, but it wasn’t something they would accept being just after a few months of struggles.

Most survivors had expected a hard second challenge, so they didn’t suffer much mental damage. But at the end of the challenge, Claire was in shock. She defeated with some ease the person she thought she was. Anyone could do it; they just had to exploit their own weaknesses. But when she found her second copy, she heard something that she didn’t want to hear.

“You are just a manipulative woman… you just like kids because they are easy to manipulate. Do you think all men are assholes? You are the reason for your own misfortune. You are always trying to manipulate others, but you are the one who is easy to manipulate.”

Those words echoed in Claire’s mind. She indeed blamed men when those three incidents had happened, but if she had used her head a little, she could have avoided them. But who thought of her like that? Does everyone think that of her like that? That question tormented her, but she knew it wasn’t a crazy lie. She didn’t interact with other men, after all. She only interacted with Harry, who was already destined to stay with Rose and Sarah, Charles, who already had a girlfriend and Ethan who never showed any interest in her.

If the second copy put doubts in her mind, the third copy confirmed her fears. Even though it was a grown-up woman, she was always crying and whining.

“Why is this happening to me? I don’t deserve this! I’m beautiful, smart, and I do everything perfectly! This isn’t fair! Why men always take advantage of me? I deserve to be happier…”

Claire got madder every time she heard those words because, at some point in her life, she had those thoughts. It was easy to blame others or the situation, and it was hard to accept that you are also to blame for your problems. For the first time, Claire fought and killed an enemy who she really hated. But that didn’t help her; it only made her feel more miserable.

Until the end of the third challenge, Claire didn’t feel any motivation to do anything. She just forced himself to move forward because otherwise, she would slow down the others. It couldn’t be helped; the second challenge made her dubious of her own ideals and dreams. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She only decided to be an elementary school teacher when she was at college when she noticed the men around her only saw her as an object to be conquered. Although she was sure that she didn’t want to manipulate kids, she only wanted to educate them to become good people.

Those thoughts nagged her until the end of the third challenge. She spent three days to complete that circuit twenty times. She had killed twenty survivors because she wanted to help Ethan. But she didn’t hesitate; what was done was done. She had been the penultimate person to finish the challenge; only one person had killed more survivors than her. And that person stayed inside that tower for thirty-seven days.