A cry of pain came from one of the rooms below. Noah quickly donned his [Grade 1 Spirit Armour Chestplate] then grabbed his sword before directly leaping from the roof of the ferry to the deck two floors down by instinct. Before he could be stunned by what he had just done, he heard whimpering coming from someone obscured by the gathered crowd. As Noah pushed his way through, he heard Ronan's voice coming from the centre.

"...You thought that because you awakened some trash ability that you could take me down. You're no better than the rest of these blanks. I let you live before because I took your woman, but you're too dumb to realize when I'm doing you a favour."

"Please, no. Don't…" Ryan's begging was cut short by the sound of cracking bone.

Noah finally made it through the crowd in time to witness Ronan kneeling on the back of the neck of the young playboy from earlier. Ronan was completely naked, while the model Chloe covered herself with his leather vest with the picture of a snake on it. Both of them were covered in sweat. Even without his enhanced senses, he could smell what they had been doing. While Ronan was kneeling on the playboy, he let out a mocking laugh as Ryan gurgled out his last breath.

There was a knife discarded near Ryan's hand, which Ronan picked up to mercilessly dig into the neck of the now lifeless playboy. Ronan pulled out a pink origin crystal with a single flickering point of pulsing light. Noah assumed that indicated the playboy had somehow awakened an ability. Ronan let out a dissatisfied grunt as he took notice of Noah standing in the crowd. Noah had his sword drawn with a grim expression on his face as he stood prepared to attack at any moment.

"This ungrateful little pissant thought he could knife me in the back while my pants were down. He had to learn the hard way that it takes more than a little spoilt brat to take me down. Give me that."

Ronan stood then turned his back to Noah as he snatched his leather vest from Chloe, leaving her exposed to the crowd's lustful stares. Blood ran down his back from a deep wound where Ryan had obviously succeeded in stabbing him before he met his unfortunate end.

Ronan picked up his pants from the floor to reach inside the pocket to pull out a bent cigarette just as Sophie arrived. She went over to him to use the lighter she used earlier to light his cigarette. Ronan took a long draw on it before turning back to face Noah standing nude apart from the vest.

"I warned you that these blanks will stab you in the back if you show them even a hint of pity."

"What's happened here?"

Mister Kim pushed his way to the front of the crowd to see Noah glaring at a nonchalant Ronan with Ryan's corpse facedown between them.

"He jumped me, so I dealt with him," Ronan said, then casually tossed the bloody pink origin crystal to a stunned Chloe.

Chloe frantically caught the crystal with both hands. Her arms were all that was separating Chloe from the hungry stares of the crowd. Noah couldn't help but avert his eyes from Chloe's incredible figure as she lost all sense of poise to catch the crystal of her now-deceased ex-boyfriend. Chloe desperately gathered her clothes before rushing through the crowd to flee somewhere out of sight.

"Nothing can be done now, but you could show a little restraint in the future. Noah, please sheath your sword," Mister Kim let out a regretful sigh.

"This is how the world is now, old man. Only the strong have the right to live." Ronan chuckled as he took the cigarette out of his mouth with a smug grin.

Noah reluctantly sheathed his sword with a sigh. He was too late to interfere with the playboy being killed. It made no sense for Noah to get into conflict over something that would likely result in one of them dying. The world has turned to madness, but he still wasn't prepared to kill a human unless his survival depended on it. So he followed Mister Kim's lead to drop the matter.

"You're looking a bit different since I last saw you, Noah" Mister Kim commented on Noah's new physique.

"I reached grade two after the battle earlier," Noah replied.

"Considering the number of bodies dropping from us fighting our way through the horde. No doubt these blanks scavenged a few black origin crystals from the corpses if you need to refill your pockets. The trouble is getting them to cough them up. They cling to them more desperately than they do food," Ronan advised Noah.

Noah briefly considered as he decided to buy as many crystals as he could. No doubt, not what Ronan had intended with his advice. He was going to take advantage of the fact Merit can now be exchanged. Noah turned to speak to the gathered crowd.

"If anyone has crystals, I will buy them at the value the Store exchanges them for. Ten Merit for a grade one crystal, one hundred for a grade two crystal, I can afford a few of each. It is safer to give them to me than it is for you to hide them if you only want to use them to buy items from the Store" Noah proposed a fair trade to the crowd.

The crowd remained silent as they looked at each other suspiciously while shifting restlessly. One unremarkable filthy man stepped forward.

"How can we trust you, witch?" the man asked.

"I'm sure some of you saw me fighting through the hoard of soulless to reach the boat. I don't have a shortage of Merit from killing them," Noah replied.

"Very well, I have these." The man held up two grade one black origin crystals taken from soulless.

"All right, I'll take them."

[Do you wish to transfer twenty Merit?]

"Yes"

"I got the Merit, here's your crystals." The man handed Noah the crystals before quickly disappearing into the crowd.

***

After seeing the man's actions, more survivors came forward. Noah managed to collect forty-five grade one black origin crystals and a surprising five grade two soulless crystals if you included the first man's two grade one crystals. He entirely spent all of his collected Merit.

[Current Merit value: 0]

"I can't afford to buy any more," Noah informed the crowd to the disappointment of the remaining survivors still waiting.

A few of the survivors furtively darted back into the crowd upon hearing Noah's announcement. Not before Ronan marked each of them with his eyes. Ronan spoke to the group.

"It's your lucky day. You lot can have him. Just clean up your mess afterwards." Ronan threw the bloody dagger onto the corpse of the playboy, Ryan, still lying face down at his feet.

The crowd of survivors surged forward, bumping Noah and Mister Kim out the way while shoving each other. The survivors fought over Ryan's meagre possessions, especially his knife. In a matter of moments, the corpse was stripped bare, a group of survivors dragged him out of sight.

A bewildered expression crossed Ronan's face upon hearing a splash from the water outside.

"Umm, do they know about that sea monster in the water?" Noah asked rhetorically, a moment before the ferry began to rock violently.

"Well, they're about to find out," Sophie replied curtly.