Bab 49: Chapter 49: South City Art Academy
Logan recalled something his father had told him when he was young. Decades ago, before AC became widespread, people used candles and flashlights. They went to bed as soon as it got dark and woke up at dawn. The only thing they did was work—working hard just for food—and people had much stronger bodies back then. They rarely walked at night, and there wasn't as much entertainment.
Nowadays, humans were overly dependent on electronics, causing the general population's physical condition to deteriorate. This solar flare which destroyed electronics had effectively pushed human technology back by centuries and could be seen as a forced "rehab" for humanity's tech addiction.
And with the arrival of the extreme cold...
The thought of the extreme cold pushing survivors to prioritize physical training flashed through Logan's mind like lightning. There was an idea, a concept, but it slipped away too quickly for him to grasp.
"The third restart... accelerating evolution..." he muttered, lost in thought.
As Logan pondered, the two girls behind him had shifted their conversation from complaining about the power outage to talking about him.
"Hey, Logan, you look cute. Do you have a girlfriend?" Ella asked, walking up a few steps, intending to pat him on the shoulder.
Lost in his thoughts, Logan instinctively grabbed her outstretched hand, surprising even himself with his reflexes.
"Ow! That hurts!" Ella yelped.
Seeing Dev glance back, Logan quickly let go of her hand and put on a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I was thinking about other matters."
Standing close to him, Ella scanned Logan's face intently. Logan didn't resemble either of his parents. His father had ordianry features, while his mother had softer, more delicate looks. Logan, on the other hand, had a more chiseled face, like it had been sculpted with the finest precision. His deep-set eyes, high nose bridge, and slightly thin lips gave him a striking appearance. However, there was a one-centimeter scar on his brow that marred his otherwise perfect face. He'd had the scar for as long as he could remember, with his father saying it was from falling out of his crib as a baby.
In the past, his clear eyes had given his face a gentle quality, but now Logan's gaze was cold and indifferent, making him seem unapproachable when he wasn't smiling. The discomfort Charles Warren had sensed earlier came from this very fact: Logan's eyes didn't match the carefree spirit of a typical 19-year-old. Expressions could be faked, but it was much harder to conceal what lay in one's eyes.
Oblivious to all of this, Ella, who had a thick skin, massaged her wrist and said, "Fine, I'll forgive you because you're handsome. I asked if you have a girlfriend!"
Logan answered bluntly, "No."
Hearing that, Ella's eyes curved into crescent moons. "Then you..."
Before she could continue, Ashley stepped forward to stop her. "Enough, Ella, now's not the time for this. We need to hurry back. It's already getting dark."
Seeing Ella's blatant infatuation with Logan, Ashley couldn't help but feel a possessive twinge, as if someone was eyeing something that belonged to her.
Out of Ashley's line of sight, Ella silently pouted but said nothing more.
Logan paid no mind to the girls' thoughts. With the apocalypse approaching, just surviving was difficult enough. Romance was the last thing on his mind. After all, the ones who hurt you the most were often the people you trusted the most.
Dev glanced at the darkening sky and urged, "Let's hurry up."
They had been walking for half an hour, and by now the sky had grown darker, though the rain had stopped. The temperature had dropped even further than it had in the afternoon.
Logan took off his raincoat and felt the chill. He estimated the temperature had dropped by at least five degrees since noon.
Meanwhile, Ashley and Ella, dressed in light summer clothing—shorts and short sleeves—were shivering, huddling together for warmth.
Looking at Logan's long-sleeved jacket, Ella leaned toward Ashley and whispered, "Hey, since you're close with this guy, can you ask him to lend us his jacket?"
Even if Ella hadn't mentioned it, Ashley had already been planning to ask. With her charm, getting a guy to lend her his jacket was usually no trouble. Especially considering that Logan, who she thought had followed her to South City, had been into her since high school.
Confidently, Ashley asked, "Logan, can I borrow your jacket for a bit?"
Logan responded flatly, "No."
He wasn't going to risk catching a cold for someone unrelated to him.
Ashley's smile froze on her face.
Ella noticed her friend's awkward expression but secretly felt a bit of schadenfreude. It seemed even the great beauty Ashley could fail sometimes.
"You have no sense of chivalry!" Ashley snapped, embarrassed and angry.
Without turning around, Logan retorted, "Chivalry? Can you eat it?"
"Pfft!" Ella couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Her laughter didn't last long, though. In the darkness, Ella tripped over something and fell to the ground.
"Ah!!" she screamed.
Dev quickly took out a flashlight from the bag he had been carrying and switched it on.
Seeing herself sprawled in the dirty mud, Ella screamed angrily, "You had a flashlight this whole time?! Why didn't you use it earlier?"
Dev explained calmly, "The military has very few working flashlights and batteries left cuz we haven't been using them for decades, so we have to conserve them."
Flashlights and batteries had become extremely valuable resources.
Furious, Ella stood up, half of her body drenched in cold, dirty water, shivering uncontrollably.
She moved closer to Logan, wearing a pitiful expression.
Before she could even ask, Logan immediately shut her down. "No."
Exasperated, Ella cried, "What's wrong with you?! Are you even a man?"
But no matter what she said, Logan remained indifferent.
By the time the group reached the gates of South City Art Academy, it was completely dark, with visibility near zero. The school's automatic gate was broken and locked.
They approached the security booth and knocked on the window.
The security guard, seeing Dev in his military uniform, asked a few questions and, learning that he was escorting the students back to school, opened the side gate for them.
"Hey, do you have another flashlight? It's pitch black in here; I can't see anything," the guard asked, eyeing Dev's flashlight.
"Sorry, I only have one. Someone from the military will come by in a few days to distribute emergency lighting supplies," Dev explained.
Hearing this, the security guard didn't push further, just sighed and nodded. "Who knows when the power will be fixed? You all go on in."
The campus was eerily dark and silent.
Guided by Ashley and Ella, the four of them headed toward the girls' dormitory.
Halfway there, Logan suddenly stopped.
"What are you doing?!" Ella snapped, already annoyed with him.
"Shut up!" Logan barked, straining to listen carefully to the surroundings.
There was a faint rustling sound, and it seemed to be getting closer.
"Where's the nearest building?!" Logan asked, turning urgently to Ashley and Ella.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone