บท 7: The Traitor

I had to admit, he was bold to come and speak to us this way.

However before I could speak, Isabella jumped in and finally showed evidence of her support to me.

"Who says we should do so?" she crossed her arms before adding in a loud tone, "this is a free country. No one is obliged to do anything against his wish."

"C'mon, you are too young to realize what you are doing," unexpected to me, that man dared to extend his arm and grab Isabella's.

"Hey," I interfered at once before he could catch her arm with my hand. He gave me such a glaring gaze as if he was so enraged by our actions.

"How dare you?!" Isabella was shocked for a second there before she exploded at him, "what gives you the right to touch me? Get the f*ck off my sight now!"

This little conflict attracted the attention of the scattered groups here. What was happening to us was about to happen to them as well. They were smart enough to know that.

I knew they weren't firm believers like me in staying here. If that man tried to persuade them, most of them would comply in the end.

And that was what that traitor did as a mistake, coming to persuade me in the first place.

What that man did and the sharp reaction from Isabella made it easier for the others to make up their minds.

If they had a speck of doubt before towards that man, they did now have a ton!

"Sorry," the man noticed the change in the atmosphere here as everyone moved and gathered around us. "I'm just worried about your safety. You are still young and inexperienced in life."

"F*ck off!" Isabella's sharp answer made others interfere and even pushed the man away.

"You heard the girl, you have no right to force her or anyone on anything!"

"How can someone like you be at this age? God!"

"I can't believe you just fooled everyone to follow you just now. I feel sorry for them!"

More and more comments started to be thrown onto that man's face. 'Serves you right, bastard,' I inwardly sneered while watching him retreat with a complicated look on his face.

I knew why he came back, and it was the same reason behind his future return. However, next time he wouldn't come in peace.

Traitors had quests of their own. The more people they lured into the trap, the more people they killed by this way, the higher their rewards would be. Eventually they would be drunk in doing this until they became one of the greatest evil threats to humans in the apocalypse.

However, that didn't mean I didn't know their weaknesses.

"Let's go," without hesitation I turned around and started to walk towards one direction.

"Wait," just as I moved a couple of steps, a youth shouted, "can we come with you?"

"Yeah, we trust you more than that bastard!"

"Please, it's hard to stay alive when we are divided."

"Yeah, strength is in unity, it's a known fact."

I gazed up at them in silence while feeling sorry. People of this age didn't know how to play this game, they even didn't know the basic rules of it.

One of the many reasons I selected the central park as my top priority was what just happened now.

The first quest was related to survival as the human world would be invaded by herds of monsters. Monsters came from dark and cold worlds so they had their own ways to find their targets here after the sun died down.

The more people gathered around the more monsters that would come to attack them. That was one of the reasons I didn't interfere back when the traitors lured people away.

I needed to decrease the number of people as much as possible. Plus the facts they were speaking about weren't totally correct.

According to the many experiences gathered from those who survived this era, those who stayed with a few groups of people had higher chances to survive than others.

At the early stages of this survival game, staying alone was much better than in a group. But later when people started to unlock their powers and gained strength, they would aim to roam the world on their own.

And that was, once again, wrong! It was ironic but when we were weak we shouldn't stick together and when we gained power we should stay next to each other.

After all, challenges of the later stages of the apocalypse were really frightening. No single human could stand against them depending on his power, no matter how strong he grew to become.

"Please, let them come with us."

It seemed that my hesitation was too obvious to Isabella who gave me such a look. I couldn't bring myself to deny her first request. I wanted her to trust me further and lower her guards. This was the only way to get this fierce fighter later on to stick by the side of a loser like me.

"Alright," I agreed. After all, the first quest wasn't that difficult to clear if you knew the rules and the tricks. And I knew them all.

"Where are we heading now?" The group walked in silence around while Isabella tried to start a discussion with me.

"I heard there are few playgrounds here," I faked my ignorance of what I was really doing, "like baseball and football fields."

"Yeah, there are many around here," one youth said, "I once played there with my friends."

"It's not far, only a hundred meters away from here," another said. In fact all of them were around my age, given one or two years up and down.

"Let's go there then," I acted like I was respecting their call and listening to what they just suggested. That would give me some leverage to order them around later on.

"May I ask why?" a girl said in a shy tone. I didn't even turn to see whoever spoke to me, but I expected such a question.

"Did you notice the world around us is getting darker?" I slowly said while not telling them everything at once.

"The sun is off, so it's getting darker," one youth said as if it was a known fact.

"Then why didn't the lights turn on until now?"

All of sudden I sensed the change of the atmosphere to be filled with shock and nervousness. I even heard a few whispers between them while I kept myself all silent.

Such a small and unnoticed detail was the crucial element in determining life and death in this quest. After all, the monsters came from dark and cold worlds, so they weren't accustomed to light at all.

Unlike humans, who were used to walking in light and feared the darkness. So anyone sitting at the subway tunnels, away from any potential source of light, would be in great disadvantage here. They would turn into living stock waiting for slaughter in the eyes of monsters.

Monsters would see them clearly while humans would only see nothing. It would be best described as the massacres of the subways.

"The power grid might be down," one of the kids tried to find a good reason for all of this.

"Then why our phones aren't working?" I asked before adding, "anyone got a laptop? Let's see if it's working or not. We need a source of light to guide us here."

Although we lost precious minutes back when these traitors did their show, I didn't care now for wasting more minutes here. We were almost at a big open playground, a field that seemed to be dedicated for the baseball game.

I was near my target, and I didn't mind making myself more convincing. Who knew, I might find a few hidden gems in the middle of this group after all.

Even if I didn't want them with me at first, now I had to get all the benefits I could from them as long as they were here.

Who told them to follow me in the first place?

"Holy sh*t! It's dead!"

"Mine too!"

"How come… Do you know what happened?"

The group all looked at me and I didn't feel any pressure at all. Their childish gazes were nothing compared to the stinky breaths of a werewolf or the roars of a golam.

Facing these kids was like a breeze to me. "I believe an electromagnetic weapon was used on a wide scale," I said while moving towards a small room just meters away from us.

"Click!" I found it open to my luck. I was ready to crush the door to get in there if needed to.

And when I entered, I found what I was looking for.