“Let’s make this quick”

They ran off in the direction of their potential rescuee all the while wondering what type of person was alone out here.

“You think it’s a scout? We’re getting pretty close to the city, after all.” Noah said.

“Maybe. Guess we’ll have to see. But it would make sense since the city is only a couple tens of kilometers away. Other than a scout, the only thing that would make sense is a loner.” Mark replied.

Noah was excited but at the same time afraid to meet someone new. He’d read all those web novels practically telling horror stories of how humans would devolve into savages once the apocalypse happened and was deathly frightened of them being true.

“What do we do if he’s hostile?” he nervously asked Mark.

“We’ll uh…” Mark was speechless for a moment. “We’ll capture him and interrogate him then.”

With that said, they neared the location of what they hoped was a friendly scout. When they saw the person running from a couple of orcs, they immediately went into action. Mark stepped forward with all his might and bolted toward the pursuers. His image blurring for a second before he reappeared beside one of the orcs and decapitated it with one swing of his sword. He then hopped around the group of orcs and separated all their heads from their feeble bodies.

Before Noah could fire off a single spell, all the orcs were already dead. A few seconds later, he arrived to the sight of Mark looking at the person he just saved with his mouth open. He looked over at the now uncovered face of the scout and he was left speechless. The scout was a she and it was someone they knew. She was the red-headed star of the track and field club from their high school and… was Mark’s ex.

Mark shook his head, snapped himself out of his reverie and asked. “What are you doing here, Sophie?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Mark. And how did you just do that? You made killing those orcs look like a casual walk in the park.”

Mark shyly rubbed the back of his neck and replied. “Well, non-stop dungeon delves will do that to a guy.” He chuckled, then countered with his own question. “Don’t change the subject! What are you doing out here alone?”

“You can probably already tell from what I’m wearing. I’m a scout. I’m doing scout stuff. Scouting out the surrounding area of the city for the government.”

“Government? It survived?”

“Yeah. They’re calling themselves new Louisville now. Pretty unoriginal name if you ask me, but who am I to judge. I’m just a single scout in their makeshift militia filled with inexperienced and underleveled people who barely know what they’re doing.” Sophie looked at Mark and then at Noah and realized she was rambling. “But anyway, enough about me. What about you guys? I noticed that you came from the opposite direction of the city. Where have you guys even been?”

Mark and Noah looked at each other and nodded. Noah walked nearer to the both of them and said. “I inherited an apartment building from our grandfather out in the middle of nowhere, and we’ve been isolated there ever since.”

“So just when you received your inheritance, the apocalypse happened? That sucks huh.”

“Yeah, it does.” Noah sighed and shook his head, then continued. “We were actually heading for the city when we saw you on the map.”

“You can see me on the map? How?”

“It’s a feature you get when you upgrade it. It hooks you up to the data of every other human’s map, so we saw you clearing the black fog on the map and heading in our direction.” Mark chimed in.

“Well, thank whatever god is up there for that! I might have been a goner if it wasn’t for that.” She sighed in relief and relaxed her shoulders a bit. “You guys must be rich though, if you could afford to upgrade your map function.” Her eyes shined and looked at her ex.

Mark sighed as he saw the look in her eyes. He knew exactly what that look meant. For the three years that they were together, it was impossible not to know. He called it her ‘give me some sugar, sugar’ look and was one of the reasons that he broke up with her. “We had a long talk about this Sophie, that look makes me feel like your sugar daddy or something. Didn’t I say that it was part of the reason why I broke up with you?”

She stuck her tongue out and said. “It was worth a try.”

Mark sighed again. “Anyway, tell us about the city and the government.” He looked at the expectant look on her face and sighed yet again. “We’ll pay you for the info… enough for a map upgrade.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Sophie jumped up in joy and hugged him. “YES! You won’t regret this! I’ll tell you all about their crooked ways!”

As it turned out, they weren’t crooked in any way, shape or form. If anything, they were doing the best they could with the situation they found themselves in. The previous mayor died during a goblin attack, along with most of the city officials. That left the chief of police to take control of the city, or what was left of it. Thankfully, he was the type that took his duty seriously.

He gathered the remaining police officers and whatever was left of the other law enforcement agencies in the area and took charge, bringing some much needed order in what could have been a much more chaotic situation.

“The guy definitely saved our asses. People were already looting the stores, and there were even rumors of some killing and raping being done by some gangs and escaped prisoners, but they were swiftly dealt with by the chief.” Sophie said. “I just hope the power doesn’t get to his head and go all dictator on us.” She shivered at the thought. “But other than that worry, he’s a pretty good guy… so far.”

“You don’t trust him?” Mark asked.

She waved her hands in the air while shaking her head. “It’s not that! I just… We’ve all read stories about what happens when people gain power. And that was when we were all the same in personal power! What more with the system now where he’s the most powerful guy, level-wise and politically!” She shuddered. “I just can’t help but imagine the worst-case scenario that’s probably happening right now out there somewhere and all that’s separating us from that is one guy’s god damn mood! It’s giving me anxiety!”

By the end, she was holding her chest in pain and shaking. Mark, seeing that she was having one of her panic attacks, walked up to her and held her in his arms. “Shhh. Deep breaths. Inhale… exhale… It’s all going to be fine.” He said as he patted her back and tried to calm her down with his best imitation of a soothing voice. In the end, though, his voice ended up sounding forced and unnatural, which elicited a chuckle from her.

“You and your ‘calm down’ voice always did make me laugh.” She said as she once again began to relax.

“Hey! It worked, didn’t it?” He said as they laughed together. For a moment, they were once again back to that time when they were together. To the time when they were inseparable and deeply in love with each other.

Sophie hugged him tighter as she remembered those days, hoping that this moment would last longer, but alas…

Mark broke off from the hug first but sighed when the scout was still clinging to him. “Sophie, we talked about this.” He said as he pried her arms open.

“I know… but…”

“No buts. The end of the world hasn’t changed my mind.” He said sternly.

With that, she reluctantly pulled away and smiled wryly. She shook her head and sighed. “Okay, you guys said you were heading for the city, right? Want to head there now?”

Noah cleared his throat and finally spoke. “Not yet. We have to pick Lily up before we head there.”

Sophie raised her brow at Mark in askance.

Seeing this, Mark shook his head and said. “She’s a kid we saved from a bunch of orcs.” He said while turning around. “Let’s go. We kinda left during a meal and I’m still hungry.”

And so they ran toward their camp. They had to slow down to match Sophie’s speed, so it took a couple more minutes of running before they got there.

When the shimmering light barrier marking the camp zone came in to view. Sophie couldn’t help but be amazed. “You guys are really rich, huh.” She came up to the barrier and slowly extended her hand, trying to touch it only for it to pass right through with zero resistance. “Huh? What’s the use of this thing then? It didn’t even feel like there was anything there.”

Mark shrugged and pointed at Noah. “I don’t know how it works exactly, but it keeps wild beasts away somehow. You’d have to ask our resident rune expert about it.”

“It’s got something to do with runes, but I haven’t studied those types of runes yet…”

“Runes huh…” Then Sophie realized something and looked at Noah. “Wait, you mean you can make stuff with runes?!”

“Make stuff is… a bit of a stretch, but yeah, I’m getting there. I’m focusing right now on some proper transportation for us.” He replied as he took out the toy to show her. “My goal is to scale this little guy up to human size.”

“Oink! Oink! Oink! Oink! Oink! Oink! Oink!”

That was when they heard the cute greeting of the now slightly bigger piglets. They were the size of adult small dogs now and were just as loveable. The piglets ran circles around them, happy that they were back and then kept on sniffing the new person that they brought with them.

“Behold! Our reinpiglets!” Mark declared.

Seeing the confused expression on Sophie’s face, Mark told her that he named them after santa’s reindeer.

“So, which one’s Rudolph?”

“None of them. They don’t have red noses after all.” Mark replied with a laugh.

Lily came up to them and stared at Mark questioningly while glancing at the lady they brought with them. “I finished eating while you were gone, big brothers and uhhh… big sister…”

“That’s fine Lily.” Mark said while taking a seat on a chair by the table and picking up the fish. “This is Sophie, our friend from high school. Sophie, this is Lily, the girl we told you about.”

“Hi Lily! Nice to meet you!” Sophie said with an outstretched arm as she pinched Lily’s cheeks. “Aren’t you just a cutie!”

“Nice to meet you too, big sister.” Lily replied while looking at Noah, asking him with her eyes for some help.

Noah just smiled and shook his head. “With introductions out of the way, let’s eat! Then we can pack up and finally get to the city.” He then walked up to the table and sat in front of Mark, digging in to his own piece of fish.

Sophie then released the little girl and took the opportunity to sit beside Mark. She nudged him and asked where they got their fish.

Mark looked at Noah as if to ask if it was okay to tell her and he nodded in reply. “Hmmm… That depends. Can we trust you?”

“Come on Mark, this is me we’re talking about! I’ve seen you naked!”

“Okay! No need to bring that up! There’s a kid here for christ’s sake!” Mark said, exasperated. He then looked at Noah and asked. “Can you take some fish out for our guest here?”

Noah proceeded to touch his necklace and out came a piece of fish, ready to cook.

“Wat?”