“Where exactly is this shelter?” Alice asked as they moved through the marred roads of Glasgow. It was a city that looked to be a tad bit smaller in area compared to Edinburgh, but that did not make the winds of desolation about it any less.

Although, that was not what made Rain’s face squeeze. They had journeyed through more than five or so towns and villages to get to Glasgow, and the more their legs moved the greater the emptiness left in their wake. A part of himself had been hoping the GEF’s faction leader’s surveys were wrong, but he was beginning to feel differently.

It was crazy. Once, a person could not cover a kilometer without coming across a single person, now they were covering cities.

“In Glasgow,” Nun Cathleen answered with a subtle sarcasm in her tone. Alice frowned, and the nun chuckled. They were walking side by side at the head of the crew. “It’s Glasgow’s cathedral. Be rest assured, it’s safe there. It always is.”

Alice scoffed at those words, but she said nothing else.

Rain, on the other hand, just watched in silence from behind them with Sean on his back and J matching his stride.

At that moment a familiar voice called from his side. “Mister,” the person had said, and he turned around to see the pink-haired girl, Mei Mei, strolling beside him. He smiled at her and she took it as an initiative to continue. “What’s up with that?” Her gaze was on J. Rain understood.

From their mutters some moments ago, Rain had realized that the children only knew how to hunt beasts, not make them Companions. It was only because they had seen humans so close to it that they had not followed their instincts and ambushed it. Now that they were sure the beast was actually journeying with humans, their curiosity was heightened.

Rain discreetly looked over his shoulder. The rest of the children walking behind him were murmuring, only the meek Mei Mei had the courage to ask.

How am I meant to interpret this now? The fact that these kids are so strong means that they’ve fought quite a lot of beasts, in other words, they’ve been out of the pod far longer than I was; the nun must have been the one to see them through it all. Did she not tell them about everything that was possible in this world? Rain wondered. The nun not attacking J means that she knows of the whole Companion schtick, so why keep it a secret from the kids?

Trying to understand it seemed somewhat impossible without posing questions to both Nun Cathleen and the kids; but was dragging this out that necessary? Nah. It wasn’t important. If the kids didn’t know about animals becoming human Companions, then they could just find out now regardless of past reasons. At least, they were the ones curious, he was not forcing the knowledge on them.

“My Companion,” Rain answered, and Mei Mei’s face turned incredulous. “Her name’s J.”

“Companion?” Mei Mei asked. “I don’t understand.”

Rain was about to speak when Ray cut in from behind, “It means they are friends, klutz!”

“Ah,” Mei Mei glanced at Ray and nodded. “Thank you.”

“Do you want me to introduce you?” Rain chimed in.

“Huh?”

It was understandable that Mei Mei was confused about what that meant. If all the children had known since the world had gone to shit was hunting mutated beasts, then it would be weird to suddenly become friends with one.

Rain smiled and turned to his Companion. “J, this is Mei Mei.” The Chinese girl blinked frantically. “And Mei Mei, this is J.”

“Ah. Ah. Nice to meet you!” Mei Mei seemed lost at first, then she bowed at J, who purred in reply a second later.

“I’m Ella,” Rain turned to see another of the children walking beside J. She had ginger hair in a pull through braid, doe red eyes, and pale skin. He recalled her. She was the one who had thrown up the shadow wall that prevented the Chimera bear from escaping. She gave a particular aura different from that of Mei Mei’s and only similar to one other amongst the children. The one called Klein. But even then hers still differed a bit from his. It was somewhat… Rain narrowed his eyes for a moment. “Nice to meet you, J.”

At that, more and more of the children surrounded J, introducing themselves as they engaged in conversations that did little to quell their curiosity but spike their fun. Rain saw his Companion looking at him with eyes that spelled “save me”. He wheezed silently in laughter, but didn’t help her.

Sean spoke then from his back, “How long left?” His tone was a bit gloomy, Rain realized. Why, though?

Stolen story; please report.

“Just a few minutes more,” Rain said. “Don’t worry about it and just keep sleeping.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,”said Sean.

“Is there something wrong?” Rain was not sure if he was particularly good with kids, but when a person was feeling down it was obvious. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Sean was silent for a moment. “It’s nothing.”

Like hell it is. If you won’t talk of your own will, then I’ll have to threaten you.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll put you down.”

“Okay.”

Rain gritted his teeth. This boy.

“If you don’t talk, I’ll tell J to stop playing catch with you.”

Sean fell mute, his arms squeezing around Rain’s neck.

Are you trying to choke me?!

The pressure reduced and the boy opened his mouth, “I-I can’t socialize.”

Huh? Rain’s expression slacked. Is that all? He would have chuckled but he knew that would be disrespectful to the kid, so instead he sighed silently.

“You want to play with the children too, huh?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He whispered into Sean’s ear, “That’s easy, you know? Just talk to one of them; starting a conversation is the easiest thing to do in this world.” Especially between kids.

“How do I do that, though? I feel like they’ll ignore me.”

This was not something that would be easy for the boy, Rain understood that. It was obvious that Sean had not had a lot of friends before the apocalypse—maybe one or two max. Anyways, that had to change now that a chance to do so had been presented.

“It’s all about timing,” Rain told Sean, “and shared interests. It always feels awkward trying to start a conversation with a stranger, but all that stuff vanishes if there’s something you both like. Naturally, you begin to talk about it, and it’s easier to talk about too. In this case, you have J. You’ve played with J already, you know J better than they do, so you can use that as a base for conversing with them—”

“No,” Sean voiced in a tense manner as his arms tightened around Rain once again.

Rain’s brows pulled in. “What? Why ‘no’?”

“Uhm… I don’t want to now~”

Rain took in a deep breath and exhaled. “I understand.”

You just don’t want to come down and walk, you little…

About thirty minutes later, they walked into Glasgow cathedral.

Neither Nun Cathleen nor the children had needed to announce that it was what it was because its design made that much as obvious as a needle not hidden in a haystack.

Glasgow cathedral was a grand gothic architecture with a tall central spire rising above intricate stone architecture, which featured a façade bearing a large, ornate arched window, that was filled with stained glass in a circular rose pattern, at its center.

It was surprising that despite the utter ruins filling the rest of the world, the cathedral retained its beauty and history. There was barely any stain of greenery on its weathered stones, and even the surroundings which made up its paved plaza was not completely dominated by trees and shrubs with exaggerated growth sprouts. It looked like most of them had been burnt or cut down.

Of course, Rain wasn’t the only one who was awed at the sight.

“Why is it so neat?” Sean asked in a low voice.

“I wonder,” Rain answered—if that could even be called an answer.

His gaze was then planted on a stone pedestal that seemed to have held a statue some time back.

The statue was nowhere to be found now, though, all that was left was a name imprinted on the pedestal…

David Livingstone…

All of a sudden, Rain felt a stifling pressure clutching his heart. He looked away from the statue instantly to see Alice having halted her steps with her right hand tightly gripping the hilt of her sword.

This shouldn’t have been a special sight since she had been clutching it all through their walk here, only this time it felt a bit too different. For one, neither the nun nor the children, even J, seemed to have sensed what he did. They kept moving forward. His Perception, which was never triggered due to its low level, had been the only one aroused by Alice’s abrupt halt.

Why was he the only one who could sense her agitation? No, that wasn’t what was the most important. What exactly was wrong? What had she noticed?

Rain traced the line of her sight and then he saw what she saw.

Beneath one of the neatly trimmed trees in the plaza was a reclining chair and a figure seated upon it. At the sight of this figure, Rain suddenly felt a cold chill run down his spine. But he knew, instinctively, this sensation wasn’t his. It was Alice’s.

“Rain, what’s wrong with Alice? I’m scared.”

Huh?

Those words drew Rain’s attention away from the figure on the reclining chair to the arms wrapped around his neck. They were shivering rather wildly though discreetly.

Don’t tell me… Is he feeling the same thing too? Why? How come we both can feel what Alice is feeling?

Rain’s questions were answered a second later as the familiar Plexus brought forth its blue and purple hue before his eyes, only this time with words he had never seen before…

[Side Character Rain Leclair’s cognizance of the Player, Alice, has been heightened]...