6:54 p.m, December 25th, 2028

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock!

Christmas carols echoed from the distance as a lone young man walked through four alleyways, navigating a difficult path to a storage facility located between three buildings.

Anyone attempting to find this place for the first time would get lost even with directions.

O’Brien made his way through the identical storage garages and stopped at Number 17, making his way into it.

With a low thump, he dropped down on the chair inside his leased storage facility. His dark eyes as deep as the lingering shadows in the night quickly surveyed his now awake but groggy captives, still trying to recollect their bearings after their drug-induced coma.

The silence was deafening, not even punctuated by cicadas or crickets in the sound-proof containment.

The four women looked up at him, still bound by ropes, their stomachs groaning in light hunger and their bodies shivering from the cold floors and frosty winds howling outside. Although they were previously all hooked up to IVs, the person responsible for the transfusions wasn't very experienced, so their catheter wounds were prickly under the carelessly placed band-aids. The sleeping drugs used on them also had a light conflict with the nutritional supplements given by the IV, causing them to feel a bit nauseous.

Since the IVs were disconnected and plates of food were placed in front of them, they refused to eat. Their hands were tied up and they lay on the floor, so wiggling to the food and eating like without their hands, like animals, was too demeaning. There was also the possibility that their meal could be spiked with something else.

Getting fooled twice would be their fault.

"Try not to murder me with your glares,” O’Brien hummed without a tinge of intimidation. “I'm really doing this to help you. Yes, I could have been a lot less rough in your treatment, but that's only because you would not have come easily had I used other methods and most would have annoyed me plus the three extra luggages you added making things harder."

O'Brien didn't mince words about the three extra burdens, but the glares remained the same.

He leisurely flipped a newspaper in his hands, barely reading a thing.

"You might be wondering…” he continued his one-sided conversation. “Why did I let you wake up now? Well, it's because the day of reckoning is nigh. The Apocalypse is on its way."

Another stretch of silence ensued before one of the ladies finally decided to break it.

"Aunty Rose, I think your student is crazy." Of course, it was Jules. “Way to put us in the hands of a lunatic.” Her voice was steady with a tone as spiky as a barbed wire, itching to dig into the guy sitting before her.

"O'Brien —" Rose attempted to speak up, her voice breaking from both not speaking for so long and from the betrayal and fear that had been embedded in her heart since the poisoning.

"Your suspicions are valid,” O’Brien interrupted her, “which was why I drugged you, to keep you quiet and bring you along. But today is 25th December, the last christmas this world would celebrate.”

Jules squeezed her sour expression even more, frustrated that she had to continue hearing this insane jerk spew crap.

O’Brien barely glanced at the girl. “In three hours, the apocalypse will arrive and the New World will begin. This world as we know it will change forever.”

His heart started to beat faster, his dark and gloomy eyes slightly lighting up he began recalling the events to come, an almost nostalgic smirk on his lips.

He wasn't one usually this talkative but he was swept away by anticipation of it all.

“Extraordinary Cards with supernatural abilities! Alien races with a hunger for human flesh! Portals to other worlds! Ancient ruins from unknown civilizations!” He set his paper aside, steeping his fingers and now lowering his voice. “The shrinking of humanity’s living space, despite the expansion of the earth's area…”

He leaned forward and his eyes found Rose’s. “There's no need for me to lie to you, because all will be clear in these final 3 hours. Although,” he added with an unamused chuckle, “the bad part comes a little later on."

Roya clenched her jaw, throwing her dark hair out of her bright brown eyes to survey the situation. Even though she was battling with the side effects of all the craziness she found herself in, she was ready to get the hell out of here. Wiggling discreetly, she tried to sense any flaws in her current binding.

‘The hell…’ came her surprised thoughts. ‘This is a professional knot! Has he tied up a lot of people before?’

Lea was the first to attempt diffusing the situation. Relying on her experience with mental patients, she slowly beat around the bush, trying to get him to see the error in his ways. "You don't have to do this. We can talk this out and come to a compromise. The apocalypse? Supernatural powers? You understand how that might be hard for us to believe, right? Give us some time to think this through together. What makes you think that the apocalypse is c—"

"You have no idea about what is to come,” O’Brien cut in, having heard enough. “It's not an ‘if’ or ‘but’. It's a ‘when’. It’s a matter of less than three hours. I'm actually…” He stopped himself, shutting his eyes for a moment before opening them with a drawn sigh. “Never mind. You just need to know that it's coming and you being here is only because of Miss Rose’s big heart. She was the only one I intended to protect.”

His gaze jammed with the still seething Jules as he said, “So, yes, you three aren’t important to me in any way. You weren’t even part of my plans, to begin with.”

For some reason, this made Jules even redder, but O’Brien couldn’t care less, looking back to the doctor. “ Don't worry though, I won't keep you near me forever. As soon as I repay my debts to Rose, you’re free to leave.” Reaching Jules once more, he added, “Actually, you three are free to leave right now. Need me to untie the ropes? You should have fun figuring your way out of here."

He smirked when none of them responded to leaving. Despite their doubt, a bit of belief was starting to creep in. Or maybe it was his somewhat sadistic tone that kept them from doing anything rash, and the fact that they were on a completely different continent.

Leaning back into his chair, he turned on his phone, watching the timer rapidly count down to his new beginning. His new beginning was to have all he wanted. His new beginning was to do as he wished!

Eat lavishly! Sleep comfortably! Be powerful! Fight only when he wanted, not because he had to do so to survive. Not when he could have others take the bullet.

Taking care of other people’s feelings and being social…? Not a part of his new beginning at all.

Having had his fair share of human interactions before and after the end times, he saw the masks come off and the darkness uncovered within their hearts. He would rather not waste any valuable time trying to be considerate to people who could bite the hand that fed them, backstab him, be ungrateful, or betray him.

He didn’t even care about Miss Rose; it was just a debt so great that he had to repay, even in this life.

In this life, he alone would be enough.

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*

"I'll be leaving before the event starts,” O’Brien announced to his captives, now standing behind his chair and looking down at them. “When I do, I'll let you three go and you can do whatever you want; stay or leave. If you choose to stay, I’ll tell you about the cards. If you leave…” He shrugged as he trailed off.

Now, if any of them decided to stay, O’Brien wasn’t going to help solely from the goodness of his heart. No. The more they depended on him in the New World, the better. He could use them to collect more cards and, being the only one with information on cards among them, he could collect the most valuable ones for himself since they wouldn’t know better.

“Rose, you’re different from the rest of us. You’re one of the chosen ones.”

Rose blinked slowly, not knowing how to answer to that, aside from the fact that he had gradually stopped adding his usually polite ‘miss’ to her name. O’Brien watched their reactions, seeing that even Roya was starting to hesitate.

“Your natal card will come to you,” he continued telling Rose, “so I’ll leave you tied up in here. I can’t have you getting killed out there before you get it. After you fuse with it, those binds will be nothing to you and you can leave to gather more cards. We’ll meet at the Three Ring Tower, West of the city.”

O'Brien wasn't worried about Rose not getting her natal card even if she wasn’t in New Roselee City. Several chosen ones had been in remote areas during the Genesis Card Fall. A few were even in areas that had no cards descending at all! Yet their natal cards all managed to find and fuse with them. Clearly, it was predestined.

O'Brien finished his monologue and put in his earbuds to listen to some music. Even this was a luxury in the apocalypse.

Unbroken phones were a commodity. Even broken ones could be repurposed. This was also due to threats from alien races like the Miniature Hell Bats, One-legged Canines and other beings who were attracted to signals from phones. Since the internet was no longer working, the risk was greater than the reward, so many phones had to be destroyed. Though they could still be used, it was expensive to use them safely.

As the time ticked closer to the apocalypse, O’Brien’s old heart beat faster in anticipation. The women were mostly silent, whispering among themselves things he didn’t care to listen in on. He was busy thinking about far more important things, like the fact that he left his city.

Giving up his home-field advantage could be said to be unbelievably foolish. Everything he knew was in that city. Discarding both dangers and opportunities and moving elsewhere opened him up to risks and the unknown.

He was giving up his main advantage of being from the future! If those from the future could see him wasting his opportunity like this…

Forsaking New Roselee meant his risk of death was significantly higher than if he had stayed, but he did this after careful consideration.

‘I don't know which aliens and monsters appeared in this city in the beginning…’ he thought to himself. ‘Hopefully, I don't meet any Zombies or Brain Eaters. Those guys only mentioned the later ones. I gave up my familiar turf of New Roselee to Blue Phoenix on this gamble...’

This city will eventually become overrun with the undead, later becoming the Undead City of Resentment, one of the forbidden areas of the New World. The other six confirmed Forbidden Areas were shrouded in mystery since no one lived to tell the tale of how they came to be, but this place was different. There were eyewitnesses. Many at that.

O'Brien's knowledge of the locations of valuable high-ranked cards, dangerous monsters, safe locations, important people, and so on were all near useless now in another city. It was a stupid act from the perspective of maximizing all possible gains and knowledge. He was well aware of this.

But what was his goal after returning from the future?

To be strong and live luxuriously. The former almost guaranteed the latter.

It almost seemed like a goal too simplistic in an insanely complex world.

But how strong did he want to be? The same level as Blue Phoenix? Humanity's strongest?

No, he wanted more!

Even she was weaker than many alien races!

Even she had to take the long way around some clans, small or large in number!

Even she had to run on sight from the feared dragons and angels!

How could he live luxuriously when he had to run away from malicious aliens and monsters at every turn? How could he tolerate such a life a second time?

He was one person, no less. Even Blue Phoenix had to form a team to share victory and defeat, to fight against monsters, to survive in the wild areas with danger on all sides, to challenge strong enemies and harvest their corpses into cards. This was naturally due to the size of her base and territory.

O'Brien was determined to be a lone wolf, yet teams were prevalent in the end times for a good reason.

There was strength in numbers, and different specialties helped to deal with different situations. With the right recruitment, each other's strengths would also cover their weaknesses. The collective was stronger than the individual. Of course, this wasn't always the case. There were some who could survive well alone. For instance, the Blue Phoenix, Celes, was qualified to do this with her expansive set of cards and powerful natal card, but she chose to lead a team.

Many gang leaders and local tyrants also had groups working under them in teams to better exploit opportunities and cards.

She and they formed teams for different reasons, out of their own free will, but people like him had to. There was hardly a choice.

Teams were necessary for low-ranked plebians with only one or two cards in their possession and an average natal card.

Some didn't even have one combat-type card to fight directly.

Many low-level and unlucky card masters with a later start and no connection to Blessed Ones, started with just their natal card and took months just to get another card. O'Brien was unfortunately a part of this group.

It was unavoidable for the sake of survival. Even if you were betrayed nine times out of ten, if you wanted to survive, you still had to suck it up and join a different team. That was the case for O'Brien, but he was sick of that life. One lifetime of that experience was more than enough.

To avoid this was simple; he needed strength. He craved power.

If he had a powerful natal card and a suite of high-ranked cards, he could match several teams of card masters all alone!

A complete deck of 20 cards covering all fields was enough to survive the horrors of the New World.

The higher the quality of cards in the deck, the better.

But that is where the issue lies.

The strongest card in New Roselee City was just Blue Phoenix's Blue Flame Phoenix, a White Silver summoning card. Perhaps there might be one or two hidden cards of the same rank, but they were likely to be less useful or extremely difficult to obtain without knowing where they descended.

That card was also destined for her, so there was no way of grabbing it. If O'Brien wanted to surpass her, it was obvious what to do; leave New Roselee for a place with higher quality cards!

But then where would he go?

O'Brien had to draw on knowledge and hearsay from the future. Finding a place better than New Roselee wasn't easy. This was clear because Celes Greymore was humanity's number one with her Phoenix card!

While there were a few on her level who died unexpectedly or were assassinated, her’s was still the highest ceiling for humanity. The natal card not only determined combat ability, but also the upper limit on how far one could go. Without a good quality Natal Card, a person could be stuck as a Card Apprentice their entire life!

Blue Phoenix's natal card was truly amazing. Even though the abilities weren’t public knowledge, its feats were. Even among White Silver cards, it was outstanding. While summoning cards weren’t the rarest or most powerful cards, they were by far the most useful in the Apocalypse for general situations.

‘I won’t be stuck at one level like before because of my natal card,’ O’Brien vowed to himself, ‘and I also won't settle for less with such an advantage in my grasp. If I don't surpass Blue Phoenix, then I might as well die!"

O'Brien recalled his musings from months ago while he made his plans. While his passion had been burning, as the time drew nearer, his hearts started to become still.

True, it was very difficult to find a card better than Blue Phoenix's Natal Card, but it was not impossible.

O'Brien had several former comrades from different cities and countries around the globe. They had told him something interesting about this European city, Monvec.

It was rumored that a wingless grey dragon rose to the sky, blocking out the sun during the Genesis Card Fall, then disappeared without a trace.

Afterwards, this place became known for ghosts and ghouls, producing related materials in high quantities and qualities abnormally for a while. But eventually, the locals couldn't suppress the monsters and had to leave their city as refugees.

The dragon rose soon after the card fall, within 30 minutes according to various accounts!

Logically speaking, no monsters appeared during the Genesis Card Fall, with one exception.

The cards themselves.