Chapter 266: Lost and Found
A few minutes before Mira's teleport, Eun Moon Il was keeping the night watch. He was one of the extremely rare people in the world who still had their family intact.
He considered himself one of the lucky ones and was appreciative, but he didn't really feel great about this. His family had survived by hiding away from the monsters but as a result they never evolved. And now the chance to evolve had passed.
He was currently heading to Sinpo, a coastal area in North Korea. Before the apocalypse he was a North Korean citizen. His family had worked for generations to improve their standing in the country. But the country they worked so hard for had fallen, the great military had been powerless and all the efforts invested in the country had gone to nothing.
After Avatari's announcement, he searched for a way to get to Hawaii where the world meeting was to take place. Hawaii was quite far from Korea. It was an island that was quite far from the American mainland. Without an airplane or ship getting there within a month for a normal human was impossible. But a way had presented itself in Sinpo, hence why he was going there with his family and a bunch of other normal humans that had the same intentions.
"BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The sound of a heavy object crashing into the ground rang out from the forest. The people sleeping in the small tents were stirred from their sleep. They began to come out of the tents, casting questioning gazes at Eun Moon Il and the other night watchers.
Eun Moon Il was afraid. He knew that most monsters had stopped attacking humans after the previous event. The rate of monster attacks completely died down after Avatari's announcement. But there were always outliers, those who had to be killed since they couldn't adapt to a peaceful world. The thought of facing one of those beasts turned Eun Moon Il's legs to jelly.
His 8 year old son came out of a tent with his mother. A pang of pain coursed through his heart as he looked at the confused expression on the boy's face. The boy had been trying to become more responsible ever since the start of the apocalypse but there was only so much he could do.
Il's heart steeled as he said "I'll go and check!" It was better for him to encounter the monster and die, signaling the danger and allowing the people to run instead of allowing the monster find out their location and start a massacre.
The people watched Il's back as he jogged into the dark woods. After jogging for a few minutes, he found a completely naked woman with pitch black skin and hair staring at him. His heart calmed a bit when he saw that she was humanoid; she was most likely someone who evolved.
…
A series of sounds were emitted from the throat of the humanoid that approached Mira. She was extremely confused and studied how the humanoid made the sounds before replicating it.
Mira said "Who are you? Are you alright?!" with the exactly the same intonation as the humanoid, causing the latter to manifest a confused expression.
…
Il had encountered a few Ancient and above grade evolvers so he knew they could establish a psychic communication link if they didn't understand what he was saying.
Regardless, he remembered his manners. He pulled his shirt off and offered it to the woman while looking away.
…
Mira wanted to replicate the action but she had no shirt to extend toward the humanoid. So she just replicated the action without the shirt.
…
After a while of nothing happening Il turned to look at the woman who had struck the exact same pose as him. She turned her head to look at him too. The situation further confused Il so he asked his IP 'What is she?'
[???]
His IP showed 3 question marks above her head. Il thought 'Is it a privilege?' He assumed the woman was hiding her information from his IP with a privilege but considering her weird behavior he didn't know if she was intelligent enough to use a privilege. He thought 'Could she be a humanoid monster?'
A hint of fear mixed inside the confusion in Il's mind. This change did not escape the woman who instantly became fascinated by it. This was her first time interacting with something that had emotions and that looked so much like her so she was very intrigued.
Il started walking back to the camp. He fully intended to leave her alone now, he was at least certain she wasn't searching for someone to kill. The woman copied his actions and began to walk behind him.
Fear and regret filled Il's mind; he didn't want to bring this unknown entity to the camp but it was clear that she wouldn't leave him alone. The rainbow of emotions in Il's mind caused the woman to become giddy as she curiously wondered why he was feeling such things.
Il resigned himself as he thought 'I can't just stay here with her. They'll think I'm dead and run away'. Il jogged back to the camp hoping someone there would be able to get the woman off his back.
…
On reaching the camp Il's wife's worry was replaced with joy as she saw him come back safely. The joy was quickly overlaid with confusion as a naked pitch black woman jogged after Il.
Fear filled the hearts of the people as one of the night watchers shouted "What's that?"
"I don't know. My IP isn't saying anything" Il said.
"Why did you bring it here then?" the night watcher asked in confused irritation.
"She kept following me! I didn't know what to do!" Il retorted angrily.
"So bringing a potential source of danger to the camp was your great idea?!" with that rant, an argument erupted among the adults in the camp.
…
Isolated from the tension and strife, Mira constantly absorbed the sounds and psychic fluctuations of the people arguing. She fit the sounds to the emotions people felt and discovered the concept of expression. The people were expressing what they were feeling; not just feeling them in silence and acting on instinct.
A few people broke this norm as they kept their feelings bottled up. Mira couldn't immediately understand their language with this few exchanges but she understood a few things. She understood that the general consensus was that people didn't want her here.
But she didn't much care about what they wanted. She wanted to be here, to experience these experiences and to become… more. She wouldn't give that up because they didn't want her here.