Chapter Nineteen: Acquaintances

"Police?" Carter Hayes paused for a moment. Since the crisis erupted in the apocalypse, he seemed to have forgotten about the existence of the police. Perhaps it was because of having the Aeon System? He had truly forgotten about the police, the guardians of the people.

But upon thinking of the Aeon System, Carter shook his head. The virus didn't discriminate; just because they were police didn't mean they were immune. Could they really hope for the police to come and rescue them? They might not even be able to help themselves.

"It's not the police, so how did you end up here?" Seeing Carter's expression, Tone knew that things didn't match his imagination. But how did Carter get here? He was puzzled.

He had known Carter for quite some time. Carter was a typical homebody who hardly ever left his house unless necessary.

"It's a long story. The world isn't the same as before. You haven't eaten anything for days, have you? Let's hurry down." Carter had a favorable impression of Tone. He was honest and could potentially be a good companion in the future.

Although Carter didn't have many ambitions, in the apocalypse, having one more person to trust meant one more hope for survival.

And since Tone was a veteran and still young, with some skills, he shouldn't be too much of a burden to Carter.

"Yeah." Carter didn't say much, but now that he mentioned it, Tone did feel a wave of hunger seeing Carter eat so heartily. He nodded and followed Carter downstairs.

"All the monsters are dead." Walking from the manager's office to the stairwell, Tone was stunned by the scattered remains on the ground. If it weren't for being starved for days and having his stomach digesting everything, he might have vomited at the sight.

"You must have heard the commotion just now, right?" Seeing Tone's changing expression, Carter shook his head lightly. It was his first time seeing such a scene, and Tone's reaction was considered good.

"Yes, otherwise, if you had knocked, I would have opened the door long ago." Seeing Carter's calm expression, Tone's eyes flashed with a hint of surprise. He was somewhat amazed and asked, "Could it be that you did all this?"

"It wasn't me who killed them. It was a mutated lizard." Carter knew why Tone would guess that, probably because he was still tightly holding a machete.

"A lizard? How could it be possible? How could our manager's pet possibly kill so many monsters?" Tone thought of the lizard they kept in the office when Carter mentioned it. But when he hid in the office, the lizard had already escaped.

"You'll understand when you see its body later." Carter wasn't surprised by Tone's reaction. People who hadn't seen mutated creatures wouldn't understand their horrors.

Soon, the two of them reached the fourth floor, and the mutated lizard's body appeared in front of Carter and Tone.

"What kind of monster is this?" Tone was full of astonishment when he saw the bloody corpse.

"It's that mutated lizard, but I've stripped off its scales." Carter said calmly.

"What?" Tone's eyes widened in disbelief.

"In this world now, we can't rely on what we learned before." Carter patted Tone's shoulder lightly and handed him an axe from the fire cabinet at the corner of the stairs. "Be careful, danger is everywhere."

"Did you kill this monster?" Tone took the axe, still somewhat in shock.

"Yeah." Carter didn't intend to deny it in front of Tone. After all, they had known each other for quite some time, and Carter understood Tone's character well; he was a very upright man.

"Help me carry the scales." While Tone was still in a daze, Carter had already gone back to the fourth floor, bringing over the clean and dried scales of the mutated lizard and handing them to Tone. Then he went back inside.

The fourth floor was where they sold clothing, and Carter quickly found what he needed from inside. Some sturdy silk threads, to sew up the scales of the mutated lizard.

"Alright." Tone had already suspected that Carter was no longer ordinary just now, and now seeing how Carter handled things, Tone was completely convinced of what Carter said. With the scales in his arms, he followed Carter down the stairs.

"Shall we eat something first?" After getting everything down to the warehouse on the second floor, it was getting late, so Carter and Tone prepared to have dinner.

Perhaps because of the disgust they felt from what they had seen earlier, Tone hadn't eaten much in the past four days. Even now, looking at biscuits and other things, he had no appetite.

It was only after Carter persuaded him that he drank a bottle of milk.

"Carter, what has the world become now?" Leaning against the bag of rice in the warehouse, Tone asked as he watched Carter devouring biscuits and bread.

"Zombies roam, monsters abound." Carter took a sip of water and, feeling almost full, began to answer.

"Zombies?" Tone was puzzled.

"Those living dead." Carter felt the need to explain to Tone what the Earth had become.

"Did you kill all the zombies on these floors?" After listening to Carter's description, Tone's eyes were full of astonishment, but more of it was despair, the emotion that had been called despair all along.

"Yeah, to survive, it's either they die, or we die." Carter toyed with the knife in his hand. He had taken off the mutated lizard's tail after entering the warehouse.

"Starting tomorrow, you'll also have to learn to kill zombies. To survive, it's a matter of who's more ruthless." Seeing the changing expressions in Tone's eyes, Carter knew he had to make Tone adapt quickly. After all, Tone had been a soldier, and whether in combat skills or physical fitness, he far surpassed an ordinary person. Moreover, Tone was still so strong. They were probably not far from being equal in strength. Being cautious, there was no need to worry about safety with Carter's current strength and speed. Even if they were surrounded by dozens of zombies, there was no need to worry about danger. If they couldn't win, they could still run.

"Yeah." Seeing Carter's confident expression, Tone understood from Carter's eyes. Even though Carter was just over 1.7 meters tall and could kill zombies, let alone this burly man who was over 1.8 meters tall, was even stronger than Carter.

"Then let's rest early. We can't leave this small warehouse at night." Carter thought Tone was fine now, so he walked to the corner with his knife and went to sleep. Carter had already gotten used to sleeping with his knife in hand.

"Yeah." After hearing the reasons Carter had just told him, Tone understood why they couldn't go out at night.

The occasional roars from outside made his heart tremble from time to time. But after not getting a good rest for several days, he soon fell asleep, dead tired.

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"The Aeon System welcomes the host." Leaning against the bag of rice, Carter pretended to fall asleep quickly, but in fact, his consciousness had entered the inner workings of the Aeon System.

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