Chapter 3: The World Beyond

Looking at the towering metal walls of the Ninth Security Zone from afar, Sev Steele felt a complex mix of emotions.

Scenes like this, which she had only ever seen in movies and TV shows, were now laid out right before her eyes. For a moment, it felt as though she was playing a holographic game—utterly surreal.

Sev was returning a bit late today. The setting sun struck the metal walls, reflecting patches of blinding light.

The Guards at the gate were official personnel. Whenever Scavengers went out, this was where they rented their Tactical Backpacks.

Guard A took the Tactical Backpack Sev handed over and used a special scanner on it. He then pressed the blue "Settle" button on the bag. A second later, the backpack opened and automatically spat out eighty percent of the gathered supplies, which flowed straight into a specially made synthetic fiber sack. Once the backpack automatically closed, Guard A placed the opening of the synthetic sack under a machine resembling a supermarket bag sealer, clamping it shut with a metal seal.

The Ninth Security Zone had a strict regulation: if an officially sealed synthetic sack was damaged or its contents robbed by outsiders on the journey from the entrance to a resident’s home, the authorities would compensate for the lost supplies and hold the perpetrators accountable. None of the residents in the security zone dared to violate this rule. The consequence was being sent off to perform hard labor in sunless mines, which was essentially a near-certain death sentence.

This was also one of the main reasons most Scavengers were willing to rent Tactical Backpacks. After all, a Tactical Backpack was practically a safety bag. Out in the wild, as long as supplies were stuffed into it, no one could take them out. Furthermore, the rented backpacks were all numbered, so outsiders didn’t dare snatch them willy-nilly.

Marcus Wyatt had only dared to steal the previous Sev’s wild yams because she hadn’t managed to stuff them into her Tactical Backpack in time.

While Guard A handled the rental fees, Guard B picked up his scanner and swept it over the tattered sack Sev was dragging. Discovering it was just a pile of giant mushrooms, he couldn’t help but ask, "Why did you go through so much trouble to bring back a bunch of poisonous mushrooms?"

"I want to dry them out, grind them into powder, and use them to deal with Mutant Rats and mutant cockroaches," Sev replied, using the excuse she had prepared in advance.

"These things don’t smell appetizing, nor are they sweet. Are Mutant Rats really going to eat them?" Guard B asked skeptically.

"I’ll gather some pollen to mix in. That way, they’ll definitely eat it," Sev said.

Having finally passed through the checkpoint, Sev, carrying over a hundred pounds of wild yams on her back, lowered her head to reach for the tattered sack. Just then, she saw a pair of scrawny, bird-like little hands reach out.

"I’ll take this," a tender, childish voice rang out. The boy’s eyes were filled with guarded wariness and distance.

Standing before her was a little boy who looked to be only around five years old. Sev dug through her memories to identify the familiar face. He was the very first orphan the original owner had adopted—Rusty.

Since the previous Sev didn’t even have a proper name herself, she had naturally been extremely casual when naming her four adopted children. The oldest was Rusty, currently seven and a half years old. The second oldest was Firestone, aged six. The third was Zephyr, five and a half. And the youngest was Rose, aged four.

The first two names were entirely unremarkable. So why did the third and fourth sound relatively fancy?

It was all because an outsider had once wandered into the Ninth Security Zone, and the previous Sev had accidentally overheard him chatting with some other people. He said that beyond the Ninth Security Zone, there were far vaster lands. And beyond their home planet, Planet Veridia, there were countless galaxies within an endless universe.

He explained that Planet Veridia was nothing but a minor asteroid on the edge of The Rosaline Element, one of the many galaxies out there. The Rosaline Element earned its name because every star within its domain glowed with a rose-red hue. When viewed from outer space, the entire nebula formed a pattern resembling a massive, blooming red rose. The Solara of The Rosaline Element was named Rosaline Prime, located over six billion kilometers away from Planet Veridia.

He claimed that one day in the future, when technology reached a certain level of advancement, humanity would be able to build zephyrs—spacecraft capable of traversing entire galaxies. Then, they could ride a zephyr to Solara, to see if its atmosphere truly looked like a budding rose, just as the books described.

The previous Sev couldn’t possibly imagine just how far six billion kilometers was. The outsider merely told her that one hundred million was ten thousand ten-thousands, and ten thousand was one hundred hundreds. In her twenty-four years of life, the farthest place she had ever been was Whisperwind Valley outside the Ninth Security Zone. She had ridden a low-altitude Flying Device for two hours, and the entire trip was said to be a little over six hundred kilometers.

She had listened to all the things the outsider talked about as if they were nothing more than myths and legends. But after hearing those tales, she developed a secret yearning for the world beyond the sky.

At that time, she had only adopted the oldest and the second oldest. Later, when she adopted the third child, she named him Zephyr. Later still, she adopted her fourth child and named her Rose. From then on, she decided not to adopt any more children. She felt that she had already arrived at Solara, even though this was nothing more than her own wishful thinking.

Dredging up this memory, Sev couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of sorrow for the original owner. While she had certainly been malicious and leeched off her four adopted children, she was also incredibly pitiful and tragic. Born a wasteland orphan, she had lived a life of immense hardship, her body and mind thoroughly battered. In all her life, she had never been loved, nor had she ever loved anyone. She had never been treated with kindness, nor had she ever treated anyone kindly.

To ultimately be brutally tortured and killed by the very children she had raised was karmic retribution, yet it was undeniably tragic all the same.

Thinking of this, the gaze Sev directed at the little boy before her became complicated. The child’s little face was so emaciated it was no larger than a palm. His dry, straw-like hair looked as though it had been haphazardly chopped off with a blunt instrument. He was visibly severely malnourished.

The only extraordinary thing about him was his pair of dark golden eyes. His pupils were terrifyingly large, and the light gleaming within them seemed capable of piercing right through a person’s soul.

"Rusty, were you all... alright at home today?" Sev felt a pang of guilt as she asked the question.

In the past, whenever the original owner went out to scavenge, she would lock all the food in the cupboards. When the four children got hungry, they could only drink water. Moreover, she would leave them a massive pile of chores, such as chopping wood, grinding beast bones into powder, twisting hemp ropes, and so on.

The ground bone powder could be sold to the Mercenary Guild, where Ability users raised Contracted Beasts. The powder was used as a nutritional supplement for those creatures. Unfortunately, human children would go mad if they consumed it; otherwise, it could have served as a calcium supplement. As for the hemp rope, its uses were much broader: bundling branches, stringing up mutant grasshoppers, tying up captured small Mutant Beasts...

Thinking of this, Sev wished she could drag the previous owner out and give her a good beating! Leaving four young children at home without any food while forcing them to do manual labor—was that something a human being would do?

"We were all very well-behaved. We finished all the chores you assigned this morning. We twisted twelve hemp ropes, all over five meters long. The bedding was hung out to dry, and the rooms have been swept clean," the boy said, his tone carrying cautiousness and unconcealable terror.

Their adoptive mother had returned much later than usual today, and the things she brought back looked extremely heavy. She was surely very tired. In the past, whenever she was tired, she might not have the energy to beat and scold them that night, but she would definitely make up for it the next day—and the abuse would be even more severe.

Sev was utterly speechless. Forcing four toddlers to twist hemp ropes, air out the bedding, and clean the rooms without giving them a bite to eat—it was a downright sin!

Right now, she wished she could sprout wings and fly back instantly, just so she could cook a lavish dinner and let the four kids finally have a filling meal!