The reply had finally arrived.

And what Lucien was worried about the most happened to come true.

His eyes were locked onto the phone, while his mind was already thinking about the sequences of events that could spiral beyond his control.

---

[Old_Andrew]: Image.jpg.

You can see for yourself that the number of people he has with him is absurd.

---

And what he said was indeed true.

The picture depicted a group of people surrounding something, or rather someone — Aiden, thereby hiding his face and figure.

But that wasn’t where his focus was.

Three people could be seen fishing in the background from the window of the hallway, with buckets kept beside them that contained something which wasn’t clearly recognizable from where the picture had been taken.

Yet even a dumb brain would be able to figure out what was present in it.

"They have already started to awaken, huh?" And looking at how everyone was relaxed, it seemed that they still didn’t know about the three people he had killed.

Exhaling, he sent a message and told them to come up and take away their share of the food as previously promised.

The sunlight spilled through the windows, yet it wasn’t too bright, as the morning was still young.

"It should be about time." He pushed himself off the bed and decided to talk with Evelyn.

Her natural clock ran early, probably an old habit from when she’d been a teacher.

She was sitting on the sofa in the living room, gazing out of the glass pane absent-mindedly.

Lucien reached near her and seated himself before breaking the ice.

"Take this." One of the remaining two awakening fruits vanished from his system space and materialized in his hands, which were stretched towards her.

Evelyn blinked once, turned her gaze to the fruit that looked like an apple in his hand before looking at him with eyes that questioned about its origins.

Nodding his head, he simply explained to her that she would become powerful enough to fight for her own safety and maybe leave if she ever wanted to.

The answer made her pause, and only then did she speak, "Why?"

"Why what?" Lucien asked, half-confused and half-relieved to finally see her talk.

"Why are you doing this? First, you invite me yourself, then ignore me like I don’t exist, except for some small chats we had. You kill people without hesitation, want me to stay, but still offer me something that could make me powerful enough to leave you behind."

She voiced everything that had been weighing on her mind.

Her reply neither sounded weak nor shaken, implying she had already understood the concept called survival of the fittest.

Killing would be necessary in the future too.

But the apocalypse had just started, so why didn’t he react to taking not one, but three lives?

"Eat it, only then will you understand. As for why I am giving you this? I don’t know, I just wanted to." He had long since stopped caring about hiding things from her such as the system space.

Still, it didn’t mean he was going to explain anything to her. She could think whatever she wanted.

After a brief moment of hesitation, she grabbed the fruit and chewed on it.

"Wha..?" The moment the fruit touched her tongue, it dissolved into something strange and entered her stomach on its own.

But surprisingly, she didn’t feel anything different, so she continued eating and finished it in no time.

He kept watching her intensely, trying to look for any physical changes that would be signs of the awakening. He wasn’t sure whether the fruit guaranteed a hundred percent chance of a successful awakening ot not.

Seconds bled into minutes, but despite that, nothing about Evelyn changed outwardly.

Did it fail?

Just as he was suspecting whether the chances of awakening depended on the compatibility of spiritual energy with a human body, something else caught his attention.

He hadn’t noticed it before, but when he looked closely, he found her skin seemed to have turned slightly paler and... colder?

"How do you feel?" He asked faintly, with a hint of worry present in his voice.

The second she was about to reply, a light and cold breeze escaped from her mouth.

Both of them were surprised, and before he could voice out his thoughts, the status panel flared to life.

Except this time, it wasn’t his showing his details.

---

[Name: Evelyn ]

[Race: Human]

[Talent: S-grade Talent(Ice Queen)]

[Combat Power: D-]

[Gacha Tickets: +2]

---

The name of the talent made him pause and spare another look towards her before rereading the information.

Despite her talent being far better than his, her combat Power was a level below instead.

So a talent can only help us grow faster.

But the question was, how did someone grow without consuming mutated creatures?

He could worry about that for later, for now he had to check on her.

Her face showed no signs of pain, which could only mean her awakening was smooth and swift.

His lips twitched as he remembered what he’d gone through, yet he also didn’t want to see her awaken and shed her hair away... that would be way too creepy.

Another thing he noticed was the increase in his Gacha tickets.

But why? Does the system consider her my teammate of some sort?

Seeing as how she was clenching and unclenching her fists repeatedly, he left her alone to get accustomed to the newfound powers.

He pulled both the gachas, only to get common-tier items once again.

Is my luck seriously that bad?

Where had his lady luck gone to? On a shopping spree? And not to forget he still didn’t receive any better rewards after constantly pulling low-tier ones.

"Ahhh." Pulling his hair in frustration, he was about to curse his luck even more when a sudden notification rang from his phone.

It was Andrew, he was coming up in a few minutes.

"He sure is brave." It was he who promised the food, so technically Lucien should have been the one to deliver it too, but the hunger gnawing at their mind would have kept them on the edge and forced them to take risks.

"And it isn’t like I told them to do something too risky, even if found, they could have just pretended to join them."

Only people who didn’t want to submit to Aiden were taken or killed.

Sooner or later, everyone would realize that for awakeners, mutated creatures were not only edible but beneficial too.

[Ding! Nine continuous spins completed without receiving any legendary reward!]

[The tenth spin would automatically be fixed to a legendary reward as per the gacha system mechanics.]

For a brief moment, Lucien fell silent.

"You did this deliberately, didn’t you?" He wanted to curse whoever was trolling him.

Couldn’t the system have notified him the moment the ninth spin was made? Why only now?

But the thought of getting his first legendary reward dispelled his sour mood.

The legendary pull was now only a single day away.

—

A/N: Like it? Please add it to library and show some support through Powerstones and Golden Tickets!

Thank you :)