Chapter 7: Be Eaten

When Allen Stryka left the town of Kinshin, his plan was to head to the capital of their country. There he would then gather further information that could help towards his ultimate goal. He had lived in the capital during his university days which was before the apocalypse.

Since he was familiar with the place, he had his hopes up that the situation there would grant him a better chance of actually reaching out towards the space. That was what he betting to anyway.

Modern communications were rendered useless due the interference of the mutated Sun's radiation. Kinshin was fortunate to have established a generator system to provide the residents with a supply of electricity. The Megawatts produced by the system though was not sufficient compared to the standards before the apocalypse. But it was enough to provide basic lightings and utilities during the lockdown.

This kind of situation may or may not always be true to every remaining town in the country or even the world. But if there were any possibility that there were more advanced facilities available out there, the best bet would be at the capital.

For this country, it was located at the south of the town of Kinshin. Thus Allen headed towards that direction.

He spent the first few hours of his journey travelling earnestly. Then the sunset came and Allen had still not covered even a quarter of his target distance. He then realized that he was being stupid.

He was used to traveling by bus when he was a university student. So he was used to the feeling that he could reach any destination he wanted within a couple of hours. But that assumption was wrong when one was on foot. Totally wrong.

Nonetheless Allen decided to accept such mistake and carry on with his travels. He even chose to continue walking throughout the night. The logic here was: more time spent on traversing the open field would equate to more distance being covered.

After all, he did not have to worry about the lack of illumination since he had the [Fire Fist] ability to light up his path. But that was another mistake. His flames made him standout along the dark environment. He practically lit up a beacon that had given away his exact location. This soon attracted a horde of mutated bats towards him.

But one might ask, aren't bats supposed to be blind?

The answer here was yes. If the bats being mentioned were prior to the exposure to extreme levels of radiation. However, the bats he had encountered seemed to be quite sure of what they were targeting as they headed straight towards Allen!

The young man ran quickly and extinguished his flames. This had surprisingly made some of the bats lose their focus. So perhaps the radiation did give them some form of sight.

But Allen was still being chased by some of the bats which were triple their usual size before the apocalypse. He racked his brain to figure a way out of this predicament.

He soon noticed the outline of some kind of creature in a certain direction. He decided to go for broke and headed towards that outline.

Once he got closer, he observed that the outline was around two meters in height. It was also not alone. Try as he might though, he was already unable to change course.

His plan was to let the bats and the new creatures to collide with one another. The ensuing chaos could then offer Allen a chance escape both sides. The logic here was: what were the chances that two different species would try to protect their own territory?

Probably high, was what Allen had hoped for.

Unfortunately the outline he approached was bigger than what he was expecting. Still he clenched his fist and launched an attack.

[Fire Fist]!

The flaming knuckle hit the target. It had also revealed the identity of the tall outline. The creature was a rat. A mutated field rat!

But instead of taking damage, the rat shrugged off the flaming punch. It seemed to have been taken in surprise though as it paused for a few moments. Then it started making agitated noises. It was probably communicating with its fellow rats. Or perhaps even calling for reinforcement.

Whatever the right answer was, Allen had no intention of finding out. He had already kited the bats towards these rats. All he could do then was to hope that both sides would not come in agreement.

And so he ran away at a different direction.

A few minutes had passed and his plan seemed to have worked. But then he saw the outline of those mutated rats where heading towards him. Thus Allen ran once more. Then he stumbled. And then he decided to fight. That was when he was rolled over and over until he lost consciousness.

That was probably how he died.

…

..

"… Huh?"

Allen opened his eyes. It was already morning when he regained consciousness. He was actually surprised to know that he would still be waking up after what had happened.

Perhaps he respawned after dying?

No that would be ridiculous. This was the apocalypse not some kind of online game.

Perhaps he was dreaming then?

Not possible. If that was the case then where was his Mom's homecooked meal?

Allen surveyed his surroundings to finally figure out the true answer. He soon noticed that he was still lying down the ground. The wounds on his abdomen then hurt as if it was on cue. That confirmed that what happened before was not a dream.

He manifested a weak flame in his right hand and then applied it to his injuries. After the ability development, human constitution had improved compared to what they had before the apocalypse. Their natural healing had increased as well.

Allen used the flames to cauterize his wounds. This would cleanse the injuries and would activate the cells around the inflicted area to give his healing a slight boost. This was a technique his Mom taught him before he departed from home.

He felt the tinging pain caused by his healing technique. However the wincing was interrupted when he finally noticed the outlines that were near him.

It was the three mutated rats! One of them was staring at him while the other two had their backs turned. They seemed to be sitting as if they were in standby.

"W-what? Ready for another around?"

Allen rose up and had taken a stance. But the rat that was probably assigned to watch over him did not react. It seemed like that such provocation was none of its concern.

Since he was being ignored, Allen thought that they were no longer interested in him. So he ran as fast as he could. But that was when he realized that he made another mistake. He got beaten up once again and lost consciousness.

The next time he woke up, it was already afternoon. The same scene was in front of him and he made the same reaction. So he was beaten up once again.

This routine continued until the next day. This time Allen decided to not run anymore. Aside from getting tired of being beaten up, he also had no more energy to make an escape. He had technically not eaten for a few days and the continuous healing had depleted his reserves.

In addition, perhaps the mutant rats would leave him alone once they noticed that he was no longer trying to run away. But that was another mistake. When the rats tried to move and he did not follow, they had beaten him up once again.

Turned out, the reason why he was not dead was because the rats had taken him as a captive.

And so the days of Allen following a bunch of monsters had begun. It might have been quite weird that he was now traveling with the three mutant rats. But it was better than being beaten up.

He soon learned about their work routine. They travel around the area during daybreak then they beat him up during the morning for some reason. He falls down and sleep during the noon. He wakes up at the afternoon and the rats began to hunt for their dinner. They seemed to take their naps during the noon as well.

It was here that Allen figured out that they wanted him to cook what they hunt. Apparently he was being kept alive because he was a portable stove that the mutated beasts could use. He agreed to roast their hunt as he observed how the rats cleaned the meat of their prey.

He was given a little portion of the roasted meat which he gobbled up to refill his energy. One of the values taught to him was to always cherish the food given to him. This had become truer as the apocalypse occurred and the food became scarce.

They then encountered the mutated bats in the evening. This was when Allen saw the rats manifest an Earthen armor that covered their bodies.

"They did not even use their Earth element in our fight and yet they can beat me up."

Allen sighed when he noticed the disparity on their current strengths. He shuddered in the thought of the scene where the rats would don those armors as they tackled him.

"Could they have been vaccinated as well?"

Allen asked to himself. But of course, that was just a silly idea. The vaccine administered to humans was like a catalyst that enabled them to manifest an element. The beasts which benefited more to the Sun's extreme radiation would have certainly developed a similar trait on their own.

And such elemental affinity was currently being used by the rats to defend themselves. A strange thing here though was the fact that the rats were completely on the defensive. They seemed to have no intentions on retaliating. This was proven to be true when the young man tried to attack the bats. This angered the rats and they had almost beaten him up once again.

Thankfully the mutated bats were keeping them busy. Then after a few minutes of relentless attacking, the bats seemed to have lost interest and began to fly away.

After the skirmish, the rats sat down together and began to gather their Earth Element. At first, Allen tried to sleep while they were conducting this. The rats got mad upon seeing this and beaten him up.

Having no other choice, he decided to join them at what they were doing. He began to gather the fire element and let it circulate around his body. Allen was struggling to complete this simple task. He realized that such feat required excellent control on one's elemental manipulation. He exclaimed,

"No wonder they were stronger than me!"

Allen grew excited upon his discovery.  He began to imitate their elemental gathering technique.