Evolving Classes In The Apocalypse-Chapter 47: Antisocial

Marcel and I reached the outskirts of the valley, and then I got a full glimpse of why this place was called the Wilderness.

The land rolled forward like the dunes of a desert, except it wasn’t sand. It was stone. Vast ridges of rock rose and fell in formations that had no business existing on solid ground, as if someone had frozen a desert mid-gust and replaced every grain of sand with grey rock, solidified dunes of stone instead of scattered rubble and flat earth.

Marcel glanced at me as my gaze swept across the expanse.

"I take it you’ve not been around the Wilderness much?"

I nodded.

"I haven’t been around at all. My first time out here was trying to run away."

Marcel’s eyes widened for a moment. Then the surprise settled into a smile.

"You’re interesting. It’s like I’m taking every single second to find that out."

He paused for a breath and added, "I’m sorry for the way Henry spoke to you."

I waved it off with an easy expression. Very forgiving person, me.

"Instead, what do you mean you find me interesting? What’s interesting about a boy who’d never been to the Wilderness?" I tilted my head as I asked.

We kept walking forward, boots crunching against loose stone.

"You’ve never had to survive in these gruesome conditions and yet you do it well for a first time. You’re not broken, or walking around with a dreaded soul. You and Ysoriel... most people I’ve found out here aren’t like that."

I tilted my head left and right, trying to see what Marcel was seeing from his own point of view.

"Well, I still don’t get what you mean exactly, but Ysoriel and I aren’t like everyone you’ve met before... you’d be quite shocked. Besides that, I’ve always seen myself going out of the Safe Zones, you know? I can’t live forever in Area C. There are things a rat like me wants to achieve."

Marcel looked at me. He was smiling a little, but that smile was insinuating something, the same way I had spoken about blindspot.

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

"Don’t tell me you don’t know what a rat is."

"O-Of course I do!"

I squinted even harder.

"Then what’s a rat?"

"Isn’t that like a luxurious thing people in the Areas get for themselves? I know you are comparing yourself to it because that thing is bound to their house. Yes! I know, they control it, right?!"

We had stopped walking. I stood frozen, blinking at Marcel in disbelief.

’Who the hell is this guy? He doesn’t even know what a rat is?!’

I placed a hand on his shoulder and looked down at him the way a teacher would at his student.

"Certainly, there’s a lot for me to teach you. Call me Teacher."

"I know what that means, and I most certainly will not call you that."

I clicked my tongue.

"Ouch?"

We continued forward, rolling over the stone dunes. Some sections gave underfoot like packed soil while others were hard as proper ground should be. I turned to ask him as we walked, seeing no Undefined in sight. I’d been waiting for something to enter my sphere of perception too, but there had been nothing.

"Where exactly is this Twisted Flesh?"

Marcel stopped and spoke flatly.

"We passed it."

I frowned.

"We did? Why?"

"You were talking..."

"So?"

"It would’ve been disrespectful to stop you."

I covered my face with my palm.

"Please tell me you’re joking."

His face was direct and indifferent. He really wasn’t joking. We had walked right past the creature we were supposed to slay.

I heaved a sigh and turned back.

"There’s no point nagging, let’s go back."

Marcel touched my shoulder and I turned around. However, what I saw in that moment filled me with the urge to decapitate him on the spot. It had taken a tremendous amount of willpower to actually stop myself.

"Marcel, what are you doing with that face?"

I asked with genuine confusion.

"Laughing...? Like you? Isn’t this how you do it when you play a trick on someone?"

His lips were split from ear to ear with every single tooth on display, and that in itself was the very problem. I had seen Marcel’s grin before. This was not it. This one felt like an aberration that should be taken seriously. It had almost shaken me out of my core, because of how horrific he looked.

I straightened and said, "Never try that again."

"The joke... or the laugh?"

I paused, looking at him with subtle disbelief.

"Both."

We turned forward again and walked a few steps before Marcel raised his hand and pointed ahead.

The land rolled in and out like ridges, but there was a section that didn’t. It sat flat and uniform, all of even color, pallid as bare stone should be.

The moment I set my gaze on that area, my senses spiked. A cold feeling settled into my body like ice water poured into my veins. It was primal, a knowing that rooted itself in my soul the instant it arrived. And it was so horrific that I couldn’t resist the dizziness that hit me. My knees buckled and I staggered.

"Axel, are you okay?"

Marcel caught me, his hand firm on my arm.

I took a moment and finally opened my eyes, staring at the stretch of land beyond us.

A Twisted Flesh. I had certainly looked down on them because they were only number three on the rank classification of Undefined, but right now every last one of my senses was screaming at me to run. Run. Run.

In fact, that seemed like the only reasonable thing to do.

Amidst that cacophony of primal noise resounding in my soul, I heard Marcel’s voice. Calm. Unhurried. As if nothing in the world could rattle him.

"You have to understand, Axel, that people with high perception are cursed. We live in a world that wishes us dead. We are the aberration in this fractured world, so you can’t always rely on what the world feeds you. Instead, you must understand that the true point of perception is how you judge the world. Pull yourself in, and lock your senses. Don’t open the sphere, waiting for something to come in. Instead, push it out with an expectation to detect and judge."

I followed every instruction to the latter. Before now, I hadn’t ever thought that perception was actually something I had to control. But in this moment, I paid less attention to what I had been taught in the Academy and paid more to what Marcel was saying.

I disintegrated that sphere of perception. Instead, I pushed my spirit forward and formed eyes that could see even in the hazy darkness. I decided what I wanted to see and what I didn’t want to see.

In that manner, my gaze fell upon the creature.

And all of a sudden, it moved. The movement was nothing like Truman had explained. We weren’t expected. The thing with its elongated worm-like body uncoiled and threw itself into the air as if it wanted to run away from something so badly.

However, it was only for a moment. The next instant, it shifted and caught us standing less than fifty meters away.

Marcel had already summoned his spear and was twirling it in the air. Regardless, the creature lunged towards us, and Marcel, with that grin on his face, dashed forward, running towards the abominable thing with dazzling speed.