Arc 1: Mira in a Doomsday World [16]

Usually, a general can only get promoted to a marshal during wartime. Felix's case was special. At 28 years old, he only had a little over a decade of experience in the army. Compared to the real veterans in their field of work, he shouldn't have even been considered to be promoted at all.

However, when the first batch of zombies rampaged on the streets of Country Y, it was Felix who bravely garrisoned the Capital, saving thousands of lives.

After guaranteeing the safety of the Capital, he immediately decided to be a volunteer test subject for the first batch of vaccines and became one of the first ability-users in Country Y.

After this, he volunteered to go to several cities with his team, defending five more cities in a span of three months. With his leadership, Country Y quickly stabilized despite the huge amount of infected people. The cities he saved also developed into large bases that sheltered tens of thousands of people.

To honor his outstanding bravery and unparalleled contributions, the National Assembly directly promoted him from a lieutenant general to a field marshal.

Many people admired and respected him, but many were also afraid of him.

After all, behind his benevolence was a chilling ruthlessness. A mistake made under his nose might be a mistake one would regret for a lifetime—or perhaps, a mistake that one wouldn't even get the chance to regret.

The soldier he personally fed to a zombie was an unforgettable example of this.

Felix never tolerated carelessness, especially if that carelessness would result in endangering other people's lives.

The decision to take Mira with them was also a confusing one for him. On one hand, his principles don't allow him to leave a helpless person to fend for themself, and on the other, he couldn't risk endangering his team.

At first, he was of course biased towards the latter, after all, those were his own comrades. However, after reading Mira's mind, his decisiveness began to waver.

Felix was a perfect example of someone who is hard on the outside but soft on the inside. Being raised in a military family made him develop a tough and seemingly unbreakable exterior. He had a strong sense of justice and compassion, but he also knew when to bend and when to remain unmoved, and most importantly, he was capable of masking himself well. In most people's eyes, he was a cunning fox. In others' eyes, he was a ferocious wolf. In truth, he was just a loyal guard dog—one who only bites those who try to hurt his master.

Naturally, his master was his own nation.

His patriotism was unquestionable. It was this patriotism that drove him to save those seemingly unsalvageable cities and unhesitatingly offer his own life and body for a meager chance of gaining a vaccine that would end all this.

Such a person, Mira would love to conquer.

:)

Well, she didn't plan to infiltrate his team either. She only wanted to find an entourage that would help her get to the capital. Originally, she had chosen those barbarous gangsters.

Her plan was to feign amnesia and meet Xu 'accidentally', let him find out that she lost her memories and was then kidnapped by those escaped prisoners, and once again enter Xu's team. At that time, Xu would never let her out of his sight again. He would become obsessed with keeping her safe by his side, and his love and protectiveness for her would double. Wouldn't that be a great sight for Wei Lin to see? Ah~

What she didn't expect was that the group of idiot gangsters would actually shoot down a military jet and invite a bunch of soldiers from the neighboring country to their doorstep.

But it's fine, this result wasn't too bad either. She still found a group to tag along with, successfully feigned amnesia, and somehow relaxed their vigilance.

In fact, she actually didn't expect Felix to have 'superpowers'—or anybody else at all in this world, for that matter. She thought that this would be an apocalypse world wherein mankind had no significant evolution, so when she felt Felix's brainwaves trying to break through her own spiritual barrier, she was taken aback.

Was he a special case, or were abilities really normal here?

Wanting to find out, she deliberately let Felix read her mind.

She retracted her spiritual barrier, which allowed Felix's brainwaves to invade her consciousness. Of course, Mira wouldn't let him have his own way with her mind, so she simply isolated a small part of her consciousness and projected her 'thoughts' there, making Felix think that he could read her mind.

In that way, she was able to hint at her amnesia easily, lowering their guard against her.

Owen, a young and energetic lad, also contributed greatly to her plot. If not for him being so gullible and empathetic, she wouldn't have found a chance to travel with their group. Although, Mira had to admit that despite Owen's IQ being particularly concerning, his ability did surprise her.

His control over fire was already pretty impressive, and the temperature of the flames he produced was also quite high. Judging by his demonstration, he must have awakened his abilities a long time ago. Country Y surely knew how to hide their strength deeply.

It's already been almost a year since the apocalypse broke out, but no news of superpowers outside of Country Y had been reported—not even a rumor, otherwise, Country Z, being their closest neighbor and the most impacted country, would have long since clamored for these abilities.

Perhaps the purpose of this group of elite soldiers was related to this matter.

Mira didn't believe that their group would expose a secret ability they'd hidden for years just to convince a total stranger that the world had changed. Perhaps they have long been prepared to show off their powers to the people of Country Z in order to achieve their goal for this trip.

In fact, their group's purpose was exactly as Mira had guessed. Although Country Y had unrivaled technology, they do not have the necessary genetic resources to produce a vaccine. In order to successfully create one, they had to have the genetic sample of one of the first zombies, something which only Country Z possessed. They wanted to exchange a batch of ability stimulators for this. On one hand, they would be able to take the lead in saving humanity, earning the gratefulness of everyone, and on the other, they would attract strong allies after revealing the existence of ability stimulators.

Originally, this was meant to be a quick trip of less than one week, but now that they have lost their jet and can only travel on land, it would take them at least half a month to go back—three days to get to the capital, a week to get the genetic sample, and about five more days to get back to Country Y from Country Z's capital.

Currently, their group was in City E, the place where Mira had supposedly died just a day prior. At that time, Mira deliberately pretended to trip and pulled her hand out of Xu's grasp, letting those stinky zombies catch up with her. Of course, she didn't forget to put up a barrier inches away from her skin. From afar, it looked like those creatures were frantically feasting on her flesh, but in all actuality, they were only able to bite air. Still, being surrounded by those zombies alone was already an unpleasant enough experience, not to mention that she still had to wait until the helicopters that came to rescue Xu and the others were gone before killing them all off.

It took two hours for the effects of the substance that Wei Lin gave her to subside, attracting a few zombies every now and then. Mira simply waited in place and wiped out all that remained, and by coincidence, all of this was seen by a group of prisoner escapees. They took the initiative to come out and asked Mira to be their new boss.

This bunch of criminals has been squatting in City E for a long time, waiting for a chance to find a strong enough thigh to hug. Originally, they set their eyes on Xu's entire group, but the zombie tide that came so suddenly made them dismiss their ideas and focus on saving their own lives instead. However, they soon realized that there was something strange about this zombie tide. No zombies cared to bite the other humans. All of them rushed toward one person that was left behind. 

To their further astonishment, minutes later, an entire mountain of zombies was wiped out—just like that. No blood was spilled at all. They just... disintegrated, like specks of dust blown away by the wind.

Amidst this strange scenario, a girl in a grey shirt and black pants stood up and patted her clothes. The succeeding events made them even more disbelieving. A zombie ran towards her—bam, head explodes. Another zombie screamed while rushing—poof, turns into nothing.

The group of gangsters: ???

!!! Please let us worship you as our boss!

In the apocalypse, it is almost a natural instinct to hug the thighs of the strong, so this group of criminals didn't hesitate to surrender and act as lackeys for Mira. Such a heaven-defying person, surely she would be able to give them benefits.

Mira didn't decline either. She took out three cars at once, pulled out a blanket, and told them: "I'm going to sleep, we set off to City X tomorrow after breakfast."

The gangsters nodded obediently, transferred their belongings to the car, and dutifully served Mira. One found a few battery-powered fans and pointed them all in Mira's direction. Another found some canned meat and packs of biscuits, transferred them to a plate, and placed them on the seat beside Mira. Another one found pillows and plushies and piled them all up in the backseat.

Mira was served comfortably until the next day, when the group of idiot gangsters decided to shoot down Felix and the others' jet. They had been surviving in City E through this method for weeks on end, but how would they know that they would meet their demise this time.

Mira didn't think that she had the responsibility to save those gangsters' lives. She was no angel, and they were no saints either. They were also criminals who went even more rampant after the doomsdays came. 

Anyway, she didn't care who her companions were, as long as they were able to aid her with her purpose.

In this way, Mira only raised her brows at the group of gangsters' deaths, took back the pillows and plushies in the backseat, and pretended to sleep again.

When she heard Felix say so confidently that she had been drugged, she almost couldn't help but laugh out loud. Breathing was unnecessary for her, it was just an instinctive camouflage when amongst humans, so, to her, faking even breathing was as easy as counting.

It was about noon when she decided to 'wake up'. After she agreed to go with their team, Felix decided to first take a break and eat, while also taking this chance to interrogate Mira.

"Where are you from? How come you don't believe that zombies are all over the place nowadays?" He stared at her expression intently.

Mira pursed her lips and looked away.

Felix frowned, "You have to answer my questions. We will be companions for a few days, if you want us to trust you, you have to cooperate."

Mira muttered in a complaining tone, "I don't trust you either."

Felix raised his brows and thought for a while.

"...Okay, how about we do it like this... I'll ask you a question and you answer it, then you can also ask me a question and I'll answer it. Is that fine?"

Mira stared back at him, trying to confirm his sincerity.

Felix's azure eyes were clean and serious.

"Okay."

Felix sighed in relief, his expression softening for the first time since facing Mira. He didn't know why, but he felt a bit happy that she finally decided to open up a little.

×××

Gangsters: Boss, why didn't you save us? QAQ

Mira: ? Who is your boss?

Gangsters: ...

Gangsters: Woo... Woo... Your heart is black!

Mira: Silly, I have no heart :)

Author's Note:

Hello, it's Weiss! This arc might end soon (maybe after 5+ more chapters haha). As stated in the tags, this is an extremely long story with a slow-progressing plot. Each arc might contain 20-25 chapters, depending on the theme. The next arc might be a bit longer than this one hehe but that's also  where the turning point in Mira's devil life begins~

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this story! Thank you for the votes as well :D I'm less busy now so I'll try to update more often 〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜