Without further delay, after calming herself slightly in the church, Alice decided to go out for a walk now.
There were not many things she could associate with the word "chaos." Although a war was brewing in secret, before it began, Alice's First Reaction was the East District.
Since the Great Smog, Alice had entered the East District only a handful of times, and each time she had merely passed through. Stepping into it again, she felt an indescribable sense of disorientation.
After the Great Smog Event, Loën's high-level authorities had Finally Realized that the suffering here was fertile ground for the descent of evil gods, and had Tried To make certain improvements to the East District.
Together with environmental improvements, the deathly air of the East District had finally faded quite a bit.
Only...
Alice Frowned lightly. She "observed" the fate of Backlund's East District and walked toward the murkiest, most chaotic direction.
She did not use any Extraordinary Ability, simply walking there step by step. The surroundings visibly worsened, and the smiles on people's faces gradually faded. As she neared the final core, Alice stopped in silence and looked in one direction.
A man wearing the most common blue-gray worker's uniform in this area walked out of a house. A disheveled woman chased after him, shouting as she ran:
"Money! Money!"
The man walked quickly. The woman stumbled forward and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind as she cried out in a trembling voice:
"Money!!!"
It was piercing, desperate, enough to make people stop in their tracks.
Yet the man did not react at all. He showed not the slightest emotion, yanked away the arms around his waist, flung the woman aside, and raised his foot to kick her as he roared: