Only at that moment did Yelena realize the truth.
Gods did exist, but they had never shown any goodwill. Believing that faith could save their followers was nothing more than self-consolation and wishful thinking.
No one could save them.
No one would pity the Infected. Not those damned overseers, not Ursus, and not even the gods.
This world was just that fucking terrible.
Amid the ravaged world, all Yelena could remember was the figure standing within the pillar of light—the one who had started it all.
Golden wings of light glittered with countless arcs of electricity, while the golden eyes were utterly indifferent.
That dazzling form was practically the ultimate mockery of humanity's "ignorance."
Although she could not see it clearly, Yelena still etched that moment into her mind.
"Ugh... Was it another dream...?"
Waking from her dream, Yelena slowly sat up, only to realize that her surroundings had changed. This was no longer the house from before.
People who lacked a sense of security were always highly sensitive to their surroundings. Yelena quickly realized that someone had moved her.
"You froze the house you were in before. It can't be lived in anymore."
A somewhat cold voice came from beside her.
It was still that woman who looked extremely aloof and difficult to approach.
She called herself Chlorine Sodium.
She was the girl's savior. Perhaps the elf had believed this person could save her and brought her here through a miracle. Chlorine Sodium had given her food, although Yelena could not quite understand how such a slender body had managed to carry her here after finding her.
But there was no denying that the girl before her was probably the last person Yelena had come to know in this world.
Even though she still knew little about Chlorine Sodium's identity.
Yelena seemed to be struggling inwardly because of the dream she had just had.
Yet whenever the girl tried to raise her gaze, fear instinctively made her lower her head again.
No Infected person would dare look directly at the overseers. That would unquestionably be courting death. No matter who they were, looking at the overseers was an act of provocation.
Or rather, these people were forbidden from raising their heads. They were only allowed to keep them lowered and work.
Meanwhile, Chlorine Sodium's gaze moved up and down the girl before her.
Now that she was examining the girl anew, she had to admit that the girl had suffered inhuman abuse. It was obvious from her brittle hair and the conspicuous scar across the bridge of her nose.
Malnutrition had left her extremely frail, as though a gust of wind could blow her over.
Then there were the scars on her body. They were very old, but had never received any systematic treatment. On top of that, there were those... crystals growing out of her flesh.
All of it showed how terrible the girl's former environment had been.
It also strongly stirred people's protective instincts.
There were mental problems too. The environment determined a person's character and thoughts. If people naturally remained human in a world filled with other people, then in a world full of evil spirits, they would no longer be human—they would become spirits themselves.
Whether evil spirits or hungry ghosts, they were all inhuman forms twisted and warped by alienation.
It seemed this was another world filled with tragedy.
Of course, Chlorine Sodium felt no sympathy. She had long since lost that emotion. Seeing such things once or twice might still inspire so-called pity.
But after seeing too much, one became numb, like a butcher slaughtering pigs.
To become like her, rising from two hundred thousand points to 8.78 million points, the most basic requirement was abandoning one's conscience and pity.
Those things really would interfere with one's normal professional abilities. If she wanted to pity people, there were simply too many of them. She might as well quit the job and let the protagonist cut her down in one stroke. A person's compassion was always limited.
But Chlorine Sodium had encountered a difficult problem now. Being completely without pity had never been an issue before; in fact, everything had gone smoothly.
But what she needed now was to act—to put on a compassionate appearance, make the girl believe her, and then gain her complete trust. The deeper the love, the more painful the knife would be when it went in.
For someone without emotions, performing emotion sincerely was truly a test of skill.
Chlorine Sodium was not a genuine acting expert, or rather, she did not possess enough talent for acting.
But Chlorine Sodium was an extremely patient person. To achieve her goals, she would stop at nothing. Since she lacked talent, she would work hard to become a method actor.
As long as she used the right method, everything would proceed smoothly.
It was just like her life. As long as everything was carried out according to plan, everything would run normally like a train on its tracks. Her victory would merely be a matter of time.
Thinking this, the girl slowly crouched beside the sofa, doing her best to meet the gaze of the girl curled up on it.
This was the first step. The primary goal in gaining trust was to make herself appear approachable.
"We didn't have much time before, so let's get to know each other properly."
The silver-haired girl gently placed both hands on Yelena's shoulders. She looked extremely careful, as though she were handling a fragile antique.
Even though her face remained cold.
"As for me, my name is Chlorine Sodium. I'm not a bad person..."
"...But I'm not a good person either..."
"Huh?!"
The woman's shocking declaration made the girl tremble, but she did not have the courage to break free of Chlorine Sodium's hands. She merely lowered her head even further.
"Because bad people never say they're bad people. But I'm an exception."
"..."
What a strange auntie.
Yelena had already labeled the girl before her a strange auntie in her heart.
But Chlorine Sodium did not mind. This was her strategy.
Contrast was what made sincere emotions stand out. To create the image of a gentle, understanding big sister with a poker face, she first needed a contrast.
A contrast that looked clumsy.
And that clumsiness had to show in conversation.
"I'm not very good at dealing with people, and I'm not good at smiling either."
"You can raise your head and look at me. It's fine. No one here will bully or hit you anymore."
The girl placed one hand on Yelena's head and slowly pushed it back, making the girl raise her head and look directly at her.
Feeling the warmth of Chlorine Sodium's hands, a faint glimmer slowly appeared in Yelena's eyes.
It was the hope of someone who had glimpsed a faint possibility of salvation.
Good. The first step was already taking effect.
Then, the way she expressed goodwill would be the decisive part.
And smiles were always filled with goodwill.
But this was also a difficult point, because Chlorine Sodium had forgotten what a smile filled with goodwill looked like.
Still, this could not stump her. After all, clumsiness was also a kind of protective umbrella.
As she spoke, perhaps feeling that keeping a cold expression all the time was not ideal, the strange auntie before Yelena pressed the corners of her mouth upward with two fingers and lifted them slightly.
It was a somewhat comical smile.
Or rather, it was the clumsy smile of someone who did not know how to smile but was desperately trying to show goodwill to an outsider.
A burst of laughter escaped before Yelena could cover it with her little hands.
"It's all right. I told you, no one here will bully you anymore, and no one ever will again."
"You can call me Big Sister. How could Big Sister deceive her own little sister...?"
Please collect and support me, wahhh.
These past few days, Yelena had always felt that she saw some furtive figures in the nearby forest.
According to what Chlorine Sodium had said before, they might be a wolf pack scouting the area. After all, there was little prey in winter. If hunters could not find anything to hunt, wolves would naturally have trouble finding enough prey to fill their bellies as well. At a time like this, it was not difficult to understand why a seemingly abandoned village with a few scattered people would attract their attention.
"So... Yelena is your name, and you don't have a surname?"
Based on what Yelena had explained before, and her own recollection of the way Russian names were arranged, a person's name among the Ursus generally consisted of their given name, their father's name, and finally their surname.
But Yelena was simply called Yelena, with nothing else appended to it.
"Before I could remember anything, my parents were already gone."
In the snow, two figures—one large and one small—made their way deeper into the forest, one foot sinking deeply after the other.
"I'm sorry."
Chlorine Sodium still wore that eternally unchanging poker face. Yelena had secretly counted: she could count the number of times the girl's expression changed in a day on one hand.
"I'm fine. I don't have any memories, after all. I can't even remember their exact appearances..."
To outsiders, the two of them would have seemed like complete oddballs. Chlorine Sodium wore a heavy coat, but it looked more decorative than practical, completely unlike something that could protect a person from freezing to death in such an environment. In reality, Chlorine Sodium simply could not be affected by the cold.
How could the Herrscher of the Void possibly fear the cold?
As for Yelena, she was not even wearing a coat. She had only put on two shirts that looked slightly oversized and an orange-and-white hoodie.
It looked not at all warm, but Yelena did not feel cold either. In fact, the temperature around her was even lower than that of winter. All of this was under her control.
As for the clothes, they clearly belonged to Chlorine Sodium.
This world possessed supernatural abilities known as Originium Arts. Of course, unlike the settings of other worlds, using power in this miserable world came at a price.
Or rather, fate had secretly marked a price on everything in existence.
The more one used Originium Arts, the higher their Originium infection rate became. Once the infection rate reached a certain threshold, a person would completely crystallize into Originium—or explode.
And the Infected had no civil rights in Ursus.
They were treated like blades of grass, with anyone free to trample on them.
Thus, the Infected were also concentrated in mines, where they were subjected to high-intensity, dangerous labor that worked them to death, like worthless resources being put to use, producing Originium ore for Ursus.
They really did have quite the head for economics. Although slavery was the least efficient system, Ursus considered it suitable.
They were truly experts at dividing people.
People were ranked into all sorts of classes, and those at the bottom could always look down and find someone worse off than themselves.
Even the poorest farmers would feel that their own lives were not so bad when they saw the Infected they could bully. At least they had food to eat and somewhere to live.
The Infected were slaves—or rather, worse than slaves, because the Infected were treated like rats crossing the street.
They crushed their own people with an iron fist while aggressively expanding abroad. They were no different from historical Tsarist Russia.
"The wind feels weaker. You still need to keep working hard."
This was a training exercise to hone Yelena's control over her abilities.
Every journey to a new world provided some basic knowledge of that world afterward.
For example, information related to Originium Arts.
Otherwise, it would be difficult to carry out her work.
Bringing the girl outside allowed her to practice suppressing and controlling her own abilities while talking to her, hunt on the way, and do two things at once.
Communication and interaction were also ways of deepening their relationship.
So, did doctors use firearms too?
Before you continue