Dense jungle lined the shore of the enormous lake. The deep rainforest blocked out the sunlight, leaving its interior shrouded in darkness.
Yet amid this environment, a vast expanse of modern buildings had abruptly appeared. The streets at the boundary looked as though they had been forcibly torn apart, exposing warped asphalt and overlapping fractures in the concrete beneath.
The outskirts appeared to be a commercial street, but the street itself, the entrances to alleys beside the buildings, and every other way in or out had been blocked with piles of miscellaneous objects.
Vehicles had also been arranged into a "wall" across the street. Tables, chairs, benches, and road barriers filled the gaps, barely sealing off the inside from the outside.
Only a handful of spots had been left with loose structures resembling "gates."
Traces of old campfires remained in many places.
Farther inside, a pedestrian overpass spanning a road seemed to have been converted into a temporary lookout tower. Vehicles enclosed the stairways on both sides, forming safe passages.
Several men holding Compound Bows stood on the overpass, occasionally glancing toward the jungle as they kept a basic watch.
But a faint numbness and dejection also hung over their faces.
"Who knows when this will end?"
"Can that bunch at the Technical College actually do anything? Why does every plan seem worse than the last?"
"Now the generators are out of fuel too. We shouldn't have wasted so much before."
"It's been almost half a year, and all they've cobbled together are a few pipe shotguns with an appallingly low firing rate. I feel like the bow in my hands is more reliable."
"Sigh... it's a junior college, after all. Even us locals hardly ever go there."
"That Abyss World is a pain too. Even getting food is so