Prologue: The beginning of the apocalypse.

"This world is so dangerous, and you've lost your memory. I'm afraid that somewhere I don't know about... you'll be killed."

Yu Qingyi said, "Jiangjiang, I don't wish for anything else. I just want you, both of us, to stay alive and well."

Ye Jiang: "..."

She felt sweat gathering on the hand Yu Qingyi held hers with. Fear, an emotion she found rather hard to understand, slowly began to feel a little more real.

So this was fear?

As she pondered it, she couldn't help looking at her friend's face.

Yu Qingyi noticed her gaze and looked over, giving her a gentle smile.

"Jiangjiang, we've been together since the orphanage. We've only ever had each other, depending on one another all this way," Yu Qingyi said. "Jiangjiang, let's keep going together in the future, too."

Yu Qingyi tightened her grip on Ye Jiang's hand, holding it very hard. That was her resolve, an ordinary person's determination not to let go of the most important person in her life.

Yu Qingyi slowly began talking about the past, about how they had met, which Ye Jiang had forgotten.

"Jiangjiang, you were braver than me. Even when you were little, you dared to sneak up trees over ten meters tall to pick the fruit the director treasured. You'd stuff all of it into my hands. It was so sour! I have no idea why the director treasured it so much!"

"When you got a little older, you dared to fight the bullies at the orphanage. You beat them into submission and made them call you boss."

"You were a good student. You always scolded me for being a blockhead and said that without you, I'd get swindled out of even my underwear, so I had to stick close to you. Pfft, was I really that stupid?"

Yu Qingyi laughed. Ye Jiang saw her eyes shining in the morning sunlight.

Ye Jiang watched without blinking, and couldn't help making this person a promise in her heart-

To stay alive together.

Chapter 23: Prologue: The beginning of the apocalypse.

Friend.

Ye Jiang savored the word in her heart, understanding a little more of the feelings it represented. A faint ripple stirred across the lake of her heart. She thought friendship was probably how she couldn't bear to see Yu Qingyi wearing shabby clothes, or being so busy, to the point that even a salted fish like her was willing to flip over and go out to work. Feelings like that... perhaps.

Perhaps that was it. She still couldn't fully decipher it.

There was still so much she needed to learn.

Yu Qingyi was very sleepy. The dark circles beneath her eyes showed that she hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time, but she couldn't bear to let go of Ye Jiang's hand. In the end, she simply lay down on the living room sofa and fell asleep holding her hand. Ye Jiang didn't pull away. She stayed beside her the whole time, her gaze never leaving the other woman's face.

Yu Qingyi fell asleep and was woken by a phone call at noon. As soon as she woke, she hurried to get ready to go out to work again. She said goodbye to Ye Jiang and apologized for not being able to have lunch with her. Watching her bustling figure, Ye Jiang thought that they were indeed alive, but not living well.

Her friend was working too hard.

Without a second thought, Ye Jiang logged into Part-Time Cat. She checked her account; the fifty-thousand bounty had already arrived. Satisfied with how efficiently the platform paid out, she went to the mission hall to find a new mission. Her search turned up nothing. Every mission that interested her had an ability rank requirement.

Ye Jiang exited Part-Time Cat with a stiff expression. Not getting a mission left her slightly displeased. She got up and left the apartment, and not long afterward, she appeared at the little restaurant.

After her half-month absence, business at the little restaurant hadn't improved at all. Ye Jiang didn't encounter a single customer as she entered. Hearing the door open, the owner greeted her without looking up. "Welcome. What would you like to ea... oh, it's you."

Realizing it was Ye Jiang, the owner stopped and looked her up and down. "You're still alive, huh? You suddenly stopped showing up for work. I thought you'd gone and invited everyone to your funeral feast, too."

Ye Jiang didn't understand what she was saying and stated her purpose directly. "I'm here to work."

"I'm not hiring." The owner propped up her chin, yawned, and gestured with her lips. "Can't you see? I'm about to go out of business. In another couple of days, I'll be competing with you for waitressing jobs."

As if she hadn't heard, Ye Jiang found an apron in the shop, put it on, and forced her way back to work.

The owner: "."

The little tyrant was back.

She clicked her tongue hard and stared at Ye Jiang for a while, but didn't tell her to leave, tacitly accepting her as a waitress. Her gaze happened to sweep over the Blood Moon mark on Ye Jiang's finger. Entirely unsurprised, the owner asked, "Waitress, did you awaken? Or were you hiding it before?"

Ye Jiang replied, "I just awakened."

The owner laughed, not believing her.

Their contact had been brief, but she was certain the waitress was no slouch in a fight.

This woman had probably been a fairly powerful high-level ability user all along, but had concealed her Blood Moon mark for some unknown reason.

The owner's eyes glinted.

No customers came for ages. Fickle in her interests, Ye Jiang had lost interest in mobile games and sat near the entrance, staring into space. The owner glanced at her from time to time. Ye Jiang ignored her looks.

Footsteps sounded at the entrance. A customer had finally arrived.

Ye Jiang lazily rose to serve them, but when she looked up, she found that the customer had eyes as big as lanterns, exposed fangs, and a malformed body.

It was a Polluted.

Ye Jiang immediately withdrew the foot she had lifted to step forward. After staring at the Polluted for a few seconds, she turned and went behind the owner. With another person squeezing into the narrow space behind the counter, the owner's mouth twitched slightly. "Why are you hiding back here instead of serving the customer?"

After saying that, she saw the Polluted about to enter the restaurant.

Ye Jiang said, "There's a Polluted."

She was a frail support-type ability user, after all.

The owner: "..."

What are you hiding for? You're a high-level ability user!

Seeing that the Polluted was about to enter and get its drool on the floor, the corner of her eye twitched. She strode forward and kicked its huge head flying.

This was an F-rank small fry. Experienced ability users could estimate a Polluted's general rank by sensing the concentration of corruption, but precise confirmation required testing equipment. The Ability Control Bureau had detection beads, which some operations team members carried with them. Part-Time Cat had detection bracelets, which had to be purchased from the organization at a high price.

After dealing with the Polluted, the owner shook the foul-smelling fluid off her foot, turned, and stared balefully at Ye Jiang. "Waitress, dispose of the Polluted's corpse."

Ye Jiang tilted her head, puzzled. "Why?"

"Because it'll attract flies if it's left there too long."

"I meant, why do I have to dispose of it?" she said. "You're only paying me to carry plates."

The owner: "..."

She grabbed the Polluted's massive body and walked outside, swearing as she went.

With the Polluted's arrival and "departure," the restaurant grew quiet again. The owner sat back behind the counter and took out a little stone, rolling it back and forth across the countertop. Before long, Ye Jiang's gaze stuck to it. The owner glared back warily, guarding against Ye Jiang coveting her little stone again. But the waitress didn't; she merely looked. Of course Ye Jiang didn't. She was only thinking that after her trip to the trial grounds, she now had a few little stones of her own. That was all.

Seeing that Ye Jiang wasn't going to lay a hand on her little stone, the owner lowered her guard and began staring absently at it.

This little stone had come from the previous waitress, a lovely girl entirely unlike the current little tyrant. Gentle and quiet, she seemed as though she would never get angry with anyone. Her good temper was astonishing.

Unfortunately,

Her younger sister had come to tell her that her older sister had died in the earlier A-rank Polluted incident.

The owner tightened her grip on the stone.

This world wasn't suited to forming deep connections with others. Otherwise... otherwise, you would end up like her now, staring at an utterly ordinary little stone in sorrow.

On an abandoned road in the mountains of City A, a Polluted locked in an iron cage extended several strands of mycelium, searching through a pile of rubble. It curled around a little stone and examined it for a while. Disliking it, it gently set it down and picked up another. Beside the iron cage, a man whose eyes were full of bloodshot veins paced in circles with his phone, his face dark as storm clouds.

"How much longer are they going to make me wait?"

"Every last one of them drags their feet."

"Why don't they just have dinner before coming?"

"Dawdling bastards."

The man stared fixedly at his phone. The sun overhead was growing rather fierce, reddening his face. Anxious and irritable, he kept muttering curses.

The man was Yan Pei, who had sneaked away from the trial grounds. After stealing the mushroom man, he had intended to hide for a while and wait for things to blow over before making arrangements for his precious stolen Polluted. However, the Ability Control Bureau had moved far too quickly. In just one night, he had already nearly run into its people twice. With no other choice, he could only contact the Jin Family privately and take the mushroom man to seek refuge with them. Naturally, he told the Jin Family that the Ability Control Bureau had intended to keep the mushroom man for itself. Unable to stomach such thievery, he had risked his life to take the mushroom man away, determined to return it to its rightful owner.

Hearing his account, the Jin Family immediately promised him a host of benefits and sent people to meet him. Yan Pei was waiting for them now, but they still hadn't arrived.

Yan Pei grew increasingly irritable. It felt as if something was blocking his heart, leaving him unable to find any relief.

He cursed over and over, cursing the Ability Control Bureau and the Jin Family. When the faces of those B-rank students flashed through his mind, he cursed them, too. He even cursed the sun. Everything seemed to offend him.

A black truck without license plates sped over and stopped sharply in front of Yan Pei. Two ability users jumped out.

"This is the Polluted that awakened B-rank abilities in twelve students and an A-rank ability in one?" The ability user who got out headed straight for the mushroom man, his face full of fascination.

Unhappy at being ignored by the two, Yan Pei was about to speak with a dark expression when one of the ability users approaching the mushroom man suddenly stopped. The next second, he hastily retreated several steps. "Something's wrong!"

The other ability user's expression changed drastically. "This isn't a C-rank Polluted!"

As he spoke, he revealed the detection bracelet on his wrist. The bracelet, which should have been clear and colorless, had turned completely red at some point. Something so red it was dark writhed and crashed about inside like a thick fluid, and the bracelet rang with metallic tremors.

The Jin Family's ability users were horrified.

Th-this color... this was A-rank corruption!

What C-rank Polluted? This mushroom man was a fucking A-rank Polluted! That idiot Yan Pei had stayed beside it for so long that he'd been like a frog in slowly heated water, numbed by the corruption without even knowing it!