Book 1, Chapter 34 - This Is The End of The World
Arsenal exited the gate alone and walked under the silent moonlight. Then, she sat on a nearby gun muzzle. The silver moonlight was beautiful and clear, tinting her blond hair in the color of the moon.
She sat there in silence and lifted her head to look at the beautiful Silver Moon City that was engulfed in the clouds.
The sparse grass was swaying in the night breeze along with the bottom of her skirt. She was like the princess of moonlight as she looked afar in silence.
I carried my bag and leaped down from the two meters tall gate, which was not at all difficult for me. I walked next to Arsenal and lifted my head to glance at Silver Moon City before I looked down at Arsenal’s beautiful face. “Do you like Silver Moon City?”
Arsenal’s expression was gentle. There was a reflection of the silver moon in her beautiful eyes, “Tomorrow, it will be leaving.”
“What?” That’s great! I think I would like to celebrate with firecrackers! However, I was still confused. “Leave? It’s not fixed there?”
Arsenal turned to look at my confused face, “Oh yeah, you lost your memory…” She looked up and fixed her gaze upon Silver Moon City again, “Silver Moon City has segregated this world into twelve areas. Every month, it flies above an area to protect us from the sky, in order to provide us assistance…”
Protect you!?
Yeah, right!?
I think it is more like supervising!
Assistance!?
Ha!
Ha!
Ha!
Humph!
I really wanted to tell her what kind of a person Xing Chuan was, but I didn’t because Raffles had told me not to talk about him with Princess Arsenal.
But… Xing Chuan was too good of an actor. Even Raffles didn’t believe me, despite his intelligence. Even Harry would have believed otherwise, if he had not seen Xing Chuan’s original nature with his own eyes.
Arsenal’s gaze was gentle and yearning. It looked like Xing Chuan was like an idol in her heart. There had been many girls in my class who were crazy about their idols. No one wished for anyone to spoil their idol’s image. These idols would give these girls illusions of their affable image, and even after the paparazzi would reveal the truth to them, they would still be in denial saying, “I don’t believe it, no way!”
Arsenal was so kind and innocent. She even took me in. I couldn’t break her heart. Anyway, Xing Chuan had said it himself that he wasn’t interested in Arsenal. It would be another year until they would meet again. I shall let Xing Chuan’s good image remain in Arsenal’s heart.
I opened my bag and took out a food container. I opened it and put it before her. “Eat this. This is watermelon.” It was the last fruit I had in my bag.
“What!?” She finally reined back her gaze from Silver Moon City and gawked at the watermelon in the food container. She held it and exclaimed excitedly, “Watermelon! Seed!”
I knew she was going to talk about seed again. I sat next to her and took out a square watermelon that was nicely cut, “Eat up! This is a seedless watermelon.” I can’t be carrying an entire watermelon around!
“Seedless…” Arsenal looked disappointed. But she seemed to recall something. She immediately looked at me, “How about its genes?”
Genes? Do we have to talk about such a profound topic when we are just having watermelon?
“Genes… genes…” God knows! I have only graduated from junior high school and I only learned about maths, physics and chemistry. Genetic engineering is such a foreign topic! Even if I was in university, I wouldn’t be in genetic engineering!
“Hey, forget about it! Just eat it!” I picked up a piece and stuffed it into her mouth. She was stunned then she stood up in surprise, “This is so delicious! I have never had watermelon!” She was so excited that she couldn’t calm herself. She lost her princess composure for a moment. I finally saw her acting like how girls her age would behave. She covered her mouth as she mumbled, “I heard about watermelon from my grandpa. Although there are many things that don’t exist now, we remember them so that we could recognize them when we get their seeds. Ever since Nemesis, there are many things that couldn’t be planted on this land. Watermelon… is extinct in the nearby areas too…” Arsenal sighed heavily as she sat down next to me. I heard nemesis in her story.
“It doesn’t exist nearby, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist elsewhere. Maybe it exists in places further away? Otherwise, where did mine come from?” I took out the watermelon knowing that my watermelon was from another world.
“There isn’t enough energy…” Arsenal shook her head and sighed. She looked at me and asked, “Do you remember the radiation circle?”
I shook my head in confusion. I didn’t need to act because I really had no idea about it.
She smiled and bent down to pick up a stone. She drew a circle and explained, “Look, this is a radiation circle. At its core…” she plotted a dot right in the middle, “has the strongest radiation. Then, with the dot as its center, the surrounding radiation gets gradually weaker. Towards the end, none exist…” She pointed at the edge of the circle.
She looked around us and continued, “We are surrounded by many such radiation circles. This is where they are separated, and is also the only livable zone.” She stood up again and drew another few circles around. Some circles overlapped, some were separated, and some were tangential to one another. It was like attending a math class.
At the locations where they were separated or tangential, they formed small areas. Because the areas were outside of the radiation circle, it became a livable zone. The surrounding areas were covered by radiation. As expected, they were really trapped here!
“The radiation circles are actually really huge. Some could even cover the size of a city…”
I was shocked at the information. It was simply unbelievable. Did these radiation circles really equal the size of a city!? In other words, it was like, if the entire city of Shanghai became a radiation circle, then a few of the surrounding cities became radiation circles too. Then, what is the population… in this world?
“Those comets… are white in color…” Arsenal looked up to the sky. There was sadness in her clear bright eyes. She raised her hand and stroked it across the sky, “So beautiful… They strike across the sky… Just like descending angels, but they brought us…” Arsenal’s expression grew in distress under the cold moonlight, “brought us the end of the world…”
The end of the world!
It’s the end of the world!
It’s really the end of the world here!
*Buzz.* My head suddenly buzzed from the terrifying news. Although I had already made such speculations earlier, I was still terrified when I found out the answer.
This was the answer to everything, then.
Why was there a lack of resources? Why was the population so sparse? Why do they eat humans? Why did they grow excited when they saw seeds? Why do they only take in girls and metahumans? It turned out…
It was the end of the world.
“Grandpa says that it is a nemesis. Because comets landed in the cities and destroyed them, it even brought about unknown radiation circles unto our world. Most of the people died and the survivors are genetically mutated due to radiation. They became radiationers, metahumans, or monsters. There are even survivors who didn’t mutate. They are known as the untainted. Grandpa says that the world was like hell back then. It is much better now. However, we still couldn’t pass through the radiation zone…”
Those comets… are so beautiful but it brought about… the end of the world….
I looked at Arsenal’s sad expression. I couldn’t imagine what that day would have been like. But it definitely must have been very scary for Elder Alufa to describe it as hell.