Surprisingly enough, Ryan and Alissa managed to walk inside of Houston for several kilometers before they were forced to stop. The number of monsters attacking them increased, but their hard work paid off. According to Orgar, Alissa was becoming stronger just by using the draconic powers, and thus the toll on her body and mind was decreasing. Ryan also obtained a useful tome.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Bronze Skin.

Effect: It passively increases your endurance by one point per level.

You obtained 01 status point.

Although Ryan didn't have a real need to increase his endurance since he killed his opponents from pretty far away, he welcomed that skill. He would welcome all other passive ones since they could level up without consuming his mana or stamina. In any case, at some points, there were forces to stop their progress. Not because of monsters, but because they found some humans still in Houston. That was very surprising considering that almost a month passed since the monsters appeared. However, some survivors managed to survive with the little food they have by sheltering themselves in semi-buried parking lots.

"You two are from the government?" A skinny and weary old man asked. "Thank god someone came to rescue us, and…"

"We are not from the government," Alissa said in a harsh tone. "If you didn't notice, one month has passed, and you waited this whole time to be rescued?"

Even Ryan felt troubled by Alissa's words. Although he also was annoyed by finding some survivors who, even after this long, decided not to fight, he wasn't a hypocrite not to see their side. Ryan was lucky since he could face beatable enemies at the very beginning, but those survivors weren't since they had to deal with the vicious and powerful demons.

The middle-aged man was taken aback by Alissa's words, and so were the people behind him since Alissa looked strange and she emanated a powerful aura. Thanks to that, he and the people stayed silent for quite a while.

"… Do you guys know where Shreveport is?" Ryan asked after a long sigh. "Go North-East, and you will find the city. There you will find a group of morons that will be willing to help you guys out."

"But… the monsters…" The man said.

"We came from that direction, so the path is more or less safe to a certain extent," Ryan said. "We also left some weapons behind since they were useless to us. You can pick them if you want. Still, they are just a tool. Unless you sharpen your resolve to fight, they will be useless. Don't wait to be rescued again. Otherwise, you will starve to death waiting."

Although Ryan tried to be as comprehensible as possible, that man and his companions spent several minutes looking at the direction they came from in order to confirm that there were no monsters. Even though they saw several corpses, they were taking their sweet time.

"Just go already!" Alissa shouted.

"Yes!" The old man trembled and then escaped to the direction Ryan mentioned.

Alissa clicked her tongue while watching the survivors leaving the city and picking the weapons left behind. Truth to be told, she couldn't imagine them reaching Shreveport, even though they probably will only find slimes, giant bees, and velociraptors along the way.

"You are naïve, Ryan," Alissa said. "Someday, that naivety will come to bite and may even cause your downfall."

"Maybe, but at the very least, with this, I bought some time," Ryan shrugged. "My noisy conscience won't force me to make a mistake somewhere."

At first, Ryan thought Alissa would become a bit more flexible after seeing some survivors struggling, but he was wrong. Alissa got so mad seeing people that she considered cowards that she almost attacked them. If they had spent just a few more seconds there, perhaps she would have attacked them.

"Anyway, it is getting dark again," Ryan said after looking around. "Let's find a place to stay during the night."

Unfortunately, there weren't many tall buildings so close to the center of the city still standing. Ryan had to thank the demons for that, so he had to be content with a three-store tall mall. Fortunately, even though they lost the advantage of the high ground, the mall was relatively intact. Unlike the giant bees, the demons didn't find pleasure in collecting the human food. They only found pleasure in violence. Thus, for most of its part, the mall was fine.

"I'm not tired, so I will stay on guard duty," Alissa said. "You can go and sleep."

Instead of sleeping, Ryan looked for anything inside the mall that still could be eaten, and he stuffs himself with it. Although Alissa was in a bad mood thanks to the survivors' encounter, that wasn't his problem. Ryan probably won't become as harsh as her, and he couldn't see any point in trying to change her perspective. Besides, the more he involves himself with others' problems, the more problems Ryan will be bringing to himself.

"I will prevent that from happening at any cost."

Although that was a rare chance for him to sleep while someone else was guarding the area, Ryan didn't relax all that much. Not even Heal helped him with that. It looked like his body got stronger, and he didn't need to sleep all that often anymore. Still, Ryan made sure to let this body rest and relax as much as possible. For some reason, his instincts were telling him that the survivors would be the least annoying thing they would find in their path to the demons' dungeon, and as far as Ryan was concerned, that made a lot of sense.