Did the man deserve such harsh treatment? Probably not. Would Sebastian have acted so coldly normally? Probably not. Did he feel bad? Hell yeah. The bladesman knew he was just afraid; hell, Sebastian didn’t know why he hadn’t been afraid once he woke up at the Supermarket after the squirrels.

The way the people looked at him as they slowly got to work and stopped insisting on staying, it gave him both a sense of satisfaction and a conflicting sense of sadness. He didn’t want people to be afraid of him, and he didn’t want to threaten innocent people into listening. How does that make him any better than her?

Sebastian’s mind had been going in loops about the subject as he cradled his head in his hands, sitting against the wall. He hadn’t even noticed when the young swordsman approached him with a stoic face, sitting down against the wall beside him.

“Sebastian?”

“Ken.”

“You alright man?”

He didn’t ask what the hell happened, or why he picked up a man by the neck and basically threatened him. He simply sat down beside him and asked him if he was okay, acting as if the incident never happened. The act warmed Sebastian a little. No wonder his friends called him Zen.

“Working through some shit.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“That’s a loaded question.”

“How? It’s a fuckin yes or no.”

Ken laughed lightly, adjusting his knee and holding it to his chest, looking up at the ceiling. “If you wanna talk about it, go for it. If not, just sit there and wallow in whatever self-pity.”

“I never said thank you.”

“What?”

“I never said thank you, did I? For pulling me through the window. The rats.” The teen was stunned for a moment as he looked back down at Sebastian. “You.. you saved my life too, don’t worry about it. I think it’s safe to say we’re friends now, anyways. You know how friends work, right?”

Sebastian pulled his head from his hands and leaned back against the wall, staring out at the rows of empty shelves, their stock either consumed or moved into the convoy. He wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t left yet solely because two of their strongest didn’t want to yet. “I know how they work, yes, Zen. Friends don’t usually save each other’s lives though like it’s the most casual thing. We weren’t even friends yet.”

“So why’d you rescue me, then?”

The bladesman froze in place momentarily, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the words to say. Rubbing the back of his neck gently, he looked away. “I.. had a son, once. I didn’t want someone else to lose theirs.”

“You had a son?”

“Nicholas, yeah. I see a little bit of him in everyone else now. Everyone is a son or a daughter, aren’t they? Or at least they’re someone’s child. I know what it feels like to lose one, I wasn’t going to let the same happen to someone else when I have the chance not to.”

Feeling the somber tone to the man’s speech, Ken nodded and closed his eyes. “Do you think my parents are alive? Or taken by the light? My dad is a veteran, so he should be okay. But if the light took him..”

“Your parents will be fine, Ken. Trust me. We’ll find them.”

The teenager stayed silent for a few more moments, before turning and finally smiling at Sebastian. The moisture around the kid’s eyes was evident that’s for sure, but Sebastian simply smiled back. “Thank you, Sebastian. We’ll find them.”

“So!” Sebastian slapped down on his thighs, startling Ken somewhat as he jumped a little in place. He assumed the man was going to get up, but instead he just leaned forward. “You unlocked your affinity, right? What affinity is it? Have you found any circulation paths? Does it release an aura like mine during use?!”

It was an obvious attempt at distracting the two from whatever was bothering them, but they both acted as if ignorant of it. One seemed worried about his son, the other their parents; something was needed to remove that worry, even if only for a bit.

“My affinity was Wind, I unlocked a title for it called The Wind’s Ferocity. I don’t release an aura, but whenever my Vitality circulates the wind coils around my blade and makes it faster. No circulation paths, though..”

“So the effect of your circulation is naturally different than mine? Is it because of your element, your title, or is it just different for everybody? What is Mariah’s.. Why haven't I checked what Mariah’s does-”

“Have you figured out any circulation paths that might help with wind?” The teen cut him off quickly, rolling his eyes as Sebastian started falling into the pitfall of curiosity again. Whenever the man starts thinking about how these thing’s work, he just gets absorbed into it. It’s why his control progresses so fast, yes, but it’s also hard to work with.

The bladesman nodded, but then shook his head, and then nodded again. He smiled oddly at the question, trying his best to answer. “Some circulation paths give me different feelings as I flow through them. Some hate my affinity completely and cause injury, some are neutral, and some encourage the flow. I’ve tried to give elements to them with this, assuming there’s water, fire, earth, air or wind. Mine is ice, so it’s a subsidiary of water that particularly hates fire, but it works well with everything else. We need to see if your meridians are the same as mine though, because if everyone has different meridians, circulation paths can’t be taught.”

“Try flowing it through this path here.” Sebastian pointed at a spot on the teenager’s body, who then closed his eyes and clearly began to focus on channeling his Wind Vitality through the meridian that was pointed out. Quickly, his body turned red and he coughed up blood, a sight that excited Sebastian a little. “Hah! I was right, the earth meridian rejects your wind affinity!”

Ken, who was used as a guinea pig, didn’t look very happy as he glared daggers at the bladesman. He placed a lot of points into the constitution attribute, so he was mostly fine, but being tricked into throwing up blood wasn’t pleasant.

“Okay, okay. Here, these ones should be okay for you to circulate through.” The bladesman laughed as he pointed out a few other meridians carefully, or at least where they would be. The whole thing lead to Ken’s vitality visibly growing a little in quantity.

So far, the only growth to Vitality even for Sebastian has been quantity, not quality. Seeing it was like this for everyone else soothed his heart a little bit.

“I’ll keep trying to find new paths and you can do the same. I’m trying to outline where they all are at the moment. I don’t think they’re the same as eastern medicine depicts them, but they’re still meridians, so I call them that.”

Ken nodded slightly. The growth in quantity didn’t help much in terms of strength, but it definitely helped when it came with endurance. He was far behind Sebastian in this aspect because of it. “Maybe you should have been a teacher.” The swordsman chuckled a little as he stood up, wiping some dried blood from his lips. “Maybe open a dojo? You seem better suited for skills like those rather than just working security at a supermarket.”

“A teacher?” He thought about it briefly, then nodded with a shrug. “I might not have minded being a teacher before all this happened, to be honest. Now I’m better suited for the combat aspects of life.”

“Well, I’m sure if you did become a teacher, the kids would have loved you. You’re just a random person too at the end of the day, like any of the regulars at camp, like me, Dallas, or Mariah.”

He stepped forward and patted Sebastian on the shoulder. “And you’ll always be my friend, Sebastian.” Ken smiled brightly into his eyes, before walking away with some pep to his step.

His words made Sebastian want to cry.

Taking a lighter from his jacket and lighting another cigarette, he stepped outside into the parking lot. He looked over at the fifty odd people who still refused to leave, and the small amount of supplies left behind for them. A few militia members decided to stay behind with them, mostly because it was their family. Otherwise, they had a few hundred people ready to leave.

Stepping forth towards the area Dallas was planning in, he looked at all the Militia that were left. 23 people at Lv. 5 or above, not including the 4 who met yesterday in the lounge. He saw Mariah standing with a few other men and women, chatting quietly. She wasn’t speaking much, but they were obviously okay with her participation, a sight that warmed his heart a little bit.

Ken was mingling with the other militia, who treated him rather well. He was the youngest there, and a lot of them were middle-aged men or women who kept in shape before The Light. They all seemed glad to treat the teen like a kid, so it gave off a rather familial atmosphere as Sebastian walked by them.

Dallas turned to Sebastian and visibly sighed in relief, though he had a feeling it was because of the smile on his face and not his inevitable appearance for the convoy. Quickly herding the man over to the map where the path out of the city was drawn. Sebastian was gently scratching the top of Therin’s head, causing it to hiss in enjoyment. It weirdly reminded the man of a cat as he looked over the plotted path.

“We head south and make our way through most of the residential zones, picking up stragglers or survivors. When we get to about here.” Dallas pointed at a point halfway to the city limits. “The footprints start showing up with the scorched earth. They seem a couple days old based on our minimal hunting experience, but they head towards the city limits too. We’re thinking we might end up meeting it.”

“That thing is probably around Lv. 15 already, Dallas. It was at least a T1 when it drove the hivemind towards us. The city limits have less and weaker beasts so it couldn’t level up much but quantity can make up for the quality.”

“Exactly. The issue is, the convoy is big. We need to separate it into four fronts. Front, left, right, and back. We have 23 militia, but Mariah needs extra because she’s more a support than fighter. So we’re giving her eight guards for the right front. Ken awakened his Vitality so he’s taking 6. I’m taking 6 at the back. If those at the back get attacked, we need to give the Convoy time to keep moving forward, which is my reason for so many. That means..

“I only get three for the front and myself?” Sebastian smiled wryly, understanding the principle but still not thrilled about it. Yes, he was the strongest in theory, but Ken is basically his level now except for a minor difference in skill and endurance.

“Only three, yes, but we’re giving you Sarah, Chris, and Hasan. Hasan is a Lv. 7, the other two are Lv. 6’s.” Dallas gestured over to the three behind him.

Hasan was a man of average height, brown hair and almost apathetic looking yet matching brown eyes. Sarah was a short woman with brown hair and blue eyes, a trait that made her look similar to Sebastian before The Light. Chris was an even shorter man with similarly brown hair. Chris was rather strange though because he insisted on keeping a picture of Shaq on him at all times.

The first used a saber, the second a sword, and the third used a spear. The weapons were about all the same qualities as Sebastian’s now, considering more metal was found since the second day, and Rich only improved in skill level. The only issue was Sebastian’s saber was used a lot more, but it shouldn’t be anything worth paying attention to.

“Did you purposely look for people who only had brown hair?”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Well, they all have brown hair.”

“Why the fuck do you care?”

“I don’t know, I just randomly fucking noticed it!”

“You randomly-” Dallas appeared weirdly frustrated at the random mention of hair colour at such a moment, and Sebastian could almost see his face go red. Dallas forcefully calmed himself down before the bladesman spoke again.

“Did you have brown hair before you went bald?”

Ignoring the new fist shaped dents in one of the trucks and the literally steaming man that they mostly all called a leader, people started loading themselves onto the tcars meant for them. Pickup trucks, Jeeps, pretty much anything old, still working, and not blown up by Sebastian a week ago.

The last fifty or so watched from inside the superstore as the convoy left. Dallas and his six stood at the back of the convoy with Sebastian and his three at the front. They’d be walking ahead, making noise, shouting for survivors and taking care any obstacles to the convoy, living or not.

Gathering his strength, Dallas took a deep breath and punched into the air above him, an action that brought the other Militia to similarly hold their weapons in the air. They all gathered their strength, tilted their heads into the air and roared.

“Onwards, to escape West Cairn!”