Eh? You want to try the humanoid girl's iron fist too?

boom!boom!

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh~!" A piercing scream echoed from the front yard. The sound was reflected by the buildings on both sides of the road, reverberating deep inside the entrance.

"Shut him up!"

Two more dry gunshots rang out.

"They can't move now."

"Check their identification. Bags, coats, check everything."

Brooke hid behind the overturned bus.

"This is Tommy Winchester, and the photo is on his driver's license."

"Hey—Winchester."

"Who is the other one?"

He had nothing on him.

"Then let's search right away! Apartment building number 15, don't waste time."

"Damn it, Apartment 15." Brooke's heart sank. He muttered to himself, "That bastard Tommy, how did he end up here?"

"Boss, here's an access card for apartment number 15."

"Nice, I'm going to strike it rich tonight."

The voice conveyed immense excitement and boundless enthusiasm.

Brooke could only suppress his anger and cautiously made his way into the alley, just in case the access card was damaged or fake.

He wasn't willing to just turn around and loot. These past few days, he hadn't been sitting idly in his apartment; he had been keeping a daily record of the situation on the nearby streets.

The police would come at first, but after about two days, the sirens stopped.

FUC

K, what's the point of thinking about this? Brooke used both hands and feet, trying to keep his voice down while listening intently.

Things took a dramatic turn for the worse, just as he had predicted. Without hesitation, the thugs pulled open the apartment's security door and rushed inside.

You don't need a key card to get out from inside; you only need it to get in from the outside. The design he once praised now seemed like garbage to Brooke.

—Sacrificing security for a sense of security.

The flashlight beam flickered back and forth in the stairwell, the clanging sound echoed in this upscale community, accompanied by ghostly howls.

Brooke had forgotten his original purpose for going out; all he wanted to do was figure out what these thugs were up to.

He didn't know what the group was up to, but they seemed to be taking things out of each apartment. His apartment didn't have much—it was all modern minimalism.

The key items are the canned goods and water hidden in the cupboard.

Brooke was anxious, but she was still thinking and knew she had to stay quiet.

Another loud bang, "You are illegally trespassing and damaging private property!" The alarm system in this dilapidated apartment building had actually worked, leaving Brook both amused and exasperated.

This whole thing is hilarious; what kind of police would bother with murder?

boom!

After the muffled gunshots, the alarm went silent.

It was all over. Brooke slowly backed away, intending to leave this place of trouble. Near the garbage dump downstairs from the apartment building, he found his legs were shaking, and he couldn't muster any strength to take a single step.

All I could do was lie on the snow and do nothing.

The voices grew louder, and some people were even whistling.

This is the excitement that bad people feel after getting food and valuables.

“Keep a small gift by the door just in case,” said the person startled by the alarm system.

"What's the point? The homeowner might be dead already!"

"Who knows... what if his friends come?"

"Ha! As if they could live that long. What if their neighbors interfere?"

"Bullshit, the neighbor is already lying downstairs, and it's none of your business."

“Alright, since you put it that way,” the second villain agreed.

Book 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 23 The Savage Era

Brooke was well aware of his situation; he had no weapons to fight back, and he wasn't the kind of athletic person who could run 5 miles every morning.

He's not a movie protagonist; he doesn't have the skill to accurately locate booby traps in a chaotic environment. If a movie protagonist were in that situation, he would definitely conduct a proper observation of the surroundings, find the tripwire, disarm it, and then throw grenades at the bad guys.

Undoubtedly, this is something an action movie protagonist would do, but Brook doesn't live in a movie, nor is he an omnipotent movie protagonist.

So he lay on the ground until the area around the apartment was completely silent, as if everyone had turned into ghosts, before he got up and staggered toward the street behind him.

When he returned to the main street, it had become lively again.

Fire streaks streaked across the night sky, randomly setting fire to trees, public facilities, shops, and even anything else that could burn.

Gunfire erupted everywhere. Windows were shattered, car doors along the roadside were riddled with bullet holes, and a person lay nearby—his fate sealed.

Soon the smell of blood... spread. Splattered red blood partially obscured the windshield and even splashed onto the passenger window.

Forcing himself to stay alert, he suppressed his discomfort and fear, desperately trying to figure out where to go.

what can we do about it?

Brooke looked around and suddenly spotted the underground parking lot entrance diagonally opposite, as well as the Hummer convoy that had appeared there before dark.

"Let's give it our all!"

It's hard to say how easy and pleasant the experience of crossing the road was. He had only gone halfway when he heard a frenzy of gunfire not far away, and a bullet even whizzed past him.

Brooke had no idea he could run so fast. In the end, he hid behind a charred car, waiting for the group of nameless men to finish what they were doing.

He squatted there for about two hours, and then after a burst of automatic fire—something that was definitely more powerful than a heavy machine gun—and everything returned to silence, he poked his head out from behind the wrecked car. When he looked around and saw nothing there, he quickly ran into the parking lot.

He was lucky; he wasn't shot dead on the spot by the armed soldiers.

When he was arrested, Brooke appeared to the three soldiers on duty like a mentally unstable person, jumping and cheering, "I did it!"

"Damn it, what did you succeed at?" He only heard an angry shout, followed by a sharp pain in his forehead, then he felt dizzy and collapsed to the ground unconscious.

……

In the outer basement, Danny had already set up military computers, portable servers, radios, and satellite communication equipment, making it look quite professional.

Raphael walked toward him and, following standard procedure, reported to the head of the hideout that she—Raphael, the lone traveler on a special mission—needed to submit a statement before leaving the front-line field command post.

She wasn't particularly fond of the regulation, but she knew its importance. This record would tell anyone who left or entered the facility, when, and for what reason, allowing them to understand the entire operation based on time, people, and events.

Danny glanced at the commands displayed in the system, then looked her over and hesitated before saying:

“Lieutenant, you should probably… It’s really dangerous outside. The radiation zone is slowly expanding, like a sewage pipe with cracks, letting the sewage spread unchecked.”

He glanced at the radiation dose statistics report in his hand; there was a significant difference between yesterday's and this morning's levels.

God knows the radiation levels inside the quarantine zone. Danny doesn't know the specific figures, but he can say with absolute certainty that it's a no-man's land.

“My job is to find it and then figure out why it turned out this way,” Raphael replied.

"……But?"

"There's no 'buts' about it. We all have our own tasks, don't we?"

Her words even made Danny feel ashamed.

After a moment of silence, he tried to persuade her to stay: "Don't you see what the situation is? You need to complete your task; what can you do alone?!"

"Isn't there still a lot we can do?" Raphael counted his bullets, not feeling at all that acting alone was dangerous.

High skill breeds daring; this is the essence of it.

"How did it go?" one of the team members asked quietly as they saw Raphael leave. "Will he stay?"

Danny simply shrugged and went to the temporary detention room to interrogate the citizens who had broken in the previous night.

……

"Don't move!"

Oh? In less than a day, the number of rioters roaming the streets has increased significantly.

Who is it this time? Raphael took a breath, letting the near-zero-degree cold air flow into his abdomen through the simulated esophagus to relieve the heat generated by the massive amount of computation in the core.

In the distance, a scavenger trying to cross the intersection cried out, "What are you doing?"

Raphael immediately ducked low, using the vehicles and roadblocks set up by the emergency response team for cover, trying to keep his weapons out of sight of these people while attempting to close the distance.

"Don't fucking cause trouble!" The guy with the rifle immediately raised his gun, aimed, and shouted.

Say, "Come here!"

The scavenger approached cautiously. He had no choice; the robber had a gun, and all he had left besides a crowbar he'd found while rummaging through the trash were a pair of grimy gloves.

One of them rushed up, snatched the scavenger's small bag, and searched it thoroughly. Inside, besides a pile of useless junk, a stainless steel water bottle that had fallen to the ground was kicked aside like a ball by the person searching the bag.

"That's it? Let us see the pockets too!"

But there was nothing of value in their pockets—these men weren't interested in those things.

"You're fucking trying to fool us! Hand over all your valuables!"

"But I don't have a single penny."

Snapped!

The wooden butt of the AK slammed into the scavenger's head. "Ouch..."

"Take off your clothes!"

The robbers' behavior was like squeezing feathers off a passing goose; they even intended to squeeze money out of homeless beggars who passed by.

"Where do you live, you bastard?!"

"Apartment 17, West 15th Street".

The robbers exchanged glances, and the leader asked, "Where?"