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

"Two subway stations apart."

"What good stuff could this poor wretch have in his house? You, stand up!"

They kicked the lightly dressed scavenger hard, made him pick up the bag on the ground, and forced him to lead the way by sticking a gun into his back.

You've cleared the way, that's great.

Raphael knew these men were becoming a threat. They were turning into bandits and had even managed to acquire guns. They were preparing for war, expanding their armed forces, robbing apartments, and looting...

New York may now appear to be a modern metropolis, but its essence is rapidly regressing to the Wild West era.

Based on Brooke's testimony, Raphael gradually came to understand why citizens remained in the city on the eve of the lockdown.

They heeded the orders of the CDC and the Emergency Management Agency, and as the disaster escalated, Brooke still expected an organized battle against the plague.

After all, he believed what those in power said at the press conference: that they had an obligation to ensure the safety of citizens.

But just as the bureaucrats immediately slipped away, this mistake left the entire city at the mercy of fate.

After that, he had no idea what had happened.

Some of the administratively designated quarantine zones are functioning very well, and the infection has been brought under control. Armed security personnel in green striped uniforms can be seen patrolling everywhere.

But one day, after a deafening explosion from the direction of the Empire State Building, the patrolling armed personnel and those equipping them with necessities vanished. Only their guardhouses and the checkpoints blocking the intersections remained, along with many abandoned weapons and heavy engineering equipment.

From then on, he began to worry about his future. Taking advantage of the fact that the internet was still available, Brooke managed to pay to calculate his minimum daily food intake based on his body size and weight.

If the situation deteriorates rapidly, he will have no choice but to rely on that intake guideline to survive.

But plans can't keep up with changes. Before things got to that point, the thugs stole the neighbor's access card, ransacked his house, and left a trap.

Brooke realized he had lost even the right to eke out a living.

Raphael ignored the passerby who staggered towards him, coughing hysterically. He might not be infected with the green banknote virus, but he was just as likely to not survive this cruel winter.

She is not an omnipotent God, and she does not possess that false compassion.

Rather than indulging in aimless acts of kindness, she prefers to "set aside the desire to help others and respect their fate."

Hundreds of thousands of hungry and thirsty people wandered aimlessly through the streets and alleys, hoping to find some food and clean water from the looted shops.

Even at this point, there are still so many street thugs who are keen on violence.

They must be the kind of lunatics who take pleasure in the suffering of others.

At this moment, everything his eyes recorded did not lead Raphael to the age-old conclusion that the plague was useless and terrible, but rather to a simple and clear disappointment with the human race.

The fact that New York has reached this point has nothing to do with natural disasters; it's all man-made.

The winter mornings were cool, but after a long march and constant battles with bandits and purifiers, Raphael's mind began to warn her that she needed to rest and let the heat she had stored up dissipate.

She picked up the stainless steel kettle and, without thinking, greedily drank the "cool" water.

However, when she experienced the joy of the heat dissipating, she was suddenly surprised by the simplest yet most intense thought: drinking water is joyful.

This seemed unbelievable and strange to Raphael.

Filled with this sense of novelty, she found a relatively secluded high spot to sit down and observed the situation inside the quarantine zone from a distance.

Book 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 24 Awakening from a Dream (Seeking votes and support)

Dark area, an apartment building.

First agent Bertrand Philip observed his companion, Brian Quinn, who was still clinging to life, and whose condition was worsening.

They had been operating in the quarantine zone for too long, and the Purifier's armed detachment in the quarantine zone was in hot pursuit, displaying a fearless and relentless attitude. The battle lasted for two days, and the North American Gray Wolf squad was like ducklings being herded around by the enemy.

During this time, the squad began to suffer casualties. The first to fall was their machine gunner, Allen Ilya, who was hit directly by a Molotov cocktail and instantly turned into a human torch.

Captain Bertrand tried to call the JTF patrol for support, but the JTF kept making excuses about being short-handed and under attack.

However, the Rangers stationed near the New York Public Library contacted them, saying they could head north along Fifth Avenue and that their checkpoint there could provide assistance.

The liaison commander confirmed that they would be leaving the library outpost soon, and the checkpoint personnel would wait for them for a maximum of two hours. If they could not reach the designated location within the stipulated time, the troops would withdraw immediately.

The ranger commander gritted his teeth and said:

"They betrayed us!"

Bertrand knew what the commander on the channel was saying, but he was outnumbered and powerless to do anything about the rapidly deteriorating situation.

While everyone was watching, the virus attached itself to banknotes and drifted with the current, causing the number of infected people to rise continuously over time. The initial epicenter was a jewelry store in a Broadway shopping mall near Times Square.

The contaminated banknotes began to spread through transactions, and after a long incubation period, people began to fall ill. The first case, confirmed by a recorded phone conversation with nurse Sharonna Diaz, occurred on the night of December 5th.

The first patient her hospital treated was a couple whose symptoms initially resembled the flu, and the doctors assumed it was the flu as well. So, after giving them IV fluids, the hospital sent them home to rest.

However, after that, patients with the same symptoms kept coming to the hospital for help, which continued throughout the night until dawn when the symptoms subsided slightly.

Three or four days later, the hospital's infectious disease research unit issued a warning that it was not the flu virus. The New York Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called every few hours.

The questions they asked also indicated that this was not the flu.

When no one dared to draw a conclusion, infectious disease experts from the CDC gave their verdict: this virus has an extremely high infectivity rate, and people can become carriers of the virus through airborne droplets or direct contact.

The New York governor then declared a state of emergency and locked down the entire city. However, at this point, the various administrative departments in Manhattan were operating independently and had not yet been integrated.

The governor, who should have stepped in to control the situation, seemed to have disappeared since the declaration of a state of emergency. As a result, the efficiency of handling the epidemic was extremely low, and a large number of uninfected people rushed to flee New York before the lockdown.

After that, the National Guard was ordered into the city, but they only controlled all the bridges leading to Manhattan Island and, together with the Coast Guard, blocked all the waters around Manhattan Island.

The Emergency Response Agency also moved into the city during this period and began to take over all public powers in New York. However, their takeover was not smooth. Many government agencies outwardly complied with their orders, but in practice, they made various excuses and obstructed their implementation.

Thus, the only results the response team achieved were the establishment of open-air clinic camps, body disposal camps, and the distribution of relief supplies.

The situation worsened, with half of those who remained in the city falling ill, and the other half staying home for fear of getting sick, too afraid to go out to work.

Shortly afterward, the CDC laboratory confirmed that the virus was smallpox and recommended that the public be vaccinated urgently using the available data and samples.

But as it turned out, it was useless. Moreover, the vaccination campaign was merely a formality and did not take any real effect.

People continued to fall ill, and patients flooded into hospitals and open-air clinics. These facilities were already overwhelmed. Worse still, deaths also began occurring within administrative units, and the number continued to rise.

In response to the growing manpower shortage, the Disaster Emergency Response Agency decided to integrate the remaining government and military/police departments to form a Joint Task Force (JTF) responsible for controlling the epidemic and restoring normal order to the city.

Commissioner Bennetts, formerly of the New York Police Department, was appointed as the deputy commander of the JTF. At the same time, Paul Rhodes, a technical engineer who narrowly escaped death, Jessica Candor, an infectious disease expert at New York City Hospital, and other officials from various government departments joined the JTF and took command of the JTF.

After consolidating its resources, the Disaster Emergency Response Agency established large-scale medical facilities and field research institutes in addition to existing hospitals and open-air camps, which slightly alleviated the strain on medical resources, but that was all.

In mid-December, the number of deaths began to surge, quickly filling the hospital's basement morgue. By the end of the month, hospitals and open-air clinics began refusing to admit patients.

At this time, those who were not yet infected or showed symptoms began to try to escape Manhattan, but due to the lockdown order, the National Guard and Coast Guard turned all those who tried to cross the river into corpses.

At this point, all bridges, highways, tunnels, and places where one could go into water to leave New York were closed.

As time passed, the JTF began to suffer casualties, and they gradually lost control of the deteriorating situation. Under these circumstances, Waller Limited activated Executive Order 51, activating 36 agents in 6 teams, including Bertrand Philippe, to begin operations in the disorderly Manhattan.

However, Bertrand and others who had met Inspector Benitez vaguely sensed that the JTF deputy commander harbored underlying resentment towards the agents.

Anyone with a little common sense will realize that Executive Order 51 activated not only the special agents, but also the Strategic Bureau that supports their operations. In other words, another group of people will come to vie for his power and interests.

Although the JTF retains autonomy in strategy and execution, agents of the Strategic Homeland Bureau will be granted supreme command if the situation continues to deteriorate.

This is the underlying logic behind the police inspector's dissatisfaction with these civilian agents. Bertrand understands everything, but he never speaks up. As long as the JTF does its job well and restores order to the city, it doesn't matter.

Order No. 51 is something that can trigger a confrontation between the federal government and local governments. No one will be happy if an outsider parachutes in and takes away the cake that originally belonged to you.

In order to retain the power they held, the JTF command decided to cooperate with the agents sent by the Strategic Homeland Security Agency, and even contacted the Rangers who were ordered to be stationed in the city, to fight together at the source of the virus outbreak and in heavily contaminated areas in an effort to restore some order.

Even so, Deputy Commander Benitez stated, "The agents and the Strategic Homeland Security Agency are just here to help. Once this is all over, they will hand over power and leave."

Due to Benitez's dissatisfaction with the intelligence community, the entire JTF did not have much goodwill towards these people.

However, for some unknown reason, rumors of nuclear radiation began to circulate within the exclusion zone. To maintain morale, the JTF chose to publicly refute these rumors and condemn the radiation sickness reported within the exclusion zone.

The Rangers' attitude was similar, but their decision was not to stabilize morale. They had their own mission to complete, and if they could finish it quickly, the withdrawal would not be an empty promise.

The core problem is that rumors don't subside over time; in fact, they tend to escalate. A clever guy found a civilian Geiger counter at a department store. When he brought it into the quarantine area, the counter started beeping intermittently.

As despair continued to spread, JTF proposed a new plan: to establish an isolation zone in the area of ​​Manhattan with the highest concentration of cases, and intentionally or unintentionally included the area where radiation had been detected.

If it weren't for the vital power infrastructure in Times Square, Bertrand would have insisted that it too would have been included in the exclusion zone by its planners. This is undoubtedly an ambitious plan.

The Strategic Bureau assessed that this containment plan would be very useful and decided to have agents fully assist the JTF in completing the construction of the quarantine zone. They collectively called this containment zone the "Dark Zone".

However, since the JTF in the quarantine zone is mostly composed of workers, and its combat personnel are only SWAT officers, police officers, National Guard members who have not returned to their units, and some armed civilians who have received basic gun training, its combat effectiveness is not high.

At this point, the relatively specialized Ranger units and special agents took on the task of maintaining order in the core outbreak area, and were responsible for cracking down on violent individuals and gangs.

The three parties enjoyed a sweet honeymoon period during the establishment of the Dark Zone, with the JTF responsible for logistics and the construction of the perimeter, while the agents and rangers fought against violent gangs.

If things continue like this, the security situation in the Dark Zone will definitely improve; this is a situation that everyone can understand.

However, the JTF's wariness of homeland strategic bases and agents directly impacted some planned or already-run projects. Because the JTF leadership feared agents would seize their power, they would stage a "manpower shortage" scenario in their communications when agents requested support.

This also led to the failure of some tasks that could have been completed.

Fortunately, thanks to the desperate fighting of the Rangers and the First Wave agents, the Dark Zone construction project has finally come to an end.

"Grey Wolf Squad, good luck. Ranger Commander, logging off."

Immediately, only meaningless broadcast recordings remained on the communication lines between the Strategic Services agents and the 2nd Ranger Battalion—the JTF commander had betrayed them.

Bertrand listened to the broadcast while...

While checking the physical condition of team member Brian Quinn.

"ISAC scans Quinn's body and provides a status report."

ISAC: "Brian Quinn Jr. body scan readings: heart rate 190, blood pressure...radiation contamination detected..."

"Which part?"

"..." ISAC hesitated for once, but after a moment it still gave its answer: "Source of radiation contamination: Gray Wolf Squad Agent Brian Quinn Jr."

Volume 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 25 Who Was the Traitor?

"ISAC, report the Geiger counter reading, quick!"

Bertrand Philippe, suppressing the growing panic, remained calm and said:

“Make a statistical table of the time all members of the Gray Wolf Squad spent in the quarantine zone and the level of radiation contamination, and then project it in front of me.”

During the time it took to compile data locally, he kept thinking about how the Joint Operations Force, the Strategic Homeland Security Agency, and the Rangers got to where they are today.

The Joint Operations Force was not capable of establishing the Dark Zone, and the JTF could not afford any more casualties; it would collapse if no action was taken.

Based on this assessment, the JTF commander hastily issued an order without careful consideration: all JTF members should discard all equipment and evacuate the Dark Zone as quickly as possible.