Chapter 1 The Price of Kindness

"Please, I'm begging you—my camp is only a few miles away. We have more than a dozen elderly people and children waiting there. If we don't have a detonator, once the storm hits, they'd all die!" A ragged-looking man knelt on the ground, begging desperately.

Beside him, a boy no more than seven dropped to his knees as well, his eyes rimmed red. "Please, miss… My mom's still in there. I'm a little man; I have to protect her. Just give us one, please…"

"Iris, give it to him." I hadn't even spoken yet when my best friend, Eliza Pearl, already had tears welling up in her eyes, as if they might spill at any second. "They say a real man never kneels unless he has to—this guy's willing to throw away his pride just to save people. Besides, we've got two detonators anyway… Maybe one would be enough?

"Why don't we give him one? It's the apocalypse—if we're all still human, shouldn't we be helping each other?"

A few of the teammates around us immediately started to waver.

"Yeah, Iris… Maybe we could spare one?"

"Even if one detonator can't blast the whole tunnel open, we could squeeze through. As long as people can crawl through, it should work."

There it was again—those same words. In my previous life, Eliza had used that exact excuse to morally corner me, then taken advantage of a moment I wasn't paying attention to secretly hand over the detonator.

The moment the man got it, he grabbed the child and bolted without looking back. On our side, with one detonator missing, the tunnel had only been blown open into a narrow crack. Forget armored vehicles—even people couldn't get through.

With the storm closing in, I'd had no choice but to charge alone into a zombie nest to steal backup detonators. I'd been bitten while escaping, and to stop the infection, I'd hacked off half my left arm with my own hands just to survive.

I'd staggered back, soaked in blood, all to carve out a way for everyone else to live—only for Eliza to look at me with open reproach. "Iris, you're covered in blood. It's terrifying. Couldn't you have cleaned yourself up before coming back?"

This time, I wasn't going to let history repeat itself.

My gaze swept over Eliza's sanctimonious face, and I spoke coldly. "Lending him a hand is kindness, not a requirement. This tunnel was designed to withstand nuclear blasts—it can only be blown open with two specific detonators. Miss one, and all you'll get is a crack, and the 23 of us will rot here into puddles of sludge.

"Even if people somehow squeeze through, the vehicles won't make it. That means walking almost 200 miles across a dead zone. Eliza, what do you think moves faster—your legs, or a radiation storm?"

At that, I shifted my gaze to the man still kneeling on the ground. "If you want to save people, I won't stop you."

Then, I pointed east. "Two miles that way—there's an abandoned subway station. There are backup detonators inside. Since you're all so eager to help, why don't you go get one for him? It's only a few hundred zombies. You're kind-hearted and gentle—surely the zombies wouldn't have the heart to bite you."

Eliza froze. Her face drained of color as she instinctively took a step back. "I… I can't go. I've only ever been a livestream host, Iris. I've never had any training—"

"Why were you so quick to give it away then?" I cut in sharply. "Were you planning to send me to clean up your mess, or to send one of our teammates to their death instead? You're awfully generous when you're spending other people's lives."

The teammates who had been trying to persuade me earlier all fell silent. After all, the last time we'd merely passed near that subway station, five people had been dragged to their deaths. No one had forgotten how terrifying that place was.

Seeing there was no way he was getting a detonator from me, the man suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Eliza's arm, his eyes brimming with tears. "Miss, you're the only one willing to help me. Come with me to the subway station then!"