Evolving Classes In The Apocalypse-Chapter 33: United

After a few more minutes of running through winding paths in the forest, we descended a mountainous slope and dropped into a valley of scattered villas. We threaded between them in silence, then crossed a makeshift gate.

I wouldn’t call it a gate, really. More like a wall built the way a child stacks blocks, with uneven slabs of material pressed together in something that resembled a dam. The structures were crude, barely functional, and yet someone had clearly spent time on them. Effort, even.

’Did these guys really build a settlement out here? In the wilderness?’

The wilderness was no joke. When an Undefined Zone went unattended, it didn’t just sit there. The miasma crept outward, poisoning the surrounding land before the zone itself swallowed it whole. And even when a zone got cleansed, the land it had already touched stayed rotten. The miasma changed things at a fundamental level. A stone stopped behaving like a stone, the soil rejected roots, the air tasted wrong.

Surviving Undefineds from a cleansed zone claimed these corrupted margins as hunting grounds, which was exactly why people avoided them.

To build an entire settlement in a place like this... reckless didn’t even begin to cover it.

’I’ll take Ysor out and find a way to get to the Crucible of Giants on my own.’

As we entered the settlement, I studied the surroundings. Houses stood in rough clusters, each one built from different materials through what looked like various manipulation techniques. Wood, clay, substances I couldn’t even identify. Hard, dark composites that didn’t match anything I’d seen before.

But that wasn’t what unsettled me.

There was something very strong, and very wrong, about this place. A pressure I could perceive sitting just beneath the surface, like a sound pitched too low to hear but heavy enough to feel in the chest.

Before I could investigate further, a voice pulled my attention to the left.

"Axel?"

Ysor stood a short distance away, her expression caught somewhere between confusion and disbelief. Her eyes moved over me, head to toe, like she was trying to match what she saw with what she remembered.

I smiled. Relief hit harder than I expected.

"Ysor..."

She hesitated, still studying me.

"Is it really you?"

"Of course. Who else would it be?"

I gave her a smug grin.

She frowned, but something loosened in her posture. Then she straightened, eyes sharp.

"Who are those that do not recognize Mount Tai?"

I scoffed.

"Frogs in the well."

Her eyes widened as the answer landed. The code confirmed it, and whatever wall of caution she’d been holding up collapsed. She closed the distance between us in two quick strides and slammed into my chest, arms locked around me. Tight... ust for a moment.

Then she pulled back and took my face in both hands, turning it slightly. My left eye was closed. No blood, but the wound was still visible. Ysor’s expression shifted, the warmth draining into something harder.

"What happened to your eye?"

Her gaze dropped, scanning the rest of me.

"What happened to you? You’ve changed..."

"That’s because he bought some points and increased his physical attributes."

Marcel had appeared at my shoulder like he’d been waiting for his cue. I shot him a glare and he raised both hands in retreat.

"Oh well, I guess I’ll just excuse you two..."

He backed off. Everyone else suddenly found something else to look at, though I could still feel their gazes clinging.

"Is it true?"

Ysor asked, her voice low now... and worried.

I patted her head and smiled.

"It’s nothing to worry about. Yes, but it’s also more than that. I’ll tell you everything later."

She read the caution in my eyes and let it go. Ysor was smart and always knew when to push and when to wait.

It was my turn to ask questions.

"What is this place? It’s brimming with Undefineds."

Ysor glanced around the settlement before looking back at me. Surprise flickered across her face.

"You can tell just from looking?"

"Yes... sort of."

She went quiet for a moment, chewing on something before answering.

"Yes. All of them are Undefined. And the most astonishing part is they aren’t affected by it. They say Marcel cured them."

I raised a brow.

"Marcel cured them. That’s bull crap."

Ysor nodded slowly.

"I thought so too. But everyone here, every single one of them, young, old, all of them, they hold him in high esteem for saving their lives. He and his team of Raiders protect them from Undefineds and hunt for food."

I turned that over in my head, looking at it from every angle I could find.

"He does all that? Why?"

Ysor shrugged.

"Apparently his parents were once Undefined. They died. So Marcel doesn’t want the same to happen to anyone else."

I was quiet for a long moment.

I didn’t believe a word of it at all. Who decides to camp in the heart of extreme danger just because they lost their parents to the same thing? It was possible to live in a proper Area and still help cure people. In fact, someone with that ability would be invaluable to the NEG. The four factions would fight over him.

And instead he hides out here, playing savior in the wilderness?

’Let’s not be too quick to judge.’

He could have his reasons. But the thing gnawing at me wasn’t Marcel’s backstory. It was something else entirely. If it was true that he could help people who were Undefined, then maybe he could help Ysor too.

But before that happened, I needed to know exactly who this person was and what he actually wanted.

Because right now, the whole picture was too clean, generous and suspicious.

Ysor searched my face, concern pulling at her expression.

"What happened to your eye? Wh..."

I sighed.

"An Enforcer caught me. Tried to sell me off. It happened while I was fighting for my life."

"He tried to sell you off?"

Ysor’s whole body went rigid. Steam practically rolled off her.

"Did you kill him? I hope you didn’t just run. At least tell me you took an eye too."

She clenched her fist, staring at my closed eye with a mixture of pain and fury that burned bright enough to warm me from the inside.

I looked at her and smiled. This.... This was the very thing that made me love Ysor so much. It was selfish, I knew that. But I didn’t know how I would have grown to hate my own problems without her hating them on my behalf first, teaching me it was allowed.

After my mother’s disappearance, I’d almost become that boy who thought everything was his fault.

I stopped the memory before it could settle in and turned around.

"Ysor. Where can I find Marcel? I think I need to have a conversation with him."

A gust of wind kicked up behind me. Someone landed, the impact sending dust scattering across my back.

I turned and Marcel stood there, smiling.

"I’m right here."

’Was he listening the whole time?’

I stared at him, letting the silence stretch.