The night went by almost suspiciously peaceful.
No banging on the ice door from the mindless creatures. In fact, it felt like they were avoiding them.
Ethan and his group didn't know it, but the aura of a sovereign-rank parasite had already leaked through him.
Maybe Ethan was lucky that no other sovereign-rank parasite was nearby, or else… he would have wished for a horde of mindless creatures instead.
---
While waiting for the two to wake up, Ethan opened the gacha box he got as a reward.
An irritable ringing sound burst his eardrums again, making his eyelids twitch.
---
[ CONGRATULATIONS! YOU PULLED A JACKET! ]
COOL JACKET (COMMON)
Description: A cool-looking black jacket. It was made by a tailor with OCD, so it won't get dirty.
---
The item was trash, but useful trash.
"Not bad." Ethan put it on.
It was better than his denim jacket, which had already turned brown from being soaked in dried blood.
His attention was drawn by a small groan.
"Yooo! That's cool asf! Where'd you get that jacket, dude?" Dan said, still yawning and wiping his eyes.
"Just from some shitty reward," Ethan explained.
"Oh, they gave clothes too? Hey, Claire! Didn't you have the Rubik's cube from your reward last night?" Dan asked, seeing that Claire was stirring awake too.
Claire nodded as she took it out of her inventory.
"You mean this?"
"Cool! I figured out how to open it! Try it, try it! Hurry!" Dan went to Claire's side and explained it to her.
Ethan rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what Dan was up to.
And shortly after, he heard Claire cursing Dan, just like he expected.
"Argh! Fucking hell? It almost burst my eardrums!" She glared at Dan, who was laughing to his heart's content. "You knew this was going to happen, huh? Go away!"
The two started quarreling, and Ethan smiled, seeing that Dan was perfectly fine.
After all that happened, Dan could still brighten up the room.
Ethan knew that deep inside, Dan might be suffering from guilt, but he didn't have the courage to ask him directly.
So, he would wait until Dan opened up himself. That's what friends do.
After all… they thought they had time.
The bright atmosphere was broken by a strange laughter only Ethan could hear.
"Must be nice that your friend is alive."
It spoke to him with a tone that meant something else.
Ethan knew the voice well.
A frown replaced his smile.
The parasite was reminding him that it was thanks to him that he could enjoy this moment.
"What do you want?" His voice dropped into an icy tone.
The warmth from earlier was gone. It was as if the earlier Ethan had disappeared.
"Hehe, what a cold fellow~ I want that whiskey, drink one."
"And why do you think I'll do what you want?" Ethan's tone was sharp, but it didn't affect the parasite. Instead, it laughed.
"How amusing. I could save your friend, obviously—"
Before it could finish its words, Ethan stood up abruptly.
"Don't you fucking dare!"
He went to his backpack and chugged one of the whiskey bottles. After doing so, the parasite laughed in satisfaction.
"Hehe~ Later…"
Then, it went silent again.
In the end, the parasite managed to coexist with him. The parasite wasn't something he controlled anymore.
It was… something that lived alongside him.
Seeing Ethan drink whiskey this early, Dan hurriedly ran towards him.
Ethan wiped his mouth and exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
The tension lingered in his chest—
Then Dan spoke.
"Tf man? It's early in the morning and you're drinking?" Dan frowned. "Without me? And you consider yourself my friend?"
Then he laughed, snatching the bottle from Ethan and chugging it himself.
Suddenly, he paused…
"Wait… you don't have an STD, right?"
Ethan rolled his eyes. "Fuck you. I should be the one saying that, dumbass."
They both ended up laughing.
Dan turned back to Claire. "Yo, Claire! Want some?"
"Nah, I'm good!" she said, opening a can of tuna and some bread she got from the convenience store.
She stepped closer.
"You guys want some?"
Both declined. "We're good, thanks though," Dan replied, while Ethan just smiled.
"Are we going to stay here?" Claire asked after taking a bite of her sandwich.
"No, we'll be going after we finish eating and resting for a while," Ethan replied flatly.
He wasn't particularly friendly to her, but he wasn't hostile either.
"Hm… we can go after I'm done eating," she replied. After all, she was the only one eating right now.
Ethan and Dan were only waiting for her to finish, but Ethan disagreed. "We might need to run again later. Just rest first."
Claire looked at Ethan and thought, 'He's… not what I expected.' Though his face was the same as ever—a serious demeanor that only cracked into a smile when he was with Dan.
After she finished eating and resting, they finally packed up their stuff.
Ethan had two whiskeys left in his backpack, while Dan had chocolates and a bottle of water. Claire? Her bag was full of canned tuna and bread.
Even after walking for a while, there was nothing. No survivors—only corpses left on the ground.
Luckily, only a day had passed, so the corpses were still fresh—otherwise, the place would have smelled like rotting flesh.
The group went into the shopping mall, grabbed bigger backpacks, and filled them with food.
They moved from store to store—
grabbing bags, testing weapons, discarding useless ones.
They changed out of their blood-soaked clothes and finally got some good weapons.
In their inventory, Ethan had his battle mace, a newly acquired axe, and a crowbar, while Dan picked blunt weapons like a double-headed hammer.
'It's day two so it must be here already,' Ethan thought to himself as he led the two to an ATM.
"What are we going to do here? Withdraw some money?" Claire asked sarcastically.
But, this was where one of the system stores was located.
Ethan ignored her.
"Show me today's items," Ethan said to the ATM.
Thirty seconds passed. Nothing.
Claire snorted.
Fifty seconds. Still nothing.
Claire and Dan burst out in laughter, clearly laughing at Ethan.
Then—
A blue screen suddenly popped up after the exact minute passed.
"What the hell? There's actually a system store there?"
Ethan skimmed through the items and one caught his attention.
A belt.
Its frame was blue, indicating that it was a rare-rank item.
He couldn't read the description. 'Buy first' was the rule of the System Store. You can only read the description after you bought it.
The price… 50 points.
Ethan's brows furrowed. It was expensive for a usual rare-rank item.
'Is it a marked item?' he thought while checking his points.
You get one point every time you kill a monster, and Ethan had already killed many.
He had a total of 87 points.
Ethan hesitated for a moment.
'Let's gamble then.'
In the end, he bought it.
[ CONGRATULATIONS! YOU PURCHASED THE BELT OF THE GLUTTON! ]
BELT OF THE GLUTTON (RARE)
Description: A belt that once belonged to a king consumed by endless hunger. It allows the wearer to store 5 additional items in a sub-inventory. Items stored here do not affect the user's weight.
---
Claire's gacha box item:
A MAGICIAN'S TREASURED ROBE (RARE)
Description: It was once a magician's treasured robe. Wearing this can calm your mind and chanting time will be reduced by 5%.