One Last System

"How fucking vile," I muttered under my breath as I took a knee by the side of the two survivors.

It was a man and a woman, both looking to be in their early twenties. Yet, as if her turn has yet to come, the woman was actually in a pretty good state.

A pretty good state, within the frame of reference of the cave I stepped in, that is.

Her body was filthy. Blood, earth, and piss mixed all over her clothes, giving off a disgusting stench. Yet, besides several bruises and some heavy trauma to the head, the girl was relatively okay.

And the man... His state was the direct opposition, bearing marks of prolonged torture.

Save for his relatively intact genitals, the young man went through a pretty similiar stuff to another man whose corpse I noticed before.

His face was cut into pieces. Yet, as if to torture him by making him watch as well, his eyes were intact.

"Merciless scum," a curse slipped out of my lips as I placed my hand over the young man's forehead.

It was burning up.

"It's a miracle you are still alive, brother," I muttered, placing my fingers on the young man's wrist only to then send an extremely delicate surge of mana into his body.

Mana was just a form of energy, not some sort of mystical art. I couldn't randomly start healing the poor victim. Due to the lack of medicinal knowledge, I would sooner end up putting an end to his suffering rather than helping the young man to heal.

That's why all I could do was provide the energy for the young man to recover on his own. And due to the surprising resiliency of human bodies, as long as he continued to receive this simple treatment, his life could be saved.

'I guess he won't avoid a road through hell before recovering,' I thought as I carefully looked out for the delicate changes in the man's disposition.

"Cough!" a sudden noise from the side made me turn my head.

The girl to the side woke up, only to start coughing blood right away.

Her body bent in half as a powerful convulsion shook her from the stomach up. Thankfully, the girl appeared only to clear her system, not actively dispose of the blood from an ongoing, internal hemorrhage.

I gave the girl the time she needed to come to her senses. Yet, as she gathered herself up and turned her head around...

The girl's eyes landed on my face.

"Easy..." I whispered, not daring to make a move.

Not because I was worried about scaring the girl off. She was bound to the bottom of the cave and overall too weak to even attempt freeing herself.

Even if the girl panicked, she had no way of running away.

"Shush!" I warned the girl, raising a finger to my lips. I then pointed it down on the heavily breathing man lying beside me.

For a moment, the girl froze. Her eyes wandered from my face to her fellow survivors, only to then move back to my expression again.

"Arty!" Mia called out, forcing her presence into this delicate moment. "I've rounded them all up. How is it on your end?"

Mia followed the same path her words took to reach my ears, entering the cave a mere moment later.

My darling's words and presence appeared to shake the girl awake.

'No, that's not it,' I thought when the girl pushed her eyelids wide open as she stared at Mia's face.

"Did you see a ghost or something?" I asked, hoping to make use of this opportunity.

This girl clearly recognized Mia. And that meant, she could potentially help us to learn what the fuck took place in this rotten cave.

"Huh?" the girl shrugged and turned her eyes towards me again. "So that means, you are..." she muttered, only to cut her words short as she averted her eyes.

"Who are you?" Mia asked, her voice falling flat to deliver any emotions.

Now that she saw the details of what was inside the cave, Mia's disposition changed.

She wasn't new to the sight of blood or even death... But to see the mangled corpses of young disciples, and all in the early days of an apocalypse taking over the world...

"Those fuckers..." Mia muttered through her lips, her face losing all its colors. Yet, I couldn't see a single bit of hate behind her eyes.

Just... emptiness.

"Senior Mia..." the girl uttered through her closed lips, too petrified to use a normal voice.

"And this has to be the famed boyfriend of yours," the girl added, forcing an uneasy smile on her lips.

"A friend of yours?" I asked, turning my eyes towards Mia.

To say that I was curious was a huge understatement.

Because of my mistakes in the past, I lost several months' worth of time with Mia. And to this day, I only knew a little about what she went through during that time.

And now I likely had a chance to meet someone that Mia encountered in that time, hopefully getting a chance to shed some light on that period of her history!

'Or so I would like to hope so,' I thought, only to release a regretful sigh.

After all, Mia didn't seem to recognize her. As such, my words were nothing more but an attempt to lift Mia's mood with a silly joke.

"Yeah," Mia suddenly replied, catching my expectations with their pants down and butt up. "You were two ranks lower when I joined, right?" she guessed, squinting her eyes as she tried her best to remember.

'So a distant acquaintance,' I thought, carefully observing the situation.

"Seniors, I'm sorry to butt in, but what happened to those bastards?" the girl asked, turning her eyes towards the cave's entrance. "Are they all dead already?" she asked, her eyes lighting up with hope.

"Huh?" Mia shrugged a little. "Nah, I just retrained them for the time being."

Mia's reply was calm and composed, she even waved her hand as if to dismiss the topic.

"Heavens, no!" the girl shouted, instantly going into panic mode. "It's a trap!" she shouted.

But... nothing happened. Nothing, outside of Mia's lips forming a lovely smile.

"Don't worry, little one," she said, gracing the girl with a lovely smile.

It was the first emotion to appear on Mia's face since she stepped into the cave.

And that smile of hers was full of warmth.

"I restrained them," she repeated her report from before. "And that means, they won't be able to move an inch from where I left them."