On the road, Noah walked aimlessly forward while going through the pages of the book he is holding onto.

He got this book when he conveniently picked it off one of the tables in the police department. The title of this book is “The Great Gastrea War”.

Having stayed in the police department for 2 to 3 days, he never forgot to give the police officers there a gruesome time by forcing them into conversations with him.

After leaving psychological traumas in the officers working there, Noah managed to achieve a basic level of proficiency in terms of speaking their language.

It’s nothing big but he can converse normally now.

Noah hoped he would be able to master a bit of the written form of the language by going through the book he had in his hands.

This way, he would be able to filter through other books to obtain the information he needed.

Noah also collected knowledge regarding topics other than language during his stay at the police department.

His intuition was on point, this world is a world of despair. Some nine years ago, there were 8 billion humans on this planet.

A random day 9 years ago, a type of monster had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The monsters had a high transmission rate that multiplied its numbers. With its number, the monsters attacked the humans.

These monsters are known in this world as Gastrea. The virus is known as the Gastrea Virus.

This virus had the ability to quickly infect its host at a rapid rate which would result in the host transforming into a monster. This virus could infect virtually all animals including human. The process of transformation from an infected host to a transformed monster is known as Shape corrosion.

The monsters had terrifying strength and ferocity. In addition to that, they can also infect their victims with the Gastrea Virus through the transmission of bodily fluids. Moreover, these monsters also had regenerative abilities.

Human firearms could not easily kill these kinds of monsters. And so, humanity entered into a great war against Gastrea when the monsters attacked humanity. This war is known as the Great Gastrea War.

Humanity lost.

Humanity’s 8 billion population suddenly got cut down to around a tenth of the original population number.

Gastrea had also taken over 80% of the surface area of this planet leaving the remaining area for some 800 million humans. Having fallen from being the apex predator on this planet, humanity still perseveres in their fight against Gastrea.

The literal pillars of hope supporting humanity’s remaining few sanctuaries are these black monoliths that surround the city.

Made of a type of metal known as Varanium. This type of metal exerted a special field that weakened Gastrea, making them lose their regenerative abilities and if given enough exposure time, kill the Gastrea. This is the very stuff that the monoliths are made of.

Varanium allowed humans to fight Gastrea, humans made artificial constructs of varanium that drove away Gastrea. Humans then lived within the confines of the monoliths. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Varanium is the reason why humans are still alive.

Even so, humanity can only cower within the confines of the monoliths. Any moment, their peace can be broken and all hopes of reclaiming their land would be naught but a distant dream. There is nothing much humans can do against Gastrea which both outnumbered them and had superior strength.

This is the reason why living in this world is equal to living in despair.

The city Noah is currently in, Tokyo Area, is one of the five areas left after the previous establishment, Japan got hit with a Gastrea invasion.

Noah had pretty good luck.

If Noah landed anywhere far from Tokyo Area he would have been ambushed by legions of Gastrea that inspired dread just by their existences.

Noah had no idea just how strong these Gastreas are but after a few days of snooping around, Noah knew that those infected with the Gastrea virus will rapidly mutate. The infected host would have its DNA mutated, mashed with other creatures’ DNA into walking monstrosities.

These monsters grew stronger and tougher the more they mutated. Thus, Gastrea are usually classed from stage I to IV. Stage I Gastrea only has one ability on top of the infected host’s original power. If the Gastrea mutates to possess two or more abilities then it’s a Stage II Gastrea. Meanwhile, Stage III and Stage IV gastreas possess a lot of DNA types and abilities making them very terrifying foes to face in combat.

The Gastrea that attacked Noah the moment he arrived is a Stage II gastrea which had 2 or more abilities including the ability their form suggests. However, Noah promptly sent the monster to Hades with a powerful kick that rendered its regenerative abilities useless.

Even so, Noah didn’t know how strong Stage III and Stage IV gastreas are.

Noah mumbled.

“Never a moment of dull peace…”

A noise from the crowd in front of him drew Noah’s attention, even though he is trying to focus hard on deciphering the meaning of the characters in the book.

Noah lifted his head and saw a girl who is around 10 years old, in ragged clothes and face that looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. The girl was running away from a mob who seemed hellbent on harming her.

Noah frowned.

The crowd that saw her were intrigued or had nothing better to do.

However, the moment these people saw the girls’ eyes, they turned cold and hostile. Their eyes showed the girl with hate, apathy or disgust.

Noah saw it.

The eyes the girl who had caused this commotion had a deep red hue to it that reminded one of blood.

Noah who didn’t react in time locked eyes with the young girl who was trying to escape the mob.

“Ah!”

The young girl stopped running when she saw Noah. Her anxiety increased until Noah could see despair in those tiny eyes of hers.

The mob finally caught up with her and they surrounded both Noah and the girl. They reached out and grabbed a hold of the young girl.

“I’ve got you now!”

“You damned monster!”

“How dare you come here!”

“This won’t end well for you!”

On the young girl’s face, expression of both surprise and fear could be seen as she screamed out loud.

“Let go of me!”

A scene which surprised Noah came.

Bam

The young girl managed to shrug off the adult who is bigger in size and weight. A young girl roughly 10 years old managed to swat away a grown man making the grown man fly into his friends, sending them flying like bowling pins.

A petite girl who has the strength to repel a bunch of adults?

It would appear that Noah had more stuff to learn about this world…