Chapter 3
Day Seven of the apocalypse.
The entirety of Manhattan had been reduced to a lawless dead city, littered with the gnawed remains left behind by Cyber-Ghouls.
However, sixty meters beneath Wall Street, inside the fourth-level vault of the Federal Reserve, it was practically paradise.
A blast door made of two-meter-thick titanium alloy completely shut out the death above.
Inside, the vault was brilliantly lit and as warm as spring.
A few days ago, I used [Status Reset] to roll back two depleted, military-grade micro-nuclear batteries to their factory-new, fully charged limits. Not only did this restore all lighting and ventilation systems, but it also guaranteed an absolute constant temperature.
In the massive space ahead, eight thousand tons of old-world gold bars gleamed under the incandescent lights. Yet, in this new era, they had become nothing more than the most worthless stepping stones.
Reclining on a genuine leather sofa inside the VIP shelter compartment, I casually held a Cohiba cigar, letting its intoxicating, rich aroma waft through the air.
On the oak table in front of me, a charcoal grill was sizzling loudly.
Just minutes ago, I had taken a pile of putrid, maggot-infested rotten meat from the cold storage and [Reset] it back into a freshly slaughtered, perfectly aged M9-grade Wagyu Tomahawk steak.
Victoria rested on one knee. Using her tactical high-frequency blade, she sliced the steak—perfectly charred on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside—into flawless bite-sized cubes. She placed them on a pure silver platter and offered them to me.
"The external EMP interference has weakened. The drone network connection is stable." Concluding her report, she bowed her head respectfully. "Master, shall we begin now?"
"Patch it through." I swallowed a piece of beef dripping with rich, primal juices and let out a cold sneer. "Let's see just how miserably my dear old friends have been living these past seven days."
At that exact moment, in the penthouse club of the Wall Street Skyscraper.
The once-extravagant banquet hall had been reduced to a foul-smelling refugee camp.
After a full seven days of being besieged, the food and clean water in the club were completely exhausted.
Outside the stairwell, the horrific thumping of Ghouls crashing against the barricades echoed day and night.
"Water... is there any water left?"
Over a dozen chaebol heirs and security personnel who had luckily survived until now had deeply sunken eyes from starvation. Some had even resorted to drinking the dried-up, murky sludge from the bottom of decorative fish tanks.
Emma leaned against a load-bearing column. Her hair was matted and greasy, and her once-gorgeous haute couture dress was stained with filth.
With trembling hands, she cupped half a moldy, green-fuzzed piece of bread in her palms—this was their absolute final ration.
Swallowing hard, she crawled submissively to Brad's feet and offered the moldy bread. "Young Master Brad... please eat a little. If you don't, you won't be able to hold on."
The once dashing and arrogant Brad now had heavily bloodshot eyes, looking like a rabid, cornered wild dog.
To maintain his status as the boss, he had continually forced himself to use [Thunder Tyrant] over the past seven days to clear the monsters in the corridors. But with every single cast, he felt a debilitating, excruciating weakness, as if his bone marrow was being sucked dry.
He snatched the moldy half-loaf and took a vicious bite.
The coarse, sour, and putrid taste instantly turned his stomach. Gagging violently, he smashed the bread against the wall!
"Damn it! I am an S-Rank Chosen One! How can I eat this pig slop?!" Brad roared in impotent fury, making the survivors around him tremble in fear.
Right at that moment—
Buzzzzz—
A high-frequency whirring of rotors suddenly echoed outside the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows of the club.
Everyone looked up in sheer horror. Over a dozen high-powered drones were hovering in the night sky outside the skyscraper. Simultaneously, the underbellies of the drones projected blinding blue holographic beams.
The beams intertwined in the dark, oppressive air, forming a colossal ten-meter-tall holographic projection that smashed directly into everyone's retinas!
The split second they comprehended the image, the entire penthouse fell dead silent, leaving only the sound of heavy, ragged breathing.
The broadcast showed a brilliantly lit, warm, and hyper-luxurious underground bunker.
The background was overflowing with blinding piles of gold bars.
And sitting right in the center, wearing a spotless school uniform, smoking a top-tier cigar, and eating a sizzling Tomahawk steak served by a stunning, cold-blooded female agent, was...
"Ar-Arthur?!" Emma shrieked in utter disbelief, her voice cracking heavily from jealousy and shock.
"He's still alive?! How could he possibly have fresh steak and nuclear heating?! He's supposed to be a piece of trash!"
The survivors completely lost their minds.
They looked at the dirt-covered, moldy bread on the floor, felt the freezing wind piercing their bones, and then stared unblinkingly at the sky—at the image representing absolute sanctuary and god-like luxury. Pure, unadulterated jealousy made their eyes bleed crimson.
Inside the projection, I slowly exhaled a blue ring of smoke. Staring through the camera as if looking at a pile of maggots in a sewer, I raised my wine glass and mouthed a mocking word: "Cheers."
"AAAAARGH! DIE!!!"
Brad's final shred of sanity was utterly annihilated by this extreme, dimensional strike of material wealth.
He had endured seven torturous days of pure hell, yet the commoner peasant he despised most was living in paradise!
With bloodshot eyes, he rushed toward the broken windows and let out a hysterical roar.
BOOM—!!!
All the humiliation he had stockpiled over the last seven days morphed into overloaded, rampant lightning. It violently erupted from his hands, instantly swallowing the drone swarm in the night sky.
The holographic projection fizzled out as smoking, charred wreckage plummeted down the building.
"Hahahaha! Did you see that?! I am S-Rank! Those were just a bunch of scrap metal!" Brad turned around, laughing maniacally.
But before his laughter could even settle, it was replaced by a blood-curdling scream of agony.
"My hands... what's happening?!"
Brad's eyes bulged in pure terror.
His hands, which had just unleashed the over-clocked lightning, suddenly emitted a crisp crack, just like burnt-over charcoal.
A massive chunk of charred, blackened flesh, along with carbonized nerve tissues, peeled off his forearm like dead paint flaking off a wall! It smashed onto the floor, shattering into pieces and exposing the faintly blackened bones underneath!
The system's cold, red warning text slammed into his retinas:
[WARNING: S-Rank Talent Backlash! Cellular carbonization rate has breached critical mass! Genetic chain is collapsing!]
Every single time he used his ability over these past seven days, he had been overdrawing his core life essence.
In his past life, because I was secretly using [Status Reset] to erase his backlash every day, he actually deluded himself into thinking he was an omnipotent god.
In this life, I cut off the blood supply.
He spent seven days burning through his own life, and the bill had finally come due.
"No... NO! Nobody told me this power would drain my body!" Gripping his crumbling, flaking arm, Brad writhed and rolled on the floor in unbearable agony.
In the midst of his extreme terror, he suddenly remembered something. He violently snapped his head toward the lingering drone smoke outside.
Arthur!
What was Arthur's trash talent called again? [Status Reset]?!
Wasn't that the ability to restore objects to their original state? Could it work on the human body?!
Like a drowning man grasping at the final straw, Brad's deranged, sociopathic eyes instantly locked onto Emma cowering in the corner.
"Emma..." Using his single remaining hand, Brad choked Emma by the throat. "You're his ex-girlfriend... he always listened to you the most!"
"Y-Young Master Brad... what are you doing?" Emma's eyes rolled back as she choked, struggling in horror.
"Open a zone-wide retinal broadcast! Beg him!" Brad sneered hideously, black ashes falling from his face onto hers. "Tell him, as long as he concocts a reset potion with that dog-shit ability of his to fix my arm, I, Brad, will reward him with a spot as my dog! Beg him right now!! Or I'll throw you off the roof to feed the monsters!"
Inside the underground vault.
Looking at the [Global Broadcast Request] popping up on the terminal screen, I downed the red wine in my glass in one gulp.
The fish took the bait.
