A little over one hour into the night, when the rest of the people in the gym were already asleep, Dare was finally done with his evolution. Circuits started appearing on the face of his cocoon before coming together to form an eye, made entirely out of said circuit.
Before long, a crack appeared in the cocoon, spreading out like spider webs falling on the ground to reveal a naked Dare, curled up.
Dare slowly stood up, like someone being controlled, his head raised up, looking at the ceiling of the gym. Not much about him changed except for the fact that his hair had a more blue hue and his body was a lot more defined.
Unlike the three members of his team, his constellation was on the back of his right hand. It was an eye made out of circuits formed from the connection of about fifty-four stars.
Dare slowly opened his eyes to look at the rest of his team, who were already smiling at him. Everyone was happy for his evolution.
Very quickly, he put on some clothes, kept the shells of his cocoon in a spatial ring, and began telling the team his experience during the evolution. He made a constellation with a God of technology called Neurox, and it was the one that gave Dare all his skills.
"Fascinating," a female voice suddenly said. It was at this point that Dare turned his head to see a peach-haired girl looking at him. "Amara," he said, his voice shaking a little bit.
"What's up, little bro?" she said with a radiant smile on her face.
"Thank God you didn't die," Dare said, his voice finally back to normal.
"Were you worried about me?" she said with a sly smile on her face.
"Na, just worried that mum and dad will cry if you were to die," Dare said, turning his face away.
"Enough of the chit chat," Zayden said. "Let's start the meeting."
Before long, they were seated at a long table with about nine chairs. Seated at this table were the people with the highest levels within the whole group.
"Before we start, don't you think we should all know ourselves?" one of the two girls seated at the table said. "Sure," Tyrel said, his playboy habit already showing his head.
"Then I'll start," Amara said
"I'm Amara Solis, Secretary of the Students Council before the apocalypse, and I majored in Mass Communication."
Just like her, the rest of the group proceeded to introduce themselves, and then the meeting started.
Before anyone could start talking, one of the girls had already. She had blonde hair, just at shoulder length. Icy blue eyes that seemed to scream authority and coldness, and a body structure that no man would mind having.
She was easily the most famous person in college, the President of the Students Council, Isara Solvorn.
"Amara, I need a situational analysis," Isara said
"Well, there are two hundred and fifty-seven people in the gym at the moment, with fifty-nine percent of them being male. Based on the data gathered, the rations that were found in the gym would only be able to last for a week at most, before we all starve to death." Amara said
"So the first objective of this meeting is to find some kind of solution to the food problem," Isara said. "Any suggestions?"
"Well, I think we should throw out all the weak people to increase the duration for which the rations would last," Lucas said
Everyone at the meeting table just looked at Lucas with looks of condescension.
"Any other suggestions?" Isara said, totally ignoring what Lucas said a moment ago. her gaze momentarily going to Zayden and his group, before shifting away quickly. Zayden, of course, saw this, but decided not to say anything, an amusing smile on his face.
Just like that, they were arguing for about five minutes without coming to a conclusion. It was at this point that Isara decided to call up Zayden. She could have called anybody else from the group, but she had a faint inkling that Zayden was the unelected leader of the group.
Given the chance to speak, Zayden decided to hold nothing back. "First of all, how long are we planning to stay here?" Zayden said, suddenly making everyone quiet.
They hadn't thought of the bigger picture. What they wanted was a solution to their immediate predicament, without thinking of what to do in the future.
With this one question, every one of them went silent, musing on what to do next. But of course, there must always be that one idiot who could never think of anything.
"We just need food to last until the government or any high power comes and rescues us," Lucas said. "I'm sure that they've already gotten news of our situation."
Hearing what Lucas said, it was like a glimmer of hope appeared in the eyes of those present at the table.
"Yes, we just need to wait for the military to come and save us," Amara said, agreeing with Lucas.
"Oh really, then let me ask you another question," Zayden said, "what do you think caused this apocalypse?"
Without even giving them a chance to answer, he continued
"Do you think a failed experiment of the chemical science department caused it?... I'm not sure, because, last I checked, the chemical science department can't do something like this."
He finally paused a little as if giving them the chance to take in all of this. A few seconds later, he continued.
"I'm also not sure that the biological science department can create a virus or disease as strong as this one" Zayden said "Now, let's just agree for a moment that they did manage to do something like this and a virus spread through out the college turning some of us into nulls, then how do you explain the supernatural skills that we've gotten, or the system that seemed to come out of a fantasy novel, or the items, unseen in our world that come out from breaking orbs that also just magically appeared"
"Does anyone have an answer for this?"
Nobody could say anything; they always had this at the back of their mind. But in their bid to survive, they decided to ignore all of this and take any help, no matter how unreal.
"I thought so," Zayden said
"Now, if we have all agreed on the fact that this apocalypse is unreal, what stops it from affecting everywhere in the world. Or do you think that we are so special for the universe to just give us these unimaginable powers, along with unimaginable challenges?"
"With that in mind, what stops all of this from happening to the military or any government official?"
"What makes you think that they aren't facing their problems just like us?... Even if they managed to clear out the nulls in the military base, there's still the city that could be filled with millions of nulls. While fighting for their lives and trying to maintain law and order, do you think they would have the time to think about a few hundred college kids?"
Once again, he gave all of them time to think about all that he just said. Reality hit them all at once, and the expressions on their faces became ashen. The reality that no one was going to save them, the reality that the whole world had changed.
"You all should stop thinking like entitled kids and take your future into your own hands. Nobody is coming to save us, we only have ourselves in this apocalypse," Zayden finally said
His voice wasn't very loud, but at this point, almost everyone in the hall could hear him. After all, they were constantly being surrounded by monsters, and no one was able to sleep from fear of getting killed.
"So what do you suggest we do?" Isara asked
"Fight," Zayden said
"As I said before, we can only rely on ourselves in this apocalypse. This means that if you want to survive, you have to do everything to get stronger. This is an apocalypse, we can't go around fighting for our survival while some people leech off our hard work."
"Like, at this point, we are short on food. We can't go out there and fight against monsters, only to come back and give our earnings to these people who did nothing for it."
"You guys might think what I'm saying is cruel, but this is an apocalypse, the laws of the world have changed. The only law applicable at the moment is the law of equivalent exchange. You get what you giv.e"
"But the people here are low-levelled, they can't fight," Amara said
"So what?"
"They can't fight, but there are other things that they can do to survive, a whole lot of other things. And if even at that point, they don't want to do it, then they can just become food for the nulls," Zayden said
The whole hall was silent as they took in everything that Zayden said. It sounded cruel, but at the same time, it all made sense. They needed to survive, but they couldn't keep waiting for people to do their work for them.