Ren's hand subconsciously reached for the barrier.
The moment his fingers brushed past it, he felt that the barrier was unnaturally thin.
"They were right. We don't have much time to stay here." His eyes sharpened and he went straight to his house.
'My first priority is to recover.' His stomach was twisting in hunger and his body felt sore after all that fighting.
This made him conclude that even if he could level up and get energized, it didn't recover his exhaustion and energy loss completely.
He jumped straight to his bed and fell asleep, letting the exhaustion of the day finally catch up to him.
Waking up at night, Ren and the others gathered around the bonfire as planned.
But none of them spoke.
The silence was heavy. Only the sound of burning wood could be heard, the heat seeping into their bones against the cold atmosphere.
Evan broke the silence first.
"We all know the barrier has thinned—albeit just a little."
No one replied. Everyone knew the horrors that awaited them if the barrier dispersed or collapsed.
As much as Ren enjoyed the feeling of slaughter, even he didn't like the idea of fighting hordes of them, all at once.
"We have to hurry," Lina spoke in a somewhat choked voice, surprising others.
Tears welled in her eyes as she tried not to cry.
'Ah, how could I forget? We are still teenagers.'
Even if they had survived in this hellhole a week longer than he had, adapting to it was a completely different matter.
Her choked sobs pierced through the burning firewood. No one dared to speak for fear of making the matter worse.
Who didn't want everything to be returned to normal?
But knowing the truth, they had no choice but to accept it.
Evan placed a hand on her shoulder, allowing her to lean on him and cry in silence.
A few minutes passed by. Ren was the first to break the tension by asking, "Does anyone know about the temple present in the south of the forest?" No sooner had he finished speaking that everyone's heads tilted toward him in surprise.
Even Lina looked at him with wide eyes containing fear, and some traces of astonishment.
"Are you asking about the… stone temple?" Caleb threw out the name. "But how do you know about it?"
Caleb's sudden questioning surprised Ren, and he instantly realized there was much more to it than he had anticipated.
"No need to discuss that now. We should focus on what's more important." Ronan interrupted before Caleb could explain.
'They don't want to tell me? Because I am an outsider?'
His face still bore the same calm look, but Ren was constantly trying to solve any mystery he could in his mind.
What was more threatening to a person? The fear of zombies or the fear of the unknown?
Even a child could answer.
But Ren didn't press further, allowing the rest of them to return to the topic of their conversation they had gathered for.
"I inspected the well after returning and found something." Evan dropped a bombshell without any preparation, and Ronan almost bit his own tongue.
"A rat was floating in the well, and not just a normal one. It had the same signs of mutations as those vermins."
Everyone's eyes widened, breath stuck in their lungs, because the complications of this could be absurd.
"Wait, it still doesn't prove the fact that there were more rats and would have mutated the cities too." Ronan tried to calm them, or to be exact—himself.
Ren exhaled slightly, because he had gained the most vital piece of the puzzle.
'So the rats were the cause, but who infected the rats? Did they mutate due to the apocalypse?'
But this answer had opened another series of unanswered questions which frustrated Ren quite a bit.
"Alright, that's it. Let's rest for the night and begin our training tomorrow morning." Evan stood up and went back to his house with Lina.
"Will she be alright? I hope so." Ronan muttered to himself in a low voice, making his way back to his own house.
---
The next morning, Ren got up and made his way to the training hall of the village.
Ronan's father hadn't purchased the sword for nothing, many in the village used to practice using weapons for defense and animal hunting.
Many villages had a training hall with an instructor, who was either an experienced hunter or a retired knight.
'Well, its not like we have an instructor.' Reaching a long hall made of stone and timber, he came to a halt.
Entering the place, Ren could see that Ronan had arrived earlier than planned exactly like him.
"Oh, looks like you at least know the gravity of the situation and arrived early to train." Ronan was still displeased with him, but not much.
He just didn't like the idea of suddenly including a new member on the team, especially when they had lost a lot.
Ren ignored him, his gaze landing upon the training dummy.
Reaching it, he applied a small force and attempted to slice it with his axe but it just slipped above it without a slight scratch.
'That's useful.' With a raised brow, he took a step back and directly attacked the dummy head with all his strength.
The dummy got a deep scratch on its forehead, but nothing too serious.
After being satisfied with the toughness of the dummy, Ren decided to start training. But suddenly, he stopped.
'Wait. Isn't it too strong?'
He had leveled up five times in the forest, but it was still not enough to injure the dummy.
'Is it just my overthinking, or is there more to this world than it shows?' Ren's gaze sharpened as he glanced at Ronan.
But thinking that he might be just overly cautious due to everything that had transpired and the fact that his strength was only elevated by twelve points, he stopped thinking about it anymore.
But was it really just his overthinking?