Leo took out his lighter and flicked it gently. A bean-sized flame sprang to life, instantly lighting up the dark space and illuminating the area around them.
At night, they usually rested directly. In emergencies, they could always light a campfire for illumination, and there wasn't much in the way of nighttime entertainment anyway. Because of that, Leo had never bothered to prepare any modern lighting tools.
Compared to everything else, something as trivial as it being inconvenient to move around at night simply hadn't felt important.
In the dim firelight, he could see clearly. Of the three of them, the one who should have been least afraid of zombies—Tsunade—was crouched in a corner, clutching her head. Her entire body was trembling, her lowered hair covering her face so completely that her expression couldn't be seen.
Amid the continuous howling and pounding of the zombies outside, it was hard to hear Tsunade's sobbing clearly. But there was no doubt about it—she was crying, and it was the kind of crying born from extreme fear.
Leo didn't know what was going on, but just as he snapped the lighter shut, Kelly spoke up beside him.
"It's probably claustrophobia. A lot of people with hemophobia also have issues like this. Back where I'm from, plenty of people developed similar conditions after seeing the bodies of friends and family from inside bunkers or trenches. Miss Tsunade probably went through something similar, even if we don't know exactly what."
Leo said nothing. He simply nodded silently and closed his lighter.
Kelly, however, didn't want the air to sink into silence. She looked at Leo and asked the question that had been on her mind.
"So… what kind of person were you before?"
Leo paused and looked toward Kelly in the darkness. At that moment, she clicked her own lighter, a small orange flame lighting up her face.
"What I mean is, we don't know what's going to happen next. If we really do end up dying together, shouldn't we at least know who we're dying with? Who they were, what they went through. Besides, just waiting like this is boring."
There was no smile on Kelly's face now, only an awkward stiffness. Anyone trapped in a cramped space, surrounded by man-eating monsters, wouldn't exactly be in a cheerful mood.
"As for me…" Leo toyed with his lighter. "There's not much to say. I was just an ordinary person. Lived in a peaceful country, didn't even get married by my twenties. Then suddenly I ended up here. I met a girl named Erina Nakiri, and during the last zombie tide, I sent her back to her original world. That's it. Nothing special."
Kelly's lighter grew too hot, and she released it, plunging the small steel room back into darkness.
"So… everything you said before was true?"
"Yes. I just think it's all kind of ridiculous."
Leo leaned his head against the steel wall, which continued to echo with heavy impacts from outside. Thanks to Tsunade's solid construction, the tightly fitted steel cylinders showed no sign of loosening. If anything, the constant pounding only seemed to press them together more firmly.
"Why?" Kelly asked, puzzled.
"Anyone willing to do that kind of thing with me has obviously developed some kind of feelings. And their original worlds are always infinitely better than this one. If I truly care about them, then the right thing to do is send them back."
Leo took a deep breath.
"Like Erina. Her world is incredible. The food there—without adding anything strange—can make people feel like they've taken an aphrodisiac. And it's unbelievably delicious. For someone like me, who comes from a normal world, it's completely unreal."
As he spoke, a trace of melancholy crept into his voice. He truly missed Erina—the bright, youthful, and gentle girl.
You could tell from the manga that she had a tsundere side, but with him, she showed far more of her soft side. To Leo, Erina had been genuinely adorable.
"Even when there are conflicts in her world, they settle them by competing over whose food tastes better. And Erina's tongue can discern the finest nuances in a dish. Only in a world that values cuisine can her talent truly shine. In this world, an ability like that—being able to taste food so intensely—is nothing but a burden."
Leo couldn't help but sigh.
"So when the Blood Moon came last time, and I realized there was no way we could stop the zombies, I sent her away. Honestly, after we did that, and I discovered my ability, my first instinct was to hide it. Living alone in this world is just too exhausting."
As he spoke, Leo shivered slightly. The Blood Moon had arrived earlier this time, and the zombies were clearly stronger than before. He didn't care about any so-called power of a dimensional lord. He didn't want to live in this world at all.
But the problem was, he couldn't go to other worlds himself.
Without leveling up that ability, he couldn't cross worlds.
And even if he tried to force it, Kelly and Tsunade could easily stop him.
"I see."
Kelly lit her lighter again, the flame pushing back the darkness once more.
"I think I understand you now."
She'd never had a bad impression of Leo to begin with. It was just that his claims had sounded far too suspicious. No matter how you looked at it, he'd seemed like the mastermind behind everything.
But now, feeling his confusion and reluctance, she finally believed him completely.
"As for me, I already told you my story, didn't I? An orphan whose parents were killed by the Kalett, who grew up and eventually fought back."
Kelly closed her lighter. After all, it was still useful for starting fires later—wasting it here wasn't a good idea.
Instead, she pulled out two glass bottles.
"By the way, I've still got some beer left. Want one? The beer here tastes kind of strange, but it's actually pretty good."
Her voice carried a surprising amount of liveliness. Leo felt a bottle full of liquid pressed into his hand, and then Kelly tugged him to his feet.
"Come on. Let's have a drink together with Miss Tsunade."