"W-why?"
Crimson blood seeped through her fingers. Nina Jacobs clutched her stabbed abdomen, staring in disbelief at the boyfriend who had once shared life and death with her.
She had just survived a battle, her Superpower and stamina completely drained. At this moment, she had no strength to fight back.
"Nina Jacobs, we've helped you far too much,
The position of base leader should have been mine."
A flicker of conflict crossed Liam Grant's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by cold indifference.
"Renee, save me."
Nina Jacobs reached out to her friend, Renee Strong.
Renee Strong was an Advanced Healer. If she used her Superpower to treat the wound, it would heal in no time.
But Renee Strong walked over to Liam Grant instead.
"Liam, should I save her or not?"
Liam Grant wrapped his arm around Renee Strong's waist as she looked at Nina Jacobs with a mocking gaze.
"We've put up with her for long enough. It's time to end this."
Liam Grant replied.
"So you two really are together."
Nina Jacobs looked at the other four people in the room.
It was the fifth year of the apocalypse.
She had always considered them her companions.
But as her gaze swept over them, not a single person was willing to help her.
"Nina Jacobs, if we hadn't been with you through thick and thin, you would've died long ago,
I was just having a little fun with a few women, and you dared to break my legs?!"
"It's all thanks to Strong's kindness that my legs were healed,
and to think I actually used to like you."
As if savoring his successful revenge, Ivan Lawson caressed Nina Jacobs's face, then viciously shoved her away.
"Nina Jacobs, my daughter didn't have to die back then,
Why did you stop me from saving her? Just because she was a burden with no Superpower?
You're the one who killed the only family I had left!"
Shannon Renner sobbed as she hurled her accusation.
"Sorry, Nina Jacobs, but the base doesn't need you anymore,
What the base needs now is a qualified manager."
Simon Abbott adjusted his glasses, as if trying to hide his own guilt.
"Wyatt Jacobs, you think so too?"
Nina Jacobs looked at Wyatt Jacobs, who stood last. They were cousins, and although they had argued along the way, she had always treated him like her own younger brother.
"Whether you live or die doesn't matter to me anymore,
I'm the strongest Gold Element Superpower User in the base now,
With you dead, Brother Liam will give me the best resources."
Wyatt Jacobs looked down on the weakened Nina Jacobs.
To him, Nina Jacobs was no longer useful.
"Is that so?
Fine. Just fine."
Nina Jacobs started to laugh.
"Did you know, you've been a target for a long time?
Someone tried to buy your life multiple times before, and Liam always refused. But you just went too far!"
Renee Strong had expected Nina Jacobs to be terrified, but instead, her laughter grew louder and louder.
As she laughed, blood continued to gush from her wound, as if eager to escape.
"I'm laughing because... you still don't know me at all."
Nina Jacobs called up the system interface that only she could see.
"What do you mean?"
Liam Grant suddenly had a bad feeling, but he dismissed it as impossible.
Nina Jacobs was cautious, but she couldn't possibly be *that* cautious.
To avoid unwanted attention, they had specifically chosen this spot in the wilderness, far from the base, to deal with Nina Jacobs.
[Host, do you wish to destroy this Level 6 safe house?
If destroyed, the safe house will initiate self-destruct mode in ten seconds.]
At that moment, the system's cold, mechanical voice sounded unusually warm.
"Destroy it."
Nina Jacobs was glad she had never told anyone about the system.
Because they had no idea that this dilapidated house they had chosen as a temporary location was, in fact, her safe house.
As the mechanical countdown began, a flash of excitement lit up Nina Jacobs's eyes.
'If I'm going to die, then we'll all die together.'
'No one is getting away.'
...
Pain. So much pain.
「In dorm room 701 at Dawn University.」
Renee Strong struggled against the intense pain.
With a pained scream, Renee Strong finally regained consciousness.
She would never forget that excruciating pain.
'But... wasn't I dead?'
'I died with Liam Grant and the others in that mysterious explosion.'
She clearly remembered seeing her own limbs blown off, and the crazed laughter on Nina Jacobs's face.
'Damn it, what the hell did Nina Jacobs do?!'
The phone beside her caught her attention.
"I actually... came back?!"
Renee Strong stared at the time on her phone in disbelief.
October 30, 2212.
'Three days before the apocalypse?!'
'Right, Nina Jacobs!'
Renee Strong's head snapped toward the opposite side of the dorm room.
A violent shiver ran down her spine.
From the top bunk opposite hers, Nina Jacobs happened to look up at her at that exact moment.
"Nina Jacobs, what are you doing?"
'Could she have been reborn, too?'
Renee Strong asked, her voice cautious and probing.
"You're awake?
I'm just watching a variety show."
Nina Jacobs took off her headphones, acting as if she had just noticed Renee was awake.
"Yeah, I'm... awake."
Renee Strong remembered now. The cataclysm had struck suddenly during their senior year, right around graduation season.
At this time, their other roommates had all gone to a job fair to look for work.
But since she and Nina Jacobs had already secured jobs, they had stayed behind in the dorm.
The laptop was facing away from Renee Strong, and Nina Jacobs had already put her headphones back on, no longer looking at her.
Just like always.
Renee Strong let out a sigh of relief.
'As I thought, she wasn't reborn.'
"Nina Jacobs, without us,
let's see how long you can survive this time."
Renee Strong stormed out of dorm room 701.
The moment the dorm room door closed, Nina Jacobs took off her silent headphones.
The screen of the laptop in front of her was filled with the pages of several major online shopping sites.
"The feeling's mutual."
Nina Jacobs hadn't expected to be reborn either.
When she heard Renee Strong cry out the names of Liam Grant and the others in her sleep, she was certain that Renee had been reborn too.
Even if Renee Strong knew Liam Grant, people like Shannon Renner wouldn't show up for another two months.
There was absolutely no way she could know them at this point in time.
A new thought began to form in Nina Jacobs's mind.
'If Renee Strong was reborn, then what about Liam Grant and the other four?'
'Maybe all seven of them came back.'
The words of Liam Grant and the others before she died still echoed in her mind.
What they didn't know was that she had a system.
The only reason Liam Grant became one of the top Dual Element Superpower Users was because she had exchanged her system's mission rewards for him.
The reason Renee Strong's Healing Element Superpower was unparalleled was because of the countless enhancement potions from the system that Nina had given her to drink.
Wyatt Jacobs had been an ordinary person; it was she who helped him become a Superpower User.
The others, too, had consumed countless good things from her system.
And the laughable thing was the fate she had received in return.
Fortunately, the system had been reborn with her this time.
She would definitely get her revenge, but Nina Jacobs didn't want them to die too quickly.
Besides, she had to find out who had been targeting her in her past life, and who had tried to buy her life.
[System upgrade complete.]
As the familiar voice sounded in her mind, Nina Jacobs realized the system seemed a little different this time.
"System, activate the safe house."
With two days left until the apocalypse, the first thing Nina Jacobs did upon opening the system was check if the safe house was still there.
Her system's safe house was a movable sanctuary.
In her past life, whenever Liam Grant and the others managed to find a temporary shelter on the run, it was actually just her secretly deploying the safe house.
It was a shame she had spent most of her system experience on them.
The safe house had only reached Level 6 just before she died.
But to Nina Jacobs's surprise, the newly activated safe house was already at Level 3!