In 3027, the appearance of a wormhole changed Aethera.The planet survived. Almost nothing on it remained as it had been.At first, the wormhole seemed to connect two places. Who could have imagined that, instead of leading to another planet or galaxy, it opened into another dimension, another universe?With the wormhole at the center, the two versions of Aethera merged. The planet grew, taking in the other world's terrain—and everything living on it.The other dimension had suffered an apocalypse. Zombies and mutant creatures had taken over the world. Humanity's fate there was clear:It was extinct!That collision brought a war between worlds. Worse still, when the two Aetheras merged, all technology stopped working. Almost every established theory broke down in the aftermath.Aethera's size, its gravity, the oxygen content of the air, and countless other things changed completely.Humanity was nearly wiped out once again!***Long after midnight, a crowd gathered on a hilltop.The c

Axel wiped the blood from his face with a relieved smile.“Oh… Thank God. Wait a second! Did you say tails?”“Yes.”Kil resumed walking without looking back. Axel scrambled to his feet, hurried after him, and asked in a panic,“You're just imagining things, right, Kil? Zombies can't have tails, can they? You're not saying there are some kind of mutated zombies, are you?“Tell me there's no way something like that exists.”Kil walked on without answering. Axel caught up, keeping the wrench raised this time.“Want to give this a try?”Kil offered Axel the machete. He looked perfectly calm, his expression barely changing as several zombies moved toward them.Axel accepted the machete, and the fighting began again!***Two hours and forty minutes later.Kil and Axel walked calmly along a long, deserted highway. Tall trees lined both sides, much taller than before, and the grass had grown thicker as well.It had once been the only highway leading to the hill, with a small forest around it.

“That was so much worse than before. How many people do you think will survive, Kil?”Kil raised his left hand and held up all five fingers.“What? You're saying half the population's gone?”Kil kept all five fingers raised.“Most likely, only five percent of the city's population survived.”“Y-you're kidding, right? There's no way only five percent survived, is there?”Kil shook his head slightly, then sighed.“Your family's powerful. That may give them a chance. But I don't know what happened to them, Axel.”“Kil! You have family, too, don't you? Aren't you scared something might happen to them?”Kil looked at Axel's pale face. His own mouth tightened.“I have an unreliable little brother. Of course I'm worried about the kid. But…“Since there's nothing I can do right now, all I can do is hope he's okay. Beyond that, I can only survive and try to find him when circumstances allow.”“We have to wait for things to get better?”“Things may never get better, Axel. We'll try to find them

A bubble broke against the rim. Axel drew his hand back.Kil waited with his own cup. Axel wiped his palms on his pants and picked up the serving again.“I could accept dying heroically fighting zombies. But if I die like an idiot from drinking some weird liquid…“Even if there's a next life, I'll never forgive you, Kil!”“Ugh! I'm going to die! Die!”After taking a sip and setting his cup down, Axel rolled around on the ground in hysterics.Kil stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. Axel hadn't even swallowed a full serving yet.“Oh? I'm still alive. It tastes… not that bad?”Axel sat up and stroked his chin.“There's no sugar or sweetener, so why is it a little sweet? Is that from the zombie? And this slightly bitter, refreshing flavor… kind of like mint?”Kil drank his potion, then edged away from the newly appointed food critic.“Hey! Why are you moving away, Kil? You can't blame me, can you? Who'd have thought this ‘strange, slightly thick liquid’ would actually taste pretty

Three days and eighteen hours passed.During that interval, Kil and Axel searched the surrounding houses for supplies and plants they could transplant.In addition to the tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and carrots they already had, they acquired two orange trees. The trees had originally served as decorations on either side of a house's entrance. Each was under two meters tall and grew in a pot. But since they bore fruit, the two took them anyway.They also found uncooked sweet potatoes in a food storage room. The tubers would grow faster than potatoes, and their young leaves could be boiled and eaten. Until they sprouted, they were also large, filling meals.Between supply runs, they stored the weapons they found and turned the rooftop garden into a fruit and vegetable patch.Kil pulled out and discarded every other plant, keeping only a few useful flowers with the potential to mutate. Some of the discarded plants would have been extremely expensive in normal times.Useful? Keep it. Us