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7. Courage is not for all

The next morning; the second day of mana awakening on planet Earth.

Sarah, Christopher, the brawny man who confronted Christopher, and a slender young lady who wore glasses and seemed to be in her early twenties and was also a beauty in her rights, just a pity she was beside a beauty goddess.

All four of them seemed to be the big shots amongst this group of survivors. The brawny man's name is Mark and the lady, is Valerie.

They were discussing certain matters concerning their way forward in the situation they all found themselves in.

"You said we should go out and hunt for food?"

"It seems you slept for too long and have forgotten the dangers that are beyond those doors, why would you risk the lives of all the survivors here because of your selfishness?" Mark pointed his finger at Christopher reprimanding him.

Christopher had made the suggestion they had better start moving, to get food for themselves and fend for themselves.

Christopher was about to reply to him before a cold voice chipped in.

"I stand with Chris in this aspect, the government whom you all are waiting for would also be in this sort of situation as us, although they may be better than us with the aid of their weapons and knowledge."

"We need to get up and face our fears, the world isn't smiling at us, we shouldn't have our fate grasped in the hands of others," Sarah said in her cold voice.

"Good, she also thinks like a real human, even if you all aren't gonna cross that door, I would have left solo."

"At least I'm not obliged to protect anyone, neither are you guys obliged to protect me, I just said I should advise you guys." Chris pointed out.

"In this world where danger is all around us, walking solo would increase the chances of us being in danger, we would have to cooperate to ward off the dangers out there," Sarah said.

"I agree with the fact that we should cooperate, but having others as burdens would draw us closer to our doom," Chris said again.

"Brat, out of everyone here, you are the only one who seems to be a burden, especially that mouth of yours," Mark said irritated.

"Pig-sized human, are you dumb enough to notice that I'm not bothered by anything you say, or is it that your brain is soaked in jealousy?" Chris finally replied.

"You seem to bite more than you can chew, I would let you know it's not by mouth alone," Mark said with gritted teeth seemingly wanting to attack.

"Stop!" Sarah roared angrily, probably annoyed with the attitude of the men in front.

"This is our lives at stake, the hope of mankind rests in each one of our fingers, why should we be our problem." She added sternly.

Mark withdrew his raised arm and backed down as he bent his head and said in a low voice, having been ashamed of being corrected by a girl young enough to be his younger sister, the word SORRY was uttered from his mouth.

Pushing the current situation aside, they went back to their previous contemplation.

"Although the human body can go without food for about three days, we don't have to wait till those days when our stomachs would have gotten devoured by hunger and we won't be able to ward off zombies when we are so weak." Sarah analyzed.

"We have to find food now, the earlier the better, those creatures out there are continuously evolving and if we continue like this, it won't take time before we are at the bottom of the food chain." She added.

"Exactly! You have the brain." Christopher praised then went ahead and said "I know of a store nearby, which is stocked with provisions and toiletries, maybe we would be able to gather some edibles that would last us a while."

"That should be good, how far is the store from this place and in what direction is it." Sarah inquired.

"It's up north and before the apocalypse it used to be just a 5-minute walk from here, but considering the obstacles now, it would take us quite a while to get there," Christopher explained.

"Great!, the north seems to have been the path with the least population before now, so that would make it the best choice for us, who has a counter to what we've discussed now?" Sarah asked.

"We going north is not the problem, the problem is how do we mobilize the people here, since the more we are the more goods we could acquire and I believe most of them won't be willing to go out with us to get them, considering how shaken they were by the dangers of the outside world," Mark said.

"Not all of us can go, there are few people here who wouldn't want to be isolated from the outside world and would do anything possible to assist the ones who saved them," Sarah said

"Maybe we should pose the question to the crowd, to see what they want, whether they wanna stretch their legs or sit behind these walls for who knows how long." Valerie finally spoke.

The others all agreed with this point as they gathered all the survivors in one place as Sarah went ahead to explain the situation in a voice audible enough for them all to hear.

"We all know that the world we live in now is not the same as the world we were in just 36 hours ago. Our bodies have been filled with an unknown force which allows us to evolve." She paused then went on to say.

"This unknown force is unpredictable, the mere coming of it has turned some of our fellow brothers, sisters, friends, and loved ones into zombies, and we that are left are those that can withstand this force from tempering with our senses."

"For those of us that have withstood it, we were granted a system embedded in our heads as a reward, this system would give us the chance to grow stronger and be able to ward off zombies and the other mutated animals out there." She paused again as she watched the expressions of the survivors intently before she continued as she was getting the expressions she wanted.

"I believe it's not just this part of the earth that is suffering from this apocalypse, but throughout the entire earth. This is to tell us that the government is also caught up in this predicament and if we were to wait for them, they might come just after we have become skeletons."

This caused a shiver to run down the spines of the survivors as murmurs could be heard all around.

"We have to stand up to our feet and grasp our fate in our palms, we can't let nobody decide our fates, we can't let our breaths depend on nobody, we have to get to our feet and face our fears as we grasp our fate in our hands," Sarah said word after word.

"I'm impressed by the way this lass wins the heart of these people, she first started with the benefits, then went to the problem and went ahead to motivate them. Although not all of them would possibly have the courage to face their fears, she would surely have won the hearts of many with her speech" A voice sounded in Christopher's head.

"Little bot, I am also impressed, turns out she's not a bimbo but a pretty smart lady." Christopher agreed.

"Little bot?"

"Lady bot?"

"What's with these petty names you are giving me, I am alone Milady." The system queried, feeling quite annoyed with the names she'd been given.

"I'm sorry, but Little Bot sounds short and precise while Milady sounds so strenuous." Chris grinned provokingly.

"Hmph isn't Milady shorter, you are so shameless." Little Bot said aggrieved as she went quiet, no matter how much Chris spoke to her, she ignored so he had no choice but to continue listening to what Sarah had been saying.

It turned out that she had already relayed the plan of going up north to get food and toiletries that would last them a while.

And she has given them the option to either wait or follow.

Now, even after all the speeches, out of the 33 survivors in the camp only 7 were willing to go out to get some food and the remaining 26 lowered their heads in shame.

"It turns out that only so many are courageous, your names would be written in the books of the history of mankind."

"This is just the beginning, we don't promise there would be no losses, but I can assure you that you won't regret this decision."

"Now, for those of us that are willing to go, 80% of everything we get would be shared amongst us, and the remaining 20% would be shared evenly amongst the rest," Sarah said.

The seven of them all agreed with it, but amongst the rest, murmurs could be heard. An angry voice roared in the church jolting drawing attention to the owner of the voice.

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