May Peace Grace Us

Chapter 33: In the Eyes of the Protagonist

In the city center where most people are spending their booming nightlife, screams and chaos were prevalent. One person to another, one by one, screamed in horror as their companions were bitten and wounded by people they were having a conversation with. Even the security personnel were unable to escape the mayhem.

It was hard to imagine that moments ago they were all in awe of the sudden aurora gracing the world once again. They were all having fun and having the time of their lives, then people suddenly lost control of themselves and harmed others. Creating this scene that seems to have just come out from a horror movie.

Alfred, who was in a high building, watched the chaos with indifference in his eyes. It was not that he was without sympathy for them, but rather, he was more or less used to such scenes for so long. Knowing very well that rushing over there is not the solution to the mess.

“Boss, what you said was right.” One of his companions said. “Fortunately none of us has turned into those monsters below.”

Alfred only smiled at this ‘companion’ of his. Internally sneering that those are not the monsters that are needed to be feared of. The real monsters are people who can smile at you but kill you the moment you turn your back.

And this guy who was doing his best at buttering him up was one of those human-skinned monsters. A snake waiting for an opportunity to ambush. It was a pity he cannot get rid of him at the moment.

When Alfred realized he had come back in time, he wanted to kill his good ‘friends’ for betraying him. It cannot be said that he has single-handedly created a shelter for humanity all by himself, but no one can deny he has made a great contribution to the foundation of it. If it wasn’t for his efforts, the number one base in the country would never have been made at all.

Although he does not want to list down those he contributed, he really cannot help thinking his resources, sacrifices and dedication were for naught. Not to mention the amount of blood he has shed for the good of his ‘good’ friends. He never wanted to count on those and slap the things he did to their faces.

After all, they schemed his death to seize power. A laughable explanation: Alfred did not know if he should be laughing at them for thinking everything would go to their plan without him. Other than base management, they know nothing much about the frictions between leaders of different bases. He could only imagine their faces when the other bases would swallow the base he poured his all into.

So when he returned, he did his best to separate himself from them. Fox friends who never saw him as a friend and is only close to him for what he could bring to them. These people were the first ones who betrayed him and harmed him.

But there are indeed some of these people he cannot easily dismiss because of his hostility towards themselves. After all, Alfred still had to explain the things that might arise from his sudden distance from them. So he has no choice but to wait for the apocalypse to have a legit and concrete reason to shut them out of his life.

He then warned his brother to protect himself from the upcoming apocalypse. In the first timeline, he dies first due to petty selfishness of others. Considering that his little brother really cannot do things arbitrarily due to his position as a family head, he assigned some retired soldiers to protect him. Instructing that his brother would be brought to a certain address should something happen.

Then, for the next three years, since he returned, he spent his days gathering well-known people into his team of the last days. For most parts, he did not encounter problems with herding them. One was that the apocalypse had yet to descend and, second, his own identity played its merit.

Perhaps the people of the apocalyptic world have forgotten that, before anything else, he was a celebrity in the field of medicine. As long as these people he wanted to wind up need his services, they are pretty much in his bag. Though he did not have to do that much hardship for those who trend the same field as him, they are quite eager to follow his lead with just a word.

Another convenience he has was that he is a military graduate. He was able to give warnings to relevant departments about the connections he made during his student days. But the relevant preparations they made afterwards were something he did not bother with.

After months of flying all over the country and storing enough supplies for the space that came upon his rebirth, he has the impulse of dropping by to city A for some reason.

City B, for all he knew, was a very mystical place in the last few days. Vacated by the human population after three months of the apocalypse’s descent, it was revived by a group who called themselves Hyenas around ten years afterwards. Under their strength, they created a paradise that allows no human or undead to set foot there other than those whom they recognize.

If he could remember it well, there were nine hyenas. Rumours have it that they were a gang before they became who they are now. Skilled and well-versed in many things, and those who wronged them are guaranteed to never have a good ending.

They are all powerful people who have great command over their abilities and they are quiet introverts towards everyone. And more than that, they are very hostile to him at first sight. No one knows what their individual names were, and if someone knows, it is estimated those people have already died upon their hands. It was as if they loathed others to know them on a deeper level.

Alfred does not remember offending them at some point of his life back then. But the way they gaze at him whenever they meet tells us that he has done something that has greatly offended them at the highest level of felony. Especially to the woman who led the group. She was practically on the verge of killing him should she get the chance.

The group really gave him the lasting impression that when he unexpectedly found one of them during his visit to the mayor’s office, he couldn't help but try to win him over. Other than their power and resentment towards him, they are simply a scourge that no one does not want to meet from his knowledge. Seeing the younger version of one of them took him a while to get his bearing back.

Albert was his name and it turned out he was the only child of the mayor. It’s hard to imagine the man who was known to be temperamental and deadly in the dark times was just a well-behaved child of a politician. It was a far cry from the bloodthirsty and angry image he had in his memory.

At least to his first impression.

The boy can be considered as a model child of the upper society, polite, well-informed, and very presentable. Alfred was left wondering how he became a gang member in the mouth of others of the latter period. What could have happened is that he forgone everything he was brought up with and became a feared person back then? Well, he cared not about that now, as he wanted to get this supernaturalist to his side before he matured into some wild beast he did turn in Alfred’s memory.

Using his weight to continue pestering the mayor to get a glimpse at how to gain Albert, he came to see that the boy was not really the most obedient person there was. Under his mask of filial piety, he does resemble the man Alfred came to know back in his first life. It is only that he is more subtle in his temper and is very good at playing along with the flow.

After trying so many times, it was clear to him that this boy would not follow him and it was very clear that the boy was not pleased with his presence. He wanted to give up until he found a weak point in the boy’s tough defense against him.

A girl who was a friend of Albert was shown to have a great influence on the boy. Alfred had no impression of her in his past life, but she was a breakthrough he was thinking of exploiting. It might sound narcissistic, but he is confident in charming females to do his bidding. An underhanded trick and a nasty one too, but in his years of being a leader, what else does he dare not do to get what he wants? It is simply too idiotic to not take advantage of what is available to you.

As this girl was not in his memory, he just reckoned him as some unknown member of the hyenas. Though he knows that there are only nine hyenas, there is a possibility that there might be more of them. He could remember a few rumors that there were more of them just being lying low.

She might be one of those in the rumors that have her deeds untold and is more inclined to be on the sidelines, unlike those nine who are pretty much in the limelight wherever they are. Such an existence could exist, but not too common, given that humans are quite too proud to not announce their existence in the world. Especially in a world where everything depends on their strength.

Talking to the girl—Aila Justine, her name— had proved to him that birds of the same feathers do flock with each other. She was harder to talk to and quite tricky in her words. She played him like an experienced host, making him have an illusion that she is someone he needs to win over rather than Albert, whom he was first set on.

But Aila proved herself to be slippery as an eel. After that one meeting, she vanished like a fog in the morning. So Alfred could only push her behind his mind and continue his merry way all over the country to collect things he wanted and people he could bring to his side.

And on the eve of the apocalypse, he returns to the city A in hopes of gaining the favor of the girl during the transition period. Attaching someone to Albert to know the general idea of where the girl could be, he waited for a clue to where they could be for him to make a stage to gain what he wanted.