novelraw Chapter 67 67: Ragnar
Chapter 67 67: Ragnar
Adam, who'd already been a little irritated by one of the newly met survivors, snapped his eyes to Leon the moment he heard the word "leeches."
His jaw tightened visibly. A flash of protest lit in his gaze.
He was already opening his mouth to say something - probably something impulsive, something that would only stoke the tension - when he felt a light pressure on his forearm.
Natalia.
She stopped him with a single touch, without even looking at him.
"Not now," she said quietly, and her tone left no room for argument.
Adam clenched his teeth, but he looked away and fell silent. She knew perfectly well it wasn't the moment for a fight - not with new people, not out on an open street, not when monsters could still be lurking nearby.
Natalia shifted her attention back to Arnold and Victor.
Her eyes were cool, watchful, faintly suspicious.
"You two," she began calmly. "How did you manage to survive this long?"
She paused.
"You're not evolvers. You didn't gain power by killing beasts… and yet you stayed alive for days outside a safe shelter. I'm genuinely curious how you pulled that off."
Leon's ears twitched almost imperceptibly.
He focused on the two men.
Marek and Adam studied them more closely as well, clearly interested.
Even Roland - who'd been looking like he might doze off standing - slowly lifted his eyelids.
A spark appeared in his gaze.
Not for no reason.
The old man still had the image of that blue-haired girl who'd stolen his drops burned into his mind, and even thinking about her made his sleepy nature a little more… alert.
A few ordinary survivors carrying bags of food noticed the shift and glanced at him oddly, not understanding where that sudden sharpness had come from.
Arnold stayed silent for a moment.
A mix of emotions flickered across his face - anger, grief, fear… and something heavier underneath it all.
Finally, he let out a quiet breath.
"It's… a long story," he said.
He fell silent again, like he was collecting his thoughts.
"It started on the first day…"
"I was walking my girlfriend back to the girls' dorm," he said quietly. "We'd spent most of the day together. Nothing hinted at… any of this."
The storm hit without warning.
Rain came down like madness. Thunder slammed into the ground.
"And then…" Arnold's hand curled slightly. "I felt like something punched me from the inside…right in the stomach."
He stopped. Dropped to his knees.
The pain lasted only a few seconds.
"When I looked to the side… I saw her."
She stood in the rain.
Dazed.
"I called out to her… but…"
His voice cracked.
"Her eyes… were already white."
Victor turned his face away, like he couldn't bear to go back to that image.
"Chaos exploded immediately," Arnold continued. "Screaming. Blood. People… changing."
The nearest place was the girls' dorm, so he ran there.
He barricaded himself in one of the rooms.
"The next day, the door got kicked in."
He paused.
"By Ragnar."
Leon's eyes narrowed slightly.
Arnold kept going.
Ragnar was tall, muscular - he'd trained martial arts since childhood. On the first day, he killed several zombies… and then absorbed their Essence.
He evolved.
"But his real 'luck' came later," Arnold added bitterly. "He ran into two powerful mutated monsters… both badly injured after fighting each other."
He killed them both.
And his level jumped.
"Level fifteen," Victor murmured under his breath, clearly rattled.
Arnold nodded.
"From that moment… everything changed."
Ragnar understood the new world faster than anyone.
He understood the law was gone.
That only strength mattered.
"He made people call him 'King.'"
A few survivors grimaced.
"He built himself a harem," Arnold said more quietly. "Eight female students… and two teachers."
Some stayed with him willingly - for food, for protection.
The rest…
Didn't.
Victor's hands clenched into fists.
"He forced them," he said harshly.
No one commented, but the air noticeably thickened.
"He ate the best food, slept in the best place… and everyone else lived like dogs," Arnold continued.
Eventually, five students rebelled.
"They tried to stop him."
Arnold's smile turned bitter.
"Normal people… against someone at level fifteen."
They never stood a chance.
Ragnar broke their legs.
"And then…" Arnold's voice lowered. "He threw them to the zombies."
Several survivors shuddered.
"He laughed… watching them try to crawl."
Zombies were slow… but they didn't get tired.
The students did.
"They were eaten alive."
Silence crashed down like lead.
"After that… nobody resisted anymore," Arnold finished.
"We ran three days ago," he added after a moment. "Ragnar came back that day… terrified. We don't know what he saw. But he took his fear out on his 'concubines.'"
Victor spat to the side, disgust twisting his face.
"At night, we ran."
Arnold lifted his eyes to Natalia and the others.
"And that's… how we made it until now."
The silence after his story was heavier than before.
Because everyone understood, all at once, that monsters in this world… didn't always have fangs.
When Arnold finished, the restaurant - just moments ago a place for counting bags of rice and stripping shelves - fell into a real silence. Not theatrical. Not staged. The kind that happens when a dozen people stand there with food in their hands and suddenly realize the outside world is even more rotten than they thought.
Someone inhaled.
Then another.
And then almost the entire group did the same, like cold had invaded their lungs - even though the restaurant doors were closed.
Elena stood still, clutching the cat. Even it stopped squirming, like it sensed the mood shift. She'd seen enough corpses and blood over the last few days, but the image of being trapped in a place where some self-proclaimed "king" snapped people like objects made her fingers tremble slightly against the animal's fur.
A few girls among the ordinary survivors looked away, jaws clenched. Sylphia, standing beside Calista, automatically pulled her closer, wiping away tears that had gathered in the girl's eyes again - only these weren't tears of fear of zombies.
They were tears of fear of something far more human.
Several students carrying bags of pasta and bottles of water exchanged looks, then almost in unison turned their attention to the evolvers.
To Leon, standing with his arms loose at his sides.
To Natalia, whose face was cold as always.
To Roland, leaning on his cane like the whole story was just something you heard over tea.
To Adam and Marek.
And in their eyes was something that hadn't appeared often in the last few days - a sudden awareness that it could've been worse. That in this new world, where the system handed people power and ripped away the old rules, it mattered a lot whose hands you ended up in.
Yes, Leon could be ruthless with words. Adam could be impulsive and jealous. Marek didn't bother hiding that he liked female company and sometimes said things that would've earned him a hard slap in normal times.
But none of them had broken people by force just because they could.
And that fact suddenly carried weight.
That was when the temperature in the room dropped.
Not by a fraction.
Not symbolically.
By several degrees at once.
Steam rose from the mouth of one student near the door, and a girl holding a plastic bag of cans instinctively wrapped her arms around herself.
Natalia's aura was no longer subtle - something only sharp senses could pick up. Now even ordinary people felt it: the air around her thickening, as if the moisture in it was starting to freeze.
Her blue eyes sharpened to a colder shade, and the light slipping through the dusty window caught in them until, for a heartbeat, it looked like they were glowing on their own - light not reflected, but born from within.
Leon lifted an eyebrow slightly. He didn't step back. He simply watched her reaction - surprised, too, by the sheer pressure of her power.
Adam stiffened, unsure whether to speak or stay silent.
Marek stopped smiling.
Roland - who'd looked like he was about to fall asleep standing - straightened by the tiniest degree and watched her with a more focused gaze, as if he was trying to see something deeper than a young woman's anger.
Under Natalia's icy heels, the floor began to frost over. The thin layer of rime spread outward in irregular lines, then cracked with a quiet snap as the ice claimed a wider section of tiles.
Arnold stopped mid-breath.
Victor stepped back on instinct, like he'd just realized they'd told their story to someone who didn't only hear it…
but intended to act on it.
Natalia took one step forward. The ice under her foot creaked sharply.
Her face held no hysteria, no screaming, no chaos - only cold decision.
The kind that, in this new world, often meant someone was about to die.
She looked straight at Arnold.
"You," she said slowly. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a temperature that sent shivers down the backs of people near the rear. "Take me to where Ragnar is."