Chapter 102: Ashore: Let’s Board a Cruise Ship! Go Go Go!

Chapter 102: Going Ashore: Boarding a Cruise Ship! Gogogo!

With victory practically in sight, Misha was getting excited too.

She pressed the start button, fired up the propeller, and got the sightseeing boat—which had been sitting idle for two days—chugging back to life on the river.

"Vroom, vroom, vroom..."

The sightseeing boat tore across the wide river at full throttle, leaving the scenery in its wake. At the same time, the breeze off the water blew through the windows, sweeping out the stale heat and restlessness that had been trapped inside.

Everly stood into the wind, nearly getting addicted to the feeling of freedom.

Unfortunately, the good feeling didn't last long before the engine sputtered and died.

The boat was out of fuel.

Everly pulled out the satellite phone and checked their position again—they were still about 6 kilometers from the city.

She stood on the boat, scanning both banks.

The banks were still all forest, with no sign of human activity. That forest villa they'd seen earlier was probably a one-off.

The only good news was that even though the current had slowed to a crawl, the boat was still drifting downstream. So in theory, if she and Misha just waited patiently, the boat would eventually reach the city.

Everly stood there for a bit and spotted a dead tree of decent size on the shore nearby. After a moment's hesitation, she had Misha dock the boat and tie it up, then grabbed the fire axe and hacked a path to the dead tree. She swung the axe with brute force and chopped down the tree—looked like some kind of fir.

The dead tree was about five or six meters tall, and the thickest part was only as thick as a calf. Carrying the whole thing would be a pain, but just lifting one end? Even a sturdy girl like Misha could handle that.

After felling the tree, Everly used the axe to roughly trim the branches. Then she and Misha each grabbed an end, hauled it to the stern, dipped the thin end into the water, untied the chain, and shoved hard against the mud of the riverbank.

The reaction pushed the boat, and it wobbled out toward the middle of the river, away from the shore.

Hey, would you look at that—it actually works!

The Aparazi River wasn't very deep, and as long as they stayed near the edge instead of the middle, the "big stick" in Everly's hands could easily hit the bottom. The "pole" was a bit heavy and awkward, but with its help, the boat picked up speed considerably.

Everly wrapped her hands in fabric from a chair cushion and kept poling along as they drifted. When her arms gave out, she swapped with Misha. After nearly an hour of this, right at the peak of the midday sun, the boat finally drifted out of the wilderness. Roads started showing up on the shore, along with scattered houses here and there. On a distant hillside sat a quaint, old-fashioned church.

They'd finally made it back to civilization!

Everly watched the shore for a bit, confirmed nothing was off, then she and Misha adjusted course, brought the boat in, grabbed their backpacks, and hurried off.

The moment her feet hit the hard concrete, Everly felt an overwhelming urge to run into a restaurant and order a big plate of greens to scarf down.

But the sour stench coming off her and the white sweat stains on her clothes woke up what little shame she had left. Her greasy hair itched constantly in the sun, almost making her imagine bugs crawling through it.

"Let's find a place to stay and clean up first."

"We need to get some new clothes too—I'm basically pickled at this point."

The two girls exchanged a glance and reached a consensus.

They hadn't made it to their intended destination of Gracious City—instead, they'd landed in a small town on the outskirts called "Hay Meadow." Luckily, the town wasn't far from the city, and there was a direct bus.

The two checked into a room at a well-reviewed bed-and-breakfast in town. Since Hay Meadow was small and rarely had guests, the inn wasn't very strict about things. At the front desk, Everly lied, saying they'd been on a forest expedition and lost their IDs. The owner didn't push it and just let them write down whatever.

Everly made up two fake names, filled in the forms, then went to the room to wash up, changed into new clothes, and stuffed themselves at a little local restaurant.

Only after they'd eaten their fill did they finally have the energy to look into the Radyard situation.

When an entire city's population vanishes, someone's bound to notice something's wrong. The two searched online and found that just the day before—the day after Radyard was bombed to rubble—the Yabazi state government held a press conference, claiming that at 3:23 AM, a meteorite had struck Radyard, and the explosion had leveled the entire city.

Meanwhile, government-bought experts and professors, along with internet trolls, posted photos, videos, and authoritative-sounding analysis online, creating a convincing narrative that quickly made most people accept the story.

"..."

It was absurd, but somehow it made sense.

Of course, not everyone bought the government's story. Especially since, before the outbreak, plenty of people in Radyard had posted about zombies online, and some lucky survivors had gotten out before the military sealed the city off. So there was another voice online, insisting Radyard had a zombie outbreak and that its destruction wasn't a natural disaster but a man-made catastrophe caused by the U.S. government.

The U.S. government was probably monitoring public opinion online, since these posts often got deleted and accounts banned shortly after going up. Within two days, talk about the truth had mostly died down.

Everly and Misha's flight records from when they flew into Radyard would be easy to find. But with so many people coming and going through a city every day, the U.S. government probably wouldn't check each person to see if they were dead—they didn't have the manpower. So Everly figured that as long as she and Misha kept their mouths shut, they wouldn't be found out.

After resting in town for a while and waiting for the heat to ease up, the two grabbed their backpacks and took a bus to Gracious City, which had better transport links.

As the bus pulled out of town, a military jeep drove past in the opposite direction, heading into town.

With what happened in Radyard fresh in mind, Everly took this very seriously. After arriving in Gracious City with Misha, she took the time to search online and found that not just Hay Meadow, but all cities and villages along the Chata River had recently had military personnel stationed there, sooner or later.

Maybe they were trying to prevent the zombie virus from spreading through the river? After all, quite a few zombies had fallen into the water that night... Speaking of which, could the zombie virus infect animals? If so, the world would probably descend into chaos soon...

But that was for the U.S. government to worry about. It should probably be fine, since this world's self-repair mechanisms were quite robust.

Everly began to feel glad that she and Misha had left early—if they'd been trapped in Hay Meadow by the military, it would have been a real hassle.

Putting the zombie matter aside, the next thing to consider was how to get from Gracious, in the southeastern corner of the U.S., to New Osebruck State in the northeast.

Flying would require transfers at several hub cities, as there were no direct flights from nearby cities. Unfortunately, those hub cities were the same familiar ones Everly had already checked. Unless she wanted to experience biblical plagues and riot chaos, air travel was definitely not a good option.

That left land and sea routes.

By land, they could take a train, but it would require transferring to long-distance buses and switching between multiple cities, taking at least six or seven days and covering over a thousand kilometers. Not only did it sound exhausting, but they'd likely encounter various unexpected situations along the way—after all, you could never be sure whether the cities you passed through would suddenly experience the same kind of chaos as Radyard.

Another option was water—or rather, sea travel.

Gracious was already close to the coastline. From there, they could take a bus to the port city of Savanna, then board a coastal cruise departing from Dalifo State, heading north along the entire East Coast until reaching the terminus in Yaming State. The whole journey would take about 6 days. The cruise would stop at several major ports along the way, but not for long—the rest of the time would be spent at sea.

Yaming State bordered New Osebruck State. After arriving in Yaming, a half-day bus ride would get them to Darami City, where the university was located.

With similar travel times, the sea route required almost no transfers, stopped at fewer cities, and if any city erupted in chaos, it would be easy to get away from shore. It seemed like the safer option.

Of course, there were also horror movies set at sea, like the classic "Deep Rising," but those films usually chose remote oceans as their setting to create a sense of isolation and hopelessness.

Everly specifically researched it—coastal cruises traveled in nearshore waters, generally staying within a few to a dozen-plus kilometers from land. At the cruise's top speed, it would take about ten minutes to reach shore, hardly "far from civilization."

So, after a series of analyses, Everly ultimately chose to take a coastal cruise from Savanna.

Perhaps their earlier misfortune in Radyard balanced things out, because the rest of the journey went smoothly.

The two first logged onto the cruise company's website and booked a room on a coastal cruise, then took a long-distance bus to Savanna, rested at a hotel there for a night, and the next day at 2:28 PM successfully boarded a small cruise ship named the "Mary Jane" at the local dock.

The cruise had departed from Dalifo State the day before, with Savanna Port being its first stop. The ship stayed for two hours, restocked supplies, picked up over a dozen new passengers including Everly and the others, sounded its horn, and turned to leave the port.

After dropping off their luggage in the booked double room, Everly and Misha stretched and made their way to the top deck.

This was the best vantage point on the ship, featuring a sky lounge, an open-air café, and plenty of lounge seating. The two leaned against the railing, squinting as the land grew farther away and they were gradually surrounded by the vast, boundless ocean. It felt surreal.

As a small-town girl from inland, Misha had never seen the ocean before, and her gaze was filled with intense novelty and curiosity wherever she looked.

Everly had seen the ocean before, even cooked tripe hotpot-style in it. But since leaving the town of Pukati at seven months old, she had never returned to the seaside.

Until age seven, she feared drawing the Sea Hag's gaze; after that, she stayed away to avoid trouble. After all, crossing from Mount Ilamor's arid eastern foothills to the west coast required a considerable distance—who knew if she might stumble into some horror-movie scenario and lose her life along the way?

But then, heading off to college, she ended up back on the sea by sheer chance.

Whenever she saw the ocean, Everly thought of the fog-shrouded town, the damp embrace of the Sea Hag, her mother, and the gentle humming of that same hag mother.

She lowered her head, carefully loosened the opening of the cloth pouch around her neck, and peered inside.

Eighteen years had passed, yet the hag's eyeball in the pouch remained as gray and dull as ever. She wondered when Lamia would ever wake from her slumber...