Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Deep beneath the surface of the Yellow Sea were the Merfolk which Zane had encountered in his fight earlier in the day. Once the mighty sea monster had revealed it was nearby, they naturally scattered like rats.

Such a monster was after all something lower ranking Merfolk like themselves were capable of fighting. Only perhaps a noble would be able to slay such a creature. However, these merfolk had absconded off to their aquatic civilization which they had begun to build after evolving over the course of the past three years since the apocalypse had broken out.

And in doing so they reported the matter of the surface dwellers directly to their superiors. Word eventually reached the ears of the young Merfolk noble who was in charge of the Yellow Sea tribe. She was astonished to hear that the surface dwellers were still alive, as they had not been seen since the creation of their race.

Because of this she instantly demanded an answer to what happened when her troops encountered them.

"So you're telling me humanity has survived the destruction of the old world? At least in some limited capacity? Tell me, how did they respond when you they saw you?"

Among the Merfolk was one that was significantly higher ranking than the mere whelps which had attacked Zane and his companions. He seemed to have a far more lustrous sheen to his scales as he responded to the young noblewoman.

"Your grace… They attacked us immediately. We responded in kind but… That monster showed up before we could finish the job. We had no choice but to flee…."

There was a natural hierarchy to the world, even know when living beings were evolving at an unordinary rate. And in the sea there were certain creatures whose might was unquestionable. Like the Horde Kings on the land, the monsters that rule the sea were a different breed.

Sure, the merfolk may be among the most intelligent lifeforms to develop under the waves of the world's waters. But they were not he most powerful. Not unless it was a member of their nobility. Maybe then they could take on such a monster.

Because of this, the merfolk noblewoman sighed heavily and shook her head while speaking of the land dwellers and their paranoid nature.

"That sounds just like them. When they see something they don't quite understand, they resort to violence. It has always been that way, long before we became what we are today. But apparently their numbers are no longer as great as they once were.

Should any more land dwellers try to traverse the waves, treat them like the nuisance they are, understood?"

The merfolk knight beneath the command of the noblewoman was quick to ask if he was understanding things correctly, which only invoked the woman's ire with a fierce gaze.

"Am I to understand that you intend to treat the land dwellers as an enemy? If they come to learn of our existence, this could mean war!"

The noblewoman responded to this statement with a voice filled with indifference.

"And? How is that my problem? I doubt the land dwellers poses the means to traverse beneath the surface of the world's many waters, at least not if their current state is so depleted. And even if they did, we could easily deal with such weapons. I mean, they pose no real threat to us! Land dwellers should learn to stay where they belong, and respect the sea as our domain!"

This was of course true. Unless humans developed the ability to breathe underwater, and deal with the immense pressure of the world's oceans. Then they could never challenge the merfolk for control of the seas.

But then again, nor could merfolk challenge humanity for control of the lands. As they were incapable of surviving outside of the water. Still, this created difficulties for humanity, and more importantly the Horde Kings who could be mistaken as such as they too were land dwellers.

Fundamentally, all travel via the sea was not cut off, and would remain as such for the foreseeable future. Even if humans still possessed the means to travel the world's oceans, that would no longer be the case because of Zane's hostile actions to the Merfolk who judging by their monstrous appearance he had presumed they were hostile.

---

The ruins of Beijing were as Zane had expected them to be. During the initial days of the apocalypse, human cities were laid to waste by violence. Whether fought between themselves or the dead. Humans used every means they could to gain an upper hand in the survival situation that appeared before them.

In the three years since then, some form of civilization had returned to the world. Mostly in the form of small settlements. The nature of which varied per region. But open hostility between human beings and the threats of roaming raiders had largely been settled in favor of diplomacy.

Still ,that did not mean that the individual settlements located in the same area did not compete with one another for resources, and often violently so. But the random acts of violence had more or less disappeared from the world, as it was impossible to know at what strength another awakened was.

If they were a few levels higher than you, your entire party could be wiped out without you even being the slightest bit aware of how you died. And it was because of this that shooting first, and asking questions later was a good way to get yourself killed these days .

Beijing was no different. Being such a massive city, even if its streets were flooded with undead. There was still a sizeable human population living in its ruins. With humanity now advancing to the point where they could openly challenge the undead, including the Tier I Horde Kings, they traversed the streets in groups of varying sizes.

Often less fearful than they had been in the past where being surrounded by a group of walkers meant certain death.

In fact, Zane was surprised by how many humans he saw in the streets, and how clear certain sections were as they had been wiped clean of the dead who once occupied them. After all, the Horde Kings were now at war with one another, and worrying about what humans were doing was a secondary interest.

But what immediately stuck out to the locals was the fact that Zane was not Chinese. In fact… He was only now realizing he had no way to talk to the locals. As he did not speak mandarin, all he knew was how to say hello and that was it.

And it was because Zane was a foreigner, and quite the striking one at that with his multicolored hair and blood-red eyes that the locals were wary of him. And those around him were also obvious foreigners.

Where had this group of foreigners come from? Why were they here? And how did they manage to cross the Pacific? Unless, of course, these were some of the few foreigners who had survived the collapse of the old world, and grouped together for their survival?

Even so, they were treated as potentially hostile by everyone they came across. Because A could not speak Mandarin, and B, they were obviously not a part of the complex social network of settlements that existed in the ruins of Beijing.

It was at this moment Zane realized he needed to go rummage through some old libraries or schools, hoping to find a text that could allow him to learn the Chinese language from the perspective of an English speaker.

With his vast intelligence that was well beyond the abilities of even the most intelligent human beings. All he needed to do was read a textbook on the subject and he'd instantly memorized its contents, being able to read, write, and speak Chinese as a fluent speaker.

And because of this supreme level of intellect, that was Zane's immediate goal after realizing the locals treated him as an oddity, and a potentially hostile one at that. At the very least, if he could speak the language, he could convince them of some bullshit.

But without the ability to communicate, the locals would fear him. And if the locals feared him, Zane could not use them as pawns to achieve his own goals. Because of this, he tried his best to find a place which contained the materials he needed.

And when he did, he was finally able to learn the local language. After all, knowledge is power. And now that he had such knowledge he could begin searching for a way back to North America. It had been over two years since he had seen the women who he considered being his family. It was starting to get to the man.

He wondered how they were. Were they still alive and thriving in Gravestone? Death had said she was protecting them. But just to what extent was she doing so on his behalf? Had they forgotten about him? Perhaps he should send them a message and try to explain things...

Such were the thoughts in Zane's mind after he heard spent a few hours mastering the Chinese language in both its written and verbal forms.