He was just a tall, average-looking student—one of dozens she'd taught in her Introduction to Literature course last semester. Not the kind of guy she would have paid much attention to before, certainly not someone who stood out in a crowd.
"If you become my woman, you'll never have to worry about food or water again."
In the middle of this nightmare, with death creeping closer with each passing hour, Elric's words felt like her last lifeline.
Just as that thought took root in her heart, her phone buzzed with a new notification.
Ding!
A message had arrived.
Natasha picked up her phone, her vision still blurry from hunger and the aftereffects of the toxic fog, and noticed a new message pop up on the school's survivor chat group—a group that had been created on the first day of the disaster and now had several hundred members, though fewer were active each day.
The message was from Elric.
Elric:Attention students and faculty. I have clean, uncontaminated food and drinking water. I'm willing to provide it to beautiful teachers and attractive female students. Requirements apply...
Natasha blinked at the screen in disbelief.
"Seriously? Is his head filled with nothing but women?"
She couldn't help but feel speechless. Even before the outbreak, Elric had always seemed like an ordinary, average guy—tall, yes, maybe six feet or so, but plain and forgettable in every other way. He wore cheap clothes, kept to himself, never participated in the social dynamics that made university life interesting.
Now here he was, shamelessly advertising like this in the middle of the apocalypse, as if he were some kind of feudal lord selecting concubines.
The audacity of it was almost impressive.
But her eyes wandered to the attached picture despite her indignation. The supplies were real—she could see them clearly in the photo. Bottled water, stacks of it. Instant noodles in various flavors. Snacks and cookies. Even canned goods—soup, vegetables, fruit in syrup—all untouched by the poisonous mist outside.
Her stomach clenched painfully at the sight, saliva flooding her mouth in an involuntary response.
"If I agree to his conditions... I'll have food. I'll live."
The thought echoed in her mind, both tempting and humiliating.
In the face of starvation, pride and principles crumbled quickly—far more quickly than Natasha would have ever imagined back when she was a comfortable, well-fed woman with options and dignity intact.
She remembered how much she used to dislike Elric—his plain face, his quiet, unimpressive presence in her classroom, the way he'd looked at her with barely concealed longing. It had been annoying, pathetic even.
But now? Now those things no longer mattered. Survival was everything.
A Decision Made
Natasha's eyes flicked toward her closet. She hesitated for a long moment, her hand hovering in midair as she wrestled with what remained of her pride.
Then she pushed herself up from the bed with trembling arms and shuffled across the room.
Inside the far-left compartment of her closet hung a gray button-down shirt—silk, with pearl buttons she'd never quite had the courage to wear to campus. Beside it was a pair of black fishnet stockings, still in their packaging, and sleek high heels she had splurged on months ago but never worn, thinking them too provocative for a professional academic setting.
She'd bought them for a faculty gala that had been canceled. Now they would serve a very different purpose.
"Guess today's the day," she muttered under her breath, pulling the items from the closet with shaking hands.
Meanwhile: Elric's True Priority
Meanwhile, Elric wasn't paying attention to the growing number of girls eyeing his supplies or sending him tentative private messages.
At that moment, he was chatting privately with a student named Liam Ford, and his focus was absolute.
But this wasn't about taking in girls—it was about something far more important: supernatural abilities.
Yes, on the fifth day after the outbreak, rumors had begun spreading through the survivor chat groups and private conversations. Whispers of something impossible, something that defied everything humanity thought it knew about reality.
The first person at Hudson State University to awaken a power was none other than Liam Ford.
Before the disaster, Liam was infamous on campus—and not in a good way. A tall, broad-shouldered sports major standing at least six-foot-four, with a hot temper and an arrogant streak that made him universally disliked by anyone who wasn't part of his inner circle.
He'd been caught bullying classmates multiple times—petty tyranny, really, demanding money from weaker students, stealing belongings, even physically intimidating people who looked at him wrong. He'd only avoided expulsion thanks to his family's influence—his father was apparently some kind of government official with enough pull to make disciplinary problems disappear.
Everyone knew him as the entitled son of wealthy parents, a real campus tyrant who acted like the rules didn't apply to him.
When the apocalypse hit, Liam had been swimming in the university pool—the fancy Olympic-sized facility that the sports department was so proud of.
They became trapped there as the toxic fog spread across campus, the doors sealed shut by an automatic lockdown system that was supposed to protect people but instead imprisoned them.
On the fourth day, hunger gnawed at them. The vending machines had been emptied within hours. The small snack bar was ransacked. They were down to drinking chlorinated pool water just to stay alive.
Then, miraculously, two glowing fruits sprouted from a potted plant by the pool—an ornamental fig tree that the facilities department had placed there for ambiance.
The fruits were unlike anything anyone had seen before. They pulsed with an inner light, shifting between colors like oil on water. They smelled sweet, almost intoxicating.
Desperate and half-mad with hunger, Liam had eaten one without hesitation.
His body burned with fever immediately after consumption. He collapsed on the pool deck, convulsing, his skin turning red and then pale and then red again. The others watched in horror, convinced he was dying, arguing about whether they should risk eating the second fruit or let it rot.
But when the fever passed three hours later, Liam discovered his new power: Barrier.
He could summon a shimmering protective shield, either around himself or another person. It manifested as a translucent dome of light, barely visible except as a faint distortion in the air—like heat waves rising from summer pavement.
The problem? It was weak—fragile enough to shatter under a firm strike.
Liam had tested it by having another athlete punch the barrier. It held for one hit, two hits, then cracked like glass on the third and shattered completely.
To Liam, the ability felt useless. He dismissed it, calling it "a joke of a power," and refused to eat the second fruit despite the others begging him to see what would happen.
"What's the point?" he'd sneered. "So I can make a shield that breaks if someone sneezes on it? Worthless."
Now, with his stomach empty again and the pool's supplies completely exhausted, he saw Elric's advertisement in the survivor chat.
The offer was specific: twenty bottles of clean water and ten packs of instant noodles in exchange for that second fruit—the one still sitting by the pool, now withering slightly but still glowing with that otherworldly light.
Liam's pride battled with his hunger. He didn't want to give up something potentially valuable to some nobody like Elric. But he also didn't want to starve to death clutching a fruit he had no intention of eating.
In the end, desperation won—as it always did in this new world.
He opened a private chat with Elric, his fingers stabbing at his phone screen with barely controlled frustration.
Liam:You really have that much food?
The response came almost immediately.
Elric:More than enough. So, do we have a deal?
Liam stared at the message, his jaw clenched.
Then he began typing his reply.
There will be 2 daily chapters, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
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