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Chapter 447
🕑 Added 2025-04-24 02:00:07 +0000 UTCFor the next few days, Anton, Anna, and their father did the same thing. Anton tirelessly looked at the front of their tiny lifeboat, making sure that the direction of their flight was always to the west. Anton would always look at his compass, which he retrieved from somewhere every hour or so, and after that, he returned to staring ahead.
No one would know that, aside from controlling their lifeboat, Anton tried his best to liquify his brain by watching short video films from Earth's most famous short video platform. He was still burying his depression and grief for losing all of his friends through those videos, and he was somewhat successful.
Anna and Anders were the same, but their medium was their grimoire. They kept on memorizing their spells and emptying their spell slots once they were full by casting them on the mana power bank, and then would begin the process all over again.
Every morning, the three of them would eat a full hearty meal without expression as if the food were without taste. Anders kept trying his best to engage his children in some sort of discussion, but Anton and Anna still desired to be left alone. They did respond to their father, but it was always less than a less-than-sentence response. Then, after that meal, they would return to whatever they were doing.
During the afternoons, Anders would make his children practice swordsmanship for some form of physical exercise, and afterward, they would return to whatever they had been doing before. If someone were to observe the three of them, they might say that they almost behaved like zombies, but the strange part was that they looked extremely clean and healthy, and their clothes appeared as if they were about to go to a party.
They remained healthy due to Anton’s Prayer Aura, and they continued to drink and bathe in mana water. Their bodies and clothing stayed exceptionally clean since both Anna and Anton were skilled at casting the Cleaning spell. Even their lifeboat was remarkably clean.
One evening, the three started to eat dinner, and even though the food they chose to eat was always light. It was a progress of some sort that made Anders smile briefly. Anton even allowed his sister and his father to use a light spell if they wanted to continue reading their spellbooks in the dark of the night.
Anton still didn’t dispel the Cloak of Shadows spell since it didn’t take any resources to keep it up, and in his belief, it was better to be safe than sorry.
In one of those evenings, Anton’s father quietly announced that he had already memorized three cantrips, and he and Anna just nodded. Anton thought that his father and sister needed to learn the basics, so he lent them the books that were given to him by his in the ship, which mostly cover the basics and foundations of magic.
Both his father and sister were somewhat delighted by the book. They said so, even though they didn’t look it, but Anton just shrugged. He knew that it would be difficult for the three of them to show any sort of joy for some time.
The days kept on rolling like that until Anders announced that seven days had passed again, and Anton just shrugged again. Anna even ignored the announcement. Anton briefly checked his Diablo II system update, and it stated that it would only need a week before it was done. He just looked at it bitterly and felt that it was too late.
Storms arrived regularly, and Anton’s sister and father just spent their time in the small cabin that contained their bed when it did, but Anton just remained outside looking ahead to the west. After Anna and Anders observed that the storm didn’t affect Anton, they also joined him outside and allowed the storm to rage around them. The storm didn’t affect them anyway, and after it was done, they would just cast the Cleaning spell, and they were good to go.
Their flying lifeboat didn’t touch the ocean so they were not affected by the waves and regarding thunder, storm or the wind, Anton would just summon his Valkyrie and Shadow Master and let them handle the lightning and the wind.
After two weeks of flying west, Anders asked Anton an important question.
“Do you think we're still being chased by the undead?”
“I don’t know, Father. I’m still afraid to check back. I think it’s best for us to behave as if we’re still being chased, even though, logically, we know that we probably managed to escape their clutches since it’s been two weeks.”
“I noticed that we passed several islands. Are you not going to stop in any of them so you can rest?”
“No. I planned to do that after a month.”
During that conversation, Anna briefly looked at them but immediately returned to reading the Basics of Magic book that Anton gave her.
The next seven days were mostly the same. The only difference was, Anton and Anna were developing muscles and were starting to become good sword wielders. Anton was surprised that their father started exercising a lot. A few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening, and Anders started to bulk up. His father didn’t stop his efforts in magic, though.
Anna asked their father why he was exercising a lot, and Anders just told them that he wanted to return to his physical peak like before, when he was a mercenary. He planned to wield the magic and the sword both.
After a while, Anders quietly announced that seven days had passed again. They had been flying west for more than three weeks already. The only thing Anton could say was that the three of them were beginning to heal. Probably. They were now eating twice a day. During the morning and the evening. They were having conversations again that were almost normal, but the three of them still did not have any desire to watch a movie or a television show. But the three were still severely emotionally wounded, and it would probably take a lot more time than three weeks before they became normal again.
Their experience did change them a lot. Anton knew that he, his sister, and his father would not be able to go back to the days when they would simply be happy. It was extremely unhealthy, but there was a chance that once they survived their current ordeal, their lives would be consumed in preparing themselves to battle with the undead.
Anton knew that they might not even have the choice to opt out of that battle. He thought that it was very likely that his theory that mankind in this world would ultimately retreat to some sort of a last bastion, then their days would consist of nothing but fighting with the undead, so humanity could survive. It was an apocalyptic theory, but at that moment, Anton didn’t discard it like before.
One thing that brightened his day was the fact that his Diablo II system update was complete. Although Anton was initially a bit indifferent, this was due to his grief. He had to admit that to survive, he needed to become powerful, and he knew that the only way to achieve that was through his system. With the update now finished, his expectations were sky-high because in all the web novels he had read previously, Anton understood that a massive power-up would soon follow an update.
