Chapter 3

I was secretly amused by my mom's excuse.

Oh, yeah. Mr. Welkin was definitely a helpful neighbor, alright. He was so helpful that he even volunteered to sleep with her at night. Also, Mom only invited Mr. Welkin but not his wife. In a way, this meal was an opportunity for the actual family to have a reunion.

I didn't skimp out on the meal, though. Instead, I ordered the most expensive dishes and alcohol. I was very certain that Mom and the others wouldn't be able to eat such a luxurious meal in the future.

After making small talk with everyone, I told them that I was busy with work and that they should take their time savoring the meal. Then, I left the hotel hurriedly.

I had spent so much time and effort on my family. Now, I needed to use the limited time I had to start stocking up on supplies.

While living abroad, I had already rented a villa tucked away in the mountains from a real estate agency on the Internet.

The next day, I headed over to the agency and signed the one-year rental contract with them. Since I had the appropriate license to drive large vehicles, I went to a car dealership and rented a truck.

After that, I began my mass shopping spree at a large-scale supermarket.

First, I bought all sorts of grains, pasta noodles, instant ramen, cooking oil, frozen food, as well as various daily necessities in boxes before having them moved into the truck. The amount I bought could last me for one year.

After that, I went to the electronics section and bought two standing air conditioners, a fridge with double doors, two freezers, five ice makers, five small generators meant for home usage, and two air conditioning fans. I even contacted a workshop that specialized in installing solar-powered panels and made an appointment for technicians to drop by and install the solar panels for me.

Once I left the supermarket, I saw a pharmacy right across from me. So, I took the opportunity to buy the necessary medication such as heatstroke medicine, flu medicine, painkillers, antiseptics, antibiotics, allergy medication, and various mineral supplements. I also bought five boxes of medical products consisting of bandaids, bandages, cleaning alcohol, iodine, first aid kits, and even cooling pads meant for fevers.

I already considered the possibility of violent conflict breaking out during the apocalypse, so I ordered self-defense gadgets online. Some of them included electric batons, stretchable bo staves, switchblades, and alarms.

These supplies cost me almost a million dollars, which made up nearly half of my savings. But they'd be able to ensure that I could live comfortably for one year.

The mountain villa that I rented was 5,300 square feet wide. It was a three-story building with an underground cellar that was over 1,100 square feet wide. That cellar was big enough to store all of my supplies.

The biggest surprise was the well I found in the villa's courtyard. I could draw cool and refreshing spring water from the well right away, so I no longer needed to allocate any budget for mineral water. Soon, I quickly filled all the water tanks in the villa, including the bathtub.

After that, I hired some people to paste thermal insulation films all over the villa's windows. That way, I no longer had to fear the strong sunlight.

At that moment, a courier company called me on the phone—apparently, the huge batch of supplies I had ordered for my family while overseas had reached Chernia.

Naturally, I would never give those supplies to my family. I was quick to detain the supplies on the spot. Then, I added an extra surcharge to the delivery fees by having the supplies delivered to my villa as soon as possible.

Since the villa was located in a rural area that no one ever visited, no one took notice of the amount of people coming to the villa over the past few days.

Considering I'd be living in the villa alone, I took my personal security very seriously. A ring of electrified fence was installed around the villa, some of it overlapping the heavy iron gates.

The external doors of the first floor were swapped to blast-resistant doors. Meanwhile, the second and third floors had extra security doors installed in front of every entrance. All of them came with fingerprint locks of their own. My fingerprint was the only thing that could unlock them.

Then again, I was the only one living in this place. Moreover, I had a finite amount of energy and stamina to allocate the supplies. It took me a few days to finally get everything sorted out.

Now that a week had passed, I sat on the chaise lounge chair while digging into a tub of ice cream. At the same time, I activated the security cameras I had installed in my mom's apartment.

The sight of blood-red water flooding the apartment stunned me on the spot. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe the scene as a literal bloodbath.

Blood could be seen covering the floor no matter which camera I looked at. I could imagine just how heavy the scent of blood was despite not being there in person.

Oh? Could it be that my family had already died before the arrival of the pyro-calypse?