CHAPTER 71: TROUBLE

Rosalia — POV

All my attempts to make Liz explain what she meant earlier failed completely. No matter how gently or how directly I tried, her expression didn’t shift even a little.

Her face remained stiff, her eyes dull and unreadable, as if she had locked every thought behind an iron door I couldn’t open.

In the end, I had no choice but to head toward the place Cassel had pointed at earlier.

To be honest, it was a small shop—smaller than I expected—but surprisingly neat. Every shelf was dusted, every rack carefully arranged.

The apocalyptic world outside felt distant here.

The faint smell of old fabric lingered in the air, mixing with the metallic scent the apocalypse had engraved into everything.

The shop had a modest selection of women’s clothing.

Underwear folded into tidy stacks.

A few boxes of the kinds of feminine necessities that felt like luxuries these days.

Cassel... that painfully shy man.

Had he actually set foot into a place like this before? Is that why he told me to check this one specifically?

The thought made heat rise to my face—not out of embarrassment, but out of disbelief. That quiet man could barely look me in the eye without turning red.

Imagining him walking around this place was almost absurd.

But reality was harsher. Women in the apocalypse really were miserable.

They didn’t have proper underwear—let alone pads or anything remotely comfortable. Everything was rationed, reused, and fought over.

No woman should have to struggle just to feel human.

Since I was already here, I should grab everything I could.

The more prepared I was, the less likely I’d embarrass myself in front of Cassel and the others later.

"Did you take everything you need?"

Liz’s quiet voice cut through my thoughts.

Even though her expression was softer now than before, her mood hadn’t improved. A heavy gloom clung to her like a shadow she couldn’t shake off.

When I told her that I was done and we should head back, Liz didn’t move. She simply stood there, rooted in place, staring at me.

Her eyes didn’t blink.

Not once.

She just watched me with a strange, unsettling focus that made my skin prickle.

Minutes passed. I had no idea what was running through her mind, why she was acting so unlike herself, or why her gaze felt so suffocating.

I asked her what was wrong partly out of concern... and partly because the way she stared at me genuinely scared me.

"Liz... is there something you want to say to me?"

She didn’t respond. She didn’t even twitch. It was like she hadn’t heard me at all.

I was about to turn away and give her space when her voice suddenly rose behind me.

"Rosalia... I like Henry."

I froze.

My head snapped back toward her so fast it almost hurt.

Shock wasn’t enough to describe what hit me.

Henry?

Her?

Those two?

In the original novel, I never remembered anything remotely like that.

No foreshadowing, no hints, no suspicious glances. Nothing.

Could it be that Liz really developed feelings for Henry?

That sly, shameless fox.

Liz was far, far too good for someone like him.

But the moment Liz saw the shock on my face, something inside her twisted.

Her expression contorted in a way I’d never seen.

Her tone shifted—anger simmering beneath layers of something darker, more desperate.

"I’ve seen how you hover around the boss all the time. You love him, don’t you?"

"What?"

We were talking about her feelings for Henry—where did this nonsense about her boss and me come from?

"Rosalia... please give Henry to me. You already have the boss, after all."

I nearly lost my balance.

No.

No, I must be dreaming.

Yes—this had to be a dream. A really strange, really stupid dream.

Otherwise, how could I possibly explain hearing Liz begging me... begging me... to hand her Henry?

As if Henry were an object I owned.

As if I had any claim on him whatsoever.

"Liz, what the hell?"

"You don’t love him anyway. So what if you just let me have him?"

Her voice trembled—then cracked into a frantic shout.

I instinctively stepped back. Twice.

You can’t blame me for wanting to flee. Liz’s expression was terrifying—wild, unstable, unrecognizable. And I knew, with chilling certainty, that she wasn’t in any state to reason with.

Her eyes—once warm—now looked at me like I was her sworn enemy. Like she wanted nothing more than to crush me under her heel.

I...I needed to get out of here.

Run.

My instincts screamed it over and over—save yourself.

But I wasn’t quiet enough. My foot scraped against the floor. Liz noticed instantly.

And that... was the problem.

"Why are you running? Is it because you don’t want to give him to me? You want to keep him for yourself, don’t you?"

"Speak!"

Her voice cracked, each word sharper than the last.

"From the moment I saw you, I knew you were the type to seduce others.

How dare you take both the boss and Henry? How dare you lure them both?

Because of you—because of your presence—Henry doesn’t look at me anymore. Because of you, he looks at me with hatred. With anger. It’s all because of you... all because of you... If only you weren’t here!"

Liz clutched her head.

Hard.

Her fingers dug into her scalp.

Pain twisted her features into something agonized and monstrous.

My heart pounded painfully. Something was wrong.

Terribly, horribly wrong.

This wasn’t Liz.

What was happening to her?

I stepped closer—hesitant, careful—two small steps.

At some point, I had dropped everything I’d been carrying without even realizing it.

"Liz. Look at me. Liz—are you okay?"

"No... don’t come closer. I... I can’t... control it..."

Her eyes flickered—clear for a second, then clouded by a strange, eerie fog.

A chill crawled up my spine.

Then Liz spoke again—but this time her voice was low, venomous, soaked in malice that didn’t belong to her.

"Yes... You’re the root of everything. If I kill you, everything will go back to normal. Henry will look at me with love again... he’ll trust me... he’ll smile at me. Yes... If I kill you, I can have my Henry back..."

She muttered, half-coherent, but I understood perfectly.

She wanted to kill me.

She truly believed killing me would fix her world.

I opened my mouth—to scream, to call for help, to beg—anything—

But something moved in the corner of the shop.

A small black shape.

We must have missed it earlier—maybe we assumed it was trash or a lump of cloth. But now, seeing it shift, seeing the faint jerky movement—

Warning bells exploded in my head.

Too late.

The small black thing wasn’t an object—

It was a child zombie.

A child zombie.

And not just an ordinary one—its movements were too deliberate, too measured. Its eyes glowed faintly with an unnatural intelligence.

A highly evolved child zombie.

Everything clicked at once.

Liz’s unstable behavior.

Her wild emotions.

Her incoherent thoughts.

Her sudden obsession.

Her loss of reason.

That cursed zombie...

It could manipulate the mind.

And we—

We were in deep, irreparable trouble.