"Everyone gather around. I have something to announce. You perv, what are you doing, don't you hear me calling? Get here right now."
The girl from earlier, the one who had stolen Silas's phone or maybe just borrowed it, and the same girl with an obscene vocabulary, was standing under the gray tree shouting.
The people were very confused, but they slowly started gathering around. Hearing the commotion, Kel and the others who were in the underground area also made their way up and gathered around the tree. Silas and Sophia stood there, observing from afar.
"Why are you shouting, young lady?" a man asked her.
"Shut up, let everyone gather."
Once everyone had gathered and the area was full of people, Silas realized that a hundred people were a lot more than he had imagined, the crowd was much bigger than he expected.
The girl finally started speaking.
"As you all know, we are stuck here amidst an apocalypse. First of all, it is a worldwide event, so anyone still expecting support to arrive should stop hoping.
"Second, now that you realize the situation you are in and I've made the point loud and clear, it is important that every one of us, the survivors, understands the essence of manacules and manalogy, for it will become our last hope of survival."
The girl sure had a sharp tongue, but she was speaking the truth—maybe a little too much raw truth.
"How many of you know about manalogy?"
A few people in the crowd raised their hands. Considering how manalogy was kept secret from the general public, the number of people who knew about it among the few hundred survivors was quite a lot.
However, that also hinted that the survivors were mostly those who could wield and were able to keep themselves safe, for they had an advantage over those who could not.
"I will ask Captain Kel to explain the basics of what exactly manalogy is and then continue with my point."
Kel, who had already been informed by the girl that she would ask him to explain a little to the public, was an official wielder. In such situations, he would be the best, and he should be the one to take command.
Kel continued with his explanation. Some people found it difficult to believe, as for those who already knew of it, even they did not let their attention waver, for Captain Kel was an official wielder and it was possible for him to share something extra they didn't already know.
As he finished speaking, two people in the crowd started clapping.
"That was great, Captain!"
They were none other than the members of his official wielders team, Riana and Milson. The group of three, including Kel, had been on a mission at the time of the first meteorite impact. They had barely managed to survive and had later found the withering tree while exploring their surroundings.
Kel gave them a dangerous look, which made them quiet down at once. Then the strange girl started speaking again.
"The mysterious world, which is also the world of manalogy, is ruled by a secret force, a group of people that call themselves the Guardians of the Divine. Nobody knows their identity or motive. All we know is that they have been working their asses off to protect the secret of manacules.
"Naturally, they are as powerful as they sound. This group definitely, most definitely knew of the apocalypse beforehand and had made convenient preparations for humanity to survive and thrive again.
"But they also don't directly interfere with humans. They refer to themselves as below gods, and they only claim to exist to guide humanity. What jerks.
"Over the course of years, those people have helped humans create the greatest invention of mankind, the tool that is like a lighthouse for humanity in this ever-dark world.
"They call it the Beacons. There are three beacons in the world: the USA Beacon, the China Beacon, and the Russia Beacon. These beacons were supposed to help humanity once the apocalypse starts, and guess what—it has f**king started. But since I don't quite know exactly how the beacons are supposed to help, I tried something, and I managed to create this!"
The girl held a funky-looking device in her hand. It had multiple parts hanging, wires going around, and a large screen. Silas recognized it as something the girl had been working on, and she had completely taken apart his phone to make that.
The screen glowed, but it only displayed patterns in black and white.
"What's that?"
"Well, another thing about the apocalypse, which all of us might've missed at first, is that right before the first impact, the signal mysteriously disappeared across the entire planet.
"I mean, this completely f**ked up any form of long-distance communication. But this device right here? It's a whole different beast. It doesn't run on the basic principles—those stupid electromagnets and waves and whatever other crap. This works using manacules.
"Apparently, humans don't really know how to manipulate manacules for long-distance comms, but the best we can do is this. The moment I activated it, it started accepting signals. Where the hell are these mysterious signals coming from? From the Beacons!
"This is literally the only form of long-distance communication left in the world now. I suspect the apocalypse also triggered a massive electromagnetic catastrophe or maybe it was some global-scale EMP attack? Which moron would even do that, right?
"So for now, what I can say for sure is that we've successfully connected to the servers of one of the Beacons and can receive guidance from the people in charge. This ups our survival odds… slightly, I guess."
The people in the crowd wore confused looks on their faces. Although they understood what the strange girl was saying, it was just too much information at once.
"Anyway, you'll understand when you see this. Let me just show it to you."
The girl did something with the mysterious device. She wasn't exactly tapping on it, for it clearly wasn't a touchscreen, but she made the tapping motion slightly above the screen, in the air.
"Ok, so we are in subsector 9206, sector 3574," the girl mumbled.
"Aha, I get it, so it's 300 kilometers northwest."
"Ok, so I'll have to explain this part because ya'll damn fools won't get it.
"The Beacons have mapped the entire world based on sectors and subsectors. This is necessary because the apocalypse has completely changed the geography of the world. In such a case, they've just divided the planet into large squares called sectors, and then further into smaller squares inside a sector called subsectors.
"What this does is let us directly get the signal from the Beacon, which can conveniently locate us. That's so cool! And then it tells us exactly where we are. This device also receives announcements, so news like—"
"Ecological Dead Zone: 2435#4675," the text shone as the strange girl explained her point.
"Huh? Oh, that's convenient. See, this type of announcement is what I was talking about." She lifted the device to show it to everyone.
"With this, we'll know if there's any danger near us, just by using the Beacons."
"Also, what the hell is with that sector ID? If I did my math correctly, that falls somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean. Who would need such info anyway?" The girl, also a math freak, had converted the sector ID into coordinates and found it really dumb.
"Oh, maybe these are automated announcements." She had a new understanding of how the Beacons worked.
Ecological Dead Zone? Well, the entire planet is an ecological dead zone right now. Silas, observing from afar, joked inwardly.
"Come to the point, girl. Why are you suddenly tutoring us?" a woman in the crowd asked.
"You really are stupid," the girl said, sighing.
"So ya'll know about the distortions that started appearing, right? I believe some of you got sucked inside one and ended up in a nearby area. I myself don't belong here—in fact, I don't belong to India, if you weren't able to tell just by looking at me.
"I found myself falling into a distortion, and the next thing I remembered was waking up somewhere unknown. Then I found this camp. But when I fell inside that distortion, I found it very convenient.
"Don't you all think that if we could figure out which distortions lead where, traveling would be so much easier? So do you guys get it now?"
The people in the crowd looked as confused as before.
"What? Seriously? Ok fine. The Beacons have magical powers—well, not exactly magical. There's science behind it, but I'm assuming ya'll are too dumb to understand any of that.
"The Beacons can predict and locate distortions. They can also calculate where the distortions will take you!"
The girl quickly flipped the device to show something to everyone. The text on the screen read:
"Survivor Stronghold near your location: 3472#845"
The girl operated the device, clicked a few things, and this time the screen was full of other text.
"List of active distortions, list of inactive distortions, list of predicted distortions,"
She did a few more things, and the screen now shone with the text:
"Predicted Distortion 3473#5147 — 3472#846 : Success Rate 80% : Activation Time 168 Hours : Inactivation Time 500 Hours"
Everyone looked at the text in front of them but didn't quite grasp what the strange girl was trying to imply.
"Ok, so to simplify: basically, we are in 3574#9206, and our nearest survival stronghold is in 3472#845. If I further simplify it for you all morons, that's about 640 km… and factoring in the land conditions, it can take us around a month or forty days to walk all the way.
"But there's a predicted distortion with a significantly high success rate in area 3473#5147, which is only 300 km from here and will take us around sixteen days or maybe even less if we hurry.
"This distortion opens at 3472#846, which is right beside the area with the survivor stronghold, and will take about an hour of walking from there to reach. This means we can effectively cut out an extra half month of walking!"