Chapter 1: The New World After the Apocalypse

　　The meteor shower brought an apocalyptic disaster. Strange elements caused animals to mutate, and invisible microorganisms brought countless plagues.

　　Humans, in addition to their own diseases, had to fight against even more mutated animals. Omnipresent threats and countless unstoppable mutant microorganisms—disease and disaster halted the progress of civilization and even pushed it backward.

　　Prosperous cities became ruins, and vast fertile lands turned into hell.

　　……

　　John Foster couldn't remember how long he had survived and fought in that near-apocalyptic world.

　　Ninety-some years? Or a hundred?

　　He couldn't recall.

　　Before the apocalypse, he had been a fairly well-known composer, his career on the rise. Just as he was about to release his proudest work to the world, the apocalypse struck. To survive, he went from fleeing everywhere to leading a team in battle.

　　When the lost territories were reclaimed one by one, and everyone thought the apocalyptic war was about to end and a new era was dawning, he fell in the darkness before the dawn.

　　……

　　"If you don't have the resolve to die, this war is lost."

　　"That's why the world's population of 8 billion became 80 million."

　　"Old Zhao, do you think we'll win?"

　　"We will."

　　"I'm not afraid of dying. What I'm afraid of is that so many lives won't be enough to win."

　　"We'll win."

　　"That's good. When we win, I'll find a place to start herding again. Sigh, the ranch from my childhood, blue sky and green grass... Forget it, I can't remember. Old Zhao, what about you? Will you go back to being a composer?"

　　"'Go back'? I never put it down."

　　……

　　A conversation John Foster once had with his comrade Mark Sutton suddenly echoed in his mind.

　　The shouts of his subordinates before death, the roars of mutant creatures, all seemed to fade away. The pain from decades of injuries and fatal wounds disappeared completely, and his body began to regain sensation.

　　That feeling of new life, like a dead tree coming back to life, left John Foster puzzled. After all, he was already over a hundred years old—a man riddled with injuries, missing fingers, an old man. Even though his body had mutated somewhat for self-defense during the apocalypse and his constitution had strengthened, he was still plagued by injuries and age, always running like an overloaded machine. There was no way he could feel this light and relaxed.

　　Just as John Foster was about to carefully feel it out, a stabbing pain shot through his head, and countless unfamiliar images flooded his mind, so crowded it felt like his head would explode.

　　His body gradually came under control. John Foster suddenly opened his eyes, sat up, and gasped for air. The exhaustion from mental overload made his vision go dark for a moment, but as the headache eased, his sight returned, and John Foster keenly noticed the strangeness around him.

　　The instincts and senses honed on countless battlefields told John Foster without looking that he was in an unfamiliar place...

　　No!

　　Not an unfamiliar place!

　　A scene appeared in his mind—a scene that seemed very familiar.

　　This was where he lived.

　　He was John Foster, yet not John Foster.

　　He had died in that apocalyptic war, but now he was alive again, living in the body of another person also named John Foster.

　　Alive again!!

　　John Foster raised both hands, looked at ten intact, youthful fingers, and moved his legs, which felt a bit weak but were free of pain.

　　This was a young, healthy body!

　　His mind held not only his own memories—scenes from the battlefield before his death were still vivid, nearly a century of fleeing and fighting all present—but also the memories of this body.

　　This young man, also named John Foster, was only twenty-three years old and about to finish his higher education.

　　He was a young composer.

　　Unfortunately...

　　He got dumped right after graduation, got screwed over at his first job, and the friend he thought would fight alongside him betrayed him for profit, stealing three months of his work. After blow after blow, he chose a way to end his troubles once and for all—suicide.

　　John Foster couldn't understand it. The apocalypse was over, and in such a good world, why give up on life?

　　So what if you got dumped?

　　So what if your music was stolen?

　　So what if your good friend betrayed you?

　　So what?!

　　Did the sky fall?!

　　People in the apocalypse did everything they could to survive. To kill yourself over something like this? People who lived through the apocalypse would never understand.

　　But now, after all, it was a peaceful and prosperous era. People living in peacetime thought differently. John Foster himself had once lived in peacetime, but that was so long ago, those memories blurred by countless storms of blood and fire.

　　What do people in peacetime think?

　　It didn't matter. Whatever the case, it had already happened.