The smell of grilled meat filled the kitchen.
Kogan was enjoying the meal; for the past few days, he had been eating meat every day.
If it were someone else, they might have felt sick from eating meat constantly.
Since humans are both carnivorous and herbivorous, they need variety in their diet.
That's why fruits are provided once a month for the sake of diversity.
In another world, fruits might be abundant while meat is rare and hard to obtain — it's the same concept.
The point is, you won't get both in abundance.
Mei Lan glanced at him from time to time.
'It seems the world he came from is no better than this one.'
She took a sip of the delicious red juice.
"Aah… this is life."
Her face turned red from how good the juice tasted, and she couldn't stop drinking until she finished the whole cup.
In the presence of that juice, she didn't care much for the meat in front of her.
True, she had never eaten it in such quantity or quality in her life, but at least she could recall the rich and fatty taste of meat.
Yet the cold, refreshing, and sweet flavor of the juice—it was simply divine.
"Huh?" Mei Lan was surprised.
Kogan gently pushed the cup of juice toward her with his fingertips.
"Aren't you going to drink?"
She asked in confusion. From the start, he hadn't taken even a sip of the juice.
He simply nodded and smiled.
"Seems like he takes the Third Law more seriously… or maybe that's just who he is."
Mei Lan accepted the glass and thought.
He didn't take the bigger bed and now he's giving her his share of the juice—it could only mean one thing: he was a kind person, or maybe… This is lo—
She hadn't even finished that thought when she saw him offering her his portion of fruit from the stall.
"Wait!" Mei Lan was shocked.
This had gone beyond kindness—it was madness.
Kogan stood up, gently patted her shoulder, and left the kitchen, heading back to his room.
"Could it be that he doesn't like fruit?"
The thought crossed her mind for a moment, but she quickly dismissed it.
No one dislikes the fruits of the Great Tree.
People would give their lives for just a single bite of one.
If they had to choose between a salary or their monthly share of fruit, they would choose the fruit without hesitation.
Kogan lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling with a blank expression.
Was this a real world, or merely a hallucination at the moment of death?
If he started thinking like that, what proof did he have that his first world was real and not just illusions or delusions?
"Even if this is a dream, I'll live it."
"Even if this is the in-between moment between life and death, I'll live it."
The moment he was burned alive.
The moment Frederick stepped in to help.
The moment he-Frederick- was stabbed in front of his wife and children.
Kogan's eyes opened, and a feeling long buried deep in his heart was finally set free—
the desire to live.
And living didn't necessarily mean surviving for a long time.
Living meant enjoying every possible advantage.
Living meant rising above all others.
Living means Control over life and death of others.
Living meant… living.
All the time he spent in that city, he was merely alive—he wasn't living.
His life was in others' hands, and in one fleeting moment, they simply decided he should die.
It was only in that moment before death that he truly understood it all.
"It's not too late… hahaha!"
He laughed out loud, as if everything was finally under his control.
Mei Lan turned her head toward the source of the sound.
"What's wrong with him?"
Her heart started pounding, and a slight fear crept in.
Kogan's laughter stopped. His face returned to normal, and he closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep.
"I'm still alive."
*****
After a full day had passed, Kogan received his first mission: to search for and obtain essence.
It wasn't an easy task—danger surrounded them from every direction.
Many dangerous individuals lived alone out there, the most notorious among them being a man known as "Distorted Fist".
Others lived in groups, like the well-known Liu Jian.
These people fed off what others cooked and cared little about the curse.
They were like smokers—knowing full well they'd get cancer, yet continuing to smoke anyway.
When the squad retrieved a large amount of essence, these sinners blocked their way and a deadly fight ensued.
If a person possesses 50 units of free essence, during a battle for their life, they will refine that 50 essence.
It then becomes part of their body, so even if the sinner kills them, no essence can be extracted from their body. This means the sinner will likely consider ending the fight if it's a tough one, since they won't gain anything from it—there's no benefit in dying.
However, it's enough that the essence is lost to the city's vault.
While it's true that a worker in the city benefits from it, the heart of the city is deprived of it.
Moreover, there are more uses for free essence compared to refined essence.
It's like a person carrying a small tree. When a cold storm hits, he burns the tree to keep warm. While he benefits from it a little, it would have been better if he had planted it, allowing it to grow larger, which would eventually provide more firewood