Khalifa: Queen in the Apocalypse

To make him feel at ease after his outburst, Khalifa at least came to see him off at the airport. She did not go down the car for her safety however, especially since the scandal.

"Don't… spend too much time on them." He said, his tone almost begging. Her expression softened and kissed him.

"It's only a little over a month before the apocalypse. I have more things to catch up on than sex…"

He nodded in agreement. "Indeed." Then he looked at her. "I actually have a house in City G."

"That falls within a month."

"..."

In the end, he just heaved a sigh."Fine, I'll sell it and try to find another property." As for the speed of turnover, he also needed to consider it.

He then prepared to get out of the car when Khalifa pulled in his collar to give him a deep kiss. "Be careful."

His heart raced and he smiled warmly, happy that she was making an effort to comfort him.

"Of course." He said, giving her mouth one last lick before leaving. 'I still need to eat you up, after all."

***

That day, she was wearing her full disguise with her braid and glasses, going out for a walk to check out the items in her warehouse.

She took time to walk around, wondering what the heck she was doing. While much of the materials were settled, the place to settle was still undetermined.

From the books all she knew was City A, City F, and the capitol was still standing.

There should still be others, as implied by different minor characters, but names weren't mentioned so she wasn't aware of them.

She heaved a soft sigh, chewing on the sweet snack she took out from space.

She thought more when she ate, she discovered, and maybe she'd discover more if she ate more varieties of snacks…

Other than a place to settle, she had another problem: Her strength.

Although she had noticed mysterious improvements compared to when she first came here, she was just reaching the average strength of a woman at best.

In the apocalypse, the first to die were women.

She wasn't sure how supernatural powers worked and whether she would awaken them, so she could only depend on physical strength.

Her old world was peaceful, but not always so. Until about a few decades before she was born, there had been frequent wars and attrition, so students until her time had studied the basic magics from a young age.

But this was magic.

Her world didn't have systematic training for 'martial arts'. It was either you had magic or you didn't.

If you didn't and you didn't want to live a boring normal peaceful life then the path was improving physique using potions or secret techniques that had a side effect of making people look too muscular.

She didn't have any of those options at the moment.

While thinking of whether to enroll in a class or something, her bus finally arrived at her stop and she went down.

Eventually, she reached the warehouse to choose more things to place in her pitiful space, which mostly had stuff bought from her shopping with the Professor.

Except for the electronics, which were still being produced, everything else had been delivered and snuggly stored in her space.

Speaking of, at the time, she thought she had been able to squeeze in a bit more than she originally estimated.

However, she did not think much of it until she went to the warehouse this time to finally gather some things in her space... and realized it was a few cubic meters larger!

After all, she knew how little space was left the last time she used it. (She didn't check any more after that; the loss of her big space was so painful that she didn't want to see it again).

Even the black land is now 2 square meters!

Perhaps her old physique slowly returned through time? Or was there something else?

She was born with this space and it was already quite large by then. She never had to stock up too much so she never really knew how big it was.

So she pointedly measured her space this time. The space increased from one hundred cubic meters when she arrived to about 110 cubic, and the black land was now 1.67 sqm big.

She didn't know why this happened, but this put her in a very good mood.

***

On the way to her house, she went to see the old man and the dogs, bringing them a full bag of burgers this time.

What was different was that the Old man's dementia hit again, because when she handed the food to him there was not only gratitude but also guilt and nonrecognition.

If he could still walk properly, she might be able to get him a job with her current resources. Not to mention, his illness was an unfortunate liability, she didn't know anyone who could help him get a job.

"Thank you young lady, you will be blessed."

"Thank you old man, for helping me out as well."

She could remember a vague memory of the Other Her, staring blankly at the river, wondering why she was alive.

She was just molested by her boss at a part-time job. She escaped, but she lost her job in the most humiliating way.

It was her darkest moment. She had been struggling all her life, but no matter how hard she tried, the quicksand of suffering and infairness just kept pulling her back.

It was this old man dragging his legs that told her it would be alright. That everything would pass.

Those few words saved her life.

With a smile, she joined the old man with her own hamburger.

As she tasted the explosion of flavors hit her taste buds, she hummed, thinking this was a great world indeed.

Before the apocalypse comes, anyway.

She wondered if there was a way to maintain this fresh food even after the disaster…

"What are you thinking about, little lady?"

"Well, I'm thinking of how to keep a good lifestyle even after the world ended…" she mumbled. "But it needed too much money…"

The old man blinked, not understanding what she was talking about, and she just shook her head.

Anyway, she'd be thinking about these later, when she got more resources to play with.

Hey, she was still self-aware…