The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 561

Chapter 561

Even a small group could split into cliques.

There hadn’t been any problems before. Kyle had always treated Ethan and the others well, but lately, his attitude had changed completely.

Yet whenever Ethan and the others tried to resign, he delayed approving their requests and rejected every replacement candidate they found. Then today, he suddenly agreed to let them leave.

After listening, Nicole fell silent for a moment.

“People stop caring once you’re no longer useful to them. That’s nothing unusual. Don’t read too much into it. Collect the food you’re owed and get home as quickly as possible,” she said.

“Alright. You and Mr. Dawson should be careful, too. We’re leaving now,” Ethan replied.

The moment they were gone, Nicole’s expression turned grim.

She put up a warning sign, electrified the stainless-steel gate and perimeter fence, and then secured the heavy wooden door with five separate bolts.

By the time she went back inside, Poppy had already made breakfast.

Zeph noticed her expression. “What happened?”

Nicole told him about Ethan’s suspicions. “Polar night arrived without warning. Kyle should be doing everything he can to keep the security team fully staffed, not suddenly letting people quit.”

“You think the guards are planning something?”

Nicole considered the question. “Wouldn’t you, if you were in their position?”

She wasn’t being paranoid. People could do anything when they became desperate.

Nicole had seen the younger members of the wealthy families mistreat the guards more than once. Many ignored the rules at the gate, then cursed at the guards for trying to enforce them. Some had even slapped the guards.

The truth was that no one was inherently better than anyone else in the apocalypse. If not for the food they earned, who would willingly endure that kind of humiliation and let others treat them like they were beneath them?

Nicole still remembered the argument over the alpaca spitting incident. Kyle had stepped in to calm things down, only for one of the rich young men to slap him across the face and call him a guard dog.

One or two incidents might not have mattered, but the conflicts had been piling up for more than a year. Even the wealthy families’ servants ordered the guards around, calling them over whenever something heavy or dirty needed to be moved.

Some were worse. They summoned the guards just to take out the trash or walk their dogs.

The difference in status was enormous, yet Kyle always remained polite and accommodating, smiling no matter how badly they treated him.

Could anyone endure that for so long without eventually growing resentful?

And if he were suddenly given the chance to turn the tables…

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+15 Bonus

Of course, this was only Nicole’s suspicion. She knew her own distrust of people might be influencing her judgment.

“We don’t have any proof,” Zeph said. “They may not be planning anything, and even if we warned the others, no one would believe us.”

Compared with the guards, the residents were far more suspicious of Villa 50.

Nicole nodded. “Forget them. We’ll focus on protecting ourselves.”

Still, Nicole warned Sven not to open the door during polar night unless he was absolutely certain it was safe, even if he recognized the person outside.

“And don’t come asking me to open mine,” she added. “I won’t.”

Sven laughed. “I was just about to invite you over for cards. We should’ve built a gate between our walls so we could come and go whenever we wanted.”

They were both smart enough to understand what the other meant without saying anything more.

After living under constant daylight for so long, Cola was no longer used to the dark. He seemed restless, pacing around every so often.

With the arrival of polar night, it felt as though the entire world had suddenly come to a stop.

Villas, apartment buildings, factories, roads, survivors, crops…Everything had been swallowed by darkness.

People had always carried an instinctive fear of what they couldn’t see.

Sunlight and artificial light both pushed back the dark, but they felt nothing alike.

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