In the early morning, the first rays of sunlight struggled to pierce through the thick morning mist, spilling onto the damp rock platform at the summit.
The air was filled with the pungent scent of soil and the freshness unique to the aftermath of last night's torrential rain.
Alice, however, felt as if she had been tossed into a washing machine and spun for three days and three nights; every bone in her body was protesting, and every muscle fiber was screaming.
Especially her brain—the stinging, hangover-like pain made her frown even in her sleep.
"Water..."
She murmured subconsciously, her voice as raspy as a traveler who had been thirsty in the desert for three days.
"Here, drink slowly."
A gentle voice rang in her ear, and immediately after, a cool bamboo tube was pressed to her lips.
The sweet spring water flowed down her parched throat like rain in the desert, awakening her nearly dormant bodily functions.
Alice slowly opened her eyes, her vision gradually shifting from blurry to clear.
What came into view was a long face, covered in stubble and exhaustion, yet filled with concern in its eyes.
Dr. Stephen Strange.
This neurosurgeon, who usually paid the most attention to his appearance, looked like a vagrant at this moment.
His suit had completely turned into tattered rags, his foot, missing a shoe, was wrapped in a torn-off shirt sleeve, and his eyes were bloodshot.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty."
Seeing Alice wake up, Strange tugged at the corner of his mouth, revealing a slightly cynical smile.
"Although there is no prince to kiss you awake, at least you have a top-tier U.S. Doctor acting as your nurse. This kind of treatment used to be something only billionaires could enjoy."
"Thank you, long-faced Doctor."
Alice propped herself up, wanting to sit up, but discovered her body felt impossibly heavy.
Although that [Mikasa Ackerman] character card had granted her temporary superhuman strength, the side effects of overdrawing her mental power were simply lethal.
As she was now, she was even weaker than the fragile rich girl she had been before transmigrating.
"Don't move around."
Banner walked over from the side, holding that precious transmitter in his hand; the expression on his face was somewhat grave, yet also somewhat excited.
"You've been asleep for an entire night, and we need to head down the mountain immediately. It's not safe here."
"What about the signal?" Alice asked weakly, leaning against the rock. "Did you make contact later?"
Banner shook his head. "No. After that 'Mona' voice appeared last night, there was no response. No matter how I called out, there was only static."
"Mona..."
Alice repeated the word in a low voice, searching through her memories of her past life at lightning speed.
On this isolated island filled with dinosaurs, where signals were blocked due to abnormal magnetic fields, the one capable of receiving a distress signal was definitely not an ordinary civilian vessel.
"Mona, Mona, Monarch?"
Suddenly, a word struck her nerves like lightning.
She jerked her head up and looked at Banner.
"Dr. Banner, could the word you heard be Monarch?"
"Monarch?"
Banner paused, then, as if remembering something, his expression changed slightly.
"Are you saying, that Monarch organization which is regarded as a joke and a conspiracy theory in the academic World?"
"Monarch? What is that?"
Hughes, beside them, looked blank. After a night of rest, although his mental state was still sluggish, he had at least recovered from his breakdown.
Strange raised an eyebrow; clearly, he had heard of it too. "I've heard this name when attending some high-end banquets. It's rumored to be a multinational secret scientific organization that specializes in studying those, uh, unknown terrestrial organisms. But I always thought it was just an urban legend used to scam funding, much like the aliens in Area 51."
"What if it's real?"
Alice took a deep breath, her eyes becoming sharp. "Look at this island—dinosaurs, prehistoric plants, giant insects... If there is truly one place in the World under the jurisdiction of Monarch, it is definitely here."
If it really was Monarch, it meant that this Universe didn't just have Marvel superheroes; it had also merged with that monster Universe filled with Titan Beasts.
King Kong, Godzilla, Ghidorah...
Thinking of this, Alice not only felt no relief, but instead felt a chill run down her spine.
Because where Monarch appears, it often means gods fight and mortals suffer.
"Regardless of whether it is this so-called Monarch, as long as they can send a helicopter to pick us up, I'll accept it even if they are HYDRA."
Strange stood up and brushed the dirt off his backside.
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