For what its worth, right out the gate, the story kept me engaged and created the scenario of a sole survivor and his struggles being alone. The narrative is very clear so far with my only minor confusion was why the fighting started but I'm assuming will be cleared up in the future which does create that "want" to see how this all happens.
For the art, yes artists do deserve their credit and AI generated stuff is super common these days. It's pretty hard to come up with all the funds to have talented individuals put together everything, especially if the project isn't being fully self earning and requires the funds to come out of pocket. Make it work however you need to without compromising your values.
As a whole, I really look forward to seeing how this story goes and do hope to see it to its completion. In terms of any other critiques or reviews about it, a couple grammatical mistakes, but nothing super major. Keep up the good work and can't wait for the next update 😀