"It may not be intimate, but I rather like the way his blood splattered all over me as I shot him from point-blank range," whispered Gray, looking at his gun as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

"Oi, you. Are you still resting?" asked Gray, pointing the barrel of his gun at Tesse's forehead as he approached her.

The bullet wound wasn't fatal enough to kill her, however, she had still lost a lot of blood, and there was a hole in her innards. Healing all that damage caused her to become nauseous, the side effects of her ability making it too hard for her to even stand.

"Get up and search them for valuables, we'll move as soon as you confirm that you've taken everything of possible use from them," ordered Gray, pressing the tip of his pistol so hard on her forehead that it left a mark.

Tesse looked right past the barrel of his gun, straight into Gray's eyes, not a hint of fear present on her face, "Yes master," she replied, using her spear as a crutch to stand up.

What was left of the gang members could hardly be called remains. Some of their corpses had been turned to mincemeat, due to all the slicing that Gray had done. The others who had been lucky enough to have died from a gunshot had been sucked dry of all their blood, turning them into shriveled-up skin bags.

Not even flies would land on what was left on the road, viscera, blood, urine, and excreta wreaked havoc on Tesse's senses as she tried searching through the gang member's clothes. However, she soldiered through, her master's orders being more important than anything else.

"P-please, s-spare me," begged a gang member. His face, or what was left of it at least, had pieces of flesh hanging from it, blood dripping to the floor as he lay there covered in blood and piss, shaking as he begged Tesse for his life.

"Master thi-" Tesse was about to say, but Gray quickly shrugged her off, he was too busy studying his new weapon to pay any attention to small insignificant details.

"If he's alive just kill him quickly, I want to go looking for more firearms to study," said Gray, a hysterical smile on his face as he lifted his gun to the air and stared at it with great enthusiasm.

"P-please young lady, y-you d-don't have to d-" the gang member's begging was cut short as blood filled his throat.

Tesse had become proficient at aiming for vital spots much like her master. With one swift movement, she punctured the gang member's jugular, flooding his mouth with blood.

After several minutes of thoroughly searching the corpses, Tesse found nothing of real value. Her clothes were stained, red, brown, and yellow from going through all that waste, and her arms were painted red with blood till her elbows.

"They have nothing of value master," announced Tesse, as she stood as straight as she could under the side-effects of her ability.

"I expected as much, very well then. It seems that you're going to be nothing but dead weight if I take you along with me to go complete the dungeon," said Gray, turning the gun back into blood and absorbing it into his mark.

"N-no maste-"

"Listen here. I don't care what kind of servitude bullshit you got going on in your broken little mind. But, I'm not willing to waste all the time I invested in you, just for you to go and die in an F-difficulty dungeon." said Gray, holding Tesse by the neck as he did.

Tesse offered no resistance, almost lying limp in his vyse, "Now go home. We'll commence training once I get back," ordered Gray, releasing her and walking towards the dungeon by himself.

"I'll try to be more useful from now on master," whispered Tesse as she fell to the ground, bruises in the shape of Gray's fingers showing on her neck.

"It seems that she's just an expendable doll rather than a partner. Sigh, which means we can't use her as leverage," whispered a man in a brown hood from behind a building where he had been watching the whole time.

"But still, Master was right. He is a brutish beast, we best act with caution when dealing with him," whispered the man, as he removed his hood, revealing him to be Amos.

"Now to report to the Master on my findings," said Amos as he walked back to the information guild headquarters.

***

"Hmm, Eastfield park. This should be it," whispered Gray as he looked at the information that the information guild had given him about the dungeon.

"It seems that I'm not the only one who knows about it,' thought Gray as he noticed the small crowd waiting outisde.

The portal was still red, signifying that the maximum number of participants had already entered. Several small groups were sitting haphazardly under trees, waiting for the portal to turn blue so that they could enter.

Gray sat under a tree alone, keeping an eye on the portal.

"What happened to you kid?" asked a woman with chocolate brown skin, and a scar on her face. She looked down on Gray who was sitting under the shade of a tree, noticing that he had dried blood all over his face and clothes.

Gray ignored her, only paying attention to the portal.

"Hey, can't you hear her talking to you!" shouted one of the men behind her. They all wore a bandana with a raised fist insignia, alerting everyone that they were all part of the same group.

"Do you have any idea who she is?" asked another one of her men, they were five in total including the woman in the front.

"She's one of the captains of the Riot guild, that's right, the biggest guild in town," boasted another one of her men, pissing Gray off.

Right as Gray was about to refute, the portal turned blue.

Gray stood up and brushed past the group, heading straight for the portal.