Chapter 03 - Utilising Available Resources.

Standing up from the toilet he was sitting on, he thought about his next step.

If I were to think about my goal for now apart from simply ‘survive’, it would be to escape from this monster-infested building… To do that, it’s quite probable that I will have to fight my way out. The problem is that I am nowhere near strong enough to do that. To grow stronger I would need to kill monsters, but to kill monsters I need to grow stronger, or at least have a weapon strong enough to do that, but hey, I got neither…

In a bind about what to do, Asmund stroked his chin in a thinking pose, trying to think of a way to either kill the monsters or maybe escape while avoiding them.

…

Ah! I do have a (possible) weapon!

Getting an idea, he immediately tried it out. Putting his left hand near his mouth, he bit his thumb until a line appeared on it, grimacing at the pain. Now having an ‘open’ wound, the one at his side being something he prefered to not reopen at the moment, he started to control the blood in his body, to escape his flesh in a large flow from the wound and gather as a floating ball of blood above his open palm.

It actually looks pretty cool.

Looking at the huge amount of blood moving at his will, Asmund felt some juvenile happiness at the thought that he had gained something like a superpower. But ignoring that passing thought, he kept concentrating on controlling the blood, slowly giving it the shape of a simple short sword before solidifying it as he was satisfied with its form.

Grabbing the blood sword which he was still able to make float despite turning solid, he slid a finger along its blade, curious about its texture...

It feels like warm metal.

His curiosity satisfied, he faced the wall behind the toilet and took a completely amateurish stance, unconsciously trying to look cool. Thankfully for him nobody was here to spectate this scene…

“Hah!”

Unconsciously shouting, he slashed the wall with all of what little strength he had in his body…

*Crack*

Breaking his blood sword as if it was thin glass in the process.

Frowning, he stared at the handle left in his hand with visible disappointment.

Is this skill not supposed to be used in this way after all? No, that wouldn’t make any sense, especially after looking at what kind of effects upgrading the skill has. What would be the use of changing the property of the blood into something ‘flexible’ if it's to not use it as a weapon? It’s more probable that the sword's weakness was brought upon by my low stats and level, especially my ‘spirit’.

As he was deep in thought, the sound of the bathroom’s door being flung open suddenly resounded through the room, making him jolt in surprise.

Slightly panicked, he stood on the toilet seat to hide his feet from showing under the stall’s door, and tried to calm his breathing. But to his dismay, the sound of hurrying footsteps approached the stall he was hiding in.

Shit! I forgot to lock the door!

By the time he noticed this it was already too late as the door opened…

“EEEKKK!”

The one to give a girly shriek wasn’t the invaded, but the invader, as the one to open the door wasn’t actually a monster, but a young nurse who apparently never expected that the stall was already occupied by someone.

Annoyed as she was being too noisy, Asmund quickly covered her mouth with his hand to shut her up and dragged her inside.

Asmund kept her mouth shut for some time while attentively listening to what was happening outside, making sure that her scream didn’t bait any monsters in here, completely forgetting his own pitiful warcry a moment ago. Only after keeping this position for a whole minute, that seemed to be an eternity, did Asmund finally release her while heaving a sigh of relief.

Facing each other, both realized who it was at the same time, but before Asmund could say anything, the young nurse assaulted him with a barrage of questions.

“Asmund?! Y-You can move?! Why do your eyes look like that?! What are you doing in the women's bathroom?! A-And… Why are you covered in blood?! Are you wounded?!”

The young nurse was none other than the one who was recently assigned to bring him his meal. Olga, a blonde woman in her early 20’s with Russian origin.

“Calm down, and keep it down, you're talking too loudly…”

“Y-You want me to calm down?! Everyone is getting eaten by monsters, I saw my best friend being dismembered right before my eyes just 5 minutes ago! How can I calm down?! I-I don’t get it! Why is this happening?!”

Clearly broken down at the moment, Olga kept rambling loudly, tears flowing out of her eyes and snot slowly coming out of her nose. Listening to her, Asmund's veins were slowly bulging as he tried his best to contain his anger.

“I told you to shut-up! Do you want to attract the monsters?!”

“I-I can’t! I…!”

Finally having enough of her fit, Asmund grabbed her neck and pushed her against the wall by using his weight to keep her in place, before pointing the tip of his broken blood sword at her neck.

“I swear that if you don’t shut-up immediately I’ll fucking stab your throat!”

Shocked, Olga immediately stopped shouting, and even stopped breathing for a moment, trying to keep herself as silent as possible.

Their bodies pressed against each other, Asmund could feel all her generous curves shake in fright, making shivers run down his spine.

Asmund was far from being used to having physical contact with the opposite sex, combining that with the pleading eyes she was looking at him with, and obviously a flow of dark desires slowly crept their way into his mind…

He wanted to ravish her, to make her submit, to make her admit that she was an inferior being compared to him.

His imagination running wild, his breath started to become rougher, slowly sounding like one of a hungry beast next to an appetizing meal. But right as he was going to let his inner beast run free…

*Krrrr*

The creaking sound of the bathroom’s door slowly opening was heard…

Shit! Right as it was getting good! Is someone else trying to hide in here?!

…

No… Those footsteps are too heavy and calm, it’s a goddamn monster!

Giving up on ‘tasting’ the woman before him, Asmund proceeded to repair his sword by controlling the broken pieces, turning them into liquid and gathering them back to the handle. Looking at the scene, Olga's eyes almost popped out of her head in shock, completely forgetting about the matter at hand.

The heavy footstep approached closer and closer by the second, but it was obvious that whatever was approaching was in no hurry. The problem, though, is that ‘it’ didn’t stop walking at all while making its way to where they were hiding, as if it perfectly knew that they were here.

The tension at its max, a crazy amount of sweat started to cover both Asmund’s and Olga’s backs. Asmund did try to think up a plan to fight, but he was clearly in a really bad position right now, since as soon as the monster would barge in the stall he would have nowhere to run anymore!

I only have ‘that’ move left to use, don’t I?

*BANG*

As expected, as soon as the footsteps reached the door of the stall in which they were hiding, it was forcefully burst open, revealing behind it the disgusting head of a Death-Hound barring his fangs at the two preys right in front of him.

[ Death-Hound Level 3 ]

Asmund’s reaction to the danger he was now facing was something most couldn’t imagine from a human being. Grabbing Olga’s collar, he threw her at the monster without any hesitation, as if it was the most obvious thing to do at that moment.

Moving helplessly in the direction of the monster's open jaw, ready to welcome her anytime, Olga’s eyes met with Asmund's for an instant, filling her with despair as all she could see in them was… ‘Amusement’ and ‘Curiosity’.

Yes, while he did something anyone would be ashamed and feel guilty of, Asmund was amused by the situation and the expression Olga had on her face as she was used as a meat shield. He was also curious, curious to see how a human looks right as their life leaves the body.

As the monster’s fangs cruelly pierced her body, soft words, almost inaudible, left her quivering lips before being followed by abominable screams of pain. Those words, which were obviously directed at the man she was staring at, were: You’re a monster…

In answer to those words, Asmund gave a simple snort before jumping into action.

Rushing at the currently occupied monster, he used the fact that the monster’s main weapon was unable to attack him to target the unsuspecting beast’s head. Grabbing its snout with his left hand, he thrusted his blood sword right into the Death-Hound’s left eye, easily piercing through it despite the sword’s fragility.

Releasing the now dead nurse from his jaw, the monster roared in anger and pain while trying to jump back to gain some distance from his aggressor but Asmund, who still had a firm grasp on the Death-Hound’s snout, jumped along with it and kept thrusting his sword deeper and deeper, twisting it vigorously with the hope to do as much damage as possible. Which resulted, after some seconds of struggle later, in the monster’s body going suddenly limp and heavily falling to the floor like a ragdoll…

[ Received 9 Credits. ]

…

No level up this time around? Can’t ask too much I guess… On another note, the Death-Hound was level 3 yet the last one was level 2. Are monsters’ levels not fixed and they can progress, or is there some kind of average for monsters’ level? Also, I gained 9 Credits from him, last time it was 4. Does that mean that the Credits you gain is equal to the level of the monster killed squared?

As he was deep in reflection, the dead Death-Hound’s body started to twitch and squirm, soon making another grey gacha ball appear next to it. Grabbing it as soon as he saw that, Asmund immediately opened it with a childish grin on his lips.

*Pop*

…

Huh? Nothing? Damn, looks like those treasure capsules don’t always give you something… Whatever, no point crying over something I can’t do anything about. I should better use my time to try out my ‘Blood Siphon’ while the corpses are still fresh!

Already forgetting about his previous disappointment, Asmund was eager to try out his most cheat-like skill!

Focusing, he instinctively activated said skill, resulting in a red ring expanding itself out of his body looking like a sonar. A second later, after the ring vanished, the blood and corpses which were on the floor started to give off a slight glow, before the blood on the floor changed into a red mist and also escaped the corpses in the same way, transforming said corpses into dried up mummies with nothing left but their skin and bones.

The mist gathered around Asmund like a thunder cloud, until finally getting absorbed through the pores of his skin at an astonishing speed…

[ You gained a point of Constitution. ]

As expected, gaining points through absorbing the ‘blood essence’ is not as easy as it sounds. Though I did think that I wouldn’t gain even a single point by absorbing both Olga’s and the Death-Hound’s corpses. It was a nice surprise! My Constitution is still probably below average though...

Stretching his body, he was getting ready to leave this room to search for easy ‘prey’ to hunt and gain power when his eyes met with the bathroom’s ridiculously large mirror…

W-What are those?!

Startled at what he just saw reflected in said mirror, he moved closer to inspect it and, although he had a hard time believing it was real, no matter at what angle he was looking at them… His eyes kept their same shocking appearance… His iris which had a lovely hazel color now had a blood-red shade, so bright that it wouldn’t be surprising if one could see them in complete darkness. But as if that wasn’t enough, his pupils took a really peculiar form… It looked like a vertical and a horizontal slit pupil were overlaid to make a cross in each eye.

I-Is that some kind of side effect of my class or one of my skills?!

…

Oh well, it helps me look more intimidating so it’s fine…

Done with this place, this time for good, Asmund walked to the door while trying to be as silent as possible…

Let’s start the hunt!