(A/N: Just a small thing, seeing as someone probably going to point it out soon enough, like you probably already noticed the protagonist have some sort of ‘childishness’ to him. I willingly wrote him that way because everything is new to him and he still lack experience toward this world, with time he will mature, although he will still somewhat keep a childish side to him it won’t be as obvious.)

Chapter 04 - The Best Laid Plans...

Leaving the bathroom, Asmund moved in silence while depending on his hearing to try to determine the positions of the monsters around him. Luckily the monsters in here all seem to be heavyweight and the screams of horrors are heard less often, making it easier to hear the monsters’ footsteps.

Walking while keeping his sword in hand, Asmund made his way through the heaps of corpses while hesitating about absorbing their blood essence. Because although it sounded tempting, the description clearly said that the stats acquired also depend on how many times you have already absorbed the essence of the same race. This probably means that the more you absorb a type of blood essence, the more your body gets used to it and less benefits you get, that’s at least the theory Asmund found the most likely. And since all the human corpses around were all weak level 1, he was hesitating…

Should I just absorb any corpses I meet, or only absorb corpses I think are worth it? I would have really appreciated it if the skill’s description would have been more clear about that point…

He hesitated for a long while, but finally decided to give up on absorbing ‘human’ corpses’ blood essence for now, waiting to meet high level ones to do so.

And right as he came to this conclusion was when he heard loud footsteps approaching from the corner of the hallway.

Keeping his head cool, he squatted to the floor and picked up the light corpse of a child lying on the floor that was in a pretty good state if you were to compare it to the rest. The footprints on his back hinting that he didn’t die to the claws of a monster but was crushed under the panicked mass of humans who tried to run away…

Now ‘ready’, Asmund immediately threw the corpse of the child forward when he saw the tip of a big snout appear past the corner.

[ Death-Hound Level 2 ]

Surprised, the Death-Hound bit whatever was approaching it in reflex only to notice too late that a thin man was rushing at him while having a sick smile on his face, which was obviously Asmund who was putting into practice what he learned of the Death-Hound’s weaknesses in the bathroom.

Like last time, before the Death-Hound could free its jaw from the corpse, a blood sword was thrust right into its eye socket, making as much damage possible by being twisted and thrust deeper inside.

In the end, the Death-Hound didn’t even have the time to roar in pain before his heavy body fell to the floor, dead for good.

[ Congratulations! You gained a level! ]

[ Received 4 Credits. ]

Nice! I should put my free points immediately in my Agility stat, seeing as it's still miserably low… And is also the best stat to deal with the Death-Hound whose lack of agility is their weakness.

#

[ Name: Asmund Dreyri | Race: Human | Level: 3 ]

[ Class: Blood Overlord ]

[ Power: 6 ]

[ Agility: 6 ]

[ Constitution: 7 ]

[ Mind: 11 ]

[ Spirit: 9 ]

#

[ Skills ]

[ Heart Of Magic Blood ][ Level 1 ][ Passive ]

[ Blood Manipulation ][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

[ Blood Siphon ][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

#

[ Credits: 16 ]

[ System’s Shop -> ]

#

There we go! I’m starting to have stats that are at least probably close to average!

Done with dealing with his level up, Asmund waited for the gacha capsule to appear before absorbing its blood essence…

Heh? That’s weird… The last two times, the monsters’ bodies started to twitch after 10 seconds, and already 30 passed… Don’t tell me… Not all monsters drop gacha balls?! Are you for real?! So not only the gacha balls can drop nothing, they can even not appear to begin with?! Just how difficult do they want to make things for the survivors…?

Sighing, he gave up on the drop and used his ‘Blood Siphon’ skill, but as he did, he noticed one of its weaknesses…

Oh shit… I can’t control which among the corpses close to me I absorb…

Carelessly using his skill without thinking about this detail, he ended up absorbing the blood of ‘all’ corpses around him in a 10 meters diameter; 1 Death-Hound and 8 humans.

[ You gained a point of Constitution. ]

[ You gained a point of Power. ]

What is done is done, I guess… The pain to my side is becoming weaker at an incredible rate too. It looks like the regeneration speeds up quite a lot when I absorb a lot of blood.

Raising his plain white shirt that was soaked in blood, he did notice that behind the thin layer of solid blood covering his wound not much was left of said wound, and new skin replaced a good part of it already.

Seeing as my tactic works wonders on those dumb muts, I should keep hunting them in the same way. Let’s just hope that there is nothing but Death-Hounds in here though… I should start to make my way to the cafeteria at the first floor, too, because although I’m not hungry at the moment, I don’t know how much time it will take me to reach it while being careful.

Searching for the nearest staircase, Asmund moved away from the hallway now filled with mummies and soon encountered another Death-Hound. The problem, though, is that it was at the complete opposite end of the hallway Asmund was currently in and it noticed him immediately, making it impossible to use the same tactic he used before.

[ Death-Hound Level 4 ]

Of all my luck! Of course it had to be a powerful one!

Cursing at his luck, Asmund immediately turned around and ran away while thinking of a way to deal with the beast chasing him. Making a reckless plan in his head, he stepped into the room nearest to him which had a still-intact door that he closed behind him and faced it while taking some distance.

Using what little time he had left before the Death-Hound reached here, he changed his short sword into a 1,50 meter long spear, giving him a longer reach in exchange to losing some precision and ease of handling.

Pointing in the direction of the door, he waited for the moment the giant dog would pass through it to stab with all he had. It was a gamble, and all he could hope is that it would at least wound the monster enough that it would be easier to kill afterwards.

*CRASH*

“DIEEEE!”

Shouting as loud as he could to give himself some courage, Asmund thrusted his spear in the direction of the dog-like head which appeared through the door as if it wasn’t even there to begin with. Unable to avoid it, the Death-Hound was hit at the shoulder and the tip of the spear embedded itself quite far in. Seeing that he succeeded in wounding it Asmund was quite happy at first, until the beast snorted mockingly and broke the spear with a single strike of its paw.

“Shi…!”

Understanding that his first plan was a failure Asmund was going to jump back in retreat, but the monster was faster than him and hit him with another swipe of its paw resulting in Asmund flying through the air like a ragdoll until his body violently slammed against a wall.

Losing his breath from the shock, Asmund tried his hardest to quickly get back on his feet but his body was damn heavy at the moment and he could barely stay on all fours, coughing loudly as air finally came back into his lungs but brought him a really painful sensation.

“Goddamn…!”

Not leaving him the time to regain his breath more than that, the Death-Hound attacked once again, an attack which Asmund was barely able to avoid by lamely rolling on the floor like a kid. Using his momentum he slipped under the room’s bed through a small gap making him out of reach from the monster's fangs. This pissed the Death-Hound off quite a bit and it started to wildly swing its claws at anything it could reach, soon covering Asmund’s body in shallow cuts and turning his clothes into rags.

Despite the pain and even though staying there would definitely prove itself fatal for him as soon as the bed was destroyed for good, Asmund didn’t move from there, doing his best to cover his vitals and stop any bleeding each time he received a cut deep enough to be dangerous.

This situation continued for 2 whole minutes, the bed now barely looked like one; its wheels broke along with its legs, giving more shelter to Asmund as the bed was lowered, but it also destroyed the only possible escape he had. Once the mat was thrown away by the raging giant pit-bull and the laths were close to destroyed, the situation really didn’t look good for Asmund.

Yet, his expression was still pretty calm, as if things were still going according to his plan. And sure enough, a smirk appeared on his lips as the Death-Hound suddenly stopped moving as if it just received a shock.

A moment later, almost like it lost its mind, the monster started to roll on the floor while roaring and whining in pain, a small trace of blood now flowing out of his snout.

Crawling out of his hiding spot by pushing the bed away, Asmund laughed as he begun to gather the blood flowing out of his wounds into another spear and mercilessly attacked the now defenceless monster like a madman.

“Ahahahahah! TAKE THIS YOU FUCKING MUTT!”

Stabbing his spear through the Death-Hound's belly, he quickly took it out and stabbed again, repeating this action again and again, repairing his spear each time it broke, not giving the monster an easy death…

“Did you really believe you could kill me?! You?! You’re nothing but shit! Die! Die! Dieee!”

[ Received 16 Credits. ]

Taking out his rage on it, Asmund didn’t even notice the panel and that the Death-Hound was already long dead, a gacha ball even lying next to it…

It wasn’t until he didn’t have enough stamina to even keep standing, that he woke up from his bloody trance while sitting on the floor, panting and smeared in a mix of sweat and blood.

Giving himself some time to calm down, Asmund lazily picked up the gacha ball that he finally noticed but he didn’t even have the strength to open it at the moment, so he just kept it in his hand until 5 minutes passed and his breath calmed down along his mind.

Phewww… I didn’t expect that technique to work this well…

The technique Asmund was thinking about is the reason why the monster suddenly started rolling in pain out of nowhere, and was essentially the act of using the broken part of his blood spear that was still inside the monster's body, turning it into liquid and controlling it to make it flow directly into the monster’s heart before changing the blood’s form into an urchin and solidifying it. It wasn’t enough to kill it, but the pain of having its heart prickled constantly immobilized the monster for long enough that Asmund was able to finish the job.

Alright… So what do I get this time…?

Regaining a calm mind, Asmund’s attention was back on the gacha ball, which he opened without any real expectations.

*Pop*

Yet this time something ‘did’ appear, it was a miniature black shirt which looked like it was made out of thin pieces of leather. When he picked it up, just like the boots did, the shirt grew into a size he could wear.

[ Rank.1 - Leather Shirt ]

[ Effect: Con+1, Def+2 ]

[ Durability: 100% ]

Cool, at least with that I can change out from the pitiful rag I’m currently wearing.

With that thought in mind Asmund took off his shirt, but seeing the state he was currently in he didn’t immediately put the leather shirt on and instead pushed it inside his pocket, trying something out. Unlike his expectation though, after a part of the shirt was put inside and he stopped grabbing it, the shirt didn’t turn back into its miniature size.

That's weird… I was sure that it needed direct contact to keep a wearable size. Why didn’t it turn back? Does the ‘system’ consider that I’m wearing it even in such a state? Now that I think of it, if I were to obtain an armor or something like a chainmail I wouldn’t wear it directly against my skin but over something else, so it would be weird if you needed constant skin contact for it to keep its size.

Giving up on putting it in his pocket, he left the leather shirt turned miniature on the room’s nightstand. That done, he absorbed the Death-Hound corpse’s blood essence and that of two human ones who were close to the room, resulting in no gain of stat this time, before walking to the bathroom and cleaning himself up with the still-running water from the faucet. He also took this chance to drink to satiety and walked back to the room to pick up the shirt and wear it.

Now ready and feeling a little more ‘fresh’, although his pants is still a complete mess, Asmund left the room with a blood sword in hand.

Learning from his mistake, Asmund walked around while always checking things out before walking into a hallway and it quickly proved to be a life saving measure. After giving a short peek around a corner, he came in contact with something again, but this time, there were two of them… If they had noticed him as he walked out carelessly he would have been screwed for good.

[ Death-Hound Level 1 ]

[ Death-Hound Level 1 ]

Now that’s strange, I didn’t meet with any level 1 Death-Hounds until now, yet now I see two of them at the same time, even stranger, they’re not acting like the others… What are they doing? Are they… Dragging corpses? What for?

Looking at the two Death-Hounds who were smaller than the ones he met until now, he really was suspicious about their actions.

Why would they drag human corpses around without directly devouring them? It’s not like bigger monsters would pick a fight with them over the corpses when there is so many of them lying around, so they don’t have to hide to eat the corpses peacefully. Just why…

Confused, he kept observing them, wondering where they were bringing the bodies. Following them for some time while doing his utmost to stay hidden from sight, Asmund stayed on their tracks until the two Death-Hounds reached a staircase.

They are going down? It seriously don’t make sense, for what reason would they go through all this effort? Still… This is a problem, I want to go down too to reach the first floor, but if I go down the stairs after them there is a chance that they will wait for me there. What should I do…

In a bind, Asmund grimaced while racking his brain for a solution.

Let’s give up on going down this staircase, from what I can hear there’s a lot of Death-Hounds down there, it’s safer to search for another one.

A little annoyed to have to search for another staircase, Asmund still walked away from there, putting security above all else. It would be pretty stupid to die just because he didn’t want to search for another way down.

I just hope that I won’t fall into a worse situation by being too careful… That would be damn embarrassing…