A dark room, a small candle in the center the only source of light, six children sitting around it, their attention onto the black-haired female. Relief, anger, confusion, each one had a different emotion on their faces.

Silvy was narrating the last week, her kidnapping, or what little she knew of what happened, her awakening in the forest and the journey through it.

She didn’t say how she had bested the monsters in the forest. Everyone knew they were dangerous even to Empire’s [Soldiers], so they wouldn’t believe her, and if they did, it would lead to even more questions.

That’s why she didn’t mention the fight, talking instead of how she had seen and avoided them. She didn’t talk about her wounds either, her heart, her breathing, these secrets too big even for them.

Right now, she was breathing. After the first few phrases, she had realized she needed air to produce words, so she had taken a deep breath and kept breathing after that, keeping up the guise.

At the end of the tale silence descended on them, Julio the one breaking it.

“I’m surprised you reached the city in one piece. You were lucky, and I’m happy to have you back.” he said with a smile, everyone nodding at those words. The group knew how it felt losing a dear person, but no one had ever experienced finding one back.

However, it was simple. They were happy. Simple happiness brought from being together at last. They chatted after that, speaking about irrelevant topics, trying to lighten up the mood, bringing out food and happiness to their stomachs as well.

Silvy looked at her place, a piece of bread and a potato. Eating them, the same energy from the monsters entered her body, but if the wolf had been a raging torrent, the potato and the bread were a drop in the ocean. At least she didn’t lose control of herself as with the monsters, the food having no taste at all like the monsters. She could barely feel the consistency, but nothing more.

Hiding her disappointment, she looked at her friends. They were eating in silence, Lion even savoring the bland food, no one complaining about the taste, not in words of expressions. Eating once again, she now knew this problem was only hers.

Standing up after they had finished eating, Rat attracted the attention of everyone.

“Silvy is back, alive and in one piece. We showed the brothel what we can do, that they can't go unpunished. We did it together, and it’s time to celebrate with the spoils of our victory!” he exclaimed, taking out a pouch and turning it upside down, the content spilling on the floor.

Clinking and rolling, twelve gold, eighteen silver, and four copper coins littered the floor, big grins on the face of the males, Priscilla wide-eyed and Silvy surprised at the amount.

“With this, we can eat our fill for at least a month. Together with the last loot, we can live like the rich. And we can keep doing it, hitting the brothel’s customers and living like kings!” Rat announced.

The male members whisper-shouted, raising their voices too loud dangerous, with the risk of getting exposed and have to change hiding place or worst.

Silvy realized the implications of his words, the child startled. “You stole from the brothel?!”

“Yes, we stole it from a noble. He’s a regular of the brothel, taking the same route every day around the same hour. Setting up the ambush was a child’s play. We took the money and ran. Nobles are fat and slow, we are quicker and smarter than them.” Rat answered with pride.

Silvy stood up, shocked. Rat had always spoken about revenge for their group, but she didn’t think he’d be so stupid to steal from the brothel.

No one messed with them for a reason, because everyone who had ever tried didn’t live long. Every few years, some idiot would clash with them only to have their heads impaled at the front door of their base. There were many factions, big or small, inside the slums, but if you had to choose the strongest one, it would be them. However, they were a strange bunch, not expanding their territory or taking taxes, only caring for their customers, retaliating with total annihilation in case of attack.

“How can you be so stupid?! No one survives against them! No one! Don’t you remember Fat Jimmy?!” Silvy exclaimed, recalling the last idiot going against the brothel.

This story was a few years old, told and retold in the slums as a warning to everyone.

Fat Jimmy’s faction was a big one, around five hundred men strong, his territory covered by sentry posts, his members armed with good weapons and armors.

In a single night, he and his lieutenants had died without a single alarm, not a single member hearing a thing, their heads found impaled in front of each of their rooms, their bodies never found again. Many people had known of Jimmy’s plans to go against the brothel the same morning they had found him dead, dead even before starting the fight.

Silvy felt anger, but also proud, thankful at her friends. They had tried to get revenge for her, just like Rat had always said and done, but what they had done was suicide.

Rat lost a bit of color but was having none of her complaints. “They went against our own! I protect my group, my own. They won’t catch us. We’re too small, too insignificant, just another group of orphans on the streets among hundreds. We didn’t steal in our zone either, taking care not being recognized. They won’t find us!” he answered back, his face gaining more color and getting redder with each word.

“He’s right, Silvy. They won’t find us. There are too many children around, and we left no trace, no proof.” Julio said with confidence, sure of his conclusion.

A glint of light from behind him, his head flew into the air, splashing blood around the room, hitting the ground with a thud.

Lion was the first to react, springing to his feet and throwing a knife behind Julio’s body with a scream, hoping to hit something even if nothing was there. The knife hit the wall with a cling, metal against rocks, the children watching it its direction for danger, their minds filled with fear, anger, and grief.

A sucking sound filled the basement, the children turning to see a sword through Lion’s chest, disappearing a moment after.

Everyone now standing, Rat gave an order. “In a circle!”, the children moving in the center and standing back to back, their eyes scanning the room, searching for the invisible assailant, weapons in hand.

Rat hurling insults at the shadows, Priscilla shaking, Silvy and Swifty silently scanning the empty room.

The room was completely clear of any other person, Silvy searching through the darkness unimpeded. She had seen a glint cutting off Julio’s head and the bloodied blade sprouting from Lion, but not much else.

Searching, she saw something strange, focusing on it. It was like a shadow on the wall, moving when you weren’t watching and not moving when you were focusing on it, the harder she tried the harder it got.

Then she spotted movement in front of Priscilla, throwing a knife in that direction, the blade moving towards the child stopping for a moment, maybe surprised.

It didn’t stop completely, however, resuming its movements and piercing Priscilla’s chest, blood spurting out from the wound, the child taken by surprise by the invisible enemy, her eyes wide open before her death. At the same time, the knife thrown by Silvy was caught mid-air, disappearing into the shadow together with the sword.

The group was shocked, Silvy feeling fear, the strong emotion suppressed a moment later.

Kill and feast on them.

Grasping another dagger, she rushed towards Swifty, the shadow targeting him. Rat and Swifty saw her moving with a weapon towards Swifty as if to attack him.

In the slums, fights were dirty and underhanded. They were like this everywhere, but in here they were another level of treachery, allies becoming enemies in a heartbeat, turning again into allies the moment right after.

Not in Rat’s group, the members trusting each other with their lives.

Swifty rolled forward and right, turning to face the enemy supposedly behind him, his movements too slow however, the blade connecting with his left shoulder, cutting deep into his flesh and bones alike, the wound reaching down into its elbow, the child crying out in agony.

Silvy stabbed at the same time, leaping at the enemy. The blade reversed course in a moment, speeding up as if it had already been going in that direction, against all common sense. Reaching Silvy faster than the wolves in the forest, it cut into her chest and her left lung, stopping at her spine. Silvy didn’t even flinch, her right arm stabbing into the shadow, striking it.

No sound came from the enemy, the image of a child in mid-air stabbing into nothing surreal. But the blood on the knife was real, the children not missing this crucial detail.

Swifty was losing blood fast, feeling his consciousness slipping away, throwing the knife in front of Silvy with his last moment, hoping to get at least some revenge. The throw was bad, too high and too slow, the knife clinking harmlessly against the wall, the child falling and not moving, the pool of blood ever-increasing.

Rat reached the enemy right after Silvy’s hit, not seeing any enemy but seeing Silvy cut down, stabbing from the left, cutting only air, Silvy slowly falling to the ground.

Springing up to her feet the moment after touching the ground, Silvy’s green eyes were now white and full of bloodlust, her teeth grinding and growling. Blood and gore were pouring out her chest, left side now split into two horizontal pieces.

Rat flinched at the sight, surprised to see her standing, hoping she’d point at the enemy. Silvy turning to him was the last image he saw, a sword piercing his head from behind and through his left eye, killing him on the spot.

Silvy felt her head turning to the shadow, her body answering to someone else, now only a witness to the fight. All her friends were dead, effortlessly cut down by this shadow one after the other. It was almost a joke, but no one was laughing.

Her body sprinted at the enemy, seeking its death. Her vision changed in a moment, her eyes registering the ceiling and the ground spinning around, her head flying through the air and stopping against a barrel, her body falling after another step. She didn’t feel pain. Anger. She felt nothing, her thoughts unable to form.

But she heard a voice, a feminine one, her tone a mix of respect and disappointment.

“She actually hit me. An orphan child with a [Berserker] class. I wonder how she got it. A shame she was with the enemy.”

The shadow then moved through the room, cutting each head with a single swing, taking them a bringing them outside, impaling them on the ground, a warning to the slums. You don’t mess with the brothel.

Silvy watched and not watched the happenings, her eyes seeing and her mind memorizing, feeling like a dream she had no control in.

She could see the houses in front of their hideout, rotten and falling to pieces, weather and time breaking them apart. She could see the night sky, the stars shining down on her, a light breeze passing by, the two moons covered by enormous clouds. She could see a rat scuttling forward, sniffing the base of the poles and moving down into the basement, hoping to fill its stomach.

Her being came back to her, her mind snapping back to thinking with no forewarning, her eyes registering the basement, the ground part of it. Blood covered the floor, the bodies sprawled around, their friends now dead. They were her family and now were no more. Years ago, after the death of her mother, Rat had found and given her a new family, food, hope. Throughout the years, children had died and joined, but the group was always together, even when hunger was eating them from the inside.

And now they were no more. She wanted to cry but nothing came out. She wanted to weep, to feel sad, but felt nothing, only emptiness like any other day. And then her body moved.

Her hand closed around Lion’s arm, ripping meat from it, bringing it to her mouth. She wanted to stop, to scream, cut her arm off. Instead, she was forced to watch in horror as she ate Lion’s body one piece at a time, tearing its clothes to reach the bloody meat below.

Then she passed to Priscilla. Rat, Swifty, Julio. Silvy's body spared no one.

Each bite would give her energy, expanding her pool significantly. Her body then stood up, going outside, removing the brains from the impaled heads. She felt a torrent of energy rushing over her, each brain expanding her pool more than all bodies combined, more than the wolves had done.

After the last bite, the deed was complete. Silvy fell on her knees, her mind blocked in horror at the act. Then she felt the horror suppressed, her thoughts clear again, the cannibalism act making her feel the same way a walk during the day would.

Silvy stood, staring down at her friends’ heads, their eyes reciprocating with empty gazes. Her head was missing from the poles, the pole with nothing on it apart from blood.

Her eyes had no tears to shed, her body too weak to do something, too powerless. Tiredness washed over her, feeling sluggish. She hadn’t been able to do anything to the shadow, it-her killing everyone. Rage was rising from her soul, and looking at the sky, traces of sunrise showing on the horizon, she swore an oath. To kill them all, to destroy the brothel and whoever was behind it. For what they had done to her, to her friends. For what she had become.

To feast on them.

But not now. Her rage suppressed, only a small cold flame remained inside her. Now she had to disappear, and after that, she would become stronger, become an adventurer. Each slew enemy would strengthen her, not only through levels but through their energy as well.

Climbing down the steps to the basement, she went to the money on the ground, the killer not even looking at them, putting them into a bag. She then moved to a crate in the back, clothes inside it, replacing the ripped piece of rag that now covered nothing at all with some suitably sized ones. Money in the pouch at her waist she left, leaving the past behind, the loss of her friends numbed.

She needed to wash before sleeping, so she went to the closest well, the streets almost empty at this hour, too late for thieves and too early for workers. Only a few passersby walked about, easily avoided by the child.

Washing, she felt the weariness growing heavier and heavier, and clothing herself she looked around, choosing one of the many abandoned houses around.

More a random pile of wood than a house, she dragged herself between the rotten pieces of wood to hide from others.

The moment her head touched the ground, she fell asleep.

[Warrior level 6→12]

[Passive: Concentrated Sight]

[Passive: Tough Body]

[Faster Pierce]