Now, what the hell I did to make my HP and STA increase? Since those were deeply connected with the physical limit, then probably some exercises made those status rise. The problem is: I didn’t do any exercise, I only hunted and rested for the past three days.

‘It was because I carried around the E.F.E. metal crossbow?’

That was probably the case since the weight of the crossbow was the only thing that made me feel tired.

‘I should investigate this.’

So, to test that hypothesis, I kept my new crossbow on my back at all times. And after precisely fifty hours I received another message.

Congratulations, your HP and STA increased by 01 thanks to your recent actions.

That was good to know; we could also get stronger by doing some physical exercises. I shared this information with the others, but they soon and even I forget about it, why? Because suddenly, on that morning, it began to snow.

“What the hell is going on?” Harry asked astonished.

Just yesterday, downtown was green thanks to vegetation that spread around the city in only ten days, and now it was white thanks to the snow. That was very strange since none of us felt the temperature falling along the night. But putting the surprise aside, the small monsters disappeared. Occasionally, I was able to see a mutant hawk or an evolved one in the sky, but nothing more than that. We also couldn’t see the mutant rats or the bees anymore. However, the streets were far from safe.

Mutant Polar Bear – HP: 1500 MP: 500

Mutant Arctic Fox – HP: 500 MP: 900

Mutant Dire Wolf – HP: 1300 MP: 1100

Mutant Snow Leopard – HP 1100 MP: 600

Mutant Arctic Hare – HP: 300 MP: 1200

Mutant Lemming – HP 250 MP: 800

Well, I guess Lemming was a type of rat, so all of them didn’t disappear yet. But that was the least of my worries; the streets had fewer monsters now. However, those new monster were far more powerful.

“We shouldn’t try to understand those changes anymore,” Rose declared while massaging her forehead. “It’s useless; nothing makes sense.”

“I agree,” Sandra said. “At this point, we can only keep fighting against everything that may happen. It's dangerous only react and not take the initiative. But we don’t have any other choice.”

The laws of nature as we knew didn’t exist anymore, so we couldn’t even imagine what might happen. We only had one choice, keep fighting. The situation was terrible, but at least I wouldn’t have to stay in that hotel almost twenty-four hours a day anymore. The news monsters were much more dangerous, but like the mutant cats, they didn’t walk in groups. So, I would be fine, probably.

It was a pity, but for the time being, I won’t use my freezing bolt. It was evident that those monsters wouldn’t suffer any damage or get slow thanks to the ice.

“Guys,” Sabrina said with a pale face looking to the map on the ceiling. “We have a problem.”

All of us looked at the map, and then everyone froze on the spot. Almost every ten seconds a survivor died and those who were still alive weren’t coming to our direction. They were going to the north and west, with some luck they would find the other survivor’s camp. But I wouldn’t bet on their chances of succeeding.

Come to think of it, all of those monsters probably have a good sense of smell. Thanks to that fact, all the survivor’s away from the survivors’ camp will, without a doubt, be hunted until no one is left alive.

“I guess,” Sarah said with a sad face. “That we can’t rescue the other survivors anymore.”

“We did what we could,” Sandra said, patting Sarah’s shoulders. “We are just humans, we tried, but it was impossible to save everyone.”

It had already become a daily habit, so I checked the status of my family, and I sighed in relief. Just by knowing that they were alive, I received a boost of energy, and that was enough to make me continue to fight for another day.

“Mom, what should we do now?” Harry asked while frowning and looking outside. “The snow will make it difficult for us to cross the city with the truck.”

“There’s no other choice,” Sandra said after a sigh. “We have to create some snow tires.”

I wanted to fight against some monsters while they were changing the wheels, but I changed my mind after observing the monster’s furs. The small ones would probably die if I use the electric bolt or the explosive bolt in their heads, but I couldn’t say the same if I use them against the big ones. Besides, I was pretty sure the electricity would be less useful thanks to the fur.

‘From now on, I’ll have to use only the explosive bolt.’

But it was a pain to use my new crossbow inside the truck, so I honestly thought about putting a mounted machine gun or a mounted rapid-fire crossbow on the top of the truck. But I knew that the others would be against my idea, after all, I would be exposed outside of the truck.

‘Maybe I should create a slimmer version of that truck; I should put at least two machine guns and control both of them and the car with a remote control. It’s a good idea, but it’ll be a lot expensive.’

I wrote the idea on the notebook, maybe one day I’ll be able to create it, and finally, I’ll be able to move around without so many restrictions.

While some of the survivors were working in changing the truck wheels, the others used the statue to create the espionage drone. Since Sandra and the other’s decided to create a very high-tech drone, it took a while for them to obtain the evolution coins. But the result was better than I had expected. The espionage drone was only twenty centimeters long, it could fly at sixty miles per hour, it was pretty sturdy, and obviously had a camera. As long as the user had enough MP, the drone could keep flying even if it was miles away from the user.

To avoid any problems with the drone, Sandra decided to take Rose and Sarah, both of them had a lot of MP, but better safe than sorry.

“Today, we’ll observe the survivors’ camp in the north of the city,” Sandra declared. “I think our focus from now on should contact them and eventually join forces; the monsters were getting stronger and even more dangerous monsters are appearing. To avoid more deaths, we should keep all survivors in one place. But, we don’t have many members in comparison with the other survivors’ camp. So, maybe, we’ll have to follow their rules to raise our chances of survival.”

“As long as they aren’t unreasonable,” Harry said. “I don’t see any problems with that.”

“No one of you should expect too much of them,” Sandra said with a grim expression on her face. “Our lives are at risk, and drastic times call for drastic measures.”

“But what if they demand too much of us?” Rose asked.

“Well,” Sandra answered while frowning. “As I said, as long as they guarantee our safety and our dignity, they’ll be good allies.”

“Let’s hope that will be the case,” Sarah added, looking a little bit uneasy.

Everyone seemed to be okay with the possibility of facing a few hardships in order to join a safer survivors’ camp, but Sandra felt uncomfortable thanks to the fact, that only her son and the two sisters didn’t like about that prospect. Oh… they didn’t tell her about the criminals’ incident. They probably didn’t have the chance, or they didn’t want to make Sandra hesitating in choosing the best options. Although she always had the last word, she probably discussed with others before deciding anything.

Sandra felt that something was wrong with those three, but she didn’t force them to talk. Instead, she gave the order to start the mission. This time only Harry, Sandra, Rose, Sarah, Claire, and I would leave the hotel; we would only approach and observe the survivors’ camp in the north. Well, at least that was our plan. We didn’t know yet if those monsters could be killed.

After we got inside the truck, I moved to the front and put my metal crossbow near one of the holes in the windshield. I decided to attack only the monsters who would appear in front of us because the explosive bolt could damage the truck wheels. And it didn’t take long for me to use it, as soon as Harry turned the engine, a mutant polar bear appeared. The monster was slow, but it was massive, and while standing, the creature was seven meters tall. Not only that, the monster’s arms were big enough to make the beast able to hug the entire front of the truck. But it made a mistake by trying that, there’s no way that I would miss such a target. Harry slowed down, and then I shot. The bolt pierced the monster’s face, and after two seconds exploded, since we were only twenty meters away from the creature we felt the shockwave of the explosion

Mutant Polar Bear – HP: 500/1500 MP: 400/500

The monster screamed in pain because it lost half of the flesh on its head. Even though I caused a lot of damage, comparable to a grenade, the monster didn’t die.

‘What a damn tough monster…’

However, the monster died soon after. An arrow pierced the monster’s exposed skull deeply… again Claire finished what I started. But I already got used to that days ago, besides, it was very convenient. Otherwise, I would have to change weapons, and that would take a few precious seconds.

You have obtained 150 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 150 Evolution Coins.

More than I had expected, even though we shared the monster’s orbs and coins. Well, whatever. More important than that, the bolt had absorbed more MP from the beast than I had expected. It was because the bolt hit the head? Maybe with luck, I’ll be able to kill with one shot, those powerful monsters which had a lot of MP.

‘I guess I should test this hypothesis on the mutant dire wolf.’

Since Rose noticed that I was focusing on the monsters ahead of us, she focused her attacks on the flying beasts. And when she wasn’t finishing the monsters I attacked, Claire killed the ones who got too close to the truck. But we were reaching a limit, the monsters’ attacks were too powerful, and I could see some claw marks inside the truck.

‘Shit, not even metal can fully block the attack of those monsters. We’ll have to reinforce the truck’s armor.’

Luckily that was possible, but it would make us slower. Since there was no other choice, complain was a waste of time. I didn’t notice at first, but those nests and beehives were still in the city. The nests were empty, but thanks to the radar, I noticed the beehives weren’t. That was worrisome… maybe I should explode those beehives while all the bees are inside of it.

After a few more battles, we finally found a mutant dire wolf in front of us. But that one would be a bit more complicated to hit, wolves were a lot faster, so it took time and concentration to aim at the target. I hit one of the monster’s paws, and after three seconds, the bolt exploded. The explosion destroyed the monster's left paw and damaged the other, but again I didn’t kill it.

Mutant Dire Wolf – HP: 500/1300 MP: 1000/1100

However, since the monster was fast, it was already attacking the reinforced windshield when the explosion occurred. Thanks to that, the truck trembled a lot, and after clicking her tongue, Claire finished the monster.

You have obtained 130 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 130 Evolution Coins.

“Maybe I shouldn’t use the explosive bolts against fast enemies.”

Since Claire was glaring at me, I decided to say those words as apologize, but by the look on her face, she didn’t accept it.

‘There’s no mistake; the bolts can absorb MP faster in places like the monsters’ head and chest.’

That was valuable information because the metal crossbow had a considerable delay after shooting. It was a bit annoying, but I had concentrate, even more, to make good use of the crossbow’s power.

Inside the truck we were safe, but I doubt that we could defeat monsters like the mutant polar bear and the mutant dire wolf in a frontal battle. Maybe if I start the fight with a perfect shot every single time, we would be able to do it, but it was madness to hope for that. Even Claire couldn’t do much damage if she were more than fifty meters away from the monsters.

‘Maybe it’s about time for us to use firearms, aim with those are a lot easier and their effective range it’s also bigger. Although, only a grenade launcher or anything more powerful would be more useful than my metal crossbow.’

It was weird, but it was true. The metal crossbow had a few drawbacks, but every single bolt could save my life in a moment of crisis. But, I was beginning to feel that I was relying too much on my weapons. While all of us had at least one, I was probably the only one who wouldn’t be able to kill a monster without a weapon. Obviously, not one of us would try that, but if something happens and we lose our weapons, I would be most useless of us. I could run fast than the others, but no one has ever solved a problem by running away from it.

‘Maybe I should create something besides crossbows… something which no one can take from me, and it can help me to fight, but what?’

“I think we are close enough,” Sandra said while looking at a map of the city.

I’ll think about that later; I have to keep my focus. Our mission was to observe, that said, we couldn’t just stop in the middle of the city, monsters were everywhere after all. So, Sandra took the driver’s seat, and Harry opened the truck’s door. As fast as possible, Sarah made the drone fly. While I was a bit interested in the drone’s vision, I didn’t drop my guard and looked at all directions searching for enemies. But since Sandra was just driving around a block, after a few minutes, we killed every nearby monster.

“Sarah, what do you see?” Sandra asked while driving.

“Their base is a hotel very similar to ours,” Sarah answered while frowning. “But something is weird. Their base isn’t being attacked, and they aren’t leaving, but many people are outside of the hotel. However, only a few of them are attacking the monsters with firearms; the others are unarmed.”

“That’s undoubtedly strange,” Harry said.

“… Tell me in detail about their positions and actions.” Sandra said after thinking for a few seconds.

“Those who are killing the monsters are near the hotel,” Sarah answered still frowning. “While the unarmed ones are at least fifty meters away from the hotel… it seems those people with firearms aren’t even using their own MP to reload the weapons. Another big group of people inside the hotel was doing it for them.”

Maybe we jumped to conclusions, but it was pretty much evident that our future allies were using other survivors as a bait to lure the monsters and also made others reload their weapons. We are lucky, aren’t we?