After my threat, Charles looked more cooperative than I thought he would be. But it was probably because he really wanted to kill those guys who were using him. I didn’t notice before, but he had a lot of scars around his body. Thanks to the hotel, he could heal a lot faster, but the scars would never disappear. The pain, the anger, and the shame, he will never forget it.

“How many people are in control here?”

“Not many as you think, only ten,” Charles answered with a serious expression. “But there are sixty heavy-armed men inside the hotel, although they have weapons and are also willingly using us to lure the monsters, fifty of them are being controlled by those ten.”

“Ten, huh. After I kill those ten, maybe I can put the others under my control with that skill.”

“It’s not as simple as you think,” Charles explained. “As you already know, skills have limits, but they can get better, more powerful. With that skill at level one, you can only control ten people. Not only that, to control a person, you need that person permission first.”

“As I expected, there are a few limitations. But what do you mean by permission?”

“It’s simple,” Charles explained. “To activate the skill on a person, that person has to be controlled. Those ten guys found that hotel first, and they only let enter the people who accepted to be controlled by them. We didn’t have any choice, we lost many allies, and they were stronger.”

One more fact to prove that I was wrong, and I was beginning to feel bad because of it. Although my negative thoughts influenced me a lot, it still didn’t change that fact.

“If I get rid of those ten guys, what do you think the others will do?”

“I think they’ll fight among themselves to become the new leader,” Charles answered while frowning. “I’m not sure, but I think if two persons who have the same skill fight against each other, the victorious will obtain the skill’s progress of the defeated. This happened a few times before, an armed guy wanted a girl who was being controlled by another guy, they fought, and all the people under control of the defeated guy began to be controlled by the first guy. Although he recently had obtained that skill.”

“Maybe I can use that… but that means those armed guys are taking women for themselves, is that true?”

“Yes,” Charles said while clenching his fists and teeth. “Ken, that fucker… he is controlling my little sister and my girlfriend.”

“I see… by the way, that name sounds familiar.”

“Are you messing with me or did you really forget about us?” Charles asked, annoyed. “Ken is the one who started the fight two years ago. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t an asshole back then. But after that fight, he changed, he left the school and created a gang. I heard that he was looking for you, but I guess he never found you. They called themselves the brotherhood, and those gangsters are the ones who are controlling the hotel.”

Why am I meeting those guys in this kind of situation? And was he implying that the whole situation was my fault? That was just crazy.

“It’s not really my problem the choices he made in life. By the way, which restrictions did he put on you?”

“As long as they have MP, they can order us to do anything,” Charles explained. “For the men, they give us the order to stay around the hotel and lure the monsters, they also ordered us not to try to escape, and we can’t attack them. The women and children are responsible for reloading the weapons and everything else.”

“I see, that may be useful too. But how can I identify the brotherhood members? I need to get rid of them without giving them the chance to escape.”

“In that case,” Charles said after a few seconds. “Our best chance is to attack them while they are in their rooms. They are the only ones who can sleep on the bedrooms, they and the women they took for themselves.”

“Not us, only me. You can’t attack them, and if you try, they’ll notice. Besides, we can’t fight inside the hotel. Anyway, do you know how much evolution coins are necessary to buy the skill they are using it? By the way, what is the skill name?”

“I think it is domination,” Charles said after thinking for a few seconds. “It was the only strange word Ken said when he was near the statue with the others. The price is five thousand evolution coins; I heard him said that many times.”

It was cheaper than I thought, probably because the skill would be useless unless you force the others to accept it. Besides, one person could only control those who were weaker. With the city in this situation, if one person tries to blackmail a stronger person, it was pretty much asking for a painful death.

But even so that was a problem, I didn’t have evolution coins anymore, and I had to attack them as soon as possible, after all, Harry’s group might arrive tomorrow. I was pretty sure of that; I disappeared without saying anything after all. They were probably thinking that I was plotting something, and if Claire reveals to them what we discussed previously, they will cross the city even in the middle of the night. In a way, there were even more stupid than me.

‘How I can obtain so much evolution coins as fast as possible?’

Even if I try to kill many mutant polar bears, it wouldn’t be fast enough. But I had an option; it was crazy, it was by far the craziest thing that I ever did. However, I could obtain a lot of evolution coins if I explode the beehives.

‘Someone, please put a straightjacket on me. I’m no longer a sane person.’

Why would I have to go that far to help strangers? If I got hit by the single sting of those mutant bees in my head I would die, but at least I would die trying to help strangers, that was a good motive, right? Not enough for me, I didn’t have the responsibility of helping every single person in the city.

‘Let’s look on the bright side, if I succeed, the city will have fewer assholes, and Harry’s group will have more allies. That way, they could make them solve other problems instead of me. Not only that, I could obtain a small army of assholes, and I also will obtain the evolution coins of Ken’s gang.’

With some luck, I could even obtain enough evolution coins to learn the meditation skill. Since Ken only made the men broke their physical limits to make them more durable against the monsters, the women and children probably only broke their mental limits to have more MP and reload the guns many times. Even though their strengths and equipment had been neglected, those five hundred people would become a fearsome force.

‘See? We will obtain many benefits; the only downside was that I could die in the process.’

Whatever, I already had lost an entire night and half of a day to arrive at this place. I had no choice but to risk everything to obtain those benefits.

“What time do you guys usually return to the hotel?”

“Usually, we return one hour before dusk,” Charles answered a bit confused. “So, we still have three hours left. Why do you ask?”

“I’m going to kill some monsters to obtain those five thousand evolution coins, stay here.”

Without waiting for an answer, I left Charles behind, and when I was three hundred meters away from that place, I deactivated the cape. I didn’t know if I would be able to obtain those mutant bees’ honey if I explode those beehives, so I had to conserve my MP as much as possible. Luckily, after a few minutes, I already found the first beehive.

I could probably kill one bee with a single metal bolt. However, those beehives had one hundred bees inside them. So to avoid any major problems, I had to kill half of them with my explosive bolt, the problem was: could the bolt explode suck the beehive’s MP? That thing even had MP? There was only one way to find out.

‘Just to make sure, I think I’ll put a bottle of lemonade in my mouth to drink after my first shot.’

Most of the bees were near the center of the beehive, so when I was fifty meters away from it, and I didn’t see any other monsters around I aimed, and I pulled the trigger. After two seconds the bolt exploded, but even before that I already had the vampire hunter’s crossbow in my hands. Pieces of the beehive covered in snow flew around and saw dozens of bees being tossed in all directions.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Coins.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Coins.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Coins.

…

Those messages appeared dozens of times inside my mind, but I ignored them all and began to shot at the bees which didn’t have exploded in pieces. I didn’t even aim properly; I just shot in the right direction, hoping that would be enough to kill them. I received those messages soon after most of those shots, but unfortunately, after five seconds, the bees recovered themselves and began to look for me. Since I was far away, could kill more ten of them before the monsters could see me. But in the end, that hadn’t been enough. I still could see twenty of them alive and flying in my direction.

‘Oh boy, I have no other choice.’

I summoned the spiritual knife and held it tightly with my left hand, ready to use it, while I was still shooting with the vampire hunter’s crossbow with my right hand. I managed to kill another five before the first bee could attack me, but even so, I managed to block the sting using the spiritual knife and kill the creature with the crossbow. Another Bee tried to attack me from behind, but my ears picked the beast’s movement, so I took one step to the side, and I managed to avoid it. I was faster than then, but I wouldn’t be able to avert five attacks at the same time, so I didn’t lose a single opportunity to pull the trigger when I saw it.

Again, another tried to attack me from behind, and instead of moving from that spot, I just crouched a little bit and I split the bee in two using the spiritual knife. I wasn’t physically stronger, but even though the bees got bigger and faster, they weren't studier. At the same, I cut the bee I aimed at another, thank God those monsters were too stupid to synchronize and attack at the same time. After more twenty seconds without breathing and only moving around slashing the monsters and piercing them with my bolts. The fight ended, and I fell on the snow. The battle didn’t last even a minute, but I spend twenty percent of my STA. Probably because I was moving around as fast as possible and using all my senses to feel the bees attacks.

‘Oh shit… do I have to do this more six times?’

I obtained eight hundred evolution coins in a single minute, but there was no way that I could that in sequence. But I put that thought aside and tried to find my spoils, the mutant bees’ honey would help me to recover, and they would also sell for a quite reasonable price. However, just like dozens of bees exploded, the honey had been tossed around in the snow. I only could find three of those pudding-like honey.

‘I guess it’s better than nothing.’

I began to eat one and put the other two inside my backpack, and without wasting time, I headed toward the next beehive. However, I stopped because I remembered something.

‘Why I didn’t find a mutant queen bee?’

All beehives had queen bees, but I didn’t see one, and all the messages that I received said the same thing. So, the explosion didn’t kill it.

‘Well, that works better for me.’

On the second beehive that I found, I decided to change my strategy a little bit. Instead of exploding, I decided to use my electric bolts. Insects were weak to fire, and the electrical discharge would pretty much toast them. Not only that, I could see only one hole in the entire beehive. So, unless they try to destroy their home, only one at a time would be able to leave the beehive and attack me.

‘It’s worth a shot; it can’t be more dangerous than exploding…’

In the end, I hesitated a little bit, but I still used the electric bolt. As I had expected, the electrical discharge passed through the entire beehive for a few seconds, and I could hear the insects’ noises. I didn’t kill a single one of them, but at least the attack paralyzed them for five seconds. When the first bees left the beehive, I had already shot the second electric bolt.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Coins.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Orbs.

You have obtained 8 Evolution Coins.

…

I received that message a few times, but it wasn’t enough to kill all of them. I picked the vampire hunter’s crossbow and killed the ones who had left the beehive. However, soon afterward, I insisted on using the electric bolts.

After using the forth electric bolt, I noticed that I had killed all of the mutant bees. I had used more MP, but that had been far more efficient and less scary.

‘I guess this will be my tactic to destroy all the beehives in the city. Why didn’t I thought about this before?’

Satisfied, I approached the beehive to collect my spoils, but I froze on the spot when I saw the pudding-like honey had become a brown like-stone. I couldn’t even analyze it anymore.

‘The electricity heat hardened the honey… it isn’t honey anymore; it’s a stone. Well, you can’t always get what you want.’