"Hey, Billy, look what I got for you!" I said with a smile as I made my way inside my temporary base, taking out a wooden train set and giving it to Billy, who had a troubled look on his face.

"Oh! Billy always wanted a toy train!" Billy said with an excited smile as he stood in a rush, sending all furniture in his path flying. "But, what about Norman, haven't you found him?" he asked with his expression reverting to a downcast, troubled one as if he suddenly remembered something.

It had been three days since I found Billy and his parasite, but said parasite had, unfortunately, "disappeared" yesterday, after leaving a message for Billy to take care of himself and be happy.

And despite my "Best efforts" to find the man, I couldn't find anything. It's as if Norman had disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving absolutely no trace behind. How strange is that?!

"I'm sorry, big guy, but it looks like Norman really doesn't want to be found since he's doing such an excellent job at hiding himself," I replied with a sigh, helplessly shaking my head.

"Why did he have to disappear like that?" Little Billy asked with a sad expression. "All people used to bully Billy because of his size and foolishness, but never uncle Norman," he said as he turned to look at the ground with a guilty look.

"Uncle Norman was very kind to Little Billy, but Little Billy isn't good enough," he said as he sat down on the ground, depressedly playing with his new toy train.

"That's why uncle Norman left because Billy wasn't good enough!" he stated with tears threatening to fall from his eyes. "It's all Billy's fault!" he concluded in a sad tone.

'Okay, now I really feel like an asshole.' I sighed as I put my hand on Billy's broad shoulder. "It wasn't your fault. Maybe he just had something important to do," I said with an assuring tone, genuinely feeling bad for this gentle, hulking fool before me.

"We'll probably never find him if he doesn't want us to, so why don't you stop worrying about it and enjoy your new toy for now?" I asked, smiling as Billy nodded and started playing with the train.

"I'm going to head out now, and it will be a while before I come back, but don't hesitate to call for Clark or anyone nearby if you need something," I said as I turned to leave, waving hands on my way out.

"Hmm! See you later!" Little Billy replied, not even bothering to look up or wave back as he was too busy playing with his new toy.

...

"Are you sure about this?" Clark asked me in his usual careless tone while watching prepare supplies for the road. "I'm sure," I replied with a smile as I transferred everything into my inventory.

Oh yeah, it turns out that I can store basically anything within my inventory as long as it isn't something as big as a grown-ass man or as heavy as one.

And yet, I, in my infinite overthinking wisdom, was so occupied with overthinking about worst-case scenarios that I didn't even bother to check its limits, assuming it could only store small objects.

"Take care of the big guy while I'm gone, will you?" I asked as I turned to look at Clark, smiling in satisfaction at his nodding response. "And don't hesitate to ask him for help if something unexpected happens," I added, chuckling at Clark's confused expression.

"He might not look like it, but that guy is pretty strong," I explained with a shrug. "I probably won't be able to stop him myself in a straight fight," I concluded, promptly making my way out without waiting for a reply.

...

"It looks like he isn't taking the help you went of your way to send him, Demira," Flatliner said with a smug expression as she stood next to Demira on top of a tall building as they both gazed into a bloody mirror.

"Hmm, this is most unexpected," Demira said while tilting her head to the side. "I did not expect him to have a soft spot for niais (simpletons)," she added while shaking her head.

"At this rate, the boy won't even be able to beat those two maniacs you sent his way, Flatliner," Demira said with a raised eyebrow as she turned to look at the bloody mirror.

"If he can't beat those two, then that just means he isn't worth my time," Flatliner replied with a smile, finding this situation even more amusing than she imagined.

"You do remember that this is about testing the theory we had about him and not testing his strength, oui (yes)?" Demira asked with a sigh, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

"I do, but I haven't had the chance to observe him for a while, and I want to see how strong he became," Flatliner said with a shrug, still showing a careless expression.

The fact of the matter is that both Flatliner and Demira knew that Kaden had a strange way of growing stronger. Demira had noticed something was off when she witnessed him kill number 28, aka Aubry.

As a powered individual with powers related to blood, she knew blood more intimately than anyone else, and she naturally sensed it when something moved from Aubrey's body to Kaden's when the former died.

As for Flatliner, she merely used her superhuman senses and observational skills to deduct that fact while watching Kaden fight the royal undead and its subordinates and observing for a couple of more days after that.

So even though the two women, Demira and Flatliner, didn't know how exactly Kaden was growing so fast, they both knew for a fact that something was off about his growth, leading to this situation.

But why were two women from two different, possibly opposing factions cooperating together to unravel Kaden's mystery, you might ask? Well, that's a story for another time.

"You never change, do you, Cassandra?" Demira asked after a second of silence, showing a rare genuine smile for the briefest seconds that promptly reverted to her normal creepy one after receiving a glare from Flatliner.

...

It has been several hours since I started marching towards the city's center, and I can already see undead creatures roaming the streets again, causing me to have a considerably slower pace.

At this rate, I would need a full day to reach the city's center, but that wasn't a real problem since I wasn't in a rush. Though I wanted to kill the undead king and claim whatever prize the game master had in store for whoever committed the deed, I didn't want to fight the damned thing head-on.

My plan was simple, to lie low and wait for some shmuck to wear down the undead king for me to swoop in and claim the prize, but I was most definitely not the only one with that idea, so I had to be careful or risk becoming the said shmuck myself.

'And what do we have here?' I stopped in my tracks with a grin plastered on my face as I spotted something familiar.

'Another royal undead!' It looked exactly like the one who cornered me in that alleyway before, with at least 40 undead creatures following behind it as they traveled towards the city's center.

'Time for some payback!' I immediately began channeling aura into my right hand, compressing it into a small blue sphere and tossing it into the air as I used Bloodsport to send it flying towards the undead crowd like a baseball.

The undead creatures quickly noticed the incoming attack and immediately began lining in front of the royal undead, trying to protect it from any and all dangers.

My aura ball quickly reached the undead, hitting the first zombie in the chest and creating a hole while passing through it, only to explode when hitting the second.

The aura ball exploded in a radiant, transparent blue color, obliterating all zombies within five meters radius of the explosion and turning them into minced meat, and yet it was surprisingly not loud.

I would say it sounded more like a thud than a boom, creating a strange scene of a strangely quiet yet violent explosion, but I digress.

The royal undead seems to have realized the danger it was in as it began shrieking gibberish, causing the surrounding undead to rally immediately, charging towards me.

Despite the many undead charging towards me, I didn't panic as I knew that I could handle them all and then some, causing me to smile in satisfaction at my tangible progress since the last time I encountered something like this.

I brandished Bloodsport to the side, engulfing it in a black, flaming aura as I charged towards the undead with a maniacal grin, sending the zombies flying left and right while making a straight line towards the royal undead.