They had arrived two weeks ago, guided by one of the waggon train’s long-range scouts that had been sent back to search for survivors, crossing over from the border between the realm of adventurers and the local nobility as they did so. The contrast between the two territories stark to say the least. The centuries of devastation had made finding a plant within the adventurer’s territories larger than a bush, or a non-domesticated animal a challenging task. But slightly crossing over from their neighbours was a proper landscape of lush and verdant greenery, growing wild and untamed. The air buzzing with the sounds of life as it went about, not in that rose-tinted, harmonious way that that tree huggers and college kids liked to view nature, but murdering and raping each other as survival of the fittest dictated. Real nature.

Goodie both loved and hated it.

He was a city boy to the core, but there was only so many people he could deal with before even he wanted to go full-on psycho.

Upon arriving, the first thing they did was go about presenting themselves to Eric and the rest of the heads to report his and Diane’s survival, their encounter with…the thing, and their rescue of the survivors, the response they received was less than welcoming, the little relief of making it back to the waggon train somewhat undermined be the uninterested response from those in charge.

‘Oh…you’re alive.’ Was all Eric had said. ‘Now go away.’

Okay, maybe Goodie had added that last part in, but they had still wanted him to fuck off, even if they did not say it out loud. He may have had the social skills of a brick, but even he knew that Eric and the others felt that they had better things to do than welcome a few stragglers with open arms. Not to say they did not, the disaster that, but some basic civility would have been welcomed, he and Diane were not in the best of places, mentally speaking, and a small kindness, even if the sentiment was false, it would have been like rain in the desert for the two of them.

Especially for Diane.

The trauma of their encounter with whatever that undead thing was had left a scar on them. Oddly enough, normally being the victim of things had left Goodie with some resistance to such trauma, with him merely descending into a deeper depression, but Diane had started shutting herself off from the world, becoming more introverted than Goodie had ever been. It had taken all her effort just to leave their truck-waggon and this bullshit response to their arrival had undone what little confidence she had managed to recover.

Still, imperfect as this situation was, he still broached the subject of a refund for all the food that had been consumed by the locals that he and Diane had rescued, with barely a second to think it over, Eric brushed him off, saying that he had nearly ten thousand people to feed and that he did not have the food to spare. Goodie knew the man was going to say something like that even before he met up with them, he would have said it even if he had no one but himself to watch out for. Still, it did not leave him much room to argue the matter, there were so many people now, that any attempt to force the issue would have only made him enemies.

They did make a half-arsed offer to him, though, to shut him up if nothing else. Eric knew that unlike others, he could summon two creatures, but had yet to choose a second as he had yet to encounter a suitable target for his abilities.

Some sort of monster that had attacked the camp days before they arrived, a hellish beast that slew scores of innocent women and children if Eric was to be believed. Goodie could not say why, but every word out of that man’s mouth reeked of bullshit, even when he knew when Eric was telling the truth.

And thus, he found himself in a tent at the edge of the city-sized camp, overlooking the remains of the midnight butcher.

The creature before him resembled a young woman, with ink-black hair, flawless white-skin, a lithe body accentuated by the gentle curves of her bosom and rear and a face that anyone could fall in love with. Were it not for her inhuman claws and teeth, she could have more than easily passed for human…that and most humans did not have their innards hanging loose from being gutted…or had their arms, legs, and head severed from their corpse to prevent raising from the dead, but other than that, a perfectly, perfect human.

He gently picked up her head and held it against the torso, using a combination of sticky and solid form of his shadow stuff to bridge the divide between the separation of its neck and torso, he then did the same for her other severed parts.

While her looks may have once been divine, in death, her body had now been reduced to refuse, its presence an uncomfortable experience for those nearby. Including himself. His ‘reward’ had to wait a few days before his attempt at possessing her as they were still parading her parts around for everyone to gawk at. Some form of propaganda that he did not understand or ever wanted to.

He had seen and smelt things far worse beneath the city of adventures, but he could not stop himself from feeling a little nauseous, he was thankful that the body had spent its time in the sun, the heat and light drying it out and slightly mummifying it, its mutilation also freeing it of most of the gasses and liquids that would have been responsible for most of the negative effects of decay.

A tingling sensation running through his hands as he felt it passing over his skin. The light dimming as it spread, the hair and eyes of the monster, remaining black, but its alabaster skin growing a little bit darker, a little bit greyer as his ability began to possess its body. Goodie concentrated with all his might, but with his current lack of will, he could barely gather the energy to see the point of this whole exercise, let alone what he needed to do to finish it. His mind knew what he needed, but his body barely responded at the best of times.

The flooding continued for a few moments, the essence of his abilities, filling every corner of the creature’s existence, under her skin, through her veins, ever deeper, ever smaller, down it went, even invading the spaces between her atoms, and even then, its unseen journey continued.

Further…

And further…

Until finally…

…nothing.

Failure.

He was not surprised. He did not know if the creature was too high a level or if he was just unlucky…probably a bit of both…but it had failed. He scratched his neck, relieving some itch bought about by a bite from one of the local insects. He had forgotten that was what normally happened with wildlife, say what you like about ecological devastation, at least he never had to worry about such thing around the city of adventurers.

He sighed, the subtle rank of the rotting corpse filling his nostrils. He did not need to bring up his [MENU] to know that his willpower had dropped even further.

He left the tent, past the guards that flanked the sides of the tent the body was stored in, walking into the grass street with little purpose or direction. He wandered back towards his mobile home on instinct.

He felt numb. Similar to how he felt that day in the village on the hill, but not the same. What he felt that day was a lack of care for anyone else, how they felt, what they thought, nothing. A total disregard for others that had helped deal with the mayor and his cronies. But now, her and now, he cared for nothing, not even himself.

He knew that it was not a healthy state of mind to keep, so he searched for something to motivate himself, his plan, his friendship with Diane, something.

Finding nothing that worked, he resorted to some stupid movie logic and wandered to the dark side.

He tried latching onto his anger, encouraging it to grow, using the emotion to fuel a slow rise in willpower; walking back home, he seethed as he let his thoughts run wild for the first time in his life. He once read a comic that described what he was currently feeling as flaccid rage. All the emotion and desire to do something, but with no power to actually do anything, all he could do was hang around like a useless lump. It was why he always tried to keep himself under control, if he ever acted out his feeling, he knew he would get nothing in return but a sound beating, or worse, ignored.

His attention fell on a merchant. That merchant.

He had seen him frequently since they came back to the train, not that he wanted to, however. He recognised him the moment he saw him.

Not his name or face, but the look in his eyes, the language of his body, his very nature.

That same nature as that psycho arsehole from Earth. And the psycho’s family. And the friends of his family. The entire arsehole gang.

The prick had been eyeing everyone up, talking to them in a certain way, a predatory way. He did not know what the guy had said, but the way he spoke filled Goodie with disgust. The guy was a user, not of drugs, but of people.

And right now, he was trying to use a small girl. He had tried to use many people since Goodie had first seen him, but where even the most desperate of people had never even given the merchant a chance, this girl seemed desperate enough to fall victim to him.

Goodie walked over and with the full might of his anger and fury, he handed her a silver coin. An amount more than enough to get her through whatever troubles that were forcing her to consider selling herself to the scumbag.

It was a small action, but it was enough to send the merchant into a sputtering rage, spittle flying as he began shouting at Goodie with the full volume of his voice.

It filled Goodie with a perverse joy.

The merchant thrashed his arms about, wailing as he threw his adult tantrum.

Goodie had seen such embarrassing behaviour before, usually from people in power, priests, politicians, C.E.O.s’, even presidents. How such people could have so little self-awareness to do such a thing he would never know.

It was only after the merchant had actually looked at Goodie that he started to relent, the black, birdlike eyes, the passive, uncaring expression on his face, Goodie may have had trouble expressing himself, but that was not a weakness, not when dealing with fools and arseholes.

The merchant glanced round, more than likely to avoid staring at him any longer, but though he could not see them, he knew that the man had drawn attention their confrontation, an audience of rubberneckers that would no doubt be chatting about the two of them for ages.

Goodie wondered what he was going to do next, he did not want to take his confrontation further, as angry as he was, he was still not a fighter, but he also did not want to run from the prick. So, he summoned his only true ally in this world.

The merchant’s mouth shut tight, his body tensing as Her Majesty appeared on Goodie’s left shoulder. In the corner of his eye, Goodie could see some the other locals look over, their attention fully focused on whatever was about to happen.

She turned as if to whisper in Goodie’s ear, and he, in turn, bent his head to listen. A moment later, he left, his walk swift and decisive. An act. He wanted to bully the prick further, but as much as he wanted the world…worlds…to go fuck themselves, he still did not want to resort to violence like some chest-thumping douche, but even more so, his cowardice was his dominant nature and he knew that the locals would have ganged up on him if he did not show them overwhelming power. Power that he certainly did not possess.

He walked home, letting himself feed off the emotional high that he got from for once being the bully and not the bullied.