Just after warning the rest of the females, Hera fired a shot into empty space to generate an explosive sound that would attract the mutants. She felt it was way easier if the mutants were charging towards them as she and the girls just kept their position.

This way she took the initiative to fight and it was way less likely that they would be surrounded as they fight. If they were to sneak around the mall looking for supplies and a mutant found and attacked them first it would be a problem.

Although there was a bit of risk that the fight would be heard from mutants outside the mall and they could be besieged from two sides but this was the tactic Hera felt had the least risks involved.

There were roars heard throughout the whole mall after the firing sound spread. Phobos who was staying at the side could almost make out fifteen distinct roars. That being said there could be more mutants he didn’t make out especially if there are mutants that are incapable of roaring.

Hera was calmly reloading the bullet she fired while the mutants hadn’t quite reacted. Anna was quite calm as well although there was a slight shudder when she heard the mutants roar.

Megan and Alice were a lot worse however their reaction was the most normal. They trembled for a few seconds because of the tension of the incoming fight. In the end, they mustered their will, stopped shaking and just as the first mutant showed up they held their revolvers tightly with determination.

The first mutant showed up on the second floor but didn’t take any of the human means to come down but totally disregarded the safety railing made of steel and glass and charged through it with no hindrance. This mutant looked a bit like a humanoid carnivorous dinosaur. Its mutation most likely gave it a big boost in its power but that didn’t matter much because just as it jumped from the second floor a second shot was fired from Hera’s revolver and a brand new hole appeared in its skull.

As the deafening explosion was spreading around, the mutant which was hit reversed its falling trajectory. Even when a hole was created the bullet still had enough kinetic energy to push the heavy mutant in the opposite direction of where it was traveling.

Phobos looking at that was a bit worried that he had made the revolvers too powerful. Not for any other reason but because of the recoil. He had already witnessed that it was a bit powerful in the situation with Star. Especially when a revolver was a weapon with no recoil dampening technology.

However, his worries were quickly nulled. When other mutants jump out from all over the place Anna, Megan and Alice fire as well. Although there was visible recoil pushing their hands up and there were a few winces in pain they didn’t stop shooting. Phobos had underestimated the improvement in the girls' physical capabilities and his revolver design.

In reality, a normal girl would find it hard to shoot a normal revolver at full load. Even if Hera had given them a few tips on how to shoot the gun they were managing exemplary. Handling the beefed-up revolvers so well was amazing. Some of the reasons may be that at the moment they are pumped up with adrenalin and are technically fighting for their lives so better performance is reasonable.

That is not to take away from their achievements because with the knowledge that this situation is life-threatening most people perforce would plummet. Something that may be to their advantage is knowing that they are the aggressors in this situation and they have willingly entered this dangerous situation.

Phobos watched as the girls riddled with bullets the mutants that were charging from everywhere. It was a hell-like scene. Mutants were jumping from every floor and madly charging with unprecedented bloodlust but they didn’t even come close to the girls before they were shot by one of them.

Even if a mutant wasn’t shot in a fatal place when hit it looked like it was struck by a truck and flew a few meters back with a fist-sized hole opened by the bullet. Before it had time to get up it was shot again but this time fatally.

It was a pure massacre but the victims this time weren’t the helpless humans but the ‘ferocious?’ mutants which were usually the aggressors. Phobos was ready to help at a moment's notice but as more and more mutants fell he understood that there was not much need for him.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Phobos passed by Hera and gave her his unused revolver and took her just emptied one. The whole area where the shooting was concentrated was layered with different kinds of mutants that numbered at least twenty. It was a bit of a repeat of the morning a few days ago but this time reversed. Of course this time the bodies were mostly whole with the exception of a few limbs that were blasted off.

There were just a few mutants left and Phobos didn’t feel like watching them being slaughtered like pigs so he left the scene of the fight. For some reason, he was feeling uncomfortable the whole fight. He understood that killing the mutants at this moment was somewhat necessary. Even if it was not essential at this exact moment it was inevitable in the near future.

Humans and mutants at the moment were contenders for apex species. There will come a moment where mutants and humans will fight for living space. This will be the case even if mutants were highly intelligent and could be communicated with. Even if the mutants were entirely peaceful, the humans would attack them at some point. Whether it is because of their innate xenophobia or to establish their meaningless dominance. Conflict would arise.

The reason Phobos disliked conflicts so much was likely because in the grand scheme of things they didn’t mean anything. The human race living on a speck of dust somewhere in the universe changes absolutely nothing. Even on a galactic scale, it is so insignificant that Phobos couldn’t muster the will to care.

This thought process sometimes translates to himself and even questions the meaning of his life however he quickly fixes this mentality because he feels the only thing more meaningless than him living is him dying. This is where his sympathy for all life comes from. Every untimely death only made this meaningless existence even more meaningless.

However, Phobos couldn’t quite grasp why he cared for the lives of the mutants that were killed here. It was twenty lives of abnormally aggressive creatures who most likely had taken the lives of numerous humans and killing these mutants would save many more human lives.

What was more abnormal was that Phobos felt more about the death of these mutants than the three fellow human lives ended by his own hands. Although his mind wasn’t all there when he did that.

After getting a bit further away from the battle he just sat on a bench and stood there thinking about it. Finally, he could only conclude that he was just transferring feelings he had about other situations onto the mutants.

At the moment his dislike of meaningless conflict and death was very heightened. The reason being that he was aware that soon there would be such conflict with Don’s group. Phobos transferring the worries he has about the people they would be attacking to the mutants in this mall.

In both cases, he understood that it was inevitable. At one point there would be a big conflict with the mutants and a lot of death is expected. Most likely these mutants that were in the mall will die in that conflict but Hera and him being here, being the aggressors, slaughtering the mutants for an arbitrary reason of collecting materials was bringing correlation with the situation of Don and his group.

Phobos had escaped from the restaurant so that he didn't have to think about that but Hera's raid only enforced his thought to go that way. He understood that the mutants are mindless aggressors and bring human death and suffering. He also understood that Don was tinged with evil and was bringing despair to the women in his group.

However in his mind for some reason, he found it strange for him to go out of his way and kill the mutants or to stop Don. This was very strange as just two days ago when he met the mutants on the road he killed them without remorse.

When thinking about it for a bit Phobos could perfectly pinpoint where the problem was. For him, it was very important who the aggressor was. Even if he had the knowledge that the conflict is unavoidable if he was the first to attack he felt uncomfortable.

Like when Phobos encountered the mutant on the street, he got out of the car and had the full intention to fight and kill the mutant but he waited until he was attacked first. This is why he felt a bit uncomfortable with the girl's fight.

If they went around and gathered resources and happened to be attacked by a mutant even if almost exactly the same situation ensues Phobos wouldn’t find anything wrong with that. However, as Hera fired a shot and baited all the mutants so that they were slaughtered more easily it made him uncomfortable.

Phobos was even more confused. Logically it was the correct decision. Lowering risk when the death of the mutants is a foregone conclusion is the obvious choice. Phobos was perfectly aware of that. However, for some reason, he was emotionally disturbed by it.

Knowing that what he was uncomfortable with was the initiation of the fight he further examined himself to find out why it was so. Musing for about ten minutes he came to a conclusion. Phobos felt that he was most likely escaping responsibility.

He felt that way because even if he logically knew the ending of the situation would be the same either way, he avoided being the initiator. By waiting to be on the defensive side when a conflict occurred he was denying his responsibility in the matter.

Phobos saying that he had no other choice but to fight, psychologically alleviated him from the burden of the consequences and decisions he had made. However, when he decided that he wouldn’t shrink and compromise too much, it was already making him a part of the equation. His reluctance to be a part of any and all conflict didn’t clear him of liability.

When Phobos figured out the crux of the problem he felt a lot lighter. His uncomfortable feelings around the fight with mutants disappeared. They were unreasonable in the first place and were just a placeholder for him to avoid facing the situation with Don.

Now that Phobos understood why he felt this way he could more easily correct it. The solution is easy. He has to face the fact that he has to make a choice. Be it either leaving the women in Don’s group to suffer or saving them and enforcing his view on others, a thing he dislikes to do.

Phobos stood up from the bench he was sitting on and looked around the world with a small change of perspective. Although he didn’t suddenly become the most decisive person, he would try to face future inevitable conflicts head-on.

While looking around his sight stopped at a gardening shop. Thinking that in the near future they would need to start growing their own produce he headed that way. Phobos knew that the fight was over a long time ago while he was still thinking. He could feel that at the moment Hera was traveling around the mall searching for supplies. He wasn’t sure about the rest of the women but they were most likely with her.

Phobos entered the store and saw that it was perfectly intact. There were signs that the mall had at least a few hundred people when the “EMP” hit. However, the mutant population had scattered afterward because they were territorial and it wasn’t known if there were any humans left over to scatter. They may have had the same fate as the people at the conference.

Whatever had happened in the mall didn’t affect the gardening store. Everything was in its place and there were even potted plants thriving. When Phobos looked at them closer, they seemed to be thriving a bit too much. Most of the plants were twice the usual size. The roots of some had even broken the pot they were in and were spreading on the ground.

Looking at this, it was easily inferred that plants were also affected by the change. Most likely the animal population was subject to some kind of change as well. Now that Phobos thought about it he hadn’t seen any bugs or birds roaming around. This was quite strange.

Depending on the degree of change, birds and bugs should have been a big problem for the human population but their disappearance has made survival just a bit easier.

While looking around he found a transportation cart in the storage space of the store. He decided to take it and went around the shop and loaded a bit of everything on it. For Phobos, the most important thing were the seeds. He took a few packets of every possible variety.

As he was calmly stacking things on but suddenly stopped. Phobos stopped because he saw a weird thing. It was a mutant. However, he had seen a lot of mutants already so that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was that the mutant wasn’t attacking immediately.

It was trying to hide on top of a shelf. It had been standing there unmoving trying to blend in with the environment but when it found Phobos looking at it got in a threatening pose. The mutant had the mannerisms of an ape and looked a lot like it as well but when it called out it sounded more like a big cat. It had a hiss that would paralyze a normal person in fear.

However, it still wasn’t attacking. Phobos looked at it closer and felt that this mutant had a bit of intelligence as opposed to all the ones he had encountered prior. The only other mutant that showed a bit of intelligence was the one that had been stalking him and Eve when they went to search for solar panels. It had retreated when it saw that Phobos was a threat to it.

This monkey-like mutant in front of Phobos saw what happened at the entrance of the mall and went to hide in this shop but it didn't think that Phobos would show up here. The mutant was very aware of how dangerous Phobos and his group are so he didn’t want to attack him at all. It was taking a threatening posture so it could scare Phobos away.

Phobos wasn’t moved however but he won’t attack the mutant either. Most people seeing the danger of the mutants and what they have done to other people would try to kill every last mutant they saw but Phobos didn’t process information like most people.

When he saw that the mutant had intelligence he didn’t even put in the same group as the rest of the aggressive mutant he had seen. Once Phobos sees that a creature is semi-intelligent he treats it on an individual basis and doesn’t lump it in a group. Also even if it were to be classified into a group he doesn’t use that group's stereotyped behavior to judge the intelligent being.

At least he tries to do so. He has a dislike for politicians as a whole but tries to see every single one of them as a different individual and tries to have no bias against them because of their profession. Even when because of his father's business he has seen a lot of bad people who happen to be politicians he still tries to do that. It isn’t fair to judge one for the actions of people who happen to be part of the same group as you.

Phobos however wasn’t even applying this logic here. He was viewing this semi-intelligent mutant as a whole different group disassociated from the feral mutants. Phobos was aware that there is little reason for letting a feral mutant be alive. There is a 99% percent chance that a feral mutant will attack and kill a human as they have close to zero intelligence and are full of malice. The one percent being the mutant population that would never see a human in its existence.

Thus humans killing a feral mutant at any time could be considered a self-preserving action and there would be very little moral implications. However, looking at this semi-intelligent mutant Phobos was judging it like he would a tiger as he still didn’t know the behavior pattern of intelligent mutants.

They could be even more deadly than regular mutants because of their intelligence but Phobos wasn’t willing to just assume. If he didn’t see that deadliness or there wasn’t enough evidence to point to it he would at the most place their threat level in the vein of dangerous carnivores. Because in most cases intelligence negated some of the ferociousness. At the least, it could understand that humans posed a significant threat to it and could reason that staying clear from them was more beneficial to it.

This meant that Phobos wouldn’t automatically kill the intelligent mutant. The same way as he wouldn’t immediately kill a tiger if he saw it in the wild. He would defend himself if the tiger were to attack but he wouldn’t purposefully initiate a fight with it.

Of course, if a man-eating tiger attacked a village Phobos felt that the villagers should be able to defend themselves and kill the tiger. However, if Phobos was to find a tiger somewhere in the wild he wouldn’t assume that it was a man-eating one and kill it. In the same way, he couldn’t assume the mutant in front of him was a man-eating one.

Phobos didn’t really blame the tiger for attacking and eating people after all it was just catching easy prey. This was what wild animals do. This was the law of the jungle but at the same time humans have the right to self-preservation and if a tiger posed a threat to them it was only natural to protect themselves.

Looking at the mutant Phobos was wondering what to do. This situation was a lot more grey than Don’s situation. Although he can kill this mutant by presuming that it had killed a human before and it posed a future threat to himself and other humans but just assuming wasn’t correct for him even if there was a high possibility of it being true.

Phobos didn’t like to make his decisions on a probability. If he wasn’t sure that this semi-intelligent mutant had indeed killed or that it was certain to kill humans like the feral mutants he couldn’t in conscience just execute the creature.