With Noodle and Buford in tow, they marched out the front door.

Their reasoning for leaving immediately was simple. They were as rested as they were going to get. The longer this scenario went on, the more it would take from them.

They needed to end it while they still could.

As they stepped out the door, a prompt appeared.

Ahoy, intrepid Hunters! Before you venture out into the cold and unforgiving night, you need to be properly dressed. That’s on me.

Before Steven could even respond, their clothes morphed. He looked down at himself.

His hoodie had been replaced with a dark brown leather duster that reached his knees. His jeans and T-shirt were replaced with a black suit that looked incredibly fancy, but was surprisingly warm and easy to move in.

He held up his arms and saw that the suit had a few lines of bright green running through it.

“…Okay then.” He glanced at Margie. She had the same getup, though her suit was lined with red instead of green.

Buford sneezed. He had a cap that reminded Steven of Sherlock Holmes and a doggy coat to match theirs.

Noodle had a matching hat with a vest in place of the coat.

Margie examined the clothes before shrugging. “These are kind of nice, though they do look a little like high-end fetishware.”

“Ga! I hate that you said that!”

“No, you hate that I’m right.”

Steven ignored her, focusing instead on their surroundings.

…it was Margie’s yard. Nothing about it had changed, though the shadows were a lot more ominous when he knew a nightmare creature could be lurking in them.

Buford whined. “You look handsome in that hat, don’t whine.”

He walked beside Steven, a sullen air about him.

“Let’s have Buford take the lead while your buff is up, with me following, then you and Noodle behind me.”

“Works for me.”

They made their way up the drive, cautiously scanning for anything monstrous.

Steven had slotted Alarm Bells, but he was curious how it would feel to use. Would it be a different sensation? Or would it feel just like his normal shields?

They reached the top of the drive without a problem, and Steven glanced around. The road continued to the right in a long curve for a few hundred feet before hitting a dead end out of sight.

To the left, the road stretched on, the mountain to its right, and the other neighborhoods to its left.

If you followed the road without going down to Mt. McKinley Dr, it led further up the mountain to a few isolated homes.

But now, maybe a hundred feet past where the road led up the mountain, stood a massive wood and stone manor. The stones were dark grey and covered in moss, with the trees growing right up next to it, as if it had been there for centuries.

A giant tesla coil loomed over the back left corner of the manor, its silhouette crackling with yellow arcs of electricity.

“Well,” Margie said. “I don’t think we need to search for the Mad Doctor’s manor.”

“No, I don’t suppose we do. Should we-“ Steven cut off as three of the purple zombies shambled onto the road.

His heart rate spiked, and he reached for his calm. Not too much. You need control, not emptiness.

He took a deep breath. He had a second. While persistent, the earlier zombie had been slow as hell.

“Margie, I think you should stay out of this one. If they follow standard zombie logic, we should avoid more gunshots when possible.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I don’t think me and Buford should have any trouble. Not if your buff is as strong as I think it is.”

The zombies were less than ten feet away now. It was time to move.

“That one, Buford!” Steven snapped, pointing at the leftmost zombie.

As Buford surged forward, Steven called a shield in front of the zombie while it was mid-step. It went down, and Steven tripped the middle one the same way.

Buford reached the zombie, moving faster than Steven thought possible, and bit down on the top of its head.

The skull cracked like an egg.

Holy shit, Jugger-Hound was no joke.

Buford lunged for the second zombie while Steven recalled his shields.

Buford shoulder checked the third zombie as he went for the downed second. The zombie staggered back from the force and went down. Steven called a shield, trying to catch the zombie's falling head. He misjudged the distance, though, and hit its shoulder instead.

He dismissed the shield and summoned them over the last zombie's chest, stopping it from rising.

Buford had finished off the second, and another bite ended the third.

Ding! Three Shambling Peasants slain! Split with Margie Vern

A small wave of exhaustion rolled over Steven from the rapid Skill use, but it didn’t wipe the smile from his face. “Wow. That was…surprisingly easy. Your buff is no joke. Buford could’ve taken them without my help, no question.”

Margie nodded. “That’s right, who’s a good boy, Buford? You’re such a good boy!”

The malamute trundled over to Margie and accepted his reward of head scratches.

Noodle had taken a seat next to Margie and looked like he might fall asleep. There was something wrong with that dog. Buford had always been smart and incredibly well trained. It didn’t really surprise Steven that he was taking to this so well.

Noodle though? He gave all of this the same reaction he gave the doorbell, which was to say, none.

As if he could sense Steven’s gaze, the basset hound opened his eyes and gave Steven a bored glance.

“You can feel my judgment, huh?” The dog gave him a slow blink.

They checked the bodies for loot but didn’t find anything. Not surprising. He doubted such easy enemies would drop anything.

No levels either.

Margie had jumped straight to level 3 when she got her Class. Which made sense, they had killed a sub Boss. That obviously counted for something. But Steven’s level hadn’t bumped up to 4 yet.

He’d gone up 2 levels for beating Reina, but a sub Boss hadn’t even given him 1? There was no XP meter to tell how close he was to the next level, but he felt he had to be close.

Unless the gap from 3 to 4 was massive.

Buford trotted up to Steven. The gore on his muzzle was almost totally gone, and he saw the remaining specks flake away under a shimmer of crimson energy.

So cleaning his fur fell under regeneration? That was convenient. Steven had not been looking forward to cleaning bits of brain out of the dog's fur.

“We should head for the manor and then scout its edges.”

Margie nodded. “You figure we should wait to go in until Jugger-Hound refreshes?”

Steven nodded. “Yeah, do you know how much longer you have?”

“Yep, it has a timer over the Skill. Very convenient. I got 10 minutes left.”

They fell back into formation as they marched towards the manor.

Looking down at the other houses, Steven could see shapes moving in the dark. He was glad the shadows hid the finer details. He didn’t want to see more things like that bat in HD.

A thought struck him, and he spoke without looking back. “Did the System give you a way to reload that rifle, or do you only have one shot?”

“It gave me an ammo pouch,” Margie answered. “I’m a little hazy on how you're actually supposed to reload one of these, but the System is fuzzing that process. Got a prompt when I touched the pouch. I just gotta put a bullet in and wait a few seconds.”

“That few seconds might be rough in a fight, but it’s better than nothing.”

They fell back into silence as they walked. All of their attention turned to the dark.

They were halfway to the manor when the scream pierced the night. It was a horrible, desperate sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

They quickly found the source—the house closest to them, maybe two hundred feet down the hill.

At least a dozen dark shapes were mobbing it.

He locked eyes with Margie, and she nodded.

Steven and Buford took off at a sprint, with Margie and Noodle following more carefully in their wake.