Catara grabbed my arm firmly and pulled me aside, excusing us politely from Terin, and I mentally winced in anticipation of getting a bollocking for… well, take your pick from: being reckless, killing other people, forcing Catara herself to act in cold blood, killing other people in front of a kid, exploding a skul-

“Listen, Godu.” She whispered, her eyes ablaze with focused rage, making me physically shrink with intimidation.

“We cannot rest, until all those fuckers are dead.” She paused before taking a short breath, seemingly making her mind up about something internally.

“OK. What I’m about to tell you, MUST NOT be told to anyone else understand?”

“Uhh. Yeah sure uhh okay.” Looking from side to side, a bit confused, I nodded my understanding.

“Good. I’ll just cut to the chase. I have this…skill.” She pursed her lips, clearly not comfortable sharing this information.

“It lets me scan people and see their KAR, the karma attribute, yeah? Well, I can review the target's logs that details what actions were performed for each point they gain or lose.” She gritted her teeth and looked to the side.

“The pieces of shit were inflicting both physical and emotional damage-actions on targets, some that are simply labelled [Child]. I won’t read out the logs, but it is fucking explicit.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

“Regardless, they all were around 10 points away from becoming corrupted. Two things stand out though, one being that Swaine had some filthy skill that put a mark on a target and if an attacker damages them, they leech their EXP. It shows up as [Swaine: Slavers Brand] in the logs. But there is something else, which looks very bad. I know this is a lot to take in but stay with me. There is an entry that simply says: [Positive KAR Entity (Infant)] Killed. Minus 5000 KAR -> [Ivil: Homicide Blessing] -> Negative KAR negated.”

My surprise at hearing the skills details was overshadowed by feeling sick to my stomach. I was mildly shaking, anger welling up inside.

“What the fuck is wrong with them?” I spoke through clenched teeth before rubbing my face to try and calm down.

“Ugh. You know what? it doesn’t matter. One way or another we’re going to put that scum in the ground.”

On that note I shifted my gaze and absentmindedly stared at the shimmer floating above the corpses. A feeling of cold washed over me as I contemplated.

I did that and it was… scarily easy for me.

Looking back at Catara, she had a smirk on her face, an actual smirk! And it was so out of place with her usual deadpan look.

“Uhh you good?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m just thinking it is such a shame my loyalties lie with Marri. Else you would be in quite a bit of trouble, loverboy.” She even gave me a fake predatory look up and down. Licking her lips like I was some prime bit of steak, waiting to be consumed.

My immediate reaction was to step back and go wide-eyed.

Marri and her were clearly best buds. You can just tell they have spent hours scheming on how to make poor old, easy-target-Godu as uncomfortable as possible. I bet they’ll have a good laugh about this one the next time they see each other.

“Oh for goodness…okay, very funny, yeah, yeah, come on. Let’s focus and figure out our next moves.”

We had moved back over to Terin and started discussing what our next steps should be. But whilst we were doing so, a group of 5 nasty looking grubdogs started making a commotion in the street, fighting over the corpses, before the biggest 2 dragged a body each away, leaving the remaining 3 sharing the remaining meal.

Terin was white as a sheet watching this, so when we suggested we take him back and he refused, we were pretty shocked. His reasoning however, was even more shocking, since he wanted to help us lure the gang out so that we could pick them off.

At first I was hesitant, worried that we would be putting Terin in unnecessary danger. He convinced me after explaining that a) he’d been surviving on his own for days and nights. And b) there might be one other person who can scan how strong someone is. But as he spewed out more and more details, I was now 100% convinced that it was better to have him stick around.

The key points were that the gang's leader, Ivil, was by far the strongest, and was pretty much the sole reason they were strong enough to overpower others. Swaine, on the other hand, was second in command and was the sole reason people could be enslaved with his abilities. He needed to know the victims names and have them verbally consent, but once he had that, he gave them some kind of brand that could inflict huge pain or paralyse them with just a thought.

We had heard enough at this point, and even though we gave Terin instructions on how to get back to our home, there were no major concerns.

We’d confirm their strength, or rather their contemptible weakness, before removing these purulent cretins from existence.

It only took several minutes to be in view of the superstore and there were still way more burnt out cars littered on the streets than I had seen in any other area, and it bugged me I hadn’t the foggiest clue as to why this was the case. We stayed out of sight and crept through an adjacent car park that had bushes and foliage hiding us from anyone looking out from the store.

The store was surrounded by a verge that framed a main road and the car park had blood stains, rubbish and various dried offal or remains dotted around. The store had shutters down on every window and entry, except for the main entrance, where it was raised to knee height.

“Alright. Terin, you sure you want to do this?” I looked at the boy putting on a brave face even though he was visibly shaking.

“....yes.” He sniffed. “My dad, he was tough as shi-uh, I mean, tough as hell.. But he was also the coolest dad in the world. He taught me how to defend myself and how to deal with the dark crap in the world…even in that horrible place he…kept us going.”

He paused and lowered his head and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to stop them from hurting others. It’s what my dad would have done.”

I was so proud and amazed by this kid and I hoped that I could match up to even a sliver of how amazing his parents were. He’d been through so much and lost everything, but he was refusing to give up on the world.

I’ll make sure those bastards pay.

“Well, alright young man. And I promise, no matter what, we’ll take them down.”

Things moved quickly after our chat and after 5 minutes of going over the strategy and getting into positions, Terin had gone out and was already jobbing back towards our ambush point with 3 jeering shitheads chasing him and they would be arriving to us in the next 60 seconds or so.

The ambush point was the empty car park across the road where the entrance had bushes lining either side; we were lying in wait on either side.

Peeking through the foliage, my vision flashed with blue as I scanned the 3 scumbags chasing the single teen.

Fucking cowards, 3 against 1 child.

Label = Shayn

HP = 52/52

MAGN = 5.301

KAR = (-)

Label = Guri

HP = 40/40

MAGN = 4.989

KAR = (-)

Label = Tinn

HP = 61/61

MAGN = 6.555

KAR = (-)

Not to sound like a chad or anything, but we had taken on tougher shits than these scrubs.

It was baffling as to how they had survived for so long. Even when considering the kid mentioning their boss was incredibly powerful, it was surprising to think they had been taking large groups hostage without getting killed themselves.

Maybe we’re just really strong… I wonder if I should quietly inspect Catara to compare…

Glancing over to her location, which was on the opposite side to me, I saw her clenching her teeth, heavily breathing, with a primal, savage stare directed towards the gang members, and decided I’d ask her about her level and HP some other time, not wanting to risk attracting her wrath.

She was wound up and was a feathers trigger away from unleashing.

Terin picked up surprising speed by the time he whizzed past and I heard curses and a few grunts as the chasers picked up their pace.

“Fook sakes man! That little bitch is fookin quick!” The turd labelled Guri complained loudly.

Terin started to slow down and he turned around as the trio walked past us.

“Woa, woa, woa! Hold up bruvs! Wot’s he doing? Nahhh, he’s acting bait as fuck. Tool up yea?” Shayne was cautious as he slowed the other two to a walk and started looking around.

He took out two dagger-like weapons prompting Tinn to remove a thick pipe looking object from his belt and holding it like a...

NO. FUCKING. WAY. Don’t tell me that is a lightsaber!?

From the hilt, a simple but very wide 2-handed great sword constructed itself. It looked to be nearly as tall as me and looked absurdly unwieldy, with its grotesquely machete wide blade.

The process of construction reminded me exactly of how my shields formed.

Breathing a silent sigh of relief and brushing aside my brief worries about having to deal with laser swords, our window of opportunity was dwindling as their focus was still on what the boy was planning to do; rather than expecting an ambush.

Can't backout now, I can do this.

I ran out of the bushes yelling “Help! Help! Monsters!” to which I got a “WHAT THE FUCK? STAY BACK! WHERE?”

But more importantly, I distracted them from the stampeding Catara as well as discombobulating them. Their brains were forced to briefly focus on expecting a monster, instead of the execution they were about to receive.

Catara reached the one called Guri and he managed to get a yelp out before she shield bashed him square in the face with such tremendous force, he crumpled to the floor with caved-in eye sockets and burst eyeballs which were pooling up with thick dark blood as he lay motionless on the floor.

The remaining two whipped their heads round and froze at the menacing grin of Catara as she slowly brought her shield silently up to her chin.

“YOU FUKIN BITCH! I’MMA RAPE YOUR CORPSE BLOODY!” Shayne screeched out as grey smoke seeped out around him and flickered briefly as he zipped forward blisteringly fast. Before Catara could react, he’d reappeared and swiped around her shield and sliced at her neck.

She hissed in pain and swiped her shield in defence, forcing him to flicker back.

“YO WHAT THE FUCK!?” Shayne cried out as only a dribble of blood appeared from the thin line on Catara’s neck, instead of the gushing mortal wound he was obviously expecting. He was extremely red faced, panting and dripping with sweat that seemed to be steaming off him.

The other piece of shit, Tinn, roared, raised his sword, then swiftly became enshrouded in a rapidly swirling red mist. But as he took a step forward I shoulder dashed into his back; stupid fucker completely forgot about me; knocking him down hard into the ground. The red mist dissipated and his weapon clattered across the floor with Tinn laying motionless face down.

Frowning in confusion since I’d barely put any power into that attack, I quickly scanned him and Information dropped into my thoughts.

Label = Tinn

HP = 0.1/61 (BRAINDEAD. REPAIRABLE.)

MAGN = 6.555

KAR = (-)

It was unsettling that was all it took, but they really did have it fucking coming to them.

I would wager that Tinn could be healed, hence the repairable part of the message, but that he was in no condition to do it himself so he’d most likely be taken away as carrion before the end of the hour.

Catara was growling and swatting at Shayne who kept flickering back and forth around her, only achieving a few scratches but not receiving any damage himself.

But he was sweating something fierce, he couldn’t keep this up for long.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK! TINN! FUCKING HELP ME MAN!” He cried out and jumped back, noticeably slower now with only dribbles of smoke visible.

He turned around and saw Tinn lying motionless on the ground in front of me and started whimpering.

Must have twigged he’s in serious trouble.

“Please! I-I-I beg ya! I ain’t like dem! I jus’wuz tryna’ stay alive innit!” He was frantically looking back and forth from Catara to me, trying to garner some sympathy.

“Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!” Catara snarled at him, interrupting his rambling about his innocence.

“‘Shayne inflicted internal bleeding on [Child] Harriet.’...how do you explain that?” she was deadpan staring at him, but her hands were shaking out of rage.

Shayne's jaw dropped as he went white as a sheet, but before he could say anything his neck burst open and blood started pouring. He dropped to the floor clutching his neck, gargling with his eyes rolling around in his skull as Terin materialised into view standing over him, a knife coated with a line of blood in one hand.

“HARRIET WAS MY SISTER Y-Y-YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” Terin screamed as he suddenly drove the knife into his eye, killing him.

Visibly shaking as he stepped back, he was breathing through his nose heavily, on the verge of hyperventilating.

This was a pivotal moment in his life.

He wasn’t a kid anymore.

He’d either break from the psychological trauma or become hardened from it.

There was silence as a sickly almost tar-like shimmer started to crawl towards Terin, prompting Catara to step towards him and gently pull him away.

Parts of it reached up in a sickly attempt, but the majority pooled on the floor.

“Stay away from it.” She said in a low voice. “It’s not worth the risk and it looks corrupted already...”

The boy said nothing as he moved away, holding a thousand yard stare at the shimmer puddle. As he went out of range, it stopped and shuddered, before making its way back to its originating corpse and continuing to aimlessly crawl around the body, seemingly waiting for something to accept it.

It may have been incredibly selfish of me, but I broke away from the pair of them and went over to the large blade on the floor and picked it up.

Immediately it started to vibrate and I felt pins stab into my palm that was holding it.

In the black thought space of my mind, information and memories started to flood in.

ITEM: NNT BACKBLADE.

DESC: RETRACTABLE WEAPON COMPOSED OF PROGRAMMABLE MAJIK STORED IN THE HILT.

If the mood wasn’t so sombre I would be fist pumping right now.

The memories felt like instinct or muscle memory, but it told me that I could extend and retract the blade by holding the handle and using a skill which I didn't have yet.

We spent a few more minutes gathering ourselves and giving Terin what little time we could spare to process what he had done, but either he recovered remarkably quickly, or he was very good at suppressing his emotions.

There was a psychologist back at the community who had made it her mission to ensure everyone was coping with all this trauma and violence. But it was clear that either the EXP and attributes increases were reinforcing peoples minds, making them fiercely resilient and accepting of this hardcore gore and violence, or, it was a prerequisite requirement for any survivor to have the will or capacity to deal with all the shit.

Anyone that couldn’t hack it, simply put, died a shitty miserable death.

Sadly this is the world now…but for fuck sake it didn’t have to be like this. These shitheads could have chosen to do better.

To be better.

Our community was an example that things didn’t need to turn cannibalistic in order to thrive and in actual fact, it seemed that just like at the dawn of humanity, cooperation was the key to survival.

Even in nature there are animals that could be considered to be smarter, stronger, faster and harder than even the best human our species has to offer.

But that meant shit all when you worked as a group.

And even when you took into consideration that there have been barbaric groups in history, it was clear this group didn’t even think about expanding their own, instead choosing to be as destructive and toxic as possible.

Their leader would have a lot to answer for.