The next day, Danny rose early. He left the motionless form of Lara still sleeping on the bed and climbed down the stairs feeling reinvigorated. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned lazily as he stepped down to the ground floor.

His short stay at the farm had been a welcome reprieve to the madness of the current outside world, but everything good has to end at some point. He had his rest, now it was time to get back out there and move forward.

This was where he and the family would go their separate ways, Lara included.

He had talked extensively with her last night – and though they both enjoyed each other’s company – they both knew and accepted that this thing they shared… was ultimately just a fling. Danny had his secrets and objectives to care about which would inevitably draw him to ever more dangerous and faraway places and Lara… Lara had her family to look after and worry about.

Unfortunately, their goals and circumstances were simply incompatible, so each had to go their own separate ways.

He did not regret the night and affection they both shared however and he thought that Lara did not either. Life was too short to hesitate when such opportunities appear. Even more so now that the world was so fucked up and the future so uncertain. If anything, there was all the more reason to jump in head first.

Even if it was not meant to evolve into something more, Danny would still treasure the time he spent with her in his memories anyway. Besides, it was not as if he would never see Lara again.

She had left it clear to him that he would always be welcome here and should visit whenever he had the time or was around these parts. He doubted he would come back here too often or even stick around given the scarcity of zombies and places to scavenge in the near vicinity of their property, but one could never be certain about the future.

Who could say for sure what would happen?

Be that as it may, he could always stop by if their place was on the way to wherever he needed to go.

Danny met Nathaniel and his brother in the kitchen. The two men were preparing the breakfast while John’s wife and kid rested a little bit more. Though the finale of their tale of misfortunes had been a happy one, the tension and anxiety still took a toll on all of them. John’s son and wife were particularly spent after worrying for so long about their father and husband, so Lara’s uncle was happy to let them sleep in and enjoy their much needed break.

“Good morning.” They all greeted each other while Danny joined the other two and swiftly lent his help in preparing everything. As he did so, he suddenly became aware -due to conflicted looks Nathaniel kept throwing his way when he thought that Danny was not looking – that the night he spent with Lara might have caused some misunderstandings to crop up.

Given that Lara’s family as a whole was still very much confused over the why and the how he had helped free them from Hank’s settlement, the night he spent with Lara might have been misinterpreted as some sort of payment for borrowing his assistance, even if that was not the case.

They might think that Lara had offered herself in return for his help and that he was taking advantage of the situation, that the intentions of their benefactor might not have been all that pure. It was natural to be suspicious after all, specially considering the betrayal and subsequent predicament they went through at Hank’s settlement.

‘Well… whatever. I am sure she will be able to properly explain everything and sort out any misunderstandings when I’m gone. Once I’m out of the picture, everything will naturally fall into place.’ He thought while mentally shrugging, not bothering with the issue any more and without even trying to defend himself.

There was no need to.

“Eh? You are leaving already?” Nathaniel and his brother interjected at the same time while the three of them shared the meal after learning that he would soon be departing.

“Yes. I would like to thank you all for your hospitality, but I really should get going. I’m going to be out of your hair soon after we finish here.” Danny smiled at them and nodded before stuffing himself with another pancake slice.

Nathaniel’s face showed a hint of his conflicted emotions about the news – no doubt weighing his own desire as a parent to protect his daughter and his thankfulness to his benefactor - before he quickly suppressed it and asked, “… and what about Lara?”

Danny knew that what Nathaniel really meant to ask was how his daughter felt about him leaving and whether she wanted to follow him and leave them behind but didn’t have the heart to do so.

“Everything that had to be said was already said yesterday. She knows I’m leaving early today. We already said our goodbyes.”

“I see…” Danny saw a sigh of relief leaving the older man’s lips, but he pretended he did not notice it. “Well, where are you going after this then, if you don’t mind me asking? Will you return to Hank’s camp?” Nathaniel asked.

“Yeah. I think so. There’s still a lot I can do there. Apparently there’s a shortage of people like that are willing to go outside and get things done, I wonder why…” He grinned and the two other men laughed. “I think I’ll stick around there for a while. After that, I’m not sure.”

“I wish you good luck then,” Nathaniel said before adding with some hesitation, “… I am sure you can take care of yourself, but be careful when dealing with the people there. Take our own misfortune as a warning. Humans are fickle beings. You can never be sure what’s going on inside someone’s head, no matter what they show you outside.” He shook his head dejectedly. “A friendly smile might be hiding nefarious intentions… we learned that the hard way.”

John clicked his tongue at that, no doubt remembering the hard days he spent imprisoned but chose to say nothing about it, opting instead to stab a fried egg with his fork and stuff it into his mouth as if the egg itself had been the source of his annoyance.

“Thank you, I’ll be careful.” Danny nodded with seriousness on his face, demonstrating that he took Nathaniel’s advice to heart.

“Don’t mention it. Just think of it as the ramblings of an old fool. You know how us old folk love to worry and complain about things.” Nathaniel smiled in good humor.

After he finished his meal and helped cleaning the plates, Danny waved goodbye to the two older man standing at the porch before slowly walking away from the house.

Taking one last look behind him before he continued his journey, Danny saw Lara smiling and waving at him from the window to her bedroom on the second floor. A gentle smile crept up on his own face as he returned the gesture. Then he turned around for the last time and left the premises of the property shortly after.

The fondness he felt and the memories of last night were shelved at the back of his head. His gaze became sharper as his mind shifted gears.

It was time to get back into the game.

Danny put out the fire in front of him after he finished his meal. The roasted bird seasoned with honey and spices had been picked clean and only the bones remained behind.

‘That bird was quite big, but even so I’m still a little bit hungry.’ He thought before retrieving a couple candy bars from his bag and gobbling them down in short notice.

Ever since he started cultivating, his appetite has been steadily increasing. The more soul crystals he consumed, the more sustenance his body demanded.

‘Will I end up having to eat a whole cow every meal if this continues? I wonder how that works in demonic worlds. How do they sustain their population? Do they keep huge stretches of land to maintain their cities? How much space does that take?’ He wondered and paused as the idea of entire worlds being dedicated to farming jumped at him.

‘Farming Worlds… that would be insane. Wait, maybe I’m getting too far ahead of myself. Do demons even have urban centers? Demonic cities? Or are they nomadic in nature? How big their population is really?’

‘Perhaps I’m looking at it wrong. If they have more energy efficient forms of sustenance, they might not need all that space to sustain themselves…’ Danny scratched his chin as he let his thoughts run free.

“Meh. Questions, questions. It’s always more question, never answers.” He said aloud as he cleaned his hands and retrieved a crystal from his bag before swallowing it.

Soon after, he felt the energy spreading out from his stomach and coursing through his entire body.

For some days now, Danny had increased the amount of soul gems he consumed daily from 3 to 4. As time passed and he got used to this method of empowering himself - his body slowly adapting itself to the changes and growing more resistant to the pain caused by the soul energy discharges - eventually he got confident enough to pick up the pace and increase his dosage.

His confidence had not been misplaced fortunately.

Although the increased consumption caused him immense pain, it was nothing like that first endurance test run he had done all that time ago when he first came to know about the shiny stones and their usage.

His current suffering was something that was entirely within his tolerance threshold and it diminished with every passing day as his body grew more and more resilient, more and more adapted to the metaphysical energy.

Now, Danny roughly ate one crystal every 6 hours, but he didn’t think it would take too long to increase it even further. After all, adding a single crystal to a daily consumption of 3, bumping it up to 4, was essentially a 33% increase in what his body had to handle. However, doing the same once more, from 4 to 5, was just a 25% increase.

This basically meant that it would get easier and easier to speed up the rate with which he consumed the crystals and progressed through the Body Refining stage. He could not afford to slack off, since this snowballing effect was dependent on his ability to keep gathering the gems he needed for his cultivation in time. If the supply dried up, so would his progress stall.

He would constantly need more zombies, more enemies, to fuel his advancement.

As the painful sensations slowly abated and the remaining energies dissipated, Danny got up from his sitting position, strapped up his backpack and left the abandoned building behind.

It didn’t take long after he got back on the road for him to reach Hank’s camp. The place he had left was not that far from the settlement after all - not for someone who could run with superhuman speed as he could at the very least.

In no time, Danny was within the walls of the camp once more. He was returning from yet another fetch quest one of the habitants had issued him.

Then, he headed to the camp’s warehouse – the very same one where he had acquired his protective gear all that time ago before heading off to face the horde of zombies at the canning factory and meeting Luke – and left the expected item with the staff there.

Nowadays, the people that worked at the warehouse officially acted as both handlers and brokers for Danny.

Seeing how his services were so high in demand, Hank suggested that he left the collecting of rewards and booking of missions to them, which he saw no reason to refuse. All he had to do was go there to collect his payment and select the job he wanted to do among the many options, considering both difficulty and reward.

Though he knew Hank might try to influence which missions he took by messing with the process, nothing prevented him from bypassing the whole system and dealing directly with the interested parties. Even so, it was much more efficient to leave it to the clerks at the warehouse.

Leaving the place after delivering the item, he went straight to the command center of the settlement. Joff had given him a heads up when he passed the gate that Hank was looking for him. Therefore, without wasting anytime, he headed to the man’s office.

Knocking on the door, he turned the knob once he heard Hank’s voice prompting him to come inside. The leader of the settlement looked busy as always going through the paperwork stacked on top of his desk as Sally patiently waited to his side.

Raising his gaze from the documents he was perusing, Hank exclaimed with his boisterous voice after seeing who his visitor was, “Oh, hey there lad! Just the man I’ve been looking for! I have a job for you.”