13

I went straight into my sprinting. I didn't care how tired I was. I could catch up on sleep later. Right now I was more worried about getting as strong as possible. I wouldn't have any support once I left here so I would have to be my own reinforcements. 

My own trump card. My own backup. The fact that I was planning on taking the boys with me as well so I needed all the strength I could get. I wasn't even the strongest awakened out there. I didn't want to be the strongest, and even if I ended up being the strongest I wouldn't want anyone to know how strong I was. 

Letting people think I was weaker then I actually was would work well for me in the future. I was little more then a shambling mess by the time I stumbled to my cot. It was nearly four in the morning. I collapsed onto the cot after dropping my phone off at the charging station. It had died sometime after I finished my strength training. 

I'd hardly been touching the damn thing so it had been dead most of the time since we got into this settlement. I flopped onto my cot, and passed out pretty quickly after that. I'd grown so used to the pained groans of my poor stomach. I hadn't eaten in several days at this point. The system heal did heal us beyond our injuries. 

Allowing myself to starve had been something I just hadn't really thought about. I'd burned off every single ounce of fat on my body through this starvation tactic, but once the daily healing went away I wouldn't be able to keep it up anymore. I would starve to death rather quickly if I didn't snap out of the habit once the daily healing went away. My sleep was a bit fitful, and I was tense, but I did sleep. The seven o'clock healing woke me up a few hours later. 

My hunger pains let up immediately. I felt human again. Still hungry, but human. I stood up, and stretched. Heading out into the street. 

There was happy discussions about some upcoming expansion that Boss man was planning. I wasn't worried about it. It was a bad idea to expand now when we were already having trouble defending what we had, but politicians often lied. The tactic worked so why change it. They were prepping for another run. 

I made a point of showing my face so they wouldn't think of not including me. I wanted them to include me. I wanted to kill more. There was even a long run in the works. I made sure that my name was on the list of people to be included in that run. 

I was one of the better fighters in the group so it made sense for me to go, but I also wasn't the best fighter. I was also a danger to the people around me when I was fighting. I got a little too into it. I knew it had something to do with the dragon egg within me, and the closer it got to hatching the more I was affected. I hadn't even gotten halfway through the massive number of kills I needed to make the egg hatch. 

I was more then a little nervous about what would happen to me when I hatched that dragon egg. I was assigned random tasks until it was time to go on the quick run. We were all handed backpacks. Fighters got small ones again while the non fighters were given heavy hiking packs. I frowned. 

He'd sent along weak disabled type people for the heavy packs again. It takes us some time to walk all the way to the next house on the street. We went through the routine of grabbing everything that looked even slightly useful. I found some zip ties in the garage, and tossed them in my pack. Lights were still working, but with my bow in hand I didn't really need them so I just didn't use them. 

The shadows worked in my favor. I spotted the nocturnal monsters in the garage before they could turn on the lights. I stopped them from lighting up the room when they stalked up behind me. I held my finger over my lips to shush them as I raised my bow. Peering into the darkness with ease due to the enchantment in my bow. 

The car in the garage was in good shape as well so I didn't want to destroy it. These newer vehicles were usually good when it came to gas milage so getting this mid sized vehicle back to camp intact would be a small victory we needed. I frowned as I aimed at the wolf headed bat like monsters. I couldn't just go all out with mana like I usually did. I needed to make these perfect kill shots, but I didn't know if my cheap crappy arrows could pierce those creatures, and kill them in one clean shot. 

I slowly relaxed, and put my arrow back in the quiver. I walked into the garage quietly, and pulled out my dagger. I stepped up to the closest monster. Bow in one hand, and the dagger in the other. I sliced the monsters throat quickly. 

Wrapping my bow around the back of it's neck, and using it to force the blade through it's throat. The monster let out a gagging choking sound before the monster fell onto the floor of the garage with a dull thud. The others shuffled a bit, but didn't wake. I stepped forward to go after the next monster. Repeating the same two handed motion to kill the second one. 

It fell from the roof. Slamming into the car before hitting the cement floor. It was a loud sound, and it woke the other two. I didn't mind much though. I'd managed to kill two with ease, but stealth kills wouldn't work every time whether I wanted it to or not.