20

This wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter. I killed them all by myself with surprising ease. Knocking my count down by fifteen in the process. Only the biggest one didn't rush me with the others. 

I turned my attention to the last gremlin. My smile dropped. My expression turning serious. 

"Aack," it yelled at me before trying to run. 

I was faster so I cut it off. Grabbing it by the neck, and squeezing tight. It clawed at my arm as it tried to scream out some sort of orders. 

"No one is going to help you now," I tightened my grip as little scratches opened up on my arms. 

I stabbed him in the head with my dagger. His body stopped moving, and I dropped him to the ground. They looked at me like I was the monster instead of the little gremlins. I wiped the blood off my face with my sleeve, and started parting out the gremlins. Collecting the cores, and bone fragments for my pack. 

I threw the cores into my pack, and no one argued. Boss boy was the only one that dared to look annoyed with me. He had his father's backing after all. He had all the reasons in the world to be cocky. He was just directing that cockiness at the wrong person. 

It was getting harder, and harder to stop myself from hurting him each time he threw around his entitled attitude. I wanted to kill him. I didn't just want to hurt my reputation in the camp. I'd need to get him alone to kill him. Something told me that he was winding up to something. 

I didn't know what. I didn't like his attitude. We made our way into the store, and started grabbing up all the canned food, and dry goods. The fridges, and freezers were all broken, and rotten food was thrown around the floors all over the store. Most of the dry goods were still in decent shape. 

They'd gone largely ignored, but many were thrown all over the floor. The carts out front were in decent shape as well so we'd doubled back to grab carts so we could grab more at once. I threw in everything that could be used as food. Most of it was junk food, but even junk food was better then nothing. Monster meat would make up a large amount of our food fairly soon. 

People would just have to get over the odd taste sooner rather then later. I felt a hand on my lower back. Chills ran up my spine. Followed by confusion then rage. I slapped that hand away. 

Turning around to see who had dared to touch me. Boss boy smirked at me as if he was untouchable. 

"Don't fucking touch me," I snapped angrily. 

"You know you want it," His voice was quiet but confident. 

"Touch me again," I snarled, "And I'll break you."

"Don't be that way," his tone turned more soothing. 

As if he was placating a petulant child. 

"Touch me again, and I will break you," I warned again, "I'm not joking."

"What about your boys?" his tone turned more dangerous. 

My eyes widened, and my heart pounded in my ears. This guy was threatening children to get something from me. I was too angry to talk to him without stabbing him now. 

"Would you get back to collecting food," one of the others crossed into the isle. 

"No problem," I pointed at boss boy, "This idiot was just getting in my way."

The guy frowned at boss boy knowing full well how quick I was normally when collecting supplies. 

"If you've got this isle I'll move to another one," I grabbed my cart, and moved away from him quickly. 

I moved over to a large display of potatoes at the end of an isle. The vast majority of the potatoes were untouched. I collected a large number of potatoes. Double checking them for any bite marks or rot as I shuffled through them. Potatoes were a good universal food similar to corn, but with less steps to make them useful. 

The camps ability user that had a plant ability would turn this batch of a few dozen into a few hundred in just a couple short months. As her ability grew stronger she'd be able to do even more. I frowned to myself as I picked through the potatoes quickly. Filling the cart about half full with potatoes alone. Moving on to take a look at the remnants of the chip isle. 

Most of the bags of chips were completely destroyed, and the same with the bags of candy. My stomach grumbled angrily. I kind of wanted to get myself something bad for me. I moved on to the back room when I was done there. There were half destroyed pallets in the back that still had some good food left on them. 

I started picking them apart. Taking things that would be good for food. All candies were completely destroyed. A large amount of sugary things were tossed around the whole back room. The vast majority of the stock in cheap stores like this one were on the sales floor. 

It meant that there wasn't much to gather back here. It didn't take me long to pick through all the things on the floor to find all the boxes that weren't completely destroyed, and get them in a cart. I even managed to fill the cardboard carts with food as well after dumping all the cardboard on the ground. I was getting ready to head back with the carts when a chill ran up my spine. No a chill wasn't the right way to describe this feeling. 

It was as if a weight had dropped on my whole being. Prickling every single cell in my body. The ground rumbled, and a dungeon gate slowly appeared before me. This dungeon gate was different then the tutorial gate had been. It was red in color, and had a foreboding air about it.