Chapter 80: Recovery and Alliances (Patreon)

I awoke to hear voices arguing about me. My whole body was in such pain that I couldn’t speak or move. I tried to focus on the voices, but they were too muffled for me to make out. I listened anyway, hearing one that sounded angry and another that sounded worried.

Then there was movement nearby and suddenly a light flashed, temporarily blinding me. I couldn’t move most of my body, but I clenched my eyes shut. Hands grabbed me and for a moment, I thought it was more zombies coming to finish me off. Instead, I felt myself being dragged and then lifted into the air.

I was placed on flat ground and my hand was pressed into something wet and sticky.

“Why isn’t it working?” asked a woman.

“I don’t know!” snapped a young boyish voice before calming himself. “Maybe the System got that one first. Try finding one with a clear stab wound in its head.”

There were murmurs from others who were further away. I was so tired. Everything hurt, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

Something fell next to me with a heavy thud and my hand was once again placed in something wet.

“It’s still not working,” she said.

“The damage is too extensive for touch. He needs to drink it,” said the boy.

This caused several voices to shout in alarm. “You can’t be serious. Did you see what he did? What if he’s another monster just made to look like us?” asked one man.

The conversation ended there as I felt someone open my mouth. A thin, coppery liquid was poured inside it. I choked it down and slowly felt some of my pain recede.

The more I drank, the more alert my mind became. I realized that it had been Elise and Hugo that had been talking about me along with an unknown third party. Maybe one of the other town survivors? My body still felt incredibly weak, and I tried to voice a protest when the liquid, that I realized was blood, had stopped coming.

“He needs more,” said Hugo.

“I’ll get it,” said Hemi.

More bodies were gathered and their blood was poured into me. Strangely, I never seemed to feel full. It was like my stomach was a black hole that would infinitely devour whatever it was given.

Sensations other than pain returned to my body. I opened my eyes but struggled to focus. Everything was so hazy. A hand rested on my shoulder to tell me to take it easy.

“Not yet,” said Hemi.

“Found them,” said Damian.

I wondered what he was talking about and then gasped in pain as I felt something hard and dull slam into my left hand. More blood was fed to me, which gratefully numbed the pain. My hand too tingled with a kind of numbness.

I must have drunk another four bodies after that before I finally sat up and opened my eyes.

The first thing I looked at was my left hand. The fingers that the zombies had bitten off had been reattached. I wiggled them in amazement. There wasn’t even a scar.

I looked up to see the other members of my team tentatively watching me.

“Thank you,” I said hoarsely.

I still wasn’t a hundred percent, and I was reminded of that fact when I tried to get up. A dizzy spell hit me and I had to remain seated on the ground while Hemi dragged over another zombie corpse for me to drink from. I guess I should be thankful that the System didn’t just erase the bodies after I rung the bell.

I grabbed the zombie by the neck and pulled a face of revulsion when looking at it. Drinking from them was a lot easier when I had my eyes closed.

Not wanting to use my teeth, I looked around for a weapon and felt relieved. Whoever had recovered my body from the zombies had also helpfully found and returned my goblin steel knife to its sheath.

I punctured the neck with it and viscous blood that was almost black seeped out. I touched the blood, but no healing occurred. Odd. I should have recovered enough to use touch-based healing again. Having no other choice, I forced myself to drink. More of my strength returned to me and as I thought about the problem, something occurred to me.

The amulet.

It was the only thing I’d changed since my last death-defying fight and touch healing hadn’t been a problem then. The amulet boosts my stats while active, but it must require a higher blood cost to recover from. That made sense. Samara had encouraged me to drink the blood of my enemies and now she’d given me a tool that enforced it.

I didn’t know how to feel about that. The benefits of the amulet were massive, and I wasn’t sure if I’d have survived the fight with the zombies without it. But what would happen if I went up against humans after using the amulet?

I’d have to think on it some more as I got up and began looting any zombie corpse with a blade wound. That wasn’t hard since I’d gotten pretty aggressive and many of them near me were missing arms or other body parts.

“What are you doing?” a male voice I didn’t recognize asked.

“Storing them in my inventory keeps them fresh,” I said, too tired to sugar coat it for anyone.

There was a lot of high level blood here and I intended to collect every last drop of it.

As my senses became fully restored, I was finally able to notice via touch which bodies had the healing magic within them and which had been killed by the System. The process of looting them became quicker, and soon I was struggling to find more to take. All of the bodies within the clock tower had been burned to crisp, so those were naturally out.

I moved around the barricade that was now just blackened wood and ash to collect the rest.

I’m sure it must have looked strange to the survivors that were watching me, and I knew that they’d want more of an explanation soon.

My party stood apart from them and so I went to them first.

“What happened after the zombies collapsed?” I asked them.

“Well the inside of the tower was on fire, so all of us used Damian’s cable to climb down the outside of the tower. Once the zombies were dead, our health potions suddenly worked again, and we were able to cure our infections. We found you under a pile of zombies. The health potions had no effect, and you were dying, so we followed Hugo’s advice by getting you blood.”

I nodded. That made sense. But the fact that the other survivors were still sticking around after the zombie invasion was over had me curious. “Have the other survivors said anything yet?”

My party members exchanged nervous glances with one another.

“Well, what was it?” I pressed.

“Something about a monster in human form creating a massacre and being covered in blood,” said Hemi.

“So the usual then,” I joked.

Hugo laughed, but the others didn’t.

“This is serious,” said Elise. “We should leave before we antagonize them further.”

I shook my head. “No, I think I’ll go talk to them instead.”

“Wait!” Elise hissed quietly as I turned and walked away.

Somewhere along the way, the eight survivors had dwindled down to just three. A boy who looked like he was around fifteen, carrying a bow, a woman wearing ashen gray robes with a scepter, and a muscular man carrying a shield and axe.

The man stood out in front as if to protect his ranged party members.

I waved to them as I approached and tried to look as non-threatening as possible, even though my clothes were still drenched in blood.

“Hi,” I said and tried not to look disappointed when the man raised his shield a little higher. “Look, you have nothing to worry about. My power looks scarier than it actually is.”

“Your eyes were red like a demon,” said the woman.

“Okay sure but…”

“And you were laughing as you slaughtered them,” said the man.

Laughing? I frowned. I didn’t remember any of that. Still, I pressed on. “Well, they were just zombies and I guess I got a little carried away with a new power buff I’d received. I’m not a bad guy.”

“Aren’t you the one who tried to kill Martin?” asked the boy.

The other two looked at me with even more suspicion. Damn, thanks a lot, kid.

“Technically, Martin tried to kill me first…”

The man adjusted his grip on his axe just as Elise and Hemi jogged over. Oh, thank god. Negotiations broke down quicker than I thought they would. Even better, the anti-social Damian had chosen to stay behind and was keeping a suspiciously tight grip on Hugo, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Elise stepped forward. “What Lucas is trying to say is that Martin has been dishonest with all of you. He wasn’t trying to build a group to protect you, but to consolidate his power.”

“That’s not true,” said the man. “I was there that first night when he helped save us.”

“And how many times did you see him save someone once the town was built? How many floors do you descend together?”

The man frowned but said nothing.

“Yes, Martin and Lucas met on floor 100 and fought each other. Both say that the other instigated it, so there’s no way of knowing who’s telling the truth. But I’ve seen Lucas risk his life multiple times to save others, to the point where I no longer doubt him.”

“What if you’re lying too?” asked the woman.

Elise shrugged. “I guess there’s no way to prove that, either. But we outnumber your group and you’ve seen what we can do, yet we haven’t attacked you for points or supplies.”

The survivors glanced at each other and took a step back to whisper amongst themselves before finally addressing us.

“Maybe you aren’t as bad as they say,” said the man. “So we’ll calmly go our way and you go yours.”

No, that’s not good enough. I need them to join the party.

“Wait!” I shouted, causing them to turn violently. The kid almost put an arrow in me on reflex before lowering his bow. “Martin likes to talk a lot about what he offers. He likes to make a lot of promises while rarely delivering so here.”

I pulled the residency card out of my inventory and extended it to them.

The man looked at it, wary of a trap.

“What is it?” asked the boy archer.

The man reached out to touch it and his eyes widened.

“You can’t be serious?” he asked.

“I am.”

“Why would you give up something so precious for people you don’t even know?”

“First, you should know that my friend Elise has one too and so we’ll be running into each other anyway. But the more important question is, why didn’t Martin ever invite any of you up to the residential floor?”

“You can invite people?” he asked, dumbfounded.

I nodded. “As many as the elevator can hold. Instead, he let you stay down here, stuck in accommodation he paid for. Kept you here safe but weak and easy to control while he was busy leveling up and growing stronger. I don’t want to do that. I’m not looking for subordinates to follow orders. I’m looking for allies that want to work together.”

“But this?” he asked, still not fully believing him.

“Even if you say no to the alliance, you should still take it. Find somewhere safe to hide and then go up to the residential floor when the elevators unlock.”

“Why help us?” asked the boy.

“Because the three of you fought well together and didn’t try to run away. Because there might not be many more humans left alive, and I want as many of us to survive as possible.”

“Even Martin?” the man asked.

“No,” I replied honestly. “Regardless of your decision, I plan to find Martin and Anders and kill them both. They’re too dangerous to my group to leave alive. I’d prefer that you three join to help me in that endeavor, since I’m certain Martin will still have people with him.”

The man took the residential pass out of my hand and put it in his inventory before going off to talk with his group again.

“Are you sure that was wise?” Elise whispered.

“I meant what I said and we could use the extra numbers,” I whispered back.

After five minutes they returned and the man said, “alright we’ll join you. Giving us access to the residential floor is more generous than anything Martin has done for us. And you were right. In hindsight, a lot of what he said and did seem to primarily serve his own interests.”

“And you’ll fight your own people when the time comes?” I asked.

He snorted, “our people? Martin’s group was so large and he kept us busy so often that we barely had time to speak to most of them, let alone get to know them. The only person we had regular contact with was Carina, Anders’s sister. So no, fighting them won’t be a problem.”

“Then welcome aboard,” I said and sent the party invitation.

Everybody froze when my name and level came up.

Party leader [Lucas Hudson, Class: Blood Reaver, Level 39] has invited you to join the party.