Chapter 08 - Then One Day, Strangefolk Arrived in the Hospital.

As the first rays of light went through the small window that were at the top of the wall opposite to the room’s entrance, Asmund grimaced while slightly opening his eyes. Still half asleep, he stared at the ceiling while thinking that it wasn’t the one he was used too, yet both really looked alike…

Sitting on the bed, he stretched his body while yawning comfortably, feeling… Feeling really good actually, so good that it felt abnormal to Asmund who was more than used to waking up in the middle of the night due to the pain coursing throughout his body.

Huh? Is it me or is my body less… ‘Thin’?

Patting his body, he felt and saw that his arms, legs and stomach lost their sickly appearance to be more ‘average’ looking.

It’s probably a result of my current Constitution and Power… I just hope that I won’t become a complete macho to a point it’s completely ridiculous… No, it shouldn’t be so, after all my stats are already above average yet I only just look normal. Yup, that must be it… Please let it be the case!

Leaving the bed with such thoughts, he also noticed that despite the amount of ruckus still coming from the outside, he surprisingly was able to sleep quite well. Moving to the bathroom to relieve himself, he got his first bad news of the day after opening the faucet to wash his hands, as the water falling from it wasn't perfectly clear, but had a brownish color.

Damn! The water pipes must have been damaged and dirt made its way in them. That said, I still have plenty to drink and will soon have enough Credits to afford the Water Channeling skill. So it shouldn’t be a problem to stay in this hospital until I trained myself by cleaning it of its monsters.

That done, he moved to the computer to see what new videos were put on Metube, and that’s when he got the second bad news of the day.

*Click*

Hm? Why can’t I switch the computer on?

*Click**Click*

Fuck! Did the computer broke, or did we finally lose electricity?!

Moving to the light switch to verify which of those two it was, he soon frowned as the lights on the ceiling didn’t light up after fiddling with the switch a good number of times…

We really don’t have any electricity anymore?! How is that possible?! Even if we don’t get the electricity from an outside source, this hospital should have an emergency power supply of some sort! Were we already using said emergency supply yesterday? That’s unlikely… Then what, did the backup generator not work as intended?

… Let’s think for a second… Where should the backup generator normally be? That’s quite obvious, it should be down in the basem… SHIT! Isn’t the basement where the Death-Hounds’ nest is probably located?! At the very least, seeing as the ‘cleaners’ brought all the corpses down there, the Death-Hounds must have been quite active in the basement, so it wouldn’t be weird that they broke down the generator as they were annoyed by the racket it made when it started up. They’re dumb mutts after all.

Either way, in the end it doesn’t matter ‘how’, it’s a fact that we have no power left. And although it doesn’t seem like much of a problem to me at first, if we think a little, it means that the vending machines and fridges throughout the hospital won’t cool their contents anymore. And so food will spoil at a much faster rate!

Luckily we’re still at early march, so the hell of summer isn’t there yet and we still have a pretty cool temperature. It’s not as good as if we were in the middle of winter, but it’s at least not the worst case situation yet.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Asmund heaved a long sigh while trying to calm down his mind.

Good, it seems like I don’t really have to change my plan. Let’s just focus on training for now and as for nourishment I’ll keep using the vending machine, which I hope will keep enough edible food for the time I stay in this place.

So let’s do it like this, in the morning I will train my Blood Manipulation skill and try to get better at controlling it, and also try to think of new ways to use it. After eating a meal when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, I will start to hunt and, if possible, try to get better at fighting against multiple opponents. That done, I’ll come back to this room at night time to wash myself up and rest. Sounds like a good plan, simple but good nonetheless.

And that’s how Asmund’s training days started. Following the ‘schedule’ he made for himself, he first started the day by experimenting with his Blood Manipulation ability, then ate some snacks while trying to consume nothing but what is necessary, keeping in mind that he was still going to stay here for quite some time.

His meager meal done, he would roam around the hospital in search of preys. First he searched for monsters who were traveling alone, but after gaining more and more fighting experience he started to fight groups of monsters, although those groups were mostly level 1 ‘cleaners’, who after finishing to clean the hospital of its corpses became patrollers.

The problem is that even if those level 1 were weak even in a group, they were also really cowardly, so as soon as they noticed they were under attack they didn’t fight Asmund but tried to run away while barking loudly to alarm any Death-Hounds near them. This often resulted in Asmund having to fight level 2 or above just after dealing with the level 1.

That's how the first five days went by, at least. Showing really promising results! His current status being as such.

#

[ Name: Asmund Dreyri | Race: Human | Level: 9 ]

[ Class: Blood Overlord ]

[ Power: 20 ]

[ Agility: 12 ]

[ Constitution: 20 ]

[ Mind: 12 ]

[ Spirit: 21 ]

#

[ Skills ]

[ Heart Of Magic Blood ][ Level 1 ][ Passive ]

[ Blood Manipulation ][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

[ Blood Siphon ][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

-

[Water Channeling][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

#

[ Credits: 162 ]

[ System’s Shop -> ]

#

Since the start of his training, Asmund killed a countless numbers of Death-Hounds of level 1 to 4, but he didn’t absorb their blood essence, as he wanted to wait to hunt stronger monsters to get higher effects. The first day, after obtaining more than 100 Credits he immediately bought the Water Channeling skill which happens to be as great as Asmund hoped, maybe even more as the speed at which he’s able to gather water grows proportionally to his ‘Spirit’. With his current speed, it would take him only 10 minutes to fill a bathtub to the brim!

The biggest gain he obtained from those days of hunting was probably the items he won though! The list was pretty big and he even got some items in doubles, the list of items currently owned by Asmund including the ones he obtained before is:

Rank.1 - Leather Boots x2

Rank.1 - Leather Shirt x2

Rank.1 - Black Dagger x3

[ Rank 1 - Black Longsword ]

[ Effect: Pow+3, Atk+3 ]

[ Durability: 72% ]

[ Rank 1 - Hunter's Trousers ] x2

[ Effect: Con+1, Agi+1, Def+1 ]

[ Durability: 65% ]

[ Rank 1 - Black Short Spear ]

[ Effect: Pow+2, Mnd+1, Atk+3 ]

[ Durability: 100% ]

[ Rank 1 - Black Hammer ]

[ Effect: Pow+4, Atk+2 ]

[ Durability: 100% ]

[ Rank 1 - Lesser Health Potion ] x3

[ Rank 1 - Lesser Mana Potion ]

[ Rank 1 - Weak Antidote (Paralysis) ]

Lastly Asmund obtained an item which seemed out of the norm.

[ Rank 1* - Old Magus' Mantle ]

[ Effect: Mnd+4, Spi+4 ]

[ Effect*: Mana consumption -10% ]

[ Durability: 97% ]

This blue ‘mantle’ with a strange magic circle drawn at its back looked like an old medieval one which covered the upper body down to the waist and also had a hood. It really looked like time had took a toll on it, yet the durability was still at 100% when Asmund first got it.

But apart from its weird appearance, the most important fact was that it was a Ranked 1’*’ item. Which are probably the rare kind of level ranked 1 drop, which give great bonus effects. Another great thing about it, is that unlike the rest of the ranked 1 items its durability dropped at a much slower pace.

The equipment that Asmund was directly wearing while hunting at the moment was: a pair of leather boots, a leather shirt, a black dagger that he keeps on his belt, hunter's trousers, the black longsword and, obviously, the old magus' mantle. He also has 2 lesser health potions, the mana potion and the antidote on him.

The rest of the items that he doesn’t use, he left them inside the room he rests in every night.

Something else noteworthy to say about those last five days, was the change in attitudes of the Death-Hounds and the current situation of the people of the cafeteria.

First about the Death-Hounds: it’s now impossible to find one traveling alone. The cause to this was probably Asmund’s hunt, which was decimating their population, making them turn more cautious with their weaklings.

Another change was that the Death-Hounds don't only stay in the hospital anymore and go outside to hunt. They probably ran out of human corpses and were now forced to search for another source of food.

As for the cafeteria, to Asmund’s astonishment, it was left alone by the Death-Hounds.To be more precise, they were compeltely ignoring that area. Which first made Asmund think that everyone inside somehow died, but after going there to take a look Asmund did hear signs of life coming from there.

Apart from this weird occurrence, Asmund had absolutely no interest in the cafeteria and the rats holed up in it, at least until he found a way to take care of the gun holding asshole.

That is a recap of what happened until now, and today again Asmund was hunting. Compared to how he was a week ago a lot of changes could be seen, be it his appearance or his demeanor. Not only did his equipment made him look like an adventurer straight out of a fantasy novel, the numerous scars covering his body and his aura turned him into an intimidating presence.

One thing that changed too, was the blood arm guards, boots and giant sword he had on him, and which were the result of his dedicated training on blood manipulation. The arm guards and boots were nothing new, but he was now able to keep them on him at all times without having to focus on it much. Of course, since the things he hardens can’t move and stay fixed, he couldn’t make a proper gauntlet and the boots only cover some parts of the leather ones, but they made good additional protection.

As for the giant blood sword, it was in reality the Black Longsword being coated by a thick layer of blood. Although it sounded like something simple to make it was, in reality, something he had to train for days before being able to make well. There was the problem of balance, design, change in toughness depending on the part, etc…

The advantage is that since the blood covering it is considered as a part of his body, even while the sword is coated with a thick layer of it, Asmund still keep its bonus effects.

With his giant sword in hand, which was designed as a simple double-edged thick plate which had a pointy tip, Asmund really turned into a God of War. No matter the amount of weak Death-Hounds he fought at once, he would cut them in two in a single strike.

The sight of him cutting monsters apart was so gruesome that even the level 4 mutts had the tendency to run away on sight lately. In the end, Asmund became so notorious among the Death-Hounds that since today they started to move in really big packs with a minimum of 5 and always accompanied by a level 5 and sometimes even higher, as Asmund discovered that level 5 was far from being the strongest of them.

Among the ‘escorts’, there was level 6 to no less than 9, although they were really short in numbers, those high level Death-Hounds did exist, and they still weren’t the strongest. Among a big patrol that Asmund saw today was a Death-Hound who was really standing out. Not only was its size so ridiculous it shouldn’t be less than 4 meters tall, its skin was covered in tribal-like tattoos, and 3 long horns were adorning its forehead.

As if that wasn’t enough, there was something extremely worrisome about it. It was the blue panel which appeared as Asmund stared at the creature while hiding in the shadows.

[ Death-Hound Beta Level 15 - Elite ]

Among the information given by this panel, 3 things were worrisome here. The first is that this monster was no less than level 15, a pretty big jump in level compared to the rest of the Death-Hounds. The second was the ‘Elite’ thing written at the end, suggesting that it wasn’t a monster that someone should compare in strength to the other ones. Lastly, and it’s by far what was disturbing Asmund the most, it’s the fact that this monster is named Death-Hound Beta... ‘Beta’, making it clear that this monster wasn’t actually at the top of the hierarchy among the pack.

All in all, those changes really troubled Asmund who always avoided to fight level 5 and above until now. Even as he passed the whole day to search for preys, he was unable to find any.

It looks like I don’t have any choices, those Death-Hounds above level 5 really look strong, but I can’t find any groups which don’t have one of them in their ranks. And I can’t keep on killing nothing but weaklings anyway. Alright, let’s try to find a weak group with only a level 5 at most then!

His decision taken, Asmund moved around in a hurry as half his hunting time today had already gone by...