(A/N: I admit that I had to google it to understand the title's reference.)

Chapter 12 - 1-800-7355-9687-7685

After using his Blood Siphon to absorb the blood essence of the corpses nearby and around 2 hours of treatment and rest, using his inner blood to set his bones back in place and seal any wounded organs, Asmund finally had enough strength to at least stand… He was far from being able to fight anyone right now, but walking, or rather waddling, was still something he could do.

It was time to get the hard-earned rewards of his hunt: collecting every gacha ball and absorbing the blood essence of every single corpse.

The final result was 39 Rank 1 treasure capsules, 4 levels, 2 points of both Power and Constitution from the absorption, and as for the Credits received…

… Wait… 3780?! What the fuckkk?! Now that I think of it I gained 4 goddamn levels, just how many monsters did I kill?! From the corpses I counted there were around 100, but I assumed that some got stepped on and were killed by their fleeing friends or something… Hmmm… There’s also the possibility that the ‘Elite’ monster gave more Credits than a normal monster.

There was another peculiar thing about his reward, which was none other than the gacha ball the Beta dropped.

[ Rank 1* (50%) (Grey) Treasure Capsule ]

This grey gacha ball unlike the other grey ones, had a silver star on both the top and bottom part of the capsule. Also the ‘*’ and (50%) in its name were really noteworthy.

Does that mean that this capsule have a 50% probability of dropping a Rank-1* item like my cloak? Also it was an ‘Elite’ drop, so the Alpha of the Death-Hounds is probably a higher rank of monster, and will drop something better than this, no? Then again, it’s nothing but hypotheses. We’ll see in time if that’s really the case.

Done with this place, and not wanting to wait and see if the Death-Hounds are going to come back with more reinforcements, Asmund awkwardly moved away from here with his now 51 capsules in a huge bag made of blood, heading back into the empty room where he had left the 11 he gained with the earlier group he hunted.

As he was walking he decided to give his character sheet another look.

#

[ Name: Asmund Dreyri | Race: Human | Level: 15 ]

[ Class: Blood Overlord ]

[ Power: 30 ]

[ Agility: 24 ]

[ Constitution: 30 ]

[ Mind: 25 ]

[ Spirit: 33 ]

#

[ Skills ]

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

[ Blood Manipulation ][ Level 2 ][ Active ]

[ Blood Siphon ][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

-

[ Water Channeling][ Level 1 ][ Active ]

#

[ Credits: 4 577 ]

[ System’s Shop -> ]

#

Seeing the numbers described on it, he couldn’t help but have a stupid smile on his face despite the pain coursing through his body.

433 more Credits and I could even buy ‘Strong Blood’. That said, I still kinda want to buy ‘Eye of Truth’ as early as possible… I could even upgrade it to be able to see people’s classes. But that would cost me 2 000 Credits… Oh well, I’ll regain those Credits soon enough by hunting more mutts.

His decision made, Asmund immediately went through the System’s Shop, bought and then upgraded the skill, using 2 000 Credits in the process, but not regretting it at all.

With a great mood, he moved back to his room, put down the gacha capsules, and drank a Lesser Health Potion that he didn’t want to use until he was in a safe place in case there was some kind of side-effect.

After drinking the content of the small glass bottle, which had a stereotypical red color, the amount of pain through his body immediately lowered, but he also felt even more exhausted than before and more hungry too.

So that’s how it works, health potions somehow accelerate your metabolism and use your energy to heal you. Good thing I didn’t use it in the middle of the fight.

Although now his wounds. be it the internal or external ones, were mostly healed, Asmund felt extremely light-headed and his pale complexion turned even paler. Unable to stand anymore, he let his body drop on the bed, and soon fell asleep as is.

***

/ Sometime earlier. /

‘He still didn’t come back…’

At the cafeteria, behind the messy barricade, a young girl was standing there since early morning and didn’t move from there after she caught a glimpse of a strange youth who was capable of fighting monsters with ease.

Although the people of the cafeteria kept asking her to go rest and let them handle the task of keeping watch over the barricade, she refused to move from there, waiting patiently to catch another glimpse of the youngster.

The cafeteria’s survivors reported her strange attitude to her brother, but he was quite occupied with his ‘doll’ and wasn’t in the mood to take care of this. He only told them to leave her be, before going back to his business…

Not wanting to anger him, they did as he asked and just forgot about this; they didn’t want to spend more of their precious energy than necessary anyway.

Ah! He’s back! But… He looks quite weakened doesn’t he? Yet he still has a huge smile on his face…

Looking at the beautiful traits of the young man who was like before, or maybe even more, covered in blood, the young girl’s heart skipped a beat as she kept staring. Entranced, if not fascinated by what she was seeing.

Should I… Should I try to ask him to be his follower? I-I want to be closer to him, and I feel like I would be safer by his side. Also, I really don’t want to stay with my trash of a brother anymore, lately he even looked at me with the same eyes he did the other girls.

… She was lost in thought for a short while, but in the end she arrived to a conclusion.

I can’t stay here, I should really try to follow him, whatever he does to me it at least would be better than to be raped by my own brother and be used by his men after he broke me, like he did the others.

Imagining the scene of her body being assaulted by her brother as he plays with her like a toy, she almost vomited in disgust, yet as she imagined the young man do the same to her, a creepy smile could be seen appearing to the corner of her lips.

Let’s go! At the pace he was moving he shouldn’t have gone that far yet!

Full of determination, the young girl moved discreetly to the left side of the barricade. Observing the people behind her who were barely in a better shape than zombies, thirst and hunger slowly turning them into thin mummies, the young girl made sure that nobody was currently paying her any attention.

She then fiddled with a part of the barricade that she herself turned into a weak spot in the structure long ago, in preparation for a possible need to escape this hell and the grasp of her crazy brother.

However she did end up making a ruckus while getting that part down and make an opening for her to go through, making the survivors notice that something was going on.

“M-Miss Shiori?! What are you doing?!” -Old Man

Hearing the shouts of more and more survivors coming closer, Shiori sped up the process as she stopped caring about how much sound she was making and was able to make an opening just big enough for her to slip through, right as the survivors were going to grab her to make her stop.

Jumping through the opening without any hesitation, she rolled on the floor and ran after the mysterious young man as fast as she could as soon as she was back up.

“S-Shit! Hurry! Someone warn Lord Inkei!” -Young survivor #1

Ha! Tell my brother? Good luck with that, whoever does will probably be killed and then he'll kill another just for fun. Oh well, it's none of my concern any more. I'll either be protected or dead by this time tomorrow… Maybe I'll have been made a woman!

The say the first time hurts… guhehehehee…

***

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?! Shiori escaped?! Are you fucking kidding me?!” -Inkei

As he heard the news from one of the survivors, Inkei immediately stopped playing around with his favorite doll, who was none other than the young nurse Asmund saw next to him the first day of the apocalypse, and was now shaking the one who brought him the news by his collar.

“I-It’s the truth my Lord! W-We tried to stop her but it was already too late by the time we noticed what she was doing!” -Young survivor #2

“Useless trash!” -Inkei

Full of rage, Inkei punched the poor man in the face without releasing his grasp on him.

“I-I’m sorry my Lord! B-But my Lord, what should we do?!” -Young survivor #2

Although he was getting trashed, the young man still asked that question as he knew that Inkei would trash him even further later on, after he noticed that he forgot to act on the moment.

“Forget her! Just take care of putting the barricade back together! Now scram!” -Inkei

Releasing the young man, he didn’t forget to give him one last punch before letting him leave. Alone again with his doll, Inkei turned around and passed his nerves on her by kicking her mercilessly. But the doll was so broken at that point that she didn’t even react, as if she was a breathing corpse.

“Fucking ungrateful brat! And she was the last girl who looked decent in this damn place! Shit!” -Inkei

***

Meanwhile, as Inkei was still raging about her escape, Shiori was stalking the long haired young man, who was too exhausted to even notice her presence.

Hiding in plain sight… The young girl really wanted to talk to him but like any teenage girl, deciding to confess her feelings was considerably different to taking action and actually confronting the target of her affections. In the end, she could only follow him in silence while complaining to herself about her own lack of courage.

Oh? He’s walking into a room! Is that where he rests? Like his secret-base or something? Hah! Damn he’s already inside! What should I do…? S-Should I just knock at the door? Directly try to talk to him from the outside? Moan in pleasu… Why would I do that?!

Arrrg! Come on Shiori! You can do it! Let’s just simply knock at the door! Or… I could maybe infiltrate the room and hide myself under the bed…… What am I even thinking about?

Walking to the door while she was thinking, she stood there for a good 10 minutes, lost in her delusions. When she finally woke up from her day-dreaming, she gulped loudly and… Tried to open the door discreetly.

What am I doing?! Phewww… Thankfully the door was locked…

A little disappointed for some reason, she finally resolved herself to simply knock at the door, despite her nervousness.

*Knock* *Knock*

…

“H-Hello…?” -Shiori

…

Nobody home? No, I saw him enter this room just a moment ago and I was standing in front of the door since then! Is he ignoring me then...?

Pouting, she put her ear against the door, trying to listen to what was happening inside. Yet, she could hear pretty much nothing going on inside.

Did he leave the room through some kind of secret passage?

She was going to take off her ear from the door when she heard a really soft sound coming from the inside.

This… Is this the sound of breathing? It’s really rhythmical and calm… Is he actually asleep? Maybe it wasn’t that he was hunting early this morning, but was in reality out for the whole night?

This is bad… If I wake him up he’d be in a really bad mood right? But I can’t stay outside and wait for him to wake up when there’s monsters roaming around… Ah! Now that I think of it! Didn’t we pass next to the vending machines?! I wonder if there’s things left in there, ‘he’ probably fed himself using those until now. Okay, let’s go see if there’s something there, take a small amount so that he won’t notice if that’s the case, and then wait in a room next to his until he wakes up! Sounds good! I’m such a genius! Muahahahah!

In a good mood for no real reason, the young girl walked away to go search for food...

***

When Asmund woke up, it was already in the middle of the night and almost a whole day passed. But even as he slept this much, his whole body still felt like lead, and he really didn’t want to move at the moment.

He was forced to though as his stomach kept grumbling loudly and the hunger coming from it was almost unbearable.

Damn, it really feels like I didn’t eat for days… I didn’t sleep for days did I?

Struggling out of bed, Asmund searched through the ‘food drawer’, and took out of it the last 3 bags of potato chips he had left. Next he searched the ‘drink drawer’, in hope of finding a beer left in it to go along the potato chips.

Nooo! There’s no beer left! Urg… Looks like I have no choice but to go fetch one from the machines, there should be 2 left.

Dragging his feet, Asmund forced his body to move in the direction of the door, moving the furniture blocking it and then unlocked it, to step outside to go get the beer. He REALLY didn’t want to move, but the prospect of eating potato chips without his usual beer to go along with it was just too much for Asmund to bear. (A/N: Pun non intended…)

But, his body jolted in surprise as the sound of an opening door was heard right after he opened his own, and a shadow moved in front of him.

Shit! -Asmund

Cursing at his groggy mind and the fact that he forgot to bring his weapon with him, Asmund was going to kick the shadow as his last resort. At least until his eyes were able to make out what the shadow was, stopping him in his tracks.

The shadow was… A young girl, around his age. She had a thin body with small curves yet didn’t feel ‘childish’ but more ‘elegant’. Her messy short hair had a light blonde color which were a weird mix with her pure black almond eyes. And for some reason this girl was also wearing a typical blue and white school uniform, the ‘sailor’ type one.

But despite her cute appearance that appealed to Asmund’s eyes, what occupied his mind the most was…

Why the hell is she groveling at my feet exactly?! -Asmund

As if to answer his question, the girl suddenly shouted…

“S-Sir! M-Make me your slave!” -Young girl