"I wonder where everyone is?" Daz rhetorically asked himself while he and Rimmy carefully walked through the city.

The two had been walking around for fifteen minutes now, and they had yet to meet a single soul. However, they had seen a countless amount of both Human and monster bodies. Of course, the corpses were mostly Humans.

"Hmm, what do you think, Rimmy?" Daz asked his sparkly friend. Rimmy paused for a short while before he nodded. "Bit of an odd notion, but you're probably right, Buddy," Daz replied in kind.

The two then tried to be as discreet as they could, which was obviously a challenge due to Rimmy's imposing stature, but they had no other choice. Daz had to be careful of other people and potentially, of monsters.

The pair were quite shocked to have not been met by a single living thing as they walked through the devastated city. The closer they got to the eye of it, the less intact the buildings were. This made sense to Daz when he considered how many people lived within the previously crowded city centre.

"Can you hear that, Rimmy?" Daz asked his companion. The response was a swift nod of the head.

"Right? It is pretty weird. Whatever it is, it's on the way to the jewellery store," Daz replied with some worry evident in his tone.

His worry was well founded. What the curious pair had found was a Q&B. Q&B was a very famous DIY franchise, and due to the city that Daz lived in being quite large, naturally, the Q&B store was a main branch one to cater to all of its customers.

What Daz and Rimmy had seen was a horde of Zombies. At least three thousand strong, constantly battering the walls and entrance but they were making no visible progress.

"Are those walls boarded up? It is a DIY store... pity. I was hoping that I could quickly grab all of the shovels before we hit up the jewellery store. Oh well, guess we'll come back later," Daz said after having assessed the situation.

Just as Daz had turned around, he managed to hear a loud shout, "HELP US!" A feminine voice yelled at the top of her lungs. Daz was stunned by the sight of her on the roof shouting for aid, but he had more important things to do right now than save some other survivors.

"I'll come back later!" Daz replied to the beautiful, red-headed lady who was bouncing about frantically on the store's rooftop which almost forced her large chest to pop out of her loose low-cut shirt. Daz spied one final glance at her dark red miniskirt before he left, clearly uninterested in the woman.

Although she was rather sexy, Daz couldn't help but think about his girlfriend. Despite his ignorance of the status of her life, Daz was still loyal to his current girlfriend, at least until he confirmed her situation. However, he had a hunch that his girlfriend was doing just fine. She was always dependable.

The pair of jewelled core owners left the woman and horde of Zombies. It would seem that Daz really did care more about his new friend then the lives of potential innocents.

The pair were lucky enough to not find any more similar encounters. However, just as Daz rounded the last corner leading to the shop he intended to raid, he immediately saw a group of maybe fifty Goblins and twenty Slimes that were violently tearing the jewellery store apart. He took a second to Identify the two types of monster just to make sure that they were what he thought they were.

Basic Slime's Status Basic Information Name: N/A Species: Acid Slime Age: 0 Sex: N/A Class: N/A Affinity: Neutral Description A simple slime whose duty is to serve the system faithfully in order to help free its Species from the bindings of the system. Energies Slime Core: 1/1 Stats Strength: 3 Agility: 10 Basic Goblin's Status Basic Information Name: N/A Species: Green Goblin Age: 6 Sex: Male Class: N/A Affinity: Chaotic Evil Description A simple Goblin whose duty is to serve the system faithfully in order to help free its Species from the bindings of the system. Energies Lifeforce: 200/200 Stats Strength: 15 Agility: 5 Dexterity: 25

"Well, they look weak enough. We can't really waste time going to a different shop. I'm not sure why they're attacking it so fiercely, but wanna show me how tough you are, Rimmy?" Daz said with a big smile on his face as he looked at his huge blue friend.

Daz found it odd. Although he had always been somewhat detached from earthly matters, he still knew the value of a life. However, the idea of killing the monsters before him didn't even phase him. It was almost as if doing so was the only option to progress forward.

Daz wasn't sure how he'd managed to steel his will to kill the Zombies last night, but he had chalked it up to the danger and adrenaline of the moment. But this non-existent hesitance, it frightened Daz. So in short, while still not fully adjusted, he was happy enough with the notion of killing under one-hundred weak monsters to achieve his objective.

Rimmy nodded his head slowly before he immediately ran past the corner and charged at the monsters. He looked very intimidating, but oddly enough, the Slimes and Goblins completely ignored his thunderous approach and continued their siege on the store.

It only took a few seconds for Rimmy to be upon the creatures, and his left foot came crashing down onto a Goblin's skull, crushing the thing's entire body. It exploded in a haze of gore that covered Rimmy's leg. However, the other monsters still ignored Rimmy which massively confused Daz who was quickly reaching the shop.

Daz chose to ignore the creatures dismissal of Rimmy and himself for now and took out his shovel to kill the Slimes. He had noticed that Rimmy was struggling to destroy the monsters because they shifted their cores at the last second to avoid death. So even though they were ignoring Rimmy's assault on them, they still had enough consciousness to save themselves from his attacks before resuming their assault on the shop.

The Slimes and Goblins hadn't managed to penetrate the shop's outer wall yet because it was made from reinforced steel that was coated in reinforced concrete. The place had no windows oddly enough, but Daz knew that this was because the owner had experienced a break in before and the thieves had blown up the steel grates covering the windows and escaped with most of the accessories.

The shop owner wasn't very experienced at that point, but he was quite rich from having been a son of a wealthy family, so he installed a vault and replaced all the walls and windows for the ones now there. This was good thinking as far as Daz was concerned because he felt confident that he could break into the vault and get all of the jewels with the help of Rimmy.

After killing all of the creatures via swift slashes from Daz's shovel to the Slimes cores and powerful punches and kicks to the goblins from Rimmy, Daz took a minute to inspect the store's front wall and door.

They were intact, but only just. It would seem that the acid from the Slimes had managed to destroy the outer layer of concrete and half of the steel supports. Daz didn't know how long the creatures had been attacking this place, but he had a hunch.

"Rimmy, you think you can destroy that wall with a good punch?" Daz asked his blood-soaked crystal friend. He felt like he didn't have enough strength to force open the wall and following vault. In fact, he had only chosen this vault to raid because he was confident that Rimmy had the power needed to make it an easy task to raid.

Rimmy cocked his head slightly while he gazed at the wall. A moment later, his previously cocked head nodded, and he took a hefty swing. A tremendous boom and some crumbling sounds later, the wall had collapsed.

"Wow, you're incredible, Rimmy," Daz honestly admired. After waiting a few seconds for the dust of the impact to settle, he walked through the large hole in the wall straight into the shop.

Daz could see that half of the display cases were empty, while the other half still held their accessories. Daz smashed the cases with his elbow and pocketed all of the jewelled accessories. He left any other ones because no matter how much they were previously worth, they meant nothing now. At least not until Daz could sell stuff to the system's shop, however, he only had so many pockets.

It didn't take long for Daz to fill all of them, and he was eying the vault with greed. Only half of the products were on display here, so the question was, where was the other half? Apparently, Daz had concluded that they were behind the hatch to that vault.

"Hey, Rimmy. Think you can tear that thing off its hinges?" Daz asked his friend with hope clear in his voice. The more gems Daz got now, the longer he could wait until he had to collect more because he was against the idea of buying anything from the system's shop that could be obtained quickly enough in the city.

Rimmy nodded and then clumsily made his way through the shop while smashing display cases left and right with his enormous stature. The store clearly wasn't designed for the use of Golems.

When he was standing before the steel piece of machinery that separated him from the vault's interior, Rimmy looked at it for a minute, perhaps to inspect it for the most efficient way to tear the thing apart. He then clasped his hands onto the top left and bottom right corners of the vault's hatch after squatting down slightly. Daz thought that the sight was a bit strange, to say the least, but remained silent and watched in anticipation.

A loud wretching noise could be heard followed by a sharp scream.

"Oh fuck. Survivors?" Daz whispered. He focused his eyes on the now open vault only to see four people staring or yelling at Rimmy's intimidating figure. Daz couldn't help but frown upon seeing the way they were reacting to his friend. Rimmy was holding the vault's hatch above his head, and it was almost scraping the ceiling, but he quickly threw it behind him which resulted in a powerful impact that only served to frighten the survivors even more.

Daz chose to waste no time and walked ahead of Rimmy, and into the small room that was full of accessories, the vault. He scanned the gems on them and smiled. Daz then turned his attention to the people.

Two men and two women. The first man was standing tall and looking at Daz with a very cautious expression plastered across his aged face. The second was slumped on the floor, crying while he was mumbling something along the lines of 'the big blue thing is going to nomnomnom on us, hahahaha,' which disturbed Daz a slight amount.

The women, however, looked identical to each other. They both had the same pair of blue jeans and a yellow sweater on while their somewhat-above-average faces held expressions of terror and they were shaking enough to make their brunette ponytails swish about violently.

'Why are they so scared of Rimmy? He's so dependable looking, not scary! Ha-ah, some people just don't understand you, my friend, but don't worry, I understand you. For now, I should find out who they are? Yeah, that should do. We can work from there,' Daz happily thought, obviously under the assumption that these people would trust him at least a small amount due to them all being survivors.

"Who are y-" Daz's question was cut short by a gunshot. He had been blasted in the head by one of the four survivors. A tall black man who was wearing what looked like a security guard's outfit. In his trembling hands was a nine-millimeter standard issue revolver, as far as Daz could tell.

To the horror of the three remaining survivors, Daz's body slumped to the ground, but oddly enough, no blood escaped the wound on his temple where the bullet had pierced his skull.

Of course, Daz hadn't died or anything of the sort since he no longer had a brain thanks to his jewelled core and his outfit's Defense had nullified almost all of the actual damage dealt, but he had collapsed due to shock.

'Why... why would someone shoot me in the head?! I get that people can panic easily, but I literally said two words! A-Am I that scary to them?! Am... am... am I nothing more than a monster to them?! No... wait... wait... maybe it was a slip of the finger? He did look really nervous... let's find out first,' Daz thought before he groggily got back to his feet.

What he saw before him, was Rimmy holding the security guard's torso in both of his arms and he was slowly tearing the man apart.

"Rimmy, Stop. I need to know more about a person and their motives before you just go separating their left halve from their right halve," Daz calmly stated to his seemingly enraged friend while he gestured to his forehead that was rapidly regenerating.

Rimmy looked at the guard, then back at Daz, then back at the guard, and finally back at Daz before he nodded in an unsure way.

"It's fine. I swear, I can deal with this. I know you're worried and angry, and thank you, but leave it to me, okay?" Daz asked after having heard Rimmy's response. This elicited another nod from the Golem, and he gently placed the sweating security guard back on the ground, fully intact before he backed off a bit.

"Thanks, buddy, and yeah, I'd appreciate that," Daz said with a smile, much to the confusion of the other persons present, except for the man lying on the floor. He still seemed convinced that Rimmy was going to 'nomnomnom' them so he didn't care nor was he paying attention to Daz in the slightest.

"Y-You can understand w-what th-that th-thing is say-saying?" the guard asked while he wiped off the sweat from his bald head with his left hand.

"Rimmy. His name is Rimmy. But to you, it's Lord Rimmy McShineston. And of course I can, he's my friend, right Rimmy?" Daz said to which the Golem standing just outside of the vault cocked his head. "See, he agrees, now onto the real deal. Why the fuck did you shoot me in the head?"

'This guy's just as crazy as Lyle! Fuck! How do I fix this? Stupid class-related skill! Why'd you go and shoot this guy?! Shit!' the tall, black security guard thought to himself. All the while, his previously wiped sweat had returned in full force to invade his bald head.

"I-It was m-my cl-class... please d-don't k-kill me! O-Or my daught-daughters! It was an a-accident!" the guard pleaded to Daz. Daz found the claim to be plausible, the 'daughters' thing was strange due to the colour difference as both of the girls who looked to be in their early-twenties were white, but Daz just assumed that they were adoptive or from a different father.

Although Daz found the excuse of the man's class being responsible to be plausible, he still had doubts obviously, so he immediately used his Higher Identification on not just the guard, but all four of them and the results surprised him a fair amount.