Killer among us

They had been traveling further and further from their original village for a few days now, hunting from monsters. The village they were resting in was the third they passed already. We need to be at least level five before we go towards a town, Theo thought.

“Isn’t there another spot to make a killing like the slime one?” Hamon said as he got up again. He had been knocked down thrice already since they began sparring.

“Yes, there is. That we can use in our conditions? Not nearby.” Theo motioned for him to come to fight.

Hamon felt he was stronger, faster, and more resilient. However, no matter how much he tried, he just couldn’t keep up with Theo’s movements.

“I told you, stop coming with such an obvious intent. I’m not even a fighter, and you can’t land a hit.” Theo said as he positioned his foot in the path of Hamon’s leg, making him trip.

“Not fair, I was distracted.” Hamon got up. “Again.”

“Don’t be distracted.” Theo shook his head. “I told you, you can’t control your body properly, and you don’t see where I’m coming from in time. Even if your blessings need physique the most, you will be useless if you can’t react in time. You have to invest at least a bit in control and senses.”

“Shut up.” Hamon got angry and went on fighting. After being beaten multiple times, he laid on the ground, looking towards the sky. “Impossible…”

“Your mother would beat your ass even easier.” Theo shook his head, touching on a weak spot. “I can’t let you disappoint her.”

Hamon sat up again, at least his physique let him regenerate fast and last longer in those training sessions. “How the hell do you even hit harder than me? I thought you were focusing on ‘mind’ or something like that.”

“More or less.” Theo shrugged. “It’s more about mana related attributes. Which means I can use my mana to empower my physique and beat your ass.” Theo laughed.

“What a cheater.” Hamon lied back again. “I should have done the same.”

“Stop trying to copy me and walk your path.” Theo shook his head. The truth Theo didn’t tell him was that it was nearly impossible for someone in the kingdom depth to use mana techniques like him. It was too much of an advanced method of mana manipulation. He couldn’t even use it properly due to his dull body, but for such a low level of strengthening, it was more than enough.

When everyone went to sleep, the dreaded voice everyone recognized echoed through the village. “Hello, my human friends.” The imp announced as the people fumbled from inside the houses to see what was going on. “It seems you have been slacking in conquering your own space. We need to trim down that population of yours, don’t you think?” The imp smiled as he eyed the gathering of people around him.

Theo was confused. An event? There shouldn’t be any events on those parts, I made sure of it. Damn it! “We need to hide Hamon, now,” Theo said as he dragged Hamon away from the others and looked for a good spot.

The imp continued. “Did you know there was an assassination an hour ago in the village? Why don’t you check out that house over there?” The imp smiled as he pointed towards a house near the center of the village.

People murmured about the owners of the house and missing people. “Anyway, Humans, why don’t we play killer?” Its creepy nails shined in the moonlight. “There are currently two hundred people here… What about ten killers? That’s nice.” The imp grinned. “The rules are simple, you should have received it already.”

KILLER AMONG US

Event bonus: life force is worth ten times as much experience during the event; There are ten killers, and they know each other; If you are not a killer, no experience will be gained from killing villagers; For every kill, the experience will be stored inside you until the event ends; The event will end when a week passes or a faction is wiped out.

Choose your faction:

Killer / Villager

“That’s it, goodbye. Kill yourselves.” The imp waved and disappeared, dramatizing just like the Cheshire cat.

“Choose killer, don’t ask, do it.” Theo did the same as he murmured to Hamon, who was by his side on the rooftop of a house. In both of their visions, eight other people started lighting up in red, six of them in the village square at the moment.

“Why did we choose killer? I don’t want to kill people!” Hamon poked Theo’s side.

“We won’t be killing people. Who said we had to? The imp didn’t.” Theo motioned for Hamon to pay attention to the village square. Hamon seemed to want to say more but was silenced by what the others did down there.

“It’s not like you have a chance against me.” A man opened his arms wide and started laughing. “Prepare to die.” He had a sword on his right hand and started dashing, slashing, and cutting those close to him. His level of five was much higher than the ones in the area, where most were from one to two, and his speed was empowered by his blessing.

Theo eyed the people below as some ran away, disappeared with some blessing, or tried to fight back. Most common blessings were some form of body enhancement or elemental magic, Theo judged that the single man wouldn’t last long. Five others, however, joined in on the fray.

“They are really going all out, uh?” Theo mused. As soon as it’s expected of them to kill, there are always those that feel no remorse. At least people get smarter given a year or two.

They watched the carnage unfolding below as the corpses began piling up. There would be much fewer casualties if they weren’t so scared. There was no way those six would be able to fight more than thirty people if the villagers were clear-headed.

Hamon seemed to want to do something as Theo eyed his tensed up body. “Control yourself, Hamon.” Theo put a hand on his shoulders.

“We have to do something, they are dying.” Hamon swatted his hand away.

Theo suddenly turned him around and put him down. “I don’t think you understand Hamon. There is nothing you could do right now! There is nothing I could do.” He looked deep in Hamon’s eyes. “Don’t go around doing stupid things because you want to be a hero. You better get stronger if you want to save people, and fast.” Hamon swallowed his impulses and kept looking at the scene.

Eventually, the ones who were so full of themselves discovered they were not as immortal as they thought. Levels and attributes got the better of them. Facing more than seventy people at once was too much. One by one, they begged for mercy as the situation worsened. Mercy, however, was the last thing on the mind of those fighting as the killers faced their demise.

Theo pulled Hamon away from the scene. They walked into a house near the village edges. Theo inspected the southernmost window, checking for the barrier set up by the imp. After confirming it, he sat down on one of the beds.

“Try to get some sleep.” Said Theo to Hamon, who was staring daggers at him.

“Won’t you explain to me now? I get not helping, but why killers?” Hamon clenched hard his fists.

“Stop being emotional and think.” Theo looked at him with cold eyes. “Us two as killers means two less killers. Six of them did us the favor of dying out there in the open, now there are only two left.”

Hamon widened his eyes in realization, but he soon got worried and sat down on the bed. “What do we do if the others come looking for us, we are the killers after all.”

“How do we find a killer?” Theo eyed him.

“They have a dull red aura around them,” Hamon answered, sure of himself.

“No, yes. I mean... If we were not killers. How would we find them?” Theo tried again.

“When they kill?” Hamon asked tentatively.

“Will we kill?” Theo smiled, which triggered a smile from Hamon too. “Of course not, we just have to wait out a week.” Theo messed with Hamon’s hair, “now rest,” and lied back to sleep.

Hamon went to bed but was moving back and forth in his bed. That must have kept Theo awake because he turned to face Hamon. “Are you okay?”

“Uh?” Hamon opened his eyes. “Just some trouble sleeping.”

“Having nightmares with the dead people?” Theo asked.

“I’m fine.” Hamon faced the other way. “People die all the time, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they do…” Theo murmured. He didn’t know what to do with the situation. He thought to check on the kid, since well… he was a kid. However, Theo didn’t have any experience with the situation or kids in general so he just let it be.

Hamon, on the other side, wasn’t as bothered as Theo expected. As he said, people died all the time. However, he was also not as fine as he thought. He just shut off his thoughts forcefully as often done in the past and went to sleep. Time was best spent living your life.