Chapter 5

When he approached the room the chest was in, Daniel paused.

He had forgotten the dead. They were still there where they had fallen. Tomorrow they would be buried and mourned, but for tonight the corpse laid where the octopod had killed them. Despite his enhanced vision, the corridor was too dark to see a lot of details. Nevertheless he stopped, shut his eyes and bowed his head. They had died standing up for others. Fighting for a future they were heroes to Daniel, and tomorrow as a group they all needed to honour them.

They, unlike others, unlike Jayden, had fought for the community. He would ensure they were not forgotten. He would discuss setting up a wall or something to record the dead, maybe carve them into a tree to memorialise them.

These deaths hurt him a lot more than Beau and even Marco had. While he had not liked the feeling of killing something, those deaths had been justified. These men and women they had deserved to live but had fallen in battle fighting side by side with him.

With a sigh, he lowered his head. “May god take you to your respective paradises.” He said in a croaky voice not knowing what prayer or even which god they would want him to have prayed too. Possibly none. Some people’s faith would have been shaken by this change, but others would have their deepened.

Religion was another thing that he would need to address, eventually. Duty done he turned into the room the octopod had died in. A monster whose core he had reduced from larger than a golf ball to its current size of a large marble. With his tongue, he shifted it to the other side of his mouth.

The massive chest that had formed took up a significant area of the broken apartment he found himself in.

The room stunk. It was a stench of decay that was almost worse than the one down below with the three-day-old corpse had filled down below. Apparently, octopods decayed quickly. The overall smell was feral and Daniel left quickly in order to reinstate his nose plugs.

Armoured against the smell, he studied the monster. Several wounds looked like it had the start of mold growing in them. Even the creature’s skin that had not been touched in battle had stretched and had rips in it. Finding some shards of wood courtesy of a crushed chair, he poked the decaying skin, and it ripped easily. A green liquid pooled out.

Disgusting.

This was not something to ignore. While the rot had started, it had not progressed very far, and he knew from biology classes that the rate of decay would only speed up. He carefully skirted the edge of the hole to reach the door to the outside balcony. It might not have been necessary, but he tapped the club to the lock and asked it to open it. A tiny bit of power was sucked into the club and the lock exploded.

He felt contrition from the club. It had not intended to be so loud. Daniel remembered his own attempt and sent soothing thoughts to the abashed weapon. You don’t need to feel that way, he told it. That was a great first try.

Its emotions brightened and Daniel wondered if from now on he would be cursed to spend most of his time making overly sensitive weapons and mouse companions feel better about themselves.

Priscilla started shaking her head. Not Me. Me Perfect.

“Of course you are.”

He sensed smug thoughts go from the mouse to the weapon and then to his horror the club got angry.

“Stop that,” he told Priscilla. “You did a good job.” He told the club, suspecting that it was not capable of following his words, but the intention was clear. He was not even joking. While the explosion of the lock had been loud and violent, the weapon had executed the trick both faster and with less mana than on his own first attempt.

He hurled the door open and left it open, pausing only to stick his head out into the cool night air with Priscilla on his shoulder, looking out for any threats. The cold crisp breeze was a godsend.

With a breeze flowing through the apartment, Daniel slowly stopped tasting the air whenever he breathed. It was a typical early autumn night outside, and the wind was banishing some of the stuffy over warm air that filled the building. Daniel wasn’t sure why he was procrastinating quite so much and went over to the chest.

It was larger than he had expected.

What had Ivey muttered? He tried to recall it was something about it having come from killing the octopod and it being adjusted for what they needed.

What that looked like in practice was a mystery to him and not something he could easily imagine.

Rather than speculating he curiously opened the lid and peered inside. There were a scattering of metal knives, a couple of swords, and what he guessed were tools for a blacksmith. Finally, with each one set on their own velvet cushions a lot of small rocks.

It was a strange mix. The funny rocks and no wood or leather items were visible. There was even a pile of what he assumed was a mixture of spear and arrow tips. Metal sitting there waiting to be fused to a wooden shaft.

Smart. With his skill with wood, and Alisha’s miraculous ability with leather, the focus on metal was more than sensible. It was exactly what they needed.

The stones were interesting. Curiously, he touched one, but nothing happened. They looked too large to be cores, and he sort of wished Tamara was here to cast her identification spell. If she could tell what his club was becoming, then she could absolutely unravel what these were.

There was however no way that he was going to wake her up. Especially since she was with Jayden. Unbidden, his mind remembered dealing with Marco. Was Jayden in that category of problem?

“Shit.”

The word had slipped, forced out by the realisation of where his thoughts had been going. Too loud, he thought, knowing that noise could attract enemies. Why? Daniel’s logical mind jumped into action. The floor was empty and his voice would not travel far outside and he was forty three stories up. He wouldn’t have disturbed anything unless there were monsters who happened to be flying past at exactly the wrong time.

His skin still itched.

Animal Sense.

The wave of power swept over the floor and out the balcony doors along with checking the floors above and below him. Nothing had changed.

The octopod had killed everything and nothing new filled the freed up space. No life whatsoever existed in these top floors except for the stairwells and having fought one moth he did not want to ever be in the position of having to fight lots of them at once. It was telling that even the monstrous octopod had feared those moths. It had broken effortlessly through floors. It could have easily opened the emergency stairs or elevator well. Instead, it had consciously left them intact.

“Not a problem,” he muttered to himself. They were trapped and given that they were not a threat to his community. Instead, if anything, they were a strategic resource. How well would the zombie army cope if those things got unleashed upon them? Using them offensively against the zombies was definitely an open option. Lock down the stairwell and then break open all the different fire stairwells then bam… the entire ten levels could be neutralised and they could go down where the zombies weren’t or even just abseil down ten floors to see what was below.

Going Mothclear!

Beyond that, the moths would have to have had strong cores. What sort of weapons would he be able to make with them not to mention the experience source they represented? There must be literally hundreds and potentially thousands of moths fluttering in those spaces. When ever his mind touched them, they always felt like they were packed in there.

Could he safely kill them? Eliminate them one by one. Productionise the process. If so, they would be a gold mine both for their cores and experience.

Done right, that was a fount of experience for everyone.

Daniel made a mental note to discuss the idea in more detail with Ivey and Tamara. Even if they weren’t used offensively, if he could kill them safely then having everyone farm them for experience for a few days could bump their levels up. That could be particularly valuable for non combatants. He had already seen what Hua Chua could do with her cleaning skills and he was excited to see if she received anything else amazing with her next couple of levels. Her existing spells to be honest seemed over powered.

The concept of farming them was not ridiculous. After all, wood could contain them and if nothing else that was something that he could exploit. Some form of trap to enclose the moths and then kill them once they were trapped. It felt fanciful, and the only drawback was that if he was successful, Ivey and others would insist that Jayden benefited with all the other non-combatants. The last thing Daniel could afford to do was to empower that man further. Even with Priscilla he could barely hold his suggestions at bay.

Jayden, that simple thought and his good cheer failed.

He shut the chest and stalked away. “Damn him.” Daniel kicked the tattered carpet and knew he needed to do some more thinking. His eyes looked around and picked the apartment that was furthest from the dead body.

He strode over, unlocked the door without doing damage and then walked in. It smelt clean and when he glanced around, the place was not designer spartan, but looked like someone had made a home here. There was a luxurious Lazy boy recliner. Like everything else, it had become tattered in the transition, but he sat down on it, anyway. There were the slightest of creeks, but functionality it seemed to be fully intact. He rocked back and forth, enjoying the peace.

It creaked more than he liked, but there was nothing to hear him as the floor was empty.

“Jayden.”

More contemplative rocking. He could feel a headache coming on as he thought about a topic that he definitely did not want to address.

“And Tamara,” he vocalising it to the deserted room. It helped. He was alone. There was no one to share the problem with. No one he could call to talk it out with.

Ouch.

Priscilla had bit his ear. He tried to look at her annoyance but struggled with where she perched on his shoulder. Instead, he attempted to grab her, but she danced over his head to his other side.

No, he was not alone and shouldn’t have thought that. Priscilla would listen even if she lacked the social experience of humans to help him find a solution. She nuzzled against his cheek.

Now.

He snatched at her and only succeeded at slapping himself in the face as she danced away. A complete miss and there was no point trying again. After all, she would be on the alert now. She was back on her right shoulder, radiating amusement, and mentally was encouraging him to continue the game.

He remembered all the little cut scenes she had shared of zombies hitting themselves and others and decided it was probably not a good idea to play that little game with the mouse.

“You’re a great mouse,” he told her. “But for now, I need to think serious things through.”

Did he wish to kill him? If so, was it out of jealousy or because he was an arse who was abusing his powers?

Could he afford not to kill him? The bastard had used his magic to make Daniel want to abandon the kids. That was pretty much unforgivable and if he tried it on Daniel, then he was probably doing it to everyone.

It felt like eliminating him was a simple choice. The calculus was all against Jayden. The fight would be easy, and he was an explicit threat to everybody. Despite what Ivey claimed, he was not a glue for the entire society and if he was, then it was only because he was mind controlling people.

Daniel put a hand on his forehead and wished that he did not have to deal with it.

“Damn it.”

He hit the soft arm of the recliner.

“Damn it.”

Wishes were fishes, there was some saying there but blown if he could remember it. The point was he was only the one able to handle the problem, and only then because he had a mouse. If he had chosen a spider, then Daniel knew right now he would be planning on how best to get Jayden, Ivey, Tamara and himself out of the area they were in to somewhere safer.

He was patting Priscilla subconsciously. She had moved to curl up on his chest in order to get extra attention. Definitely a treasure, and she was relaxed, and if he wanted to, he could grab her easily enough.

She opened a single eye to stare him down.

“Not that I would,” he muttered. “That would be cheating.”

Her eye shut.

Jayden. Jayden. Jayden. The name kept repeating in his head.

Was his issue jealousy? Had he misunderstood? How would Tamara react if Jayden disappeared or died? Hell, Ivey was under his spell, so how would she react? Could he do it secretly like with Marco?

His emotions were all over the place and he understood instinctively that it was not a choice for today. There was no evidence that Jayden had done anything wrong and killing the man was a step too far, maybe.

“You will protect me won’t you.”

She rubbed up against his chin, not quite like a cat because there was no purring, but it was still nice.

Priscilla would protect him, but if there was evidence that Jayden was controlling people, then Daniel would act. Consequences be damned. It was the right thing to do, and he was responsible because he had the strength to do it.