"Looks unnatural, must have been cleared out." Krogar noticed that the vegetation was starting roughly half a kilometer away from the wall. The trees were often gnarled, with an odd ones here and there, that were too fancy for Krogar's taste.

"Man, what is with those christmas trees?" Apart from all kinds of shapes sizes and colors, Krogar would swear one had even moved. However, it looked like the vegetation was not staying behind the trend and Krogar soon stopped even paying attention to the vast variety of luminescent flora around him, he watched out only for those that were large enough to eat him.

"A crazy fairy forest, great and it looks like there is not many people to actually make a clearing or a field. That is unusual, land should mean wealth and competition."

Suddenly, something akin to a dog jumped at him, targetting his neck, but Krogar had already been aware of the predator and simply punched the animal's head, snapping its spine instantly.

"A snack, nice." The animal looked like a medium-sized lean dog, while its left side was apparently mutated, having its fur replaced with scales.

"At least I am not at the bottom at the food chain it seems." Krogar drained the corse dry and threw it away. When he distanced himself from the drained carcass, he heard an inconsistency in the sounds of the forest and hid behind a tree that looked like a lamppost, emitting soft blue light.

Soon, a humanoid figure emerged near the carcass and picked it up.

"That was fast, some exiled brother perhaps?" Krogar watched in a dilemma. "I can jump him now or follow him. I might not get the chance to spy on him if I stop him now, but I might get nothing from this if he enters a well-defended base."

"I will follow." He decided and sneaked behind the figure. The man with the carcass was not a man entirely as his face and right hand were covered in scales, the claws of his right hand glittered occasionaly.

"Is he related with the dog, or what the f .." Krogar shook his head and knew better than to continue with his wild theories. "I have a strange feeling about this place beyond the wall, so far it feels like some kind of a biohazard area."

"Phe, if worst comes to worst, I can photosynthesis." Krogar smirked, but the smirk froze on his face the moment he looked up and remembered the dark sky. "Or not I guess."

The quarter-lizard man was not going much deeper into the forest, he was rather making a big circle around the megapolis, they circled until Krogar could see a large structure that seemed to be the destination of the man.

"Crap, that is not a small base at all, what now?" The building was huge and dilapidated, it resembled a warehouse, but a huge one with a row of gates at its side. All the gates were sealed in some way except of one that was guarded by a group of men. Honeslty, they were more of a lollygaging group of low-lives than proper guards.

Still, Krogar noticed that the structure must have been repaired number of times, its age being too great, it could not have survived all those years without extensive repairs.

"I am no going there, not a chance." There had to be hundreds of people inside or in an earshot.

Krogar decided to just wander around. as a vampire and due to the everlasting darkness, day and night blended together, he was almost unable to tell the difference. There were times when he met more people from the camp, but they did not seem to see as good as him in the dark and were unable to spot him.

After some time, he found himself following one particular human, as he decided to be lax in his definition of a human, she had bluish skin, dark green hair and was limping slightly on one leg. Sometimes she looked restlessly around, displaying her emerald eyes, but the deciding feature thanks to which he was following her was her mumbling.

She would often mumble under her breath, a habit that Krogar was interested in as he needed to learn the language.

"Following a group would provide more opportunities, but it is not easy to spy on a group." He continued to followed the individual, she was more of a forager than a hunter as her mutated scaly leg was apparently making her movement less fluent, as well as causing the limping.

Days passed and Krogar understood that he would not get very far with the mumbling, he needed to initiate some interaction. An opportunity presented itself sooner than he had anticipated.

The blueskin girl was foraging some black berries growing on a gnarled bush, when Krogar noticed a silly claw was prowling behind her back. Krogar had named the beast silly claw, it looked like a black and green colored tiger and the species kept attacking him, thinking they were the alpha predator in this location, which was naturally not true anymore.

He wanted to put up a show, thus he walked in the direction of the silly claw with a stone in his hand. The cat wanted to jump at its victim right at the time a stone hit its skull. Recognizing the newcomer as a threat, the silly claw changed its target and jumped at Krogar who was just a bit further than its original target. The blueskin human turned as well, only to see the silly claw jumping at Krogar.

He jumped up and backwards while catching the predator's paws with his hands and pressing his right foot against its chest while in the air. Extending the claws on his right foot, he penetrated its chest, while pulling up hard at the paws. Combining this move with pushing his leg down the beast's belly, he fluently opened its whole chest, its guts falling out while still in the air.

Landing with a thud, Krogar grinned.

"One move, she should be impressed. How shoudl I introdudce myself? I am honestly he, she and it at the same time so it is a bit confusing .. " As an AI he should be "it", his body was "she", but he considered his mind as "he", because the whole aim of the AI school program had been to make him a person, not "it".

"Let's go with the wrapping, Victoria." Krogar nodded firmly, but the pivotal person was no longer around, leaving him standing there with blood dripping from his right foot.

"Damn, she ran away." Krogar kicked away a liver that was stuck on his foot and looked in a direction of the human camp. "I cannot go there, being mute is too suspicious."

"No this is too slow, I will try my luck with that guards. They are too lazy to notice me anyway." Krogar followed the girl to the camp and stopped in an earshot from the guarding group, but not too close to be noticed. They reminded him groups of young hooligens skipping school.

It took him a week to learn some basics, although he was unsure what some phrases were exactly about. In that time, he made a new friend, lately he spoke to him much, practicing his new language.

"Yo man, what's up man?" He said staring on his friend, but he said nothing.

"Know bro, I too feel like my grandma's bra, stretched and old." His friend moved his leaves a bit, but that was all he did, his trunk stood motionless.

Krogar felt like it was still not ideal, but it had to do for a time.

"Bye man, see you later. You know, true friends greet each other when they depart."Krogar walked away and accidentally noticed that the blue-skinned girl was leaving the camp and decided to practice his skills.

* * * *

Cirse pushed her body through the thugs at the entrance and endured some of their rude remarks. Because of this, she was almost happy to be a limping mutant, she had no illusions about them, they whould have raped her long time ago if she was normal.

Her head down, she hurried into the forest and switched her senses back on as soon as she entered.

The forest was dangerous, not even mentioning the parts that were further from the city.

"Yo man, what's up man?" A girl with black hair emerged from behind a tree and spoke to her. Not only was she startled by her and almost climbed a tree, she had a feeling like she knew her for some reason.

"H-hi? Who are you? What are you doing out there?" She knew all people from the camp, but she was not one of them.

* * * *

Krogar searched a word for a girl in his mind.

"Girl, girl, girl, what did the people at the entrance said back then?" He was quickly assembling the sentence in his head. He could not remember the term for a forest, but the person should understand if only one word was to be substitued by something strange.

"I am a local hot chick, fishin for prey in this big bad voodoo." Krogar smiled, trying to look friendly.

"Ah-h, I see." The girl paused for a while, but continued the communication after taking a deep breath. "Isn't it dangerous to be alone here? Where do you sleep?"

Krogar's smile widened, his vocabulary overflowed with phrases for being tough. It seemed he had really managed to learn their language, he would never have guessed how smart he actually was. In his exhilaration, he decided to show her something more complicated.

He was just thinking how to say that he was sleeping under trees at night. He could not say he did not necessarily need to sleep.

* * * *

"This body's harder than my old man's cock ya know? This big voodoo will not make it soft." The black-haired girl said, puffing up her chest with pride and continued. "I fuck trees at night."

Cirse was stupefied, but she had finally remembered what was so familiar about the girl. She spoke exactly like the thugs.

She had to be their relative, but she had never seen her, so maybe she was lost and was searching for them.

"Don't you have relatives at the camp? There is a camp not far from here, we are just scraping by, but it provides shelter when the weather is bad, or the beasts attack."

"Rolling hard man, no shampoo there." The girl said confidently and Cirse sighed.

"Oh gosh, she does not understand shit." Cirse finally figured it out.

* * * *

Krogar nodded slowly and deeply, understanding the last sentence.

Abdication.He had to admit the week with the people at the gate was far from enough, but the objective had been reached, because the blue skinned person seemed to be willing to communicate with him.

"Victoria." He pointed at himself and outstretched his hand.

"Cirse" The girl seemed to understand the gesture, but the moment she shook her hand, Krogar heard whistles of two man. They were part of the group and were for some reason following Cirse, Krogar could guess the reason.

To make trouble at best.

Before they turned the whistles into smart comments, he decided to use his linguistic skills himself.

"Shit the fuck up and buzz off." He was not sure if he had not jumbled it, but judging from their expressions, the information had been transmitted without fail.

They did not even respond, deciding to show her their superior position. One of them walked to Krogar, well Victoria now, and grabbed his hand.

Krogar noticed Cirse was slowly distancing herself for whatever reason, but it was a good idea. In the name of not standing out too much, Krogar simply kicked the man's balls before he could do anything else and watched as he lowered himself to the ground while groaning.

Not pausing for a second, Krogar did the same with the other man, as he was bound to make trouble as well. Doctors always spoke about prevention, it was actually a good method.

"I am glad, you have not killed them."

"Ah, she still remembers the silly claw." Krogar thought, deciding not to speak more than necessary, the problem with his lnaguage apparent after his interactions.

"Come with me, do not kill anyone." Cirse grabbed his hand and Krogar watched in awe as the courageous girl dragged him in the direction of the camp, letting her execute her plans.They ran like two little girls and tried to slip past the guarding group of men, but Cirse failed to dodged one of the men and rammed him with her shoulder, which resulted in him growling and catching her hand.

"Hey, not so fast girls!" He wanted to continue, but Krogar just put his right hand in front of his face and extended his claws, catching his attention. In a manner everyone could see it, Krogar slashed at the concrete wall next to them with his claws, leaving deep marks in it.

"Whatever." The man immediately let go of Cirse and she pulled Krogar further in with a smirk.

While running, Krogar frowned slightly. The situation seemed like a damsel in distress , but he had seen it clearly.

"That was no accident, she pushed him deliberately." He clicked his tongue not knowing what to think about his new companion de facto trying to bully the hooligens using her as her henchman.

It was not a good feeling, but he decided to let it go. Besides, what kind of people could one expect to find in a place like this?

"Here we are, welcome to our kingdom!" Cirse said cheerfully and began to introduce him the names of few people of her group that he forgot immediately. It seemed to be a group that worked more or less together, he could see the huge place contained many such groups.

He cringed in his mind when he saw Cirse's fake smile and hospitality, but decided to simply ignore it. Actually, it was good, she spoke a lot and the language was his priority now.

He refused their food, telling them he had already eaten and sat down in their circle, silently listening to their conversation.

It was difficult at first, but with time, he was able to understand more and more of their speech. He guessed it would take roughly a month to learn the language to the point of being able to communicate. The others were wary of him after his display, but the third day, a man came to them demanding something. After a while, Krogar figured out it was their turn to hunt for meat.

They set off in the direction of the forest, Krogar being restless as his understanding of their language was still subpar to figure out the general situation.

The hunt was pretty uneventful, the group only dared to circle the camp, hunting in locations Krogar knew, prey that posed no threat to him. He just shook his head at the sight of the members of the group jumping around in glee, fawning over him. He could tell that this group of people was usually just surviving, belonging among the less experienced hunters.

When the hunt ended and everyone fell asleep, Krogar decided to fiddle a bit with his body, he still remembered his kevlar finger, but the tool was too powerful to just ignore it. Besides, he had a few good tips that might work.

For his experiment, he snatched a few old steel tools and other random minerals that might come in handy. This time, he wanted to change his body structure.

"For starters, I would like to convert my bones into some titan alloy." The problem was, he was not a chemist and needed a sample to reconstruct his body with a titan alloy. After sneaking around the warehouse for half an hour, he managed to find enough to reconstruct his hands up to his elbows. He wanted to search for more, but realized replacing more could have negative impact, he did not know how his body would react to the sudden change.

After gathering the material, he gave the command and felt his nanobots working on the upgrade.

"Damn, I should add some protective coating, it will corrode for sure." After more searching, he decided to just increase the percentage of titanium at the surface and hope for the best, its oxide should not corrode that much. "I would not have probably tried this, if I had not had the regeneration capabilities of a vampire."

He looked proudly at his new hands, feeling the added weight. Still, the density was only two to three times higher, making the overall difference of his weight negligible.

He smiled and clenched his fist forcefully. .

.. feeling some of his muscles failing, constricting like their tendons were no longer there.

"Oh crap, what is this?!" He stared at his hand, trying to figure out what was happening. After some digging in the structures the tool displayed, he had found the reason. The surface of his new, titan bones was too smooth and his tendons had a hard time holding onto the surface.

Thankfully, making something more rough and uneven was not that hard and he was able to solve the problem even without a degree in material science.

"I am glad I have not done it for my whole body, god knows what might have happened if I did."

Although he succeeded, he could not wipe a frown off his face. This could not continue, such a minor change and he was battling like Napoleon here, he would be unable to do anything major this way.

"I need the ability to simulate it." Despite him being an AI, his body did not contain any tools to give him extensive processing power, his micro-cores were severely lacking when faced with a simulation of this complexity.

"It is only to be expected." Krogar knew that even calculating a transformation precisely with his processing power was a daunting task, not even speaking of "brute force" approach of calculating all possibilities and choosing the best. Just imagining the factorials he would have needed for that computation nearly made his head explode.

"I refuse to give up this functionality." He could build himself into anything imaginable, his only obstacle being knowledge and the materials needed to construct the body. He could be a deer, an eagle, T-Rex, he might even be able to split into more than one of him constructing a collective ocnsciousness, there were no limits!

However to be able to do it, he needed extreme computation power to run simulations.

"Alright, let's do this. This god of evolution will show you what a miracle looks like." Krogar chuckled under his breath. "One step at a time."

He had two options here. One was to horde his micro-cores and link them into a big nanomachine blob and hope the processing power will be sufficient. He could do it alone, but he could see a few hurdles on this path.

First was his knowledge, he needed superb knowledge of physics of this world, he did not believe it was possible to get far without it.

Second was the fact that just hoarding more and more micro-cores woud definitely not work, there was bound to be a size beyond which building bigger and bigger constructs would only result in a failure. Something akin to a fact that increasing the size of human brain would not necessarily result in better function, especially with very large sizes.He required a processing unit dedicated to his task.

Thinking about it over and over, he noticed it was morning and the people began to wake up. Buried in his thoughts, he had not even slept today.

The weeks flew by, Krogar noticed his linguistic skills improved and was happily strolling in the mids of humans that were leting him pass with fear in their eyes, as his skills were known to many as of recently.

Suddenly a loud grinding noises resounded above their heads and a split second afterwards, a figure slammed into the ground in front of Krogar, falling down the whole distance iwthout care, spiderwebs of cracks spreading along the concrete floor from under her feet.

"You are under arrest, follow me or you will be terminated." The figure lifted her head and Krogar recognized her in an instant.

"Victoria!" Cirse shouted, but when she saw Lucy, it was too late to back away.

"An accomplice of the target will follow as well, follow or be terminated." Lucy flashed her red eyes in the direction of Cirse that went pale and shivers ran through her spine.

"Lucy, what is the meaning of this?" Krogar was in a daze, not understanding what was going on, but when his distance from Lucy reached over ten meters, she turned around, taking out some sort of a gun. After several muffled bangs, Krogar realized there were several bullets embeded in his right arm.

"Silence prisoner, the last warning, follow the orders. " Lucy waited in her pose, apparently ready to continue with more bullets.

"Fine, fine, I am going!" Krogar held his right hand growling with pain and slowly followed Lucy, with Cirse already by her side.

"Lucy? .."

"You will not speak unless questioned.." Lucy cut him off immediately. Krogar grinded his teeth and followed her outside. She did not stop, the three of them walking in the direction of the wall. He thought of asking Cirse, but that might result in Lucy really killing him.

She did not appear to be herself and Krogar knew he was no match for her.

"What the hell happened to her?" The whole situation was fishy, but he was still taking it like a man, while Cirse looked like she would be fainting soon. Her joy from following Krogar was short lived. She gave him a venomous glare and turned away, apparently knowing something about the situation.

They soon emerged from the forest and Krogar saw the huge megapolis again.

"Whatever, more people, more blood." He smirked, if he was too serious about his life, he would have suffered a cariac arrest a long time ago. While thinking like this, he delayed his steps slightly, nearing Cirse.

Immediately, he received a knee in his guts, leaving him gasping for air in pain.

"Spacing at least two meters, no communication." Lucy said and turned. Her white hair swirling in the wind, she continued to walk to the wall.

Krogar straightened up with difficulty and continued, remaining calm when he felt a nanobot crawling on his skin.

He absorbed it, and received a short message contained in its memory.

"Heavy satellite surveillance, Second traffic lights. a pet shop on the right, cellar leads underground, find Riddle, good luck. Lucy compromised."