Making my way out of the building, my face twisted into a scowl. While the sun was gone, covered by a combination of thick clouds and the planet itself, as it was setting somewhere in the far distance, those same clouds sent down a drizzle of cold rain. The cold didn’t really bother me, even with my diminished level and affinity for Cold, my Firn-elven traits only coming in, I was resistant enough to withstand some bad weather. But the clammy wetness was unpleasant, making my clothes stick to my body in a thoroughly displeasing way.

However, needs must and I wanted to make the most out of these first few days, if I managed to get ahead of the curve and stay there, I wouldn’t need to be too worried about other people. That meant killing the strongest enemies I could find, primarily the Shattered with their great physical strength but weak magical resistance. So far, they had been unable to beat the combination of mundane sneaking and magical concealment I employed and now that I had my Darkness Rune Mastery back, allowing me to greatly improve said magical concealment, I was quite confident that they wouldn’t find me first. Once fighting broke out, all bets were off, but I would get the first strike.

If I could manage to regain my Mind Magic, I might be able to simply tear what passed for a mind in those shells apart, destroying them with nary a thought. It was a worthwhile goal for the night, even if my primary focus was on simply killing them for skills and EXP. Maybe I would even be able to gather some magically enriched blood or acquire some additional supplies, even if I was somewhat confident that the other survivors would have looted as much as they could get their hands on during the day.

Silva happily padded along with me and I added kibble to my mental looting-list if I came across a store that had some. Maybe some saddlebags or something, so she could carry her own food, I was somewhat confident that her strength was actually higher than mine. But that all was dependent on what we could scare up.

The first thing we found was, unsurprisingly, a Shattered, just casually shambling down the street. If not for the blood on the ripped clothes and the burning eye pits, I might have thought it was some sort of university student, on their way home after a long day of drinking, or something like that. But the eyes were a dead giveaway, so dead was given away to the Shattered.

The hailstones remained the best weapon I had against them, the magic hitting them comparatively harder than physical strikes would, making me theorise whether there was something extraordinary going on with their resistance against mundane attacks. There had been enemies like that, mostly among the undead, but those hadn’t been especially vulnerable to physical impacts caused by magical means. Hitting them with a club made of conjured Ice would cause the same damage, whether swung by muscles or magic.

That thought made me pause for a moment, even as I launched the hail corn at its head, a small part of my mind drifting, even as most of it was controlling the hail corn to bludgeon that thing after it fell from the first strike. What if the difference wasn’t so much in the means that the object was swung with, but in the creation of it in the first place? My weapons, and likely all weapons currently used, were created before the change, without the system. I hadn’t even bothered trying to identify my blades, had simply taken them as they were. What if that was the difference, that conjured objects were part of the system and thus treated in some sort of special way?

I considered how to verify that thought, even as I heard a snarl from nearby and saw Sivla squaring off against another Shattered that had just jumped from a window above, landing awkwardly but not crumbling from the fall. A better attack than the ambush the night before, possibly flanking a busy opponent, but not good enough. Certainly not good enough with Silva next to me, who didn’t even give the Shattered time to get up, instead she pounced the moment she heard my command to attack. It made me wonder if I should try giving her some preemptive commands to attack Shattered, just to make sure I wasn’t getting taken by surprise or something. Another consideration for the list.

For now, I was quite happy to watch my canine’s partner’s back, making sure that no more Shattered tried to come for us, while she took that one apart.

Her ferocity made me swallow hard. The way she had acted and how easily she had submitted to me, I had taken her for a gentle giant, more interested in cuddling than combat, but the savaged Shattered was a strong piece of evidence against that idea.

Silva had used her weight to run the creature over while it hadn’t recovered from its jump, sending it sprawling, only to leap on top of it. The Shattered had tried to block her biting maw with its arm, which Silva had gladly taken. And ripped off, with nothing but a quick shake of her head, pulling it straight out of the Shattered’s shoulder. Just that feat was enough to make my eyes go wide, especially when she ignored the other arm as it tried to dislodge her, got her maw on the Shattered’s neck and…

By the time she was done, the head was a couple of metres from the rest of the body, all of it looking like it had gone through a meatgrinder. Silva, now with a bloody muzzle, came bounding back over to me, her tail wagging and a canine grin on her face. I managed to dodge out of the way when she tried to cuddle with me, the switch from savage predator tearing apart its prey and cuddly fluffball was just too sudden and I had no desire to let her wipe off her bloody maw on my clothes. I made sure to compliment her for her combat prowess and give her some scritches while using my magic to get rid of the blood before we continued to move.

A quick check on the notifications told me that I had gained a point in Darkness Rune Mastery for my continued concealment, bringing it to level two. Nice, but the more important part of the battle were the EXP and the confirmation that they were still boosted by Lone Traveller. Meaning, Silva didn’t count as a person, though I had no idea what the distinction was. She had shown more personality than quite a few people I had met in the past. Maybe those people wouldn’t count as persons either, soulless corporate zombies that they were.

Out of interest, I had used the Observe on Silva, making her ear twitch in distaste, a growl coming from deep within her throat. She didn’t like it, but I now knew that she was considered a level two Hound.

To confirm the question of whether System-equipment worked better than what had been here before, I used Identify on my blades. The result was rather disheartening, it wasn’t even rated as a weapon, the box simply identifying them as Butterfly Blades, the text grey in a way that made my eyes twitch. It was so similar to the ‘trash’ items I had seen in many games, it was either a cruel twist of fate, or the system considered these well-crafted, modern blades as nothing but trash.

Which made me wonder, was it due to the material, a lack of enchantment or something else entirely? Either way, I had a slap-dash way to find out, while I wasn’t a great enchanter by any stretch, I had my runes and could simply draw a simple enchantment onto the Blade, it wouldn’t be permanent, would likely only last for two or three attacks, but it would tell me.

Using my Blood, enriched with Astral Power, as ink, I drew a simple runic formation of Blood, Devour and Cold onto my blades, so that channelled Astral Power would make them cold while devouring the warmth of any blood they came into contact with. I wasn’t certain if it worked, but by the time I was done, I heard another growl from Silva, her fur standing up as she stared at a volunteer test-subject.

Compared to the other Shattered I had fought, this one simply shambled towards me from between a few buildings, almost inviting a hailstone to the face. But I wanted to test, so I simply moved towards it, Silva keeping pace with me.

Just before we made contact, Silva sped up, jumping so that her front paws made contact with the Shattered’s chest and if not for the snarl and the open jaw, I could have imagined it as a happy welcome, trying to play. Only, this was no play and when some sixty kilograms of canine, moving at something around twenty kilometres per hour rammed into a human, or Shattered, the result was obvious, unless the humanoid had been braced for impact.

The Shattered had not, leaving him below the furry missile, trying to dislodge it, even as she got her jaws on its arm. Unwilling to let the test go to waste, I simply moved past the two, so I could have a stab at the Shattered’s head.

Stabbing down, my eyes went wide when the blade went in easily, draining quite a bit of my Astral Power in the process, likely to fuel the enchantment. It was enough to turn the fire in the Shattered’s eyes off and make me step back, giving Silva the command to stop. A skill-point in each of the Rune Masteries was welcome, bringing Darkness to three, Blood to two and Ice to six, thanks to the continued use of it to kill Shattered.

Another tool in my toolbox, one I had to consider and perfect during the next day. For now, I simply placed the same runes, drawn in my blood, on one of my blades, putting it aside as an emergency tool. We still had Shattered to hunt, supplies to loot and skills to train.