The process of going over each corpse, moving them out of the building, and smashing and splitting their heads open took way longer than the actual fight did. It was also incredibly tedious.

Fortunately, after going through the factory grounds and putting down all remaining zombies, and after closing the opened gates to make sure no others could stumble their way inside, Danny was free to take his time and leisurely pick them apart for the valuable treasures inside their skulls.

Luke still kept to his word as far as Danny could tell, remaining safely and quietly secluded inside his little room with all the supplies he needed, so it seemed that things were going as well as they possibly could.

Danny even played some not-too-loud music on his Walkman as he went on cracking heads open.

Ideally, he should not let himself get distracted and focus solely on his surroundings as he extracted the shiny gems. However, he felt he was in a defensible enough position that he could afford to be a bit less stringent. Besides, his dismantling of the bodies was already conspicuous enough that a little faint music could not make it much worse, so what the heck, why not?

At least this way he would not need to spend all this time alone with his thoughts and contemplate what he actually was doing. Going through the brains of what used to be a person as if it was just an ordinary Tuesday. Tossing their remains aside after getting what he wanted just like one would throw away the broken shell of a peanut. Just an unwanted thing.

In the end, everything was less grim at the sound of some eighties best hits.

♪ You can't start a fire

You can't start a fire without a spark

This gun's for hire

Even if we're just dancing in the dark…♪

Danny softly uttered the lyrics, as he finished splitting the head of what used to be a man in his thirties open, sinking his gloved fingers into the mushy brain tissue and fishing for something inside it for a few seconds before removing his hand while holding his prize.

Then, he would clean the crystal, place it to the side together with all the others he had already retrieved, and move the body to a discard pile in the corner of one of the side buildings of the factory where he was currently at, before starting it all over again.

Rinse and repeat.

♪ Stay on the streets of this town

And they'll be carving you up all right

They say you gotta stay hungry

Hey baby I'm just about starving tonight… ♪

His mother used to mumble and hum the tunes and lyrics of this song frequently when she was still alive. It was one of her all-time favorites. He smiled at the thought of her swaying rhythmically to the melody as she did the most ordinary chores like sweeping the floor.

Granted, after his haunting started, his mother sang and danced much less. However, music was like life itself for her, and she could never stray too far away from it. She had been a singer after all, even before he was born.

Besides, Danny loved hearing her sing and she could never say no to his gleam-eyed requests. To his young self, her singing was the epitome of what talent looked like, though she probably wasn’t all that good, realistically speaking.

Sometimes, he felt like he could still hear her voice coming out of the old music player. He knew it to be impossible, obviously, but the thought of a part of her remaining behind in this world and close to him was comforting all the same.

It took the greater part of the day to finish the process of going through all the bodies. The sun had already begun to set by the time he was finished with it. Danny managed to scrounge up another 367 soul gems to add to his stockpile from the whole endeavor.

That was 367 creatures he had killed in the span of two days, most of them dealt with this very day while facing the horde.

‘Damn.’ This was the only thought his gobsmacked mind could conjure right now.

True, some of those numbers were from random encounters at the factory grounds and his clearing of the first two topmost floors of the main building, which might make his feat of defeating the horde a bit less impressive. However, Danny still faced waves and waves of undead comprised of around 300 of the creatures and came out on top. That was nothing to scoff at.

After packing his gains inside the pouch that contained his other crystals, and throwing the pouch up and down in his hand, feeling pleased with its increased weight and the satisfying sounds that came from the colliding crystals, Danny safely stored it inside his backpack.

His pouch had bulged considerably, as his stash of crystals was near 500 pieces right now. Truly a veritable treasure trove.

Now he had to decide what to do next.

There were two paths available to him. He could either head back to the settlement tomorrow – since the sky was already darkening and it would be prudent to wait for the morning before heading there, giving his body some extra time to heal as well -, or he could let time pass and wait for his next meeting with Tutu.

Not counting today – as the day was pretty much over already anyway – Danny’s blood payment was due four days from now. Wasting some time at the factory and roaming the surrounding areas hunting for zombies would align well with his plans of dragging his feet in letting Hank know that the mission had been a success, as he wanted to throw the shrewd settlement leader off, blurring his sense of timing and making it harder for the older man to grasp the extent of his abilities.

However, the presence of Luke made it so that this was not such a straightforward decision. Though the man had agreed to remain inside his room, preventing him from spying on Danny and gleaning extra information, the salesman would soon realize the change around the factory inevitably, even without ever leaving the room.

He was not dumb after all, and sight was not the only sense humans relied upon.

Without any zombies around the place to shuffle about and make their zombie-like sounds, Luke was bound to learn somethings, regardless of how perceptive the man actually was.

The longer it took Danny to talk to him, to let Luke know that the horde had been dealt with, and that he needed to go back to the settlement in order to inform Hank and his people of the factory’s clearance, notifying them that it was safe to come to the factory and fetch the supplies - as well as Luke himself, the sole survivor of the former camp -, the more suspicious Luke would grow and the fishier Danny would seem.

Eventually, and regardless of his promise to Danny, the man would end up going outside, even if just to make sure whether his would-be rescuers were still alive or not. Then he would find out about the horde’s defeat and wonder why Danny had not informed him that it was safe to go outside.

After all, why would Danny dilly-dally in doing those things? If he was who he said he was and had no nefarious intentions, then why would he stall, right?

Obviously, Danny had his own reasons for doing that, which had nothing to do with harming the overweight real estate agent. However, he couldn’t exactly explain himself and he could not prevent the man from conjuring his own demons and seeing danger where there was none.

Those suspicions and questions were things that Danny would be glad to do without. Best to avoid giving Luke enough time to be taken over by paranoia entirely.

Danny did not think he could afford to wait four days. He guessed that he had a couple days to waste at most before the cloistered survivor got impatient and apprehensive enough to break his vow of keeping to his room and Danny lost his opportunity to control the narrative.

Therefore, he decided to do something he hadn’t done before. He decided to push forward his meeting with the demon.

Though their deal stipulated that Danny had to pay his blood tribute once every fifteen days, nothing prevented him from doing it under a shorter period of time. Normally, he would avoid such a thing, as losing blood too frequently would have adverse effects on his health. However, Danny felt that doing it once would not be so bad.

Besides, after fighting the horde and injuring himself, and after examining his wounds, Danny had the growing suspicion that the soul gems had boosted his body’s ability to repair itself and recover from damage.

In other words, he felt like he was regenerating faster, though he could not be certain for now.

He knew that the soul crystals were the only thing that allowed the dead bodies of the zombies to keep moving. He also knew that the gems repaired the damage done to the corpses of the undead, even if imperfectly.

Thus, he felt there was a good chance that the shiny stones had an impact over his regeneration ability and, after eating so many of them, had improved it somewhat, though he could not assume that was the case.

After all, he was a living and breathing person, and as such, he did not have one of the gems inside his skull - since the crystallization only happened after death, as Tutu had already revealed.

Obviously, having one of the things lodged inside one’s brain had different consequences to repeatedly ingesting them. Only time would tell the extent of those differences.

In any case, Danny made his mind at once.

He would spend the night at the factory, in order to rest a little more and give his body a little more time to recover, before heading out the following day.

Summoning the demon around people was a bad idea, as past events involving Carl and his former teammates had showed. Therefore, he had to leave the factory to avoid involving Luke.

Once he found a good enough place to hunker down somewhere nearby, Danny would wait for the night to set in and then he would summon the demon with the black chalice hidden in his shadow.

He still got quite a few questions about the crystals he would like answered. He also wanted to see if he could somehow convince the demon to tell him about ways of measuring his growing power and how demons in general dealt with it, how they assessed their advancement. However, he didn’t hold too many expectations.

He doubted he could realistically swindle Tutu, and he was aware that it was quite a stretch trying to encompass that into what the demon had already agreed to tell him. The connection was tenuous at best.

Still, learning how one gauged their progress out there in the universe and how he could do the same would be a great boon, so he had to try at the very least.

Besides, what is the worst that could happen? At most, Tutu would refuse to answer his questions or demand more blood in return for his knowledge.

It could not hurt to ask… right?