After freshening up, he spent a few minutes doing something that he had planned to do the previous night, but had ended up delaying due to certain unforeseen circumstances. Consuming seventy units of Runic Energy, he recorded the remaining seven runes in the physical compendium of runes inside his inventory. Unlike the Rune of Inspection knowledge, however, the knowledge of these sixteen runes stayed in its place on his knowledge tab, presumably because they weren't Aspected Runes and had a degree of reproducibility even without the physical anchor as long as he held the knowledge. The main purpose of the anchor was to keep the integrity at full.
Half an hour had passed by the time he left his apartment, only to see Mai already waiting outside. She wore her usual cargo jacket that was packed to the brim with supplies, along with a pair of jeans and a shirt under it.
"You should've knocked," he said.
She didn't say anything and started walking toward the stairs. For once, she didn't immediately disappear and walked down the stairs beside him.
Orion was a little surprised but didn't mention it, treating her like a wary cat and keeping up the status quo to not startle her.
"What do you plan?" She finally asked just as they were about to exit.
"About your friend?" He asked. "Nothing. She hasn't done anything bad, per se. I don't know or care about either Rio or Yuuma. I'm just going to try and get her to lead me to the source of these endless zombies, if she even knows about them. Of course, if she tried to backstab or kill me, that's a whole different story."
"…kill without hesitation," Mai mumbled flatly. "I understand. But only if she acts against you, right?"
"Of course," Orion said, suppressing the uncomfortable feeling that rose up in his throat after hearing her words.
That's right, the end goal is going to be to kill her, right? I've killed quite a few zombies, but never a living person… Considering her primary mission, she is probably going to keep Mai here even if it means killing me. I'll unpack that when the time comes.
He noticed that Mai had already disappeared, leaving him alone as he stepped out and started the slaughter. While he had tested Mai's trustworthiness just now, after seeing the quest that Rio had, he was almost a hundred percent sure that she was a pure native and could be cooperated with. With that understanding, he decided to expose one of his abilities to her. Specifically, the Light Rune. After seeing the destructive power it possessed at range, he was itching to test the full capabilities of that scorching beam of light.
Leaving her apartment, he already had a location in mind where his attack would be the most effective. It was one of the early locations that Rio, or Claire, had led him to based on her estimation of his abilities. It was a long but narrow street that went straight for two whole blocks, tucked in between apartment buildings on both sides. It took some time to reach the location, but he was happy to see that it was already full of zombies after one day.
These things respawn even faster than mobs in a game… Probably also devour the corpses we leave in our wake. I never see any corpses whenever I come back to a place. At least they are equivalent to slicing through air with my Katana. This is one of the best spots to kill zombies to quickly farm kills. As long as you block this entrance, the zombies will keep coming at you. With those two keeping watch of zombies on either side of the entrance, I was able to kill at least ten to fifteen zombies a second in here yesterday.
"Mai, mind covering me for a bit?" He called out. "I'm about to try a party trick. I just need you to hide my presence for a second."
He felt Mai appearing close to him and quickly swung his Katana multiple times within a second and cleared the entrance of the alley.
This alley is barely a few hundred meters long. I don't need to put in the full unit of Runic Energy into this…
Runic Energy: 48/117 Units [Grade II]
Glancing at his reserve, he quickly infused a quarter of a unit of Runic Energy into the light rune and imagined the beam to be as wide as the alley but only as thick as his sword before letting loose.
Runic Energy: 47.75/117 Units [Grade II]
With a bright flash of searing light that barely lasted for an instant, every single zombie in front of him was cut in half. They all immediately fell down, left in a pile of gory flesh and blood.
[Origin Energy +51.56]
"What was that…" Mai asked him, having appeared beside him at some point.
He glanced at her smugly, wanting to see the ice block's expression crumble. Unfortunately, he was bound to be disappointed. As much of a shock as it was, Mai's mental fortitude was clearly much higher.
"I told you, right? A party trick," he said, not letting her expressionless face dampen his enthusiasm. He had, after all, killed five thousand zombies in an instant. "It's also my insurance in case Rio decides to flip the board and fuck me over."
After a few more tests in similar locations that took him and Mai another hour, he made his way to Rio's house a few hours before noon.
After some back-and-forth banter with the ash-blonde woman from his enemy faction, he casually apologized for leaving without any notice in the morning. She didn't push him and moved on.
The next few hours were incredibly efficient, allowing him to keep pace with his previous day's killing and even surpass it by a significant margin. Throughout the way, he kept a part of his attention on Rio, keeping track of what she said and did. Unfortunately, he didn't get any relevant information from her since, unlike him, she did her monologuing silently in her mind. Still, he had come up with a plan to deal with her.
Eventually, as the day ended, he had around three thousand more Origin Energy units after counting his gains from the morning, and with the slaughtering that he went through with Rio and Yuuma.
Origin Energy: 5,335.26 Units
On the way back, Rio offered him to stay with her again, but Orion had already achieved his goal. With the revelation, he had no intentions of getting any closer to her.
"I'll take a rain check on that," he said with a wry smile. "I have to work with Mai to prepare a way to take Nodoka with us. Now that I've crossed level one fifty, I should get moving to that settlement."
With Rio's exact system panel as a reference, he was able to gauge exactly how many levels he should have based on his Origin Energy. Not only that, but he was able to show the correct amount of physical strength based on his level as well, helping him sell the lie even better.
"You know…You truly seem to be built from a different mold, Orion. I've been here since the start, and I'm barely level fifty. The way you keep swinging your sword so tirelessly… You are truly a monster."
"Thanks," he smiled, looking pleased with her compliment while noting that she lied about her level, which was actually almost a hundred. "With my current personal strength, I can safely take care of Nodoka in the settlement and focus on trying to find a way to help her regain her consciousness."
"So you're leaving, huh?" She asked.
"Yeah," he nodded. "You and Yuuma are welcome to join us. I'm probably going to leave the day after tomorrow. I want to hit level one seventy-five before officially leaving to join another settlement."
"Then we should make the most of tomorrow, I guess," she said with a sweet smile. "I'll let you go today, but you are staying with me tomorrow night. Got it? If you want me to join you, you have to show me some sincerity."
"I'll show you as much sincerity as you want to see," he said with an expectant smile. Though on the inside, he was completely unaffected. No matter how sweet her words sounded, he knew that on the inside, she was almost a century and a half old.
When they separated, Orion realized that Rio didn't go back to her house but instead went out.
"Bingo…" he said, stopping halfway on the way to the apartment. "Hey, Mai. I'm going to see what Rio is up to. She just left her house."
Suddenly, he felt the tip of Mai's dagger pressed up against the back of his neck and froze.
"I didn't say anything last time because I was surprised," she said coldly. "Do not try to get familiar with me."
"Honestly, woman," he shook his head. "Fine, I'll continue calling you Sakurajima-san. Are you going to follow me or go back to check up on your sister?"
"I want to follow you, but…"
"We can go check on your sister first. We can speed through instead of clearing the zombies. I'll continue keeping an eye on her location until then."
"Thanks, but you can just wait here. I'll be back in ten minutes," she said before disappearing.
"Works, I guess," he said, shrugging as he moved into a nearby building and quickly climbed up to the rooftop. "But ten minutes, huh? That's less time than I would need for a round trip at my full speed. She's definitely got a lot more to her than the stealth."
As he continued waiting, he shifted to Rio's perspective, curious what would make her take the risk of going out at night in an area infested with endless zombies.
***
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