Free Web NovelChapter 4: Inventory of the Dead
The dead city stretched on forever.
Ronan walked for what felt like hours, weaving between collapsed buildings and rusted vehicles that had been picked clean by something with very large teeth.
The violet moon never moved from its spot overhead ever since he entered, which meant either this world had no day-night cycle or time moved differently here.
He didn’t care which. He just needed to find the exit.
The exit gate’s last known position was in a completely different city, where the first forward camp was set up. That’s where it had been anchored before the monsters overran them.
If he could reach that city again, and if the portal was still active, he could go home.
"Assuming this place didn’t manipulate gates weirdly," he muttered.
The bone-face’s shadow trailed behind him like a loyal dog. He’d summoned it after the third block, figuring he’d rather have it out and ready than waste precious seconds pulling it from his shadow mid-fight.
So far, nothing had attacked.
That made him nervous.
***
Ronan stopped mid-step a few minutes later.
A sound. Faint, and wet.
Like something dragging across stone.
He looked around, trying to locate the source. The street ahead was empty. The buildings on either side stood silent, their windows dark.
Then he heard it again.
From above.
He looked up at the buildings lining the street. The violet moonlight was strong enough to illuminate the broken rooftops, the jagged edges where walls had crumbled away.
One of the buildings had a large hole in its side, three stories up. Something pale moved inside the darkness beyond that hole.
Ronan squinted.
A creature emerged from the shadows within, crawling out onto the building’s exterior wall like it weighed nothing. It was pale and elongated, and its body had too many joints, limbs bending in ways that made his stomach twist.
It clung to the vertical surface with ease, its head swiveling as it scanned the street below.
Then its head stopped.
It was looking directly at him.
Ronan’s blood went cold.
B-Rank. He’d seen one of those on day twelve. It had eaten three A-Rank hunters in an ambush before the S-Ranks put it down.
Skitters, a name they earned from the sounds they made while moving, a mix of scraping steps and cracking bones.
And there were five more crawling out of the same hole behind it.
"Shit."
They climbed down.
Fast.
Skittering across the building’s face like spiders, their elongated fingers finding purchase in every crack and crevice.
Ronan’s hand shot to his inventory. He wasn’t a fighter. He’d never been a fighter. But he’d spent the last forty-seven days watching real hunters die, and he’d looted every single one of them before the monsters could drag the bodies away.
His inventory was a graveyard of equipment.
[Steel Javelin]
He threw it at the closest creature before it even reached the ground.
The javelin punched through its skull mid-descent. The creature’s grip on the wall failed. It fell, twitching, and hit the pavement with a wet crack.
[Soul Absorbed: 250 EXP]
"Summon, attack!"
His bone-face materialized between him and the building as the remaining five hit the ground. The summon lunged at the nearest creature, claws raking across its pale flesh.
Ronan didn’t stop moving.
Another javelin. He’d spent three years carrying ammunition for hunters who could actually fight. He knew exactly how to access the inventory in combat, exactly how to weaponize the delay between manifesting and throwing.
The second javelin caught a creature mid-lunge. It stumbled, the shaft protruding from its chest, but kept coming.
"Not enough."
Ronan backpedaled, his hand already reaching for something else.
[A-Rank Hunter’s Longsword - Broken Tip]
The blade was chipped, the tip snapped off from an earlier fight, but the edge was still sharp. Ronan wasn’t a swordsman. He’d never trained with anything heavier than a porter’s load-bearing harness.
But he had +35 strength and a monster charging straight at him.
He swung.
Just raw, desperate power channeled through three feet of enchanted steel.
The blade bit into the creature’s neck. Not cleanly, he’d aimed wrong, hit bone, but the force behind the blow was enough to shear through anyway.
The creature’s head came off at an angle, black blood spraying across Ronan’s face as the body crumpled.
[Soul Absorbed: 250 EXP]
Ronan spat out the taste of iron and kept moving.
His bone-face was still fighting, still holding two creatures at bay with its claws and teeth. The summon was bleeding from a dozen wounds, but it hadn’t fallen yet.
Two down.
Four to go.
Ronan dismissed the longsword, too slow, too unwieldy for someone with no training, and manifested something better instead.
[B-Rank Chain Whip]
The weapon materialized in his hand: a segmented metal chain ending in a barbed tip. It had belonged to a dead B-Rank hunter named Elise. He’d watched her get torn apart on day nineteen. Her whip had landed three feet from where he was hiding.
He’d grabbed it while the monsters were still eating. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
The chain whip was lighter than the longsword. It didn’t require precision footwork or years of training. It just needed momentum and the strength to keep it moving.
Ronan had both.
He lashed out at the nearest skitter, and the barbed tip wrapped around its elongated arm. He pulled as hard as he could, and the creature stumbled forward off-balance.
His bone-face lunged.
The summon’s claws sank into the skitter’s exposed throat. They went down together in a tangle of limbs and ink.
[Soul Absorbed: 250 EXP]
Three left.
Ronan didn’t wait for them to regroup. He stepped forward, whip cracking, and caught another skitter across the face. The barbs tore through its pale flesh, opening a gash from its temple to its jaw.
It screeched, a horrible, wet sound, and swiped at him with claws longer than his fingers.
Ronan leaned back just enough. The claws passed inches from his chest.
His bone-face wasn’t so lucky.
The two remaining skitters had doubled up on the summon, one holding its arms while the other drove its claws into its chest again and again. The bone-face’s shadow form flickered, growing translucent.
"Shit—"
It was as good as dead.
But that didn’t matter.
[Shadow Stored: Skitter (B-Rank)]
[Summon: Yes/No]
[Inherit: Yes/No]
[Discard: Yes/No]
"Summon!"
