[Chapter 16: A New Target]
As steam curled lazily along the stained, tiled ceiling, the sound of running water filling the cramped room, Searanox finally broke the heavy silence left behind by his earlier rejection of Iris’s advances. He leaned his head against the cool tile of the shower wall, letting the spray hit the back of his neck.
"We’d need four hundred thousand animals just to reach Level 10," he said, his voice steady but strained beneath the surface. "There isn't a single farm in this region with numbers like that. This one was among the largest in all of Germany, and we barely made a dent in the requirement. Needing at least two more of the same size is, put bluntly, insane."
He turned his head toward her, water streaming down his face, his expression hardening into a mask of cold calculation. His mind was already racing ahead, mapping out consequences, identifying dead ends, and narrowing down their remaining options.
"The diminishing returns are the real problem," he added, wiping water from his eyes. "A big one. The System is actively discouraging us from staying in one place. It wants us to move, to seek out greater challenges, or it simply stops paying the toll in experience."
Iris nodded slowly, her large wolf ears twitching as she absorbed the weight of his words. She stood under the adjacent showerhead, the water turning the grey-black of her fur into a sleek, midnight velvet.
"It makes sense," she said, her voice echoing slightly in the small washroom. "The System rewards overcoming adversity. Slaughtering creatures vastly weaker than you offers minimal benefit because there is no growth in a one-sided massacre. If we want meaningful progress, we need stronger prey."
She reached out and shut off the water with a sharp twist of the handle. The sudden silence felt intrusive—almost violent in its abruptness—leaving only the distant, rhythmic drip-drop from the leaky faucet.
"If we need to level faster, Searanox," Iris continued, her tone calm but edged with an undeniable urgency. "That means hunting more dangerous beasts. But the problem is that those beasts won't exist in sufficient numbers until the Mana Infusion hits in six days. We're racing against a clock that’s ticking down, and the finish line keeps moving farther away the closer we get."
Searanox grabbed a rough, industrial towel from a nearby rack and began drying himself off. The fabric was cheap and abrasive, scraping against his skin as if to anchor him in the physical moment. He glanced toward Iris. Her fur was still damp, clinging to her powerful form, her silhouette stark and imposing beneath the harsh, flickering fluorescent lights of the changing room.
"There is another option," she said after a long pause, her amber eyes locking onto his reflection in the fogged mirror. "We could... hunt humans."
The words hung in the air, heavy, ugly, and undeniably logical.
"The System classified the workers we killed as Adult Human Lv.0," he noted, his voice turning more clinical as he retreated into his strategist persona. "They gave no more experience than the chickens did."
He stopped himself, his jaw tightening as he looked at his blood-stained hands, now clean but still feeling the phantom weight of the slaughter.
"Never mind," he said, shaking his head. "We still have a few days. Let's focus on farms—specifically the ones with around a hundred thousand animals. Another issue we have to account for is that young animals don't count. The chicks were a waste of time. We need mature targets."
He exhaled slowly, the steam from his breath mixing with the lingering mist of the shower.
"If we hit all the major poultry farms in the immediate vicinity, we should be able to barely scrape together what we need to hit the cap. The problem isn't the killing, Iris; it’s the visibility. After the second farm—maybe even sooner—the authorities are going to start watching the rest. They won't see this as a coincidence or a freak occurrence."
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His gaze hardened, the predatory glint returning to his eyes.
"They will call it a terrorist attack at best. An occult ritual at worst. That means the first farm tonight and maybe the second will be like this one. But the others... those will come with far more casualties on the human side because they’ll be guarded. Police, maybe even the military if the government panics fast enough."
He walked toward the row of lockers, pulled out a set of clean, spare clothes left behind by a night-shift worker, and tossed a bundle toward her.
"We will do it like this: we hit the next over the course of the night. There will be no rest today, Iris. We hit the last one just as the sun comes up, in the hopes that they haven't coordinated a response by then. It won't be pretty, and it won't be easy, but that’s what 'adversity' looks like in this plan. It’s not a high-level beast we’re fighting; it’s a tight time window and the exhaustion of a non-stop blitz."
Iris looked at the clothes—a simple pair of work trousers and a heavy cotton shirt—with a slight flicker of distaste before glancing back at her discarded, blood-soaked rags. She sighed and began to dress.
"I’ll send my drones in first," Searanox continued, pulling on a fresh hoodie he found in a locker. "They’ll drop every human inside the perimeter in under a minute. At the same moment, we jump the fence and start butchering the livestock. If you have anything in your inventory to make the killing faster, I’d appreciate it."
With the shirt on but her bottoms still in hand, Iris paused. A faint shimmer of light appeared in her palm as a black iron voucher shimmered under the light.
"I have this," she said, showing him the item. "A reward from the earlier skirmishes. With the right weapon, I could cleave through entire rows in a single strike. It is likely best if I focus on the building with the highest concentration of animals while you take the secondary halls and the drones handle the perimeter."
She nodded, and the black iron voucher in her hand dissolved into a swirling cloud of golden motes. A sudden flash of ethereal energy illuminated the locker room, accompanied by a low, humming sound that resonated in their teeth.
A massive, two-handed sword materialized in the air before she caught it. It was a masterpiece of lethal design. The hilt was wrapped in dark, supple leather, long enough for a wide, power-focused grip. The blade itself was nearly as tall as Iris, forged from a black, gleaming metal that seemed to ripple with an inner turquoise light, like moonlight caught in oil. There were no ornate carvings, no jewels, and no useless flourishes—just a single, heavy blade designed for the sole purpose of sundering flesh and bone.
"It is an Eldritch Zweihänder," she said, her voice dropping into a low, steady purr as she tested the weight. "It is... perfectly balanced."
Without another word, she slung the massive weapon over her shoulder. The movement was effortless, the weight clearly meant nothing to her enhanced Strength stat.
They walked out of the changing room together. The silence of the farm outside was a stark, haunting contrast to the carnage they were leaving behind in the warehouses. The car was a welcome sight—a small, mechanical bubble of normalcy parked on the dirt road. Searanox slid into the driver’s seat, the engine turning over with a familiar roar, and Iris followed, her new weapon taking up the entirety of the backseat.
He pulled out of the farm gates, the red glow of his taillights disappearing into the darkness. They were ghosts in the night, leaving behind a scene of unspeakable horror that the morning crew would find in just a few hours.
The drive to the next coordinate was tense. The air in the car was thick with unspoken words and the metallic scent of damp fur. Searanox could feel the anticipation building within his own chest—a dark, hungry excitement for the coming hunt. He was a predator, and the world was rapidly becoming his hunting ground.
The next farm appeared on the horizon—a large, sprawling complex of industrial pens and silos. It was a perfect target for their blitzkrieg. He parked the car a short distance away under the cover of a line of trees. The engine fell silent, leaving only the faint, almost inaudible hum of the distant city to remind them that civilization still existed.
"This is it, Iris," he said, his voice a low, steady rumble. "Remember the plan. We hit hard, we hit fast, and we don't stop until every last one of them is dead. No hesitation."
He focused his mind, summoning his mechanical constructs once more.
─ [+2 Active Drones]
─ [-10 TP]
Two metallic orbs rose from the roof of the car, their blue lenses glowing with an unholy, artificial light. He sent them streaking toward the largest building on the property. Then he turned to Iris. She was already standing outside the car, the Eldritch Zweihänder resting on her shoulder, her silver eyes fixed on the dark silhouettes of the barns.
The harvest was beginning again.