I stepped off the swordswoman and gave her a shallow cut on the leg. "Go!" I ordered and pointed into the forest.

  Her eyes went wide at the sudden shift in my mood, and she climbed to her feet while edging away from me. She eyed her sword nervously, and I growled. "Don't even fucking think about it..."

  She swallowed visibly and hurried over to the waking corpo rat, pulling him to his feet and shouting at the sobbing woman. "Alma! Come on!"

  "But Carl..." the motherly woman—Alma—sobbed.

  The swordswoman's lips trembled. She looked over to her dad, eyes faltering. A flock of birds fled into the skies as a roar shook the earth, pulling her from her stupor. "H-he's gone! We can't stay!" The two hurried over and pulled the woman away. Regretfully, she decided to follow, but not before throwing a venomous glare my way.

  Watching them leave, my heart raced. With two of them bleeding, and my wound already scabbing, hopefully the drake would follow their scent instead of mine.

  I rushed over to the boy's corpse with a whistle and knelt in the dirt next to him. Looking at his snow-white face made me feel sick. A rush of bile burned in my throat. Iron landed next to me and tilted his head at the sight of the boy. I swallowed the bile and ordered my familiar to tail the group and return once he found their camp, if they made it there.

  With shaking hands, I undressed the teen. His clothes were warm and heavy with blood; it stuck to his skin, forcing me to peel some parts of it off. Praying that there was no God, the system chimed in my ears, but I didn't have time to look at the notifications as the drake's heavy footsteps grew closer.

  I finally got all the salvageable pieces of clothing off him and made a wild dash to the dagger, grabbed it, and left the clearing, leaving both weapons and bodies behind with a heavy heart. If memory served me right, there was a small lake not far from here. Trusting my memory, I pushed my way through the forest. In a minute's time, it sounded like the drake had reached the place of battle. It stayed there for a good few seconds, making my anxiety reach levels I'd never before thought myself capable of.

  Please don't come, please don't come.

  A few more seconds passed, then the sound of its footsteps echoed once more, fading.

  I almost fell to my knees at the realization. "Fuck me..." I muttered and slowed my pace, allowing myself to catch my breath. Although confident in my abilities, facing drakes seemed like another matter altogether. It had dispatched a full pack of direwolves. I'd struggled against just one of them. Granted, that was 22 stat points and a Class ago. If the fight happened today, I was pretty certain I'd be able to deal with the wolf without too much difficulty. But a whole pack of them? Yeah, right.

  Confidence was one thing, hubris another.

  Making my way to the small lake, I took my time. The sun had started to dim when I finally came across it. After making sure that I was alone, I stepped into the water with the bloody clothes. Using a pair of smooth stones I found on the lake floor, I cleaned the worst of the blood away. At least this way predators wouldn't be able to smell me from a mile away.

  I wrung the water from the clothes and tied them together, placing them over my shoulder like a sash. A refreshing and cold sash, especially after spending the larger part of the day running.

  The rest of the trip back to my impromptu camp was uneventful. Once I made it back, I retrieved all my things and set about doing the necessary chores. First, I needed water. I started a fire to heat up some rocks before dumping them in my clay pit filled with water. The water reached a boil pretty quickly. I pulled the stones out and let it cool before drinking like I hadn't in years. I couldn't keep going for hours without drinking a day; I needed to find a better solution. That solution was likely stowed away in a supply box somewhere.

  "I guess that settles tomorrow's task," I mumbled and scrolled through the various notifications from before.

  You have defeated [Redeemer LV5]

  You have defeated [Redeemer LV4]

  Enemy combatants defeated!

  Contribution points +45

  Contribution points are logged in the Leaderboard, which will be made available after the first blood moon.

  Exchange contribution points for rewards in survivor settlements.

  "Huh." I bit into the meat.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  They were half my level, so it wasn't odd that they didn't give me a whole lot of experience. But they gave me contribution points—whatever those were. I'd have to ask Aubrey and her group about it. They had more of a settlement going than I did.

  What puzzled me most was that the redeemers were deemed enemy combatants by the system. I'd already guessed as much after my talk with the swordswoman, but it seemed like the system planned on pitting us against each other. I scowled; the already bland meat lost its taste entirely. I didn't like it, but I could see the use in killing other people. Not only did they drop items, but they gave experience and contribution points too, whereas monsters only gave experience.

  I forced myself to swallow the meat and mumbled, "This is going to be a bloodbath."

  Before calling it a day, I cleaned the clothes once more and put them near the fire to dry. Then I cooked the pieces of fresh meat I wrapped in leaves, and began boiling down more water for salt.

  After having my fill of unseasoned meat, I climbed a nearby tree and used the shield's long sling to tie myself to it. It was far from comfortable, but with the toils and adventures of the day still fresh in my mind, sleep wasn't hard to come by.

  I awoke to the sound of birds chirping, wiped a trail of drool from the corner of my mouth, and looked down. Jolting awake, I pressed myself close to the tree until I managed to wrap my head around where the hell I'd been sleeping. It was the first night I'd ever spent in a tree.

  Iron tilted his head.

  "Not a word about this to anyone," I hissed, still hugging the tree.

  I dropped down onto the patch of sand silently. Surprisingly, my meat hadn't been stolen during the night. I'd left it out like a peace offering to any animals that might prowl around. I'd rather they eat that than me.

  In any case, it was a happy surprise and made breakfast a non-issue. Gnawing at the dry piece of deer, I walked around the camp and inspected my various preparations. White crumbs of salt layered the bottom of the clay pit. I almost burst out dancing right then.

  I rubbed my hands together, raising them to the sky and exclaiming, "Thank you, Dad! What would I ever do without you?!"

  Without his lessons, I would have never been able to make it on my own. So, in all honesty, I would just have had to stay with Aubrey and co. Not the worst fate in the world, but much less fun than what I had going on right now.

  Using the dagger I found yesterday, I cut the meat into thin strips. Nothing beat knives when it came to precision work. I then filled the fire with a couple more pieces of wood and cured the meat strips. Making dried meat wasn't very difficult. I hung skewers over a fire, high enough that the flames didn't straight up cook the meat.

  Low and slow, baby.

  Afterward, I had a bath and revelled in my greatest prize since the system descended onto Earth: clothes. Dry, honest-to-God actual clothes. I pressed them to my face with a manic giggle. Who could have ever expected clothes to be so great?

  The teen had been a fair bit smaller than me, but at least his clothes were whole, compared to the burly man who I had stabbed.

  Pulling the tee over my head, it didn't cover my entire abdomen, coming up short just a bit above my navel. Luckily I didn't have a mirror, or I'd be feeling pretty self-conscious by now. At least the pants fit much better. Lucky me, baggy clothes were in fashion. The shoes were a tad large, but they would do just fine. Anything was better than running barefoot through the woods.

  Lastly, there was the black cape that all redeemers seemed to wear. It was more like a poncho with a hood than anything. The only real difference was that you could open and tie it by a small slit near the throat.

  I sat down cross-legged in the warm patch of sand. Rubbing my jaw, I considered the pros and cons of the cape. Wearing it, other redeemers would probably see me as one of them. The only issue being that I had a class that was most definitely not redeemer. The swordswoman had said that was just what they were called by the system, instead of humans or survivors or whatever. And if their system worked the same as mine, then getting a class would overwrite that anyway. Right?

  As for the con, it was quite obvious: other survivors would think that I was a redeemer, an opponent in this sick game of war.

  "Well, whatever. I'm sure they'll be reasonable if I don't try to kill them first."

  Donning the cape, I could no longer feel the wind brush against my midsection. I flashed a content smile and hid my supplies. Already I could tell that wearing the cape had been the correct decision. It made me feel like an actual adventurer!

  With a sharp whistle, I set out into the forest. Iron landed on my shoulder, and I scratched him under the beak, offering him a piece of deer meat, which he happily devoured. Four days remained till the blood moon, and there were still many things I needed to do. First and foremost, I needed to figure out what the hell the blood moon was. My best bet to do that was to ask the redeemers. It seemed to me like they had the upper hand when it came to information.

  "Did you find their camp?"

  Iron nodded.

  "Is it far?"

  He nodded again.

  "Are you a good boy?"

  And again.

  I chuckled and threw him into the sky. He knew what to do even without me telling him.

  Taking my time as I walked through the woods, I searched for supply boxes. I searched under bushes, up in the trees, I dug through bird nests. Everywhere. I even made sure to take a swim in one of the nearby lakes.

  When my stomach began to growl, craving lunch, my sorry haul was two new boxes. Deciding to call it quits, I headed back to camp and cracked them open.

  The first box had a canteen, a roll of tarp, and a flashlight. All very handy items, especially the canteen, as warm water grew old very quick in tropical environments. The tarp and the flashlight would no doubt come in handy, too.

  The second box came with a first aid kit and some hygiene items like a toothbrush and paste, and my holy grail: an MP3 player with a set of wired earbuds. I lifted it to the sky with both hands.

  It was fully charged and would last me hours, if only it wasn't filled to the brim with old disco songs.

  Still, it was better than nothing.

  As with all my other belongings, I buried most of the new supplies, apart from the MP3 player, which I stuffed in my pocket and tried out right away. Humming along to "Stayin' Alive," I had lunch and explained to Iron why old music was so much better than modern slop.

  When the bird started to look tired of my monologue, I called it quits, stood up, and dusted off my pants. "Well then, let's go see about those redeemers, shall we?"

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