Alex’s POV
“Have you tried meeting up with the Feng family?” Daniel asked seemingly as an afterthought. Alex had forgotten about the Feng family completely and so had Alisha she supposed. Before Alex could offer an excuse, Alisha beat her to the punch, “we were too busy trying revive you. And what are we going to do about food?” Alex figured they had to fix this issue soon considering hers and Daniel’s appetites pretty much doubled since they gained mana cores. Ugh she didn’t have to think so much in school! Just regurgitating answers had been sufficient for her classes; the most she put actual effort into her thoughts was during in fights, deciding what her next move would be. Then again gathering info was vital probably.
“We should meet up with the Feng family just for the sake of finding out what they know,” decided Daniel. Alisha sported an embarrassed look, following her brother up. Alex considered staying behind considering she wouldn’t be able to fight effectively until midday, but she dismissed the thought out of boredom. Seeing the interaction should be interesting at least.
Alex felt the walk as a bit anticlimactic. This was her battle lust talking but for someone who lived for the excitement of fights, needing to go for three days without a single fight felt awful. Luckily today would be the last time she needed to hold restraint; Daniel had spent yesterday reading muttering something about allotropes or something.
The Feng family’s house possessed the most individuality, so seeing its remains was rather unfortunate. Daniel and Alisha gestured where each of them would dig and proceeded to search through the rubble. Alex knew not to mention the possibility of the Feng Family’s being dead. The process was silent, punctured occasionally by requests for help from each other.
Alex saw Alisha struggling with the remains of a bookcase and plodded over to help. Whispering "1, 2, 3," they heaved the giant scrap of wood away, revealing a steel door. Alisha scurried over to get her brother while Alex tried getting to get the door open. Alex gave up by the time the siblings came over. Besides what did she expect? Alex already suspected this would happen, and the door would barely budge. Alex’s patience was spent, after they waited for the Fengs to come for hours.
Alex gestured for them stay back before grabbing hold of the handle. With a grumble she decided to make a proper attempt. Igniting her mana core was a simple matter, this would become its natural state according to what Daniel read from the book. Alex sighed thinking how she would have have to consider this as her new state of “normal.”
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Wrenching off the door became a simple matter, only taking a second to tear the door off its hinges. Alex decided she could get used to super strength, but she had to dodge a stab from a silhouette clenching a gundao, a bladed staff. Parrying the next stab to her left, she darted forwards, closing the distance to deal a blow of her own to their head, forgetting the immense strength she newly gained. The blow shattered the attacker’s jaw with a sickening crunch and the attacker, now a corpse, hit the wall behind creating a shallow crater.
“Please don’t kill me!” A sniveling girl cried out with a weapon of her own now on the floor. Alex growled, “Better make it worth my while, why did you people attack us? After his first attack you should have realized we were humans!”
“You mean you don’t know?” The girl, the daughter of the Feng Family Alex thought, questioned strangely. “Downloading the info into your heads should have at least told you that! That stupid ‘god’ only gave those books to us so he could keep track of us and spectate a battle royale. I didn’t make the same mistake to ‘consume’ the book, so I didn’t get a notice to fight you guys to the death when I saw you. You did consume the books right? What with your inhuman strength...”
The girl continued on about how horrible her life had become. Alex didn’t ask for a soliloquy, yeah that was the term, but the first part was useful.
“Shut up! I don’t need your life’s story,” yelled Alex. The girl was getting on her nerves with your whining.
“So… are you going to kill me?”
Alex retorted, “You told us what we need to know. Just don’t follow us back. Since I killed your father, I won’t be able to trust that you won’t stick a knife in my back no matter what you say.”
“Come on! Haven’t I stayed that I only ever liked my mother, and I wouldn’t survive long only by myself. Even if I managed to kill you, I would only lower my chances.”
Daniel interjected, “She has a point, you know. We can use her as extra labor at least.”
With that unpleasantness, their party gained another member. They ran into a cat monster but that was easily handled by Alex. The cat was simply overgrown and tried treating her like a mouse, but simple elbows into the joints of the paws it attacked with nullified its attacks and a minute of constant blows to its head jarred and finished it off. Alex even fought a giant grasshopper, but the size it gained was detrimental with it only being able to barely survive with so gigantic of a exoskeleton, making the fight boringly easy.
Getting home took a while longer from the monsters and all but Alex and the others successfully made it back.