After we saw that massive beehive, we slowly retreated. Inside a thing like that, we would probably find a queen-bee and if that thing controls the other bees, then we would, without a doubt, die. No wonder we could see so many bees around the hotel, those monsters were so easy to find like the rats. But they were more dangerous, they could fly and attack from any direction, and they also had stings which were thirty centimeters long. It was almost like a short lance… we retreated, but eventually, we would have to destroy that thing, it was too close to the hotel after all.

The beehive was in the path to the northern part of the city, so we decided to investigate the other directions. But it didn’t take long to understand the dire situation we were in. We found dozens of birds’ nests in many roofs and others beehives around the city. Not only that, it wasn’t like magic, but we could see the vegetation growing at an alarming rate in all directions.

“What the hell is going on?” Harry asked while showing an uneasy expression.

After three hours, we returned to the hotel, but we all were already exhausted. Even though we didn’t cover a lot of ground, we fought a lot. Every time one of those birds in the nests saw us, they would call the others and attack. Luckily, we didn’t find any evolved monsters. But instead of relieved, I felt uneasy. Something was bugging me, but I couldn’t understand what.

I used the statue to see if my family was still fine, and I felt relieved when I confirmed their safety. However, everything else was making me feel tense. After the tenth day, the number of persons killed in the city had decreased. For the past ten days, even though it wasn’t that good, only one hundred people died every day. But after a single day of changes, more than one thousand had died, and now the population of our area was a little more than eight thousand.

“This is our new reality,” Sandra declared with her arms crossed and showing a serious expression. “We have to adapt to this new situation.”

“That’s true,” Harry said. “But in the worst-case scenario, we can always lock ourselves in this hotel. Although I’ll feel bad for the survivors in the city, it’s not like we can accept every single risk.”

Even though that was logic, it was also awfully cold considering Harry’s usual attitude. But he was right, even he wasn’t a fool to put himself or the ones he cares about in danger to save strangers.

“I don’t think this is an option,” Rose said. “Don’t forget about the countdown. Something will happen in 78 days, maybe new monsters will appear, or maybe this hotel will stop protecting us from the monsters, or maybe something even worse will happen. So we have to prepare and eliminate as many monsters as possible while finding other survivors to help us.”

“Yes,” Sarah said frowning. “But how? All of us will eventually get tired after fighting non-stop for a few hours.”

“You are right, in that case, we have to change our approach,” Sandra agreed. “Instead of getting new weapons for ourselves, we should create something that can protect us from the small monsters and make us cross the city at a decent speed, any ideas?”

“How about a truck covered with metal spikes?” Sabrina asked with her eyes shining. “Like a hedgehog-truck!”

I thought that it was a pretty good idea, but everyone seemed speechless. A truck wouldn’t protect us from the evolved monsters, but it would protect us from the small fries. Besides, we wouldn’t get tired of walking or even suffering minor wounds. To help, we could also put some small holes around the truck and use it to fire projectiles and kill the monsters.

“What do you think, Ethan?” Harry asked while frowning. “About Sabrina’s idea? I think it might work; I saw something similar in a movie in the past.”

“I think so too, but it will cost a lot to create something so big made of metal. It’ll be even more expensive if we try to make this vehicle move by using MP.”

“It seems like a crazy idea,” Sandra said with a sigh. “But maybe this is what we need right now, some madness. For the next few days, we will only kill the nearby monsters to create our new weapon. Let’s all work hard together.”

After that, everyone brainstormed to make the truck as useful as possible. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help in that aspect because I wasn’t a creative person. But since that would be an interesting weapon, I didn’t feel annoyed by the fact that I also would have to help and give my evolution coins.

“You are more quiet than usual,” Claire said after approaching and looking at Sabrina offering a few more crazy ideas. “Are you worried about the city?”

“Something is bugging me since we left the hotel, but I can’t understand what.”

“Everything is bugging all of us.” Claire frowned. “But I get what you mean, but not everything is bad news. The air is fresher now, and we didn’t saw many monsters corpses.”

“AH! That’s it! That was bugging me! The air got fresher, and the corpses disappeared, but why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Claire frowned again. “New and more monsters appeared, they probably ate those corpses, and thus the air got fresher.”

“I think things are not that simple, too many monsters appeared, and we didn’t kill enough monsters to feed all of them. Besides, they ignored each other and attacked only us.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Maybe, this is just for now,” Claire said. “When they understand that there’s not enough food for them, they’ll begin to kill each other again. But… yeah, this change in their behavior is worrisome. It’s almost like they don’t care about food anymore like the monsters are attacking us for the sake of attacking us.”

Since Claire understood my point, she shared our worries with others. But we couldn’t understand why the monsters changed their behavior and decided to team up to attack the humans. It was another problem and another worry, but it was beyond our hands.

However, soon, we understood the reason why they ignored each other to attack us. When we decided to kill the monsters without leaving the hotel, the beast began to focus on devouring the corpses of their fallen comrades. Even though they were all monsters, I never thought I would see a rat eating another… cannibalism was disgusting beyond any measure.

“Somehow,” Rose said hesitating. “The monsters agreed only to eat humans and the corpses of other dead monsters… I can’t think of any explanation.”

It was crazy, but we didn’t have any other explanation. Although a good answer was welcome in a situation like that, we also felt depressed. Cannibalism was too shocking even for adults, and as expected, the kids began to show the fear they felt when I met them for the first time. But even so, they not stopped. To help us, they continued to use the mini-helicopters and kill as many monsters as possible.

It took five days for us to obtain the evolution coins necessary to create the truck, and those were the most unnerving days of my entire life. Unable to walk around the city and focus my mind on something, I began to feel unquiet. Every hour I would use the statue to verify the safety of my family, and when I finally relaxed a little, I began to remember the faces of the criminals that I killed and that vision.

“I have to get out of here.”

I wasn’t good with confinement, so even though it was very dangerous, I left the hotel. Anything would be better than stay in that place and see those damn images, even a few wounds.

However, every time I did that, I returned after ten minutes. There were too many monsters around, and I didn’t have that many bolts. I could create more if I drink lemonade, but even I couldn’t drink three liters in ten minutes.

So, to make me leave that hotel and to keep my mind busy, I gave all the evolution coins that I earned in those five days to create the truck. Since we could customize the truck as much as we wanted, the vehicle’s proportions were a bit weird. It was fifteen meter’s long, five meters wide, and it was three meters tall. We put dozens of one-meter long metal spikes in all four directions, and we reinforced the wheels since it was the frailest part of the vehicle. With the sole exception of the engine, everything else was armored. There were no seats aside from the driver’s, nor windows that could be opened or anything similar. After all, we wanted to travel around the city in safety; comfortability was the least of our worries.

It was weird, but the engine was just a white crystal ball, and the electronic parts of the vehicle were only a single blue cable connecting all the wheels, the engine, and the steering wheel. When the crystal was white, it couldn’t move, but by touching, we could send our MP to the crystal. And it became completely blue when the crystal was at its full capacity. Thanks to the kids, Rose and Sara, we could fill the vehicle’s ‘’tank’’, and we would be able to move around for four hours at eighty miles per hour. Aside from the armored windshield, which had two holes of the size of a head, we could use four other holes around the vehicle to see and attack the enemies. To enter and leave the vehicle, we had to make a lot of effort to open the only door, which could be found at the back of the truck. But at least the monsters wouldn’t be able to open it while we are moving around.

Before searching for other survivors, we did some tests, and to our surprise, when the truck killed some monsters, everyone inside received evolution orbs and coins. But the driver received even more. Thanks to Sabrina’s idea, we created a perfect weapon to kill small fries on a large scale. I thought the mini-helicopters were a good idea, but the truck was much better, although we had to spend fifty thousand evolution coins.

“Somewhat it looks plain,” Sabrina said showing a disappointed face. “It’s not like I had imagined it would be.

“It’ll serve its purpose,” Sandra said after she pinched her daughter’s right ear. “Besides, we already lost too much time, every minute a person dies and we need as much as allies as we can found and train.”

In five days the population in the city decreased by two thousand, we really couldn’t waste a single minute. We could create any weapon, but without numbers, we would all perish. But, fortunately, we weren’t the only ones with a good base of operations. By looking at the ceiling, we could see massive numbers of red dots near each other in the northern part of the city. There was also another significant concentration of survivors in the west; each one of them had more than five hundred survivors.

“What should we do now?” Harry asked. “Contact the other survivor’s camp or look for small groups of survivors?”

“That’s a difficult question,” Sandra answered. “But I think we should do both. However, we have to investigate the other survivors' camp before contacting them. To avoid any unpleasant surprises.”

“That’s easier said than done, if they are in a place like this hotel, they’ll notice our presences just by looking at the map. If they notice that we are observing them, we’ll be treated as enemies.”

“You have a point,” Sandra said. “We have to collect information about them, without getting too close, any ideas?”

“How about this?” Claire said with a mini-helicopter in her hands. “If we create a faster and more silent version of this, it’ll be handy for that job. It’ll consume a lot of MP, but I think Rose and Sarah have more than the necessary.”

An espionage drone! It would be handy for many other things besides observing other survivors camp. It could even replace me, well, almost. To do what I can do, they would have to use four of those and put them in all four directions. I guess that they will still need me for a while.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Sandra said, “But since we spent all our evolution coins, today we will just look for small groups of survivors.”

Even though fifteen people could fit inside the truck, we decided to just move around at max in a group of seven. That way we would be able to bring as much as survivors as we could find, besides we had to keep at least two of our strongest members at the hotel in case something unexpected happens.

As soon as we left the hotel, the truck began to create a path of corpses. The monsters which got hit by metal spikes died immediately, the rats got run over it, while the others suffered considerable damage while trying to attack the metal parts of the vehicle. That was a good sign, but it was also a bad sign. Faster than we imagined the wind spread the smell of blood around the city. And after five minutes, I began to hear the familiar sound of massive wings flapping, and I also saw five red dots approaching at high speed.

“I guess it’s finally time to test my new crossbow.”