After cleaning up the field, Greed and the team began to head back to the Outskirt wall.
Tracking through the wilderness over mounds of dirt and rotting corpses of mutant beasts that previous teams left behind, Greed began to think about his future. He had no idea what sort of system the system actually was and simply hoped it wasn't some sort of absurd one that required him to make a bunch of enemies. The last thing he desired was to put himself into even more danger than he already had.
“Fuck, RUN!” Greed's thoughts were instantly interrupted by a fellow porter’s screams. Panic set in immediately, and Greed dove to the ground out of instinct, not even knowing what was happening.
When someone says run, you fucking run.
*SWOOSH*
Just as he hit the ground, he felt a violent gust of air right above him and heard a short scream from someone behind him. As he did a half-tumble roll, he quickly looked back to see a porter he had been talking to just a few minutes ago, missing half his face.
The porter's face was a grotesque mess of blood and exposed tissue, with one side completely missing. His cheek was torn open, revealing his missing eye socket and a gaping hole where his nose should have been. The skin was mangled and torn, the flesh hanging loosely.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion taking in every detail of the porter's face, a realization hit him: something had almost killed him out of nowhere!
“Damn, it's an Eagle!” a porter screamed as he scrambled forward at full speed, constantly waving his hands above his head.
As soon as he said that, every porter began a full sprint toward the hunters, who were meters ahead of the group, seemingly uncaring about their plight. Greed got up as fast as he could, slipping on some mud but quickly gaining traction. He, too, began to run as fast as his unathletic body would allow.
Despite his bulk, he was able to keep pace with some of the physically weaker porters in the group. As he ran, he noticed that the hunters were actually mocking them! One was running in circles, swinging their arms above their heads in a cartoonish way while the others laughed at his antics.
“Caaaaaw!” The mutant eagle screeched from above, and instinctually, Greed knew it was targeting him. Such a fat, juicy piece of meat—how could the mutant eagle pass up such an easy meal that could keep it and its children full for days?
Once again, time seemed to slow for Greed. This world was not like his old one; it was a dog-eat-dog world, and the loser dies! Suddenly fueled by the realization that no one was going to save him, like a shitty minivan suddenly stuffed to the brim with NOS, Greed's flabby legs began to pump at maximum efficiency. Hidden muscles bulging under his fat, he shattered any 100-meter record this body could've ever possibly achieved.
Giving 1,000,000% effort, he got closer to one of the slower porters of the group. He didn't care who; he just had a gut feeling that in a couple of seconds, he might be seeing if he could reincarnate again. So he stretched out his hand and yanked the guy in front of him by the back of his shirt. Jumping to the ground, Greed turned his body, and the guy's body turned along with him in a way that the other guy's body would land on top of Greed.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Just as they hit the ground with Greed safely below, he heard the screech of the Eagle Beast and felt a huge impact of force being pushed down from the guy on top of him. Along with that force came the horrid screams of the man and the sounds of flesh tearing. Greed could see from the gaps in the man's armpit that the Eagle Beast had its claws deep in the man's chest, seemingly pecking large chunks of flesh from it as he screamed for help. But Greed stayed absolutely still.
His hands like vice grips, he didn't let the man try to run, for as soon as he moved, it might doom Greed himself. *BANG* Suddenly, out of nowhere, a loud, sharp sound went off, and Greed almost instantly recognized it as a gunshot. A sharp screech, and the Eagle Beast dropped to the ground, constantly flapping its wings futilely, slowlu dragging itself across the ground until it stopped moving altogether.
Greed, still unsure of what had happened, was frozen in place. His death grip still locked the man, convulsing due to the unimaginable pain, in place. Short coughs and gurgles reached Greed's ears as the man slowly drowned in his own blood, his lungs too decimated to push out enough air to cough it up.
“Get up, fatty, the beast is dead!” The leader's voice rang out a short distance away. “Hurry up, I'm not helping you even if I wanted to. I'm not sure my hunter strength can lift your fat ass.”
Ignoring the leader's comments, Greed mercilessly shoved the dying man off him. He didn't even spare a glance at the man as he lay on the ground, gasping for air and struggling to stay alive.
Wiping off the dirt from his body, Greed noticed a giant stain of blood seeping into his front. “Tch,” Greed clicked his tongue in annoyance as he realized it was not just any blood, but human blood. It disgusted him to no end, but at this point, he couldn't do anything about it.
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath as he tried to wipe off as much of the blood as possible with leaves and grass. It wasn't very effective, but it would have to do for now.
“Wow, that's cold, dude just killed a man and he's worried about his clothes” one of the hunters said with a chuckle.
“Heartless bastard,” some of the porters muttered. “He had kids.”
But he didn't care. If the guy hadn't died, then it would've been him instead.
Ignoring the stares of disgust from the porters and a little admiration from the hunters, Greed proceeded to walk over to the dying man.
“He…help…” the man managed to croak out between coughs and spurts of blood. Greed simply ignored him.
“Sorry, man, I'll help send you on your way,” he said as he stomped down with all his force on the man's neck, instantly snapping it and crushing whatever hope was keeping the dying man going. A quick death is a lot better than a slow miserable one.
Greed stopped for a second, taking in the scene and imagining himself as that man. It could've easily been him. It was just a difference of mere seconds. Would they have treated him differently?
Greed was unsure. His eyes suddenly became much firmer as he steeled himself and started to take the bag off the guy, which wasn't very hard as the straps were ripped up by the Eagle Beast's talons. He opened the bag and did a quick check of the goods. The fragments inside were easily over a couple hundred, allowing him to pocket over 20 extra fragments for free.
“Alright! Show's over, pack up and move out. We gotta head home before it's dark!” the leader clapped his hands and shouted to the group. As the group was fixing to leave, there were a couple more murmurs of dislike toward Greed, but he seemed not to notice as he stared at the now-dead corpse. The man looked to be middle-aged, just the right amount to be a dad. His exact age was kind of hard to tell since most people in the Outskirts looked older than they actually were.
Greed burned his image into his brain, and right before turning around, he gave a little bow to the man. He didn't really understand why, but it felt right. The man's life was sacrificed for his own. He couldn't afford to take the time to dig a grave and be left behind in the wasteland alone. So the least he could do was give him a bow.
With that, Greed turned around and started walking with the group back home.