The Grass Panther was dead, but so was everyone else in his group. Jordan punched the dirt with his bare fist. Then he did it again, and again, and again. All of that and for what? 75 Experience? In what world was that fair?

And as he stared at the corpse, he knew that it wasn’t because he’d outsmarted it or could take credit, at least not really. The burn marks across its skin were definitely from Hanako while yelling out with what would have been her final breath. He wasn’t sure what happened to cause her to spot it and get that attack in while nobody else had manged to do so. Maybe she had just gotten lucky as the simple explanation, but it didn’t matter now.

Fist now throbbing from repeatedly punching the ground, Jordan chewed on the inside of his cheeks. A part of him wanted to just curl up into a ball and hope that when he fell asleep, he’d wake back up in the theatre. That this was all just a terrible dream after all from falling asleep in the middle of a movie.

“Damn it, God… damn it,” he muttered to himself. But his heart knew that he couldn’t afford to do that. For as horrible as it currently was, this was his reality now. All curling up and eventually sleeping in an open field would likely accomplish was likely lead to his death. Because with how exposed he currently was, he’d be easy pickings for literally anything that happened to come across the area.

But that did beg a very important question. What would he do now? As much as Jordan would like to do something as sentimental as finding and burying the bodies of his group members, he knew that wasn’t realistic. First of all, with exactly what shovel would he even do that with? Second of all, as cold as it was to think about it, would it be worth the time spent doing so even if he did have a shovel?

There was still only so much daylight left, and who knew what the night might potentially bring. And while Jordan could collect some meat and such as food, that was only one aspect of survival of three. They said that you needed shelter, water, and food in that order. So without the first two that were more important, he was acting against a constantly running clock.

Yet if there was one reason to go back… he could actually think of something. While some would definitely consider this idea as disrespecting the dead, the fact was just that he needed any little advantage that he could get his hands on. They still had all their starting equipment. So that was a lot of both weapons and armor sets that he could take. If nothing else, he could always just keep it all in his pocket space for potential future use.

Taking deep breaths, Jordan steeled himself. Again, time was of the essence, so he couldn’t waste it just by lazing around and thinking about it. Either he would act on the idea right now, or he wouldn’t. Giving the dead predator one last hateful glance, Jordan made his decision. While he was definitely now feeling sore after the adrenaline rush had died down, he still picked up the pace to at least power walk back toward where he’d come from.

The walk back felt like a long one, painfully so. Compared to running for his life where everything had been moving so fast. Even when keeping track of time passed for his drone usage, it still felt now like just one big blur in his mind.

But Jordan pressed on, until he found the first of the bodies. Following the path of crushed grass in his wake, it wasn’t that hard to get back to where he’d started. Until now, before him was the corpse of the one whose life he’d ended with his own trigger finger. Jordan felt a fresh twist in his stomach. Yet nothing came up, however, on account of having just emptied everything inside it a little bit ago.

If there was one good thing about the Energy Pistol, it was that it allowed for cleaner kills. The only blood was when her throat had been torn out. As for the actual bolt to finish her off, it was just a simple hole that started on one side and then went through to the other. No blood or spilled brain matter, just a plain old hole.

While Jordan wasn’t sure what his feelings on the matter would be like later after he had time to sleep on it, he didn’t bang himself up too much for being the one to finish her. There wasn’t any voice trying to claim that he was a murderer or anything like that. It’d been a mercy kill to end what would have been a painful death while bleeding out. At least a small kindness, one could say.

At her side was a small wand, one with a pair of snakes curling toward the top where a couple of wings were sticking. Jordan didn’t recall seeing it earlier, but maybe it’d just been in her pocket space, and then he wasn’t paying attention to when it’d popped up after her death.

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Yet the meaning of the design wasn’t lost on him. All sorts of clinics, hospitals, and other things that wanted to symbolize medicine and health also used it. While he couldn’t recall what the specific name for it was, he knew it was Greek. A symbol of the messenger for the Greek Gods, Hermes. Grabbing onto it, Jordan then used Appraise.

Name: Healing Wand

Current Charge: 40%

Grade: E1

Description: A standard wand for Healers across the multiverse. It has been built to provide the user a reliable way to either increase the effectiveness of their Skills, or use the energy within to heal with just the wand itself. It can be recharged by the user at the rate of 1 MP per 10% of restored charge.

Like his Energy Pistol, this design was allegedly the standard for the item’s Class. Which was even weirder, considering the obvious implication. Why the Hell was the symbol of a Greek God something that the entire multiverse shared? The idea of coincidence was so absurd, it didn’t enter his mind for even a fraction of a second.

Jordan shook his head. That was definitely a question for later. For now, he decided to see if he could at least use the thing. While it didn’t come with anything as obvious as a trigger like his gun, it had to be simple enough for a newbie to use. So maybe since this was more magical in theme, all he needed was intent? Seemed like it was worth a shot, anyway.

Squinting, he tried to focus on the wand. As a test, Jordan pointed it at his hand. The knuckles were still feeling a bit bruised from where he’d punched the ground, so that would be a good indicator of whether he could actually heal himself.

Warning!

Incompatible Class equipment detected.

He read through the warning, and just sighed. Of course that would be the case. Being able to just collect everyone’s stuff and swap between them as needed would have been too good to be true, after all. But even with that disappointing revelation, he still went ahead and just tossed the wand into his pocket space anyway. Even if he couldn’t use it directly, there was no reason not to keep it for the time being and see if it had some other use in the future.

Jordan then looked back down at the corpse. It was only then that he realized that there was only one way he’d be able to take her and each other person’s armor. Without some magical looting mechanic like a game, he’d just have to do the old-fashioned way and strip them himself. And that… that felt like it would be just a little too much.

Just the idea of doing that felt wrong on several levels. And if he couldn’t use their worn equipment anyway, he wasn’t sure if that gross feeling of doing so would even be worth it. No, he would stick to just the handheld items they had all received. It’d be faster to just grab those, anyway. He stared into Audrey’s dead and half-open eyes, and felt his chest tighten up.

Thinking back to the Wand, a terrible thought came to his mind. If it'd been in her pocket space or simply tucked somewhere on her person, she could have been able to use the remaining Charge. Yet she hadn't, and looking at the gouges in her neck, Jordan reflexively touched his own with his hand with instinctive discomfort. She might have used up her own resources just to make the wound not immediately fatal, but even then, the blood loss had still been too much.

Enough so that not putting pressure on it with both of her hands would have gone against her body's every instinct, not to even mention how panicked her thoughts would have been. If someone was on fire and simply wanted to put it out by rolling on the ground, they might not have even had the ability to remember the fire extinguisher a short distance away. He imagined that it was probably something like that, at least. It'd be even worse if it'd been in her pocket space. Since that would have required the use of both hands: the one with the tattoo requiring the palm to be exposed, and then another hand to pull the item from the palm.

“I- I’m sorry,” Jordan muttered as he reached over to close her eyes. Until the day came that he might come back to bury them, just this small gesture was all he could do for now.

Slain Initial Merger detected!

Traits Collected: 1

Titles Collected: 1

Class: Healer

Level Upon Death: 1

Grade Upon Death: E

Highest Grade Class Skill: E1

Transmute corpse into an Advancement Crystal?

Jordan’s mouth opened slightly to say something, but then closed again. This was… unexcepted, to say the least. He already had a very assumptive guess at what this would do. And maybe it would be considered a morally wrong thing to do to a corpse, if his guess was correct. However…

“Yes,” he very softly said with some hesitation.

There was no fanfare or process about it. When Jordan said his choice out loud, he blinked. And when he then finished blinking, the body was gone. In what had practically been an instant, there was now just a pile of clothes. Which were still laid out in the exact placement as if they were still being worn. But now there was something new on top of them, sitting square in the middle.

A red gem.