Chapter 7
Three men sat in a small room, of a small cabin around a small table. Two of them were shooting the shit, and playing cards, while the third was cleaning his gun, and watching one of the two doors. All three men were proud members of the New Repulica Militia.
"Hey, did you see the figure on that new one?" Jerimiah Francis said. "She had curves for days. Think the boss man will let us get a taste?"
"She also had a tail. She was one of them inhuman freaks. Nothing good come from dipping your wick into that." replied Zacheriah Busch.
Jerimiah smirked and snorted. "Don't give me none of that bull shit. I've seen you eye some of them animal girls. Hey, I ain't judging. A good pair of T and A is a good pair of T and A."
"Shut up Jerry." Zacheriah retorted.
"Hey now, no need to get all uppity like you ain't from the same street as me." Jerimiah said. "I won't judge you none just because you want to get your pecker wet in some prime beast girl. Ain't no shame in say you want to plow pretty girl. Or, maybe you were eying one of the fellas? Is that it? Well, it certainly my thing, but I won't think less of you for it."
"Seriously Jerry, shut up."
"Hey man, no need to get all defensive. It's all good, love is love and all that garbage. Though just so you know I don't swing that way." Jerimiah said with a taunting smirk as Zacheriah shot up and lunged for his fellow militia-man.
"Enough! Both of you!" the third member of the group, Earnest Wylde said. The two other men stopped at the sound of his voice. "Zacheriah go for a walk, outside, and Jerimiah go check on the merchandise. Oh, and Jerimiah, try your best not to fuck them.
"Alright boss." Jerimiah said, as Zacheriah stormed off and out of the room.
Walking away from the tale himself he moved to the interior door, grabbing a stun baton on the way. Casually opening the door he froze at the sight of a woman covered in gore. In that moment the woman slashed out with her hand cutting his throat, and incidentally covering herself in even more blood. As he went down, she grabbed the baton. She looked to Earnest.
"Are you the one that hit me in the face?" she asked.
Mercy didn't allow the man to answer as she dashed past Jerimiah toward Earnest. She slashed out with one clawed hand that he expertly blocked. Expert as it was, it opened him up for a cheap shot from Mercy as she swung the baton up and between his legs. Along with the heavy blow of the steel rod, Earnest also recieved a multi million volt surge to the groin. His knees buckled inward, as most of him went limp. Mercy followed things up with a headbutt.
Earnest, now off balance fell backwards. His hands free from having to block Mercy's clawed hands instinctively went to his crotch. Not one to waste an opportunity, Mercy came down hard with a stomp to the face adding further concussions to the man, before laying a finishing blow by carving out his throat. A few seconds passed and she heard the tell tale ding of having killed something. Comforted by that she doubled back to Jerimiah still on the ground, and still alive. Taking the baton she jammed it into his throat wound, and pushed the button. There was a brief scream, well blood choked gurgle, followed by another ding.
[You have slain Human Militia Lv. 7. Extra Exp awarded for slaining an opponent at a higher level.]
[You have slain Human Militia Lv. 9. Extra Exp awarded for slaining an opponent at a higher level.]
[You have learned gained the skill "Sneak attack"]
[Natural Weapons increased. 3 -> 4]
[You have leveled up! Lv. 2 -> 4. You have gained 6 free stat points.]
Mercy rotated her shoulder, and then looked around. She spotted the table, or more specifically, the gun on top of the table. Smiling she walked over to it, picking it up. It was a revolver, similiar to the one she made, and at some point lost. Only it was a slightly better quality not being cobbled together from scrap in her room.
"I'm keeping this." she said to herself seconds before the door burst open.
Moving on instinct and higher than normal adrenaline she raised the gun and fired. The shot rang out, followed by a grunt. Coming back to the world, she instantly realised just how lucky she was, as she hadn't known the gun was actually loaded.
"Yeah, I'm keeping you." Mercy said staring at the gun for a moment before turning back to Zachariah. She walked over to him.
"Damned freaks." He snarled while trying to keep pressure on his gut wound. "The general was right about -"
Mercy tuned him out as she focused on her new toy. Popping the release she checked the cylinder. She wanted to make sure there was more than just the one bullet.Thankfully there were. Closing it with a snap she pointed the revolver at her bigoted xenophobic pal, and pulled the trigger. She actually did it a few times, until she heard the ding of a kill.
[You have slain Human Militia Lv. 8. Extra Exp awarded for slaying a higher leveled opponent.]
[You have gained Firearm Proficiency (1)]
[You have leveled up! 4 -> 5. You have gained 3 free stat points.]
Mercy shrugged. "Yeah, don't care, I'm still keeping it." She said.
Faced with more dead, and a not so subtle reminder from the Symbian, Mercy got started with the gruesome task of extracting their hearts and [Devour]ing them.
[You have gained the following stats:
+ 2 CON
+ 1 INT]
[Due to the Blessing of Luxuria you gain a permanent increase +1 to CHA]
Done with her meal, Mercy set about looting the place, which is how she found the bathroom, and its shower. Standing under the spray she washed away blood, dirt, sweat, and something not of the material world that she picked up between the Void and the Abyss. The water had long gone cold by the time she finished and reached the point of feeling clean. Once she got out, she continued her looting, where upon she made another discovery, that she had the ability [Inventory].
Considering how rare the ability was without items, and the fact that she didn't have it before, its existence came as quite the shock. Though the shock wore off quickly enough once she started shovelling things inside. Like any good looter, Mercy made sure to pick up everything not nailed down.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Included in the loot was a clean set of clothes, a spare militia uniform, that she slipped into. They were unflattering and didn't fit too well having been sized for a man. Still she made do, mostly by tying up the shirt beneath her breasts, and by adding the tan leather Stetson hat. As with her revolver she had lost her own hat during her jaunt through the fabric of reality. Looking down at her feet she couldn't help but frown at the lack of foot wear to tie the look together, or more importantly not go barefoot. Turning to the three corpses stinking up the place she found the one with the smallest feet.
"Ugh, this is so gross." She said as she slipped on a dead man's boots.
Mercy left the cabin, walking out into a starless night. The air was warm and slightly humid, and the annoying buzz of some sort of insect was in the air. To her back, behind the cabin were a thicket of trees, while before her were a series of cheap looking buildings made from wood and a prayer. Of them there was only one with any sign of life to it, going by the light, the music and general air of revelry.
Mercy moved slowly and carefully to the building sticking to the darkness. Once she reached a window she peered through. What she saw was a den of sin, lust mostly, sprinkled with some greed and gluttony. Men in uniforms like the one she wore, for the most part were slating their base desires with booze, women and gambling.
"Looks like they're have fun." Mercy said to no one in particular. "Shame I have to ruin it."
Mercy brought out the claws as she walked around to the front. She kicked in the door, which did little to detract from the party.
Everyone was just too into their only little world to notice a new comer, which was perfectly fine for Mercy. It allowed her to make the first strike unimpeded. A quick thrust of her hand, she impaled her sharp claws through one man's back, and piercing his heart. She heard the ding, and with her hand still in him she used [Devour].
The shrill sound of a woman's scream brought a stop to the party. All eyes turned in her direction as she extracted her hand.
"Evening folks. I didn't think to prepare any pithy one liners, or witty banter before coming here to slaughter you all without prejudice. That is a failing on my part, and I apologize. Sincerely, I hope you can find it in your hearts, which I shall be consuming to bolster my stats, to forgive my short comings." Mercy said in the sudden silence.
There was a pause as everyone merely stood in stunned silence. Then Mercy darted forward stabbing her claws into someone's neck, officially kicking off the event.
Mercy moved around the room taking down drunken fools in a macabre dance of death. She utilised her mother's martial arts that had been ingrained into her before her mother gave up trying. Having been designed for female demons it synergized well with her claws. She cut through the lot of them like a hot knife through people. Of course it didn't go flawlessly. There were a few stumbling points where she failed to hit cleanly, or someone got in a sucker punch or two. With her increased pain tolerance she barely felt it. Then there were the ones that escaped.
All in all it took about half an hour to get things done. 10 minutes to kill about 20 people, and then 20 minutes to use consume their inside bits.
[Natural Weapons has increased. 3 -> 5]
[Devour has increased. 3 -> 5]
[You have gained Martial Arts proficiency]
[You have slain the following:
- Human Militia x 15
- Militia Collaborators x 5]
[You have gained the following stats through use of Devour:
+ 10 STR
+ 4 DEX
+ 2 CON
+ 2 INT
+ 2 CHA]
[You have leveled up! Lv. 5 -> 8. You have gained 9 free stat points.]
"I've got to stop eating so many STR based people, is a phrase I'd never thought I say." Mercy said to herself as she looked over her System messages.
Apart from noticing the abundance of meat heads in her diet she also noticed that that her blessing didn't pop up. The cause was pretty simple to figure out, and the answer had her kicking one of the dead mutilated collaborators, as the System called her. It was petty, and uncalled for, but it made her feel slightly better as in the next moment someone was calling her out.
"DEMON! COME OUT AND FACE ME!" she heard someone yell from outside.
Walking over to a window she looked out. In the streets surrounded by the ones smart enough to book it was a rather tall well built man. He had the physique of an Orc, or possibly a short ogre.
"Yeah, I'm gonna avoid that." Mercy said. Despite her rapid growth and new penchant for slaughter, she lacked the confidence to go toe to toe with such a figure. Then came the blatant manipulation.
[Quest recieved ~ A call to battle (Rank D)
You have been called out for your actions in the massacre of the people of Hope Springs
Defeat the Militia Zealot 0/1
Defeat Militia fodder 0/5]
"Oh come on! Seriously?
"Wait, did you do this? How?"
"Ugh. I'd ask why you're doing this, but I don't want to set you off on another rant about me being weak."
"Fuck off." Mercy responded as she diverted her focus to problem at hand.
She was out numbered, but that wasn't anything new. Nor was the fact that she out classed. However, unlike before she couldn't just go off half cocked.
"Hmm, now that's an idea." Mercy mumbled to herself.
As the so called Paladin barked and called her out, Mercy darted around, rifling through pockets and such, collecting weapons. She pocketed everything, but her focus was on the guns, and their ammo. Within minutes she had herself a nice little arsenal. Her next step was in assigning most of her stock pile of points. She put 12 in DEX, and 2 into CHA bumping them both up to 30. The remaining 4 she left alone. Mercy felt a tingle go through her as she became more nimble and dexterous, and just a bit more charming.
"I doubt it." Mercy said as she was busy messing around with her pants.
A small rip and a tug later, and Mercy had her tail out. Aside from her eyes, Mercy's long whip like tail was the only outwardly feature she had marking her as something other than human. She usually kept it hidden as it was the lady like thing to do.
Closing her eyes for a moment, Mercy concentrated on Symbian ooze lurking beneath the surface of her skin. In her mind she pictured a vicious looking trident, which wound up faltering hard. Then she pictured an equally vicious blade, which seemed to work out better. Mercy felt the added weight to her tail. It wasn't too hard to manage, but she did pump a couple more points into her STR stat. After that she swished it around for a bit.
[Natural Weapons increased. 5 ->6]
"Alright, time to go hunting." she said.
Mercy found herself a back window, and climbed out. Shifting her hands into claws, albeit smaller ones she climbed to the roof of the building. Retracting her claws at the top, she pulled out two pistol revolvers from her [Inventory]. She looked down, noting that none of them had taken notice of her above yet. Lining up her shots she steadied her aim, and fired twice.
As the bullets flew out the barrel of the guns, Mercy had jumped from the roof.
Both shots hit the small mountain of muscle with varrying results. One seemingly bounced off his pecks, as though they were made of armor, while the second did some damage by hitting him in the eye. He screamed, and reacted in the way most would if they were suddenly subjected to irritating dust times 10.
He flailed and reached for his face. As such he didn't see as Mercy landed behind him. In the same vein, he didn't see her bladed tail lash out stabbing him in the back. He sure felt it though. As Mercy stood, manouvering her tail to cause the most damage it could while inside her enemy she targeted the adds around her. She fired the revolvers until they were empty and then replaced them with fully loaded versions from her [Inventory], at which point she pulled out. The big militia man fell his body unable to move from the waist down. His arms however were perfectly fine. He demonstrated that fact by using them to try and crawl away. For the moment Mercy let him as she focused on the remaining fodder. True to their description, they went down easily.
"So, big guy. I've been meaning to ask someone, just where the hells am I?" she asked.
"Uh huh, and where exactly is that? Where's the closest city? How far am I from Arcvale?" Mercy asked the seemingly know it all Symbian.
"You filthy demon bitch! Why would I tell you anything?" the militia man said thinking she were asking him. "You, and all your wretched Xeno loving heathens deserve to burn in -"
Mercy, tired with his tirade cut off the zealot by bringing down her bladed tail onto the back of his neck.
"Geez, no need to be rude. Dumb hill folk."
"Quiet you." Mercy responded lifting her tail and stabbing into the man's back.