Welcome back, asshole.

He shuffled towards the enormous building with his eyes on the ground. His plodding steps echoed against the rough concrete and sounded as loud as a car backfiring against the silent street. My target was a wide man whose shadow stretched from one side of the street to the other as he passed from one lamppost to the next. The few people still out kept their distance, often on their way to do something just as immoral as Oscar.

Nothing good ever happened after 2am. The stray thought flickered through my mind.

Most of my kills happened late into the night, so I wasn’t so sure. I doubt Oscar would’ve agreed either. No, Oscar seemed like a man that thrived in the darkness as he approached the door of the tall building – a series of storage units all packed into one large multi-storied building.

The concept of a storage unit was weird to me. Not because I’d never had much to call my own, but because most people were scraping for everything they could. The world had ended for so many, and yet these people had so many things that they needed extra space to store it all.

The fucking gall.

I’d been following Oscar for a day. Ideally, I would’ve liked to follow him for longer, but my life had changed ever since we burned down Chen’s house. I’d made a commitment to the City Hall. Commitment or not, though, nothing superseded the quest. I’d lost everything when the world ended, and in its place, I’d received the quest.

The quest was my lifeline. And no one could take that away.

Not Milly. Not Chen. Not Norman. No one.

I’d agreed to work with City Hall, for now, which meant I had even less time for targets. For people like Oscar. Target sixty.

Another man about to die.

Avenge the other orphans: Kill everyone who actively participated in the program.

Target 60: Oscar Imon

I’d started the hunt last night, and wouldn’t you know it, Oscar was at this very same storage centre when the quest directed me to him. He definitely slept here. And honestly, it wasn’t an awful idea. From what I’d checked out, each unit could be locked and closed.

Sure, it wasn’t likely to be the most comfortable, but I’d seen worse places to live in the city.

Oscar left and returned several times through the day. I’d follow him, of course, as he took me on his own tour of the city, passing through markets, parks, and sleazy areas as he met with other assholes.

Oscar didn’t stand out as an awful guy. A fat man, he took up a lot of space as he navigated the sidewalk, but his crooked smile and jolly face was almost delightful. Even as he spoke with the people in the market, his roaring laugh kept people engaged and interested in hearing more about the delightful fat man.

Often he’d use this opportunity to pick up an extra piece when they looked away, but that was just Oscar. Funny, fat, handsy. Oscar.

And so, he stomped to the building, looking back to see if anyone had followed him as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside. A large sack was on his back from all the things he’d purchased. Mostly food and meat, Oscar had money to spare as he bought out some of the best the market had to offer of both monster and regular meat. I still hadn’t figured out why, but he’d bought the same thing every time he went out, going to a different market and grabbing whatever they had that could fit into his large sack.

Like a deranged Santa with a big sack of meat on his back, it added to his allure, for some.

‘Overlooked’ made following after him almost too easy as I jumped off the building, racing to it’s side and keeping out of sight. Slipping into the dark building, I was happy to find they hadn’t fixed the lights in the building. Moving swiftly down a level, I waited around the corner to hear Oscar opening his storage unit.

The creaking of the door as it rolled up caused a large noise through the halls as he once again looked left and right.

My mask was on already, and I already knew he was alone as I waited to rush towards him.

As soon as he walked…into…the… storage…

And I was off.

Rushing towards his storage room, Oscar had stepped inside and was getting ready to close the door when I turned on ‘Grim Haste’ to catch him before he could close it.

I reached the door and turned into the room to see Oscar’s eyes bulge as the huge sack of meat fell from his hand and my daggers plunged towards his chest.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

But despite moving faster than Oscar’s face could react, his body seemed to move on its own as a mound of flesh burst out of his shirt, extending towards me and smashing into my two daggers.

The two daggers were pushed back by the hard flesh as the skin kept extending and I was thrown back towards the adjacent storage unit. My back hit metal grating and I felt the tough metal dent and as I lost the air in my lungs.

Sliding down the metal grating, I heard Oscar groan and looked up to see that the meat had fallen out of the sack.

“Fuck! Now you’ve spoiled it!” he complained as he noticed the meat on the ground.

Weirder still was the pound of flesh sticking out of his chest. As I watched, the flesh contorted and shrunk as it pulled back into Oscar’s body. His fat wriggled and waved as his body reoriented itself from the abrupt change.

And somehow, if only by a little bit, Oscar looked a bit smaller.

I stood up and multiple daggers circled around me as I prepared to attack Oscar again. I’d been seen and there was no going back now.

Oscar looked towards me and looked ravenous as he kicked some meat at his feet and started stomping in my direction.

Again, his fat rolled and waved as it moved from his stomach towards his hand. The skin expanded and his hand changed as the fingers got larger and expanded in size.

I threw two daggers and sent the others flying towards Oscar, then jumped to the side to create a bit of distance.

Oscar blocked his face with his giant mitten of a hand and continued to growl as he moved slowly towards me. Oscar took up half the space in the narrow hallway with his large frame, but I continued to send daggers towards him, sure that none would miss.

Each one was swatted away as he stopped walking and used his massive hand to block instead.

I sent new daggers, but this time chased after them with ‘Grim Haste’ as I swept to his right while his hand blocked his face. Now facing his back, I created new daggers with ‘Hidden Daggers’ and attempted to stick them into his back again.

And this time I got slightly further, as Oscar was too slow to match my speed. But just like the last time, as soon as my daggers touched his skin, the fat and muscle beneath expanded outwards and threw me back.

I was thrown back again, this time into the open hallway as I righted myself and stood up again.

Comically, Oscar turned around and had mounds of flesh ejecting from him in multiple places as he looked down at me again. The flesh sticking out of the shirt at his back retracted again, and I noticed another time that his body was shrinking.

“I’d still be hungry after eating you. You’re way too tiny,” he chuckled, stomping towards me again, “I’ll have to try another couple markets tomorrow.”

I can’t believe I’m having trouble killing this guy.

I chastised myself again, looking up at the massive man slowly walking towards me as he smiled, no worry on his face.

I stood up again, already tired of this fucking fight. I’d learned a lot since my fight against target fifty.

And as I looked up at Oscar, I was embarrassed at myself for having to use some of it.

Smoke-like shadows started to fall away from my wrists as I made two new daggers. Like ethereal bandages, the darkness fell slightly below my hands and also wrapped around the handle of my dagger.

All the while, ‘Poisonous’ wrapped around each dagger and a green glint melded with the pitch black of the shadows. Daggers spun around me and each one took on the same dark glow as I matched Oscar’s speed and walked towards him.

Oscar’s smile was gone now as he saw my demeanour change. Spinning daggers of green and black now moved with my every step as shadows left a trail in my wake.

I was using a lot of Skills, and Oscar wasn’t worth the effort, but I was on a deadline and I’d already been humiliated enough.

I pushed off the ground and leaped towards Oscar again, speeding towards him as I raced along the metal grating to my left. Daggers flew towards him, but this time he couldn’t just swat them away as two dug deeper into his flesh.

Oscar cried out and flailed his arm from side to side as he attempted to dislodge the daggers.

And as he panicked, I reached the side of his neck.

Instead of plunging this time, I slashed my daggers into his side.

And just like the last time, his skin shot out to try and push me away, but I kicked off his arm and landed behind his back.

Daggers continued to swirl around both of us as I danced around Oscar, slashing as quickly as I could as I injected him with ‘Poisonous’. And all the while, his body reacted swiftly to the attacks, trying it’s best to push me away, but with ‘Grim Haste’ I made sure to move away from the place of attack near instantaneously.

I was like a cyclone of death as daggers littered Oscar’s body and his very skin changed in front of my eyes, his body got smaller by the second as each action ate away at his flesh.

Two minutes passed and Oscar was waving a hand to try and reach me again, but this time his hand was smaller than ever and though he was still tall, his body was a third of the size.

The musty building was only made to smell even worse at whatever Oscar was expelling and the poison that had mixed with his blood.

Oscar growled at me like a half-starved dog a final time before falling flat on his face.

His body hitting the floor made a clapping sound as the now-loose skin slapped into the tile floor and Oscar went unconscious.

I didn’t receive the notification of his death, so I got rid of some Skills and relied on ‘Apprentice’s Physique’ as I stuck a dagger in his back.

His body didn’t even react this time as Oscar laid unmoving on the floor, blood and other fluids all around us and on the walls from our fight.

And then, as I thought to stick the dagger straight into his temple, the notification finally appeared.

Quest Updated!

Avenge the other orphans – Kill everyone who actively participated in the program.

Target # 60 terminated.

Targets Killed: 60

Targets Remaining: 40

Next Target Available after ‘Dungeon duty’ quest is complete.

*****

Out of curiosity, I went back to check on Oscar’s unit to see what he’d been coming back to every night. Stepping over the meat, I crept inside and the stench was even more pungent than Oscar as I instantly wished that my mask had scent masking abilities.

The unit went back far, only the best for Oscar, as I looked for the source of the smell. Stepping over his arguably too small bed, and pushing aside a large dresser blocking the back, I finally found what I’d been smelling. Mounds of half-rotten and partially eaten meat were kept in a corner of the room, but worse yet were the bones mixed in with the meat. I couldn’t be sure, but not all the bones looked like they came from animals.

That thought was almost confirmed as I scanned the other side of the room and found two teenage boys cowering in the opposite corner.

As if the last couple months hadn’t been complicated enough.