Dale pulled the roadside emergency kit from his car and pushed forward. They marched on toward the Academy Sports store as the woman rushed to catch up.

“My name’s Linda.” She informed him. “And this is Bobby. Say Hi Bobby.”

“Hi.” Bobby quietly peeped from where his mother was carrying him on her hip.

“Dale. Pleased to meetcha.” Dale nodded and smiled. It only took another couple minutes of silent walking before they were walking into the parking lot of Academy.

“Hehehehe!” A high-pitched giggle screeched from among the cars.

“NO! N-, NO!” A man called out before Dale watched him fall down. They couldn’t see on the other side of the cars so didn’t know what was happening.

Dale growled and started jogging/walking toward where the man was. Currently, Dale was a little over 32 Kilograms overweight. He’d been doing standing desk for a year now but running wasn’t something he’d even tried to practice.

Half-Ass Walking Skill Increase!

“I said minimize, you ass-hat!” Dale puffed. “Don’t have the imagination to come up with a solid Isekai so you just rip off other authors. ‘I wanna be Shirtaloon!’ Loser!”

Whining Skill Unlocked!

Before Dale could mention it, the blue window dropped off to the right.

Dale came barreling around the car. The man was obviously dead. Blood wasn’t even seeping from the wounds on his neck, chest, and arms. He must have been barely hanging on when Dale saw him fall. He grimaced in pain and anger.

Two little gremlins sat on their haunches, eating the poor guy. Dale channeled his rage into his swing, clipping the closest gremlin and throwing it into the car. The other froze for just long enough for Dale to hop over the body and use the momentum in a two-handed strike. Green blood spurted from the little beast.

Dale heard a muffled whine and turned around. The woman had hastily clamped her hand over her son’s eyes and mouth. “There won’t be more in the parking lot.” Dale informed her. After a second he pointed at her son and she realized she was clamping her hand over his mouth and nose making it hard for him to breathe.

“Look, he’s gonna take his cues from you. If you freak out over the dead, he’ll freak out. If you approach it calmly, he’ll be much calmer.” Dale explained. An adult son and a late teens daughter had taught him this lesson well. Dale waved them over.

Linda was trying not to vomit now. Dale sighed and waved them over again. She hesitantly brought her son over to him.

Dale pointed at the corpse. “Can you tell me how I know he’s dead?” Dale asked the boy who now looked on with morbid curiosity.

“He’s not moving?” The little boy chirped.

Dale shook his head. “Try again. Just because someone isn’t moving doesn’t mean they’re dead.”

Linda looked to be so shocked at the conversation and her son’s response she couldn’t really say anything. Just stare at Dale in horrified curiosity.

“Not breathing.” Bobby stated, more confident.

Dale shook his head again. “He has a lot of wounds, but he isn’t bleeding.” Dale explained.

The little boy’s eyes were wide. “Oh! That means his heart stopped.”

Dale nodded. “That and he doesn’t have enough blood in his veins for it to leak out. Heart stopped and not enough blood to leak out. Good job, Bobby!” Dale reached over and tousled his hair.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Dale started walking toward the Academy again.

“I didn’t think that would work.” Linda remarked, now walking along side him. Bobby was on her hip and looking more relaxed.

“Shit!” Dale grumbled. “Be right back.” He turned and jogged back to the body and the gremlins.

“Loot.” Dale said while touching one of the gremlins. The body disappeared. He repeated this with the other gremlin. He was about to with the man on the pavement then hesitated. After a moment he finally took a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh. “No time to get sentimental, Dale. Shitalazy has to entertain his audience. He won’t be doing you or anyone you give a shit about any favors.”

The corpse of the man disappeared. At least that was a way to get rid of corpses for the time being.

“Inventory.” Dale stated.

Inventory Skill Unlocked!

A window popped up. There were five boxes. There was also a counter with three items of currency. Gold, Silver, and Copper. He had a total of eight copper and one silver. The person must have been the silver. When he tried to make it appear in his hands, nothing happened. When he tried to make the two ‘chunks of lizard meat’ appear in his hands a wet thud was followed by a bloody pile of meat in his palms. Gremlins were fairly skinny and had little muscle so the small amount of meat for each gremlin wasn’t surprising.

Dale willed the meat back into his inventory. It stacked with the other chunks of lizard meat and now there was a small ‘2’ in the bottom right-hand corner of that inventory box. He would need to go loot the corpses in the road after he was done with his shopping spree.

There were also two ‘gremlin hide’ in one of the slots. The third slot was two hearts. The fourth slot was labeled ‘ID tag.’ Dale willed it into his hand. As he figured, it said the name of the man he’d looted. It also had NOK: and an address after it. Seemed you could give people their loved one’s tags if nothing else.

“No wonder I didn’t get a quest. There wasn’t anything I could have done for that guy.” Dale nodded to himself.

The next two spots of the inventory contained the man’s shirt and his pants. There were red letters to the side.

Inventory Overflowing! You will not be able to loot further monsters until the overflow is cleared and your inventory has an empty space.

Dale pulled out the shirt and laid it on the car hood next to him. A wallet appeared in the now empty space. Dale spent the next minute clearing out all the man’s possessions. Then he saw something that had him wanting to vomit: ‘Chunks of Human Meat.’

Dale went behind a car to where he wasn’t in plain view of the pair and dumped the meat and each of the organs and even the bones. Seemed humans had a lot of useable parts. Dale swallowed the bile in his mouth and shook his head.

Dale came out from behind the car with nothing but the gremlin loot. At least now he knew that looting humans was possible but would result in piles of ingredients he really didn’t want in his inventory. He even left the tag. He didn’t have time to worry about returning memorabilia to grieving family. Maybe when things were a little more regimented or whatever he’d come back and find the tags.

“Look, mister, another dead guy!” Bobby crowed pointing at the door to Academy. There was a body there between a sliding glass door and the door frame.

Dale held his tire iron at the ready as they proceeded toward the door. Another body held open the second door into the store. One thing for sure, it was dark. Luckily, he’d grabbed the emergency kit from his car. He reached in and pulled out a flare.

Batteries don’t work because he’d checked. When he opened the gas tank on the car, it had smelled off so most likely something was done to gasoline. Whatever that massive white light was, it had handily taken out everything that made society work in one fell swoop.

Dale pulled the cap off the flare and used it to set the flare off. It worked! “At least you didn’t screw me too badly.” He murmured as he held the flare aloft and led them past the two dead bodies, through the pool of blood, and into the store proper.

Dale knew exactly where he was going. He’d been thinking about a camping trip and had recently perused the supplies they had available. Lo-and-behold, Academy had something that had shocked him.

They moved quickly past the registers and back to the hunting and fishing supplies. There, in the middle of the aisle, was what he had been thinking about.

“Survival Spear.” Linda remarked, sounding confused.

“Yeah, I didn’t know they had these either until the other day. Freaking jackpot.” He passed her the still burning flare.

Dale used a pocketknife to cut away the packaging on the spear and then pulled the sheath off the blade at the end. Now he had something he could seriously fight with.

Just then, a couple loud snorts and sniffing let him know he was about to need the spear.

Linda screeched!

Dale turned around and saw the cause. “A freaking orc? Now you’re ripping off tabletop? Way to go, you’ve sunk to the lowest category of douchey writer shitalazy.”

“Grraaahh!” The orc cried and started running at him.

Dale lifted the spear.

The orc’s eyes nearly popped out of its head but it was too late. He impaled himself onto the spear tip.

Bobby screamed and started crying. Linda pulled him in close but thankfully didn’t drop the flare.

Dale stepped forward and tripped the orc while pushing with the spear. The creature collapsed as intended. Dale kicked the monster in the balls. “That’s for scaring the kid!”

The orc howled and reached down to clutch itself and the spear. Dale ripped the blade from its naked chest and then stabbed it again twice. It finally lay still.