We were finally ready after finishing the Molotovs. I took a few cracks with the whip until I unlocked the skill. It was decided that Tobi would get most of the firebombs as they offered the most range. The mass of Rabidashers seemed to have increased to ten. Thankfully the new ones were level 1 or 2.

The moonlight reflected off feathers in the trees, and I cursed rather loudly.

"What?" asked Tobi, his hands clutching the deep grey polycarbonate tube of his blowgun.

"It seems we have more company, " I said and pointed at the trees where two or three monsters of the bird variety sat watching us. "Fucking hell."

"We have to assume that there are more out there, " Laura said. She pulled out her face mask out of her inventory. "Tobi, put on your mask. You too, Dee."

Tobi and I complied wordlessly. The wet cloth was cold on my face. I just hoped it would work the way I thought it might. The kid did a good job with them either way, given the materials we had on hand. At that moment it occurred to me that we had money and that we could have just bought some better ones. However, there was no point in bringing it up as Laura was taking the sleeping gas canister out of her inventory.

"Whenever you're ready, Laura," I said and gripped the handle of my new weapon. My palms were sweaty.

The monsters must have noticed that we were up to something, because they turned more rabid, for the lack of a better word. Their screeching picked up and they separated from the pile they were resting in.

Laura pulled the tab and gave her best shot at throwing it in the middle of the monster mass.

The canister hit the ground with a hiss and a thick bluish smoke started pooling on the ground.

Unfortunately, we forgot about one pretty important thing.

Warning: You initiated a boundary breach. Your safe zone status is revoked for 5 minutes. 4:59...

The words flashed green in my peripheral vision and I felt the adrenaline hit me harder than ever.

"Shit! The safe zone boundary is down!" I yelled through my mask.

This was very, very stupid. If there was a record for the stupidest thing ever done by a human, our pictures would be in the book.

Immediately I jumped into action and started cracking my whip at the monsters. Thankfully, they seemed to be affected by the smoke and were moving like through molasses.

Laura produced the steel net and threw it, catching one of the big Rabidashers in it, alongside two lower-level ones.

"Tobi! Don't just stand there!" she snapped, her voice tinged with panic. "Throw some fire at them."

If he had said anything in response, I didn't hear it. My ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton balls, and all sounds became muffled like I had put noise-cancelling headphones on. All I could focus on was the disgusting bodies with their dripping maws in front of me.

The whip snapped and coiled like a python around the big decomposing fuzzball's neck and I pulled it tighter. I felt its snapping neck vibrate through the weapon. It made my stomach churn, killing a creature like that. But the sensation lasted only half a breath and faded away.

I was getting better at killing things.

With one fluid movement that I had no idea I could execute, I tossed the lifeless body aside. A lit bottle flew above my head and I jumped back on pure instinct. It was lucky because the glass shattered barely two meters away from where I was standing. Another stroke of luck was that it instantly blew up into a fireball on a level 2 Rabidasher. Its slimy fur somehow caught fire and died a scorching, screeching death shortly after.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I almost felt sorry for it. Almost.

I looked back and saw that Tobi was already lighting another firebomb with shaking hands. I was surprised to see Cloud standing next to the kid, his fur lazily shifting through iridescent hues. The alien sheep appeared to be the calmest creature in a hundred-kilometer radius.

Laura was busy lighting her own Molotov and throwing it at the monsters that she caught in the steel net. I snapped my focus back to the situation at hand. There were five Rabidashers left to go. Barely thirty seconds had passed since the boundary was breached and we were doing okay.

"Keep going, we're halfway through!" I shouted.

Of course, I shouldn't have said that. Everybody knows that if you say shit like that, you're going to jinx yourself. It appeared that I did just that because the really big Rabidasher, the level 5 one seemed to snap out of whatever the sleeping gas was to it.

Its red-rimmed eyes still had a bit of the daze, however. I had the pleasure of seeing that detail up close and personal because the damned thing body slammed me and jumped on top of me. Its claws sunk into my chest, pinning me on the ground and I screamed.

The monster at least had the decency to let out a pained screech when I punched it. I punched it again, this time in the neck, and it snapped at my face, its disgusting spittle flying everywhere. I never knew I would be thankful for a wet wad of cloth securely strapped and covering my face.

My brain went on autopilot and I kept pounding at it, probably dealing minimal damage, because the monster wasn't budging.

"Guys! A little help, maybe!" I managed to yell out.

The claws kept sinking deeper into my chest. I was worried that one jerk from the creature would make me rather chest-less.

A heartbeat later, a peppering of darts and metal ammo hit the Rabidasher's side. As it howled in pain, I grabbed its paws and yanked them out of my flesh. It was possibly one of the most painful sensations I have experienced in my life so far. I almost passed out then and there.

A pair of hands grabbed me by the armpits and dragged me away. I managed to crack my eyes open and saw Tobi's sweat-slicked face. He also had a thin trickle of blood running down his temple.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I tasted bile and I didn't trust myself to open my mouth, so I just nodded.

"I'm going to give mom a hand. Cloud, watch over her, " I heard him say, and a second later I felt the sheep poke me with one of his hooves.

Goddamned walking sweater, I thought. My mind was fuzzy from the pain and I didn't dare move just yet.

There was one more minute and some change left on the timer. I heard the crash of glass as someone threw another one of our homemade Molotovs, followed by the now-familiar sound of a dying Rabidasher.

"Fuck!" Laura's voice echoed through the clearing. "Not in the garden, you piece of shit!"

My brain registered what she was saying, and a part of my mind was screaming at me to get up. However, my body refused to comply. All I was able to do was look as the seconds ticked down on the back of my eyelids.

I heard two more creatures die and everything suddenly went silent.

"Dee, are you alive?"

This time I forced myself to fully open my eyes. Laura was crouched on the ground next to me.

"More or less."

"How much time until the timer's down?"

"About 15 seconds."

She sighed in relief. That's when I noticed that her eyebrows were badly singed, bordering on non-existent, and she lost her mask somewhere along the way. The stench of gasoline and burning flesh permeated the air around us.

I sat up with Laura's help as the timer approached zero.

That's when one of the birds that were watching us from the trees decided to take its shot and swooped down at me.

Our resident sheep jumped high above me and caught the bird in his mouth. A bone-chilling crunch resounded all around us. Cloud landed gracefully in the grass, spat out the corpse, and looked very pleased with himself.

"Bleugh!" he said. The monster's blood dripped down his bug-eyed face.

Property safe zone status restored

Name: Diana Mond

Age: 25

Class: Homesteader

Level: 2, 43/300 exp

Strength: 4

Constitution: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

HP: 13/60

Energy: 26/60

Points to distribute: 1