Danny went down the stairs from the second floor of the house, leaving his bedroom behind him, and moved straight to the doorway that led to the front yard.

Before he could leave this place for good, there was one last thing he had to do. That was to gather all the crystals from the pile of zombie corpses he and his former teammates had left close to the property.

It would be a major oversight on his part if Danny did not collect all the easily available soul gems he had nearby and also a complete and utter waste of resources. Although the process of getting them out from their meaty prison was bound to be a messy and gory work, Danny would simply have to grit his teeth and endure the unpleasantness.

Danny left the safety of the property’s walls and started making his way straight towards his goal. However, as soon as he went out on the streets, Danny noticed two new shambling zombies that had newly arrived on the area. Before he could proceed with the crystal extraction, he had to take out the newcomers or they were bound to get in his way.

That was not an issue though. Danny was already well accustomed to combat by now, so those two new arrivals were destined to simply become two extra crystals in his pockets.

Danny rushed ahead towards the closest of the duo, a former elderly man that wore a tacky combo of flowery shirt and khaki shorts at the time of his death. Before the undead could even do anything, Danny had already kicked it down and followed up with a mighty two-handed overhead strike of his hammer straight onto his downed opponent’s skull, sealing its fate.

Next, Danny proceeded to dispatch the other foe without too much complication. His tried out and tested method of a front kick to the chest in order to down his opponent, followed by a hammer swing to the head proved to be effective once more.

After dealing with the inconveniences, Danny proceeded to carry their bodies and the others that were already there inside the property. It just made more sense to start processing the corpses inside the safety of the walls than to do it outside.

Given that it would probably be an exhausting and time-consuming task, it was best if Danny did it on a safer location where he would not be disturbed and could focus solely on the job if he had the option. So that was what he did.

Danny soon threw himself into the chore of carrying the bodies one by one to the front yard of the house. It took him a while to go back and forth as many times as necessary to transport all of the cadavers – he could only carry one at a time after all – but fortunately he was not interrupted during the course of his physical labor by any more wandering undead.

The effort netted Danny just under twenty corpses, meaning that, after adding the one soul gem he already had, Danny would have nineteen soul gems available by the time he was done with digging them out.

This time around, it would not take him as long to retrieve each of the crystals as it had yesterday.

Now that Danny already knew what to look for, he did not have to be as careful when breaking apart the corpses skulls as he had been the first time around. Therefore, Danny simply picked up his trusty hammer, and another bladed tool that he had lying around to take care of any fleshy bits that needed to be cut through, and immediately started working.

Even so, it still took Danny quite a bit of time to go through all the gathered corpses, but he eventually completed his task. Danny was covered in goop and gore from head to toe by the time he was finished but he did not care. His stock of crystals had just gone up substantially, so he was very pleased even if he was feeling sticky and dirty all over.

Danny carefully cleaned all the crystals with a bottle of water and then stored them safely on the small cloth pouch he had picked up for just this purpose. Once you got the soul gems out in the open, it was fairly easy to clean them up. Something about the substance made it easy to detach the sticky pieces of flesh and fluids from it with just a little bit of rinsing and scrubbing.

Following that, Danny went inside the house to clean himself with a quick shower, a comfortable privilege he would not have available for the foreseeable future.

While scouting the surrounding areas, Danny would be lucky if he could keep himself reasonably clean, much less indulge in something as luxurious as a shower. Water would have to be reserved for drinking.

While constantly moving, Danny would have to be more frugal with his spending of resources. Without a stationary base to fall back to like his house in order to rest, resupply and dump his loot, there was only so much he would be able to carry with him, so any excess resources would have to be left behind and anything he did carry with him would be reserved to more essential purposes.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Considering those circumstances, Danny could hardly justify the expenditure of his limited resources on something as superfluous during these apocalyptic times as a shower. He would have to opt for easier and less resource consuming methods to keep himself clean or even go without it entirely if the situation demanded it.

Maybe Danny would have a chance to indulge in showering when he explored those farming communities if he managed to find someplace with access to running water, but best not to get his hopes up too much. It would all depend on luck and chance after all.

After ridding himself of all the bits and pieces of gore that had stuck to him, Danny dressed himself with a spare clean set of protective gear that he had picked up from a local store during his group’s looting days, and sat down on a couch for a quick rest.

Cracking heads open and shuffling corpses around was a very energy intensive and draining task, so Danny was fairly tired by this point. He needed to take a breather before he could move on with his plans.

The smart thing to do was for Danny to be in tip-top shape before starting his trip, so it was only prudent that he took some down time to recover his stamina in order to leave the house better prepared.

After all, who knew if he would need the extra strength? Best have and not need than need and not have.

Anyways, it was not as if Danny would be sitting on his ass doing nothing during this short break. He had other thing he could spend his time on, namely making use of his newfound wealth of soul gems.

Danny pulled the pouch containing the crystals free from his backpack, and took out one piece from it. He then twirled it in between his fingers while appreciating the subtle change in colors reflected within the small object.

Despite all the conflict that would ensue over these things, one thing had to be said: they were truly beautiful.

The shift in colors caused by the movement of Danny’s fingers and change in his perspective made it look like the gems held a small piece of a rainbow inside them. Although they were small and concealed enough that one wouldn’t notice them easily while simply passing by, via pulling it closer to one’s eyes, the beauty contained within its translucent edges was plain to see.

“I suppose the bloodshed fits right in with human history, given their shininess…” Danny muttered to no one in particular.

During the course of humanity’s dominance over the planet, there were many instances of a group of people hurting another group of people in order to get their hands on material goods that had no inherent value to their society other than its beautiful appearance. Even during modern times, there were still quite a lot of barbaric wars going on in Africa over the possession of gold and diamond mines, to name just a few examples.

Danny felt that, ironically, the fact that those soul gems were also pleasing to the eye fit rather well with human culture and history. This time however, it would be humanity itself that would be subjugated in order to be deprived of their shiny things.

After a few seconds, Danny discarded his distracting thoughts and recalled the information he had learned from Tutu, focusing on the matter at hand.

When the demon talked about the soul gems and their value, obviously he also could not leave out the issue of how to make use of them and what to expect from it.

In fact, there were quite a few ways that one could make use of those crystals. They were basically an energy source that could be applied to a wide variety of purposes. Its ethereal nature and metaphysical properties meant that the astral power contained in those diminutive sizes could become almost anything.

They could be spent to fuel all sorts of amazing things.

Their usage included things like the casting of incredible spells, the empowerment of oneself and extension of one’s longevity, the construction of powerful devices and structures, and many other magical and fantastical stuff.

Those were just some of the examples that Tutu had mentioned in passing, but most of them were obviously out of Danny’s reach. He simply did not have the technologies or know-how necessary in order to make use of the soul gems in more elaborate and sophisticated ways.

As of now, Danny was like a caveman that had just discovered fire. There was still quite a long way to go, before he learned to harness this power in order to create steam engines, the smelting process and many other evolved applications. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Even if someone just straight up went to Danny and presented him with some of the completed products, it would still not be enough. It would take quite a while for someone as ignorant as Danny to reverse-engineer anything he managed to get his hands on still.

Just imagine, if someone gave a caveman a rifle, would he be able to create a firearm and replicate the technology? Obviously not. Being able to use something does not translate to being able to reproduce it.

Danny needed to know the theory and science behind the workings of this mysterious power before he could start developing and benefiting from some of this stuff.

Besides, even if Tutu obviously had more detailed knowledge on the workings of many of those applications, would he willingly teach Danny any of them? Of course not! At the very least, not without compensation.

Danny didn’t even have the chance to talk with Tutu about it yet, but the demon never did anything without having something in it for himself. There was no doubt in Danny’s mind that even if the demon was willing to share some of this wisdom, he would first milk Danny dry for all he is worth.

He couldn’t complain too much though, since the access he had to the demon’s vast reserves of information was proving, at the moment, to be an invaluable asset that probably no one else on Earth had available, even when considering all the strings attached that came with the boon.

Having said all that, one might ask: even if Danny knew about the crystals’ value, how would he go about making use of them if he did not have the relevant knowledge or techniques in order to spend it?

There was a very simple answer to that question: there is always the dumb and brute force way of doing things available for those that are ignorant.