Have I mentioned that the sun is close to the horizon and I am slowly walking down a street naked, wearing only flip flops? I am nearly out of mana and I will not wear my body armor until it will have been washed in a machine. Flip-flops was all I dared spare mana on. The giant hulk state eats mana like crazy. I cannot take a potion and [Immortality] is still on cooldown. I cannot use gas grenades for now. I should just have levelled that church, whatever the consequences. That is hindsight, though. It also seems that being exhausted and in constant pain slows down mana regeneration.

If I find no better options, I will soon have to lie down on somebody’s lawn now featuring pretty wild flowers and long gras to wait for enough mana to come back to teleport through a window without blinds or curtains drawn.

I have come to the steepest part of the street leading down the hill. In my state I cannot be sure I could get back up if I needed to. So I turn to the closest entrance. The house has a garden in the front and presumably in the back, which the path made from stone plates leads to. It may have an open shed or a gazebo or even a sheltered place to lie down. The key is left in the front door. I check again. No auras. I turn the key. A corridor awaits me. I discard the fip-flops. It opens into a living room behind an old-fashoned wooden door with an inset of green semitransparent glass.

There is a couch with a convinently placed brown blanket on it. I lie down as quickly as my ribs allow.

--

The sun is up again as I wake up. My mana pool is refilled, but a bit constricted. My ribs hurt, but not as badly as they should. The L-shaped living room features a large glass wall opening onto a terrace roofed over. It is home to an outdoor table completely with an old-style red and blue plastic covering and three chairs. The table holds a notepad, weighed down by a box of ammunition.

Beyond the terrace the lawn is decorated with a hunting rifle and a corpse that has been exposed to the elements and scavengers for weeks.

I take the long way outside the building. The smell is not too bad. The notepad reads:

There is nothing left for me. They are all gone. This country has failed me. I choose the way of peace today.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Have I failed him? „I tried“. Speaking to the dead is probably not a sign of unimpaired mental health.

Should I just annihilate this man’s corpse? That does not feel right. But first things first. I find the washing machine in the pseudo-basement. The house is built in a stairway pattern of sections two or three storeys hight following the hillside. The lowest is two-storied, holds a garage with an old Mercedes still in it, a room with a freezer and a washing machine in it. Upstairs is filled with a hobby room. This man seems to have been a builder of some sort by profession going by the pictures and a hunter by hobby. That explains the rifle.

The freezer I store, retrieve it on the road and annihilate it. Not after weeks without power. No, I am not going to open that . That had been bad enough in a closed state. My laundry goes into the machine. The hobby room also holds his Internet AP and the telephone installation. I remove the power cords. I cannot risk anything in my equipment calling home and somebody noticing that this town is inhabitated again ahead of schedule. Then I start charging what can be charged.

Let me remain silent about the rest of the house. I found pictures of a woman with a black band around a corner and old cat food in the pantry, if I can take the approaching expiration dates as clues. I think that paints a clear picture. But I had to search the house. There might be dangers. His weapons and ammunition stores go into my inventory right away.

Then I turn to the garden again and find a spade and a shovel leaning against a shed. I bury the man. How does a man with a cracked rib dig a grave? Telekinesis. A nifty power. That also saves me from touching the corpse. Otherwise I think I would have annihilated it.

I consider speaking some words. But which? I don’t even know his first name. His last name was „Schröder“, to be found on the doorbell. In fact I have no 100% proof that in fact I am even burying the right man. Too long ago for my perception ability to show traces.

The garage holds another nice surprise. Spare fuel in canisters. The key to the car has been on a hook on the wall of the corridor. It still runs. But I am not going for a joy ride.

I pour myself a glass of milk (expiration date in two weeks) from the pantry, flop down in front of the TV, switch to a mindless late afternoon entertainment and take a good reckoning about my situation.

* I almost died again

* That has gotten me one stone

* My sponsors can trace me

* The Network does not like me (although they are incompetent)

* I have a power set that requires cooperation with other essence magicians

In other words: I am on a path to doom. Filling my slots this way will get me killed.

Conclusion: I need allies.