[You have forged a stronger bond with your Invocator! Your Invocation is now Level 2! You now have access to your Invocator's Eater Radar. Continue improving your relationship with your Invocator to gain more advantages in a field.]
[You have earned a reward! Your Core Stats have risen by 5! New active skills have been unlocked!]
[You have earned 5000 eater point/s!]
Denver almost flinched at the notifications that resounded in his mind. However, he continued to amuse Lulu as long as she wanted. After that, he split up with her and pulled up his hood. Another raid was underway, and Denver walked in the dark with a cold smile.
…
[You have obtained a weapon essence: Ravager's Whispers! In the darkest nights, the distraught cry in multitude. Vengeance is all they know, and they will not be ignored! Damage + 10]
[You have successfully combined your base weapon with the essence!]
[Equipped weapon: Whistleblower! Classified as… Secondary Weapon! Particulars… Damage 12. Confusion. A worn pistol that breaks at every twelfth shot! However, no one is counting. Did you hear it fire? The dead didn't, either.]
Denver hummed as he checked the essence he bought from the System Shop. Since he used his gun as a secondary weapon, the Symbiosis System did the same. His gun only had half the power of his dagger. However, the added debuff should be useful. He also figured that the gun was now fitted with a silencer. How ironic. The gun was like an owl's claw while the dagger cried like an orca.
He holstered the gun and didn't bother keeping himself low. After unlocking Lulu's Eater Radar, he could map the eaters within five meters of him. It was enough for him to know that no eater hid behind the door or could see him in plain sight.
The man hopped inside the broken window and stayed low. He crouched and hid behind the wall, taking in the scents in the lair. Fresh blood mixed with some decaying smell. This lair seemed new.
"All right… let's try you out." Denver took out his gun and realized he couldn't get the magazine. The button to dislodge it was gone. He frowned. "I can't reload you anymore? But you have fifteen bullets. Will I lose you after the eleventh shot?"
Shift. Denver pursed his lips and flattened his body against the shadowed shelf. He heard something walking toward him. A mimic must have heard his mumblings. One indeed stepped past the corner, exposing its back to Denver. However, the man didn't know if another mimic was watching that one.
The mimic grunted in dismissal. It turned around and walked back without spotting Denver past the toppled boxes. Guttural sounds came from the mimic as if reporting to the pack leader.
Denver crouched away from that corner. He figured the pack leader had that spot in its natural vision. The lair was a small convenience store. It must have recently closed, judging from the cleanliness away from the mimics trail. Denver even looked forward to looting that place for free food. It was best to deal with these monsters away from the valuable items.
Guttural grunts and yelps came from behind the shelf. Denver used a broken bottle to reflect the situation at the counter. Three mimics stood around, seemingly in a discussion. One of them had strange markings on its face. It could be the pack leader. However, Denver had never seen one who wanted people to make the distinction.
"…more mimics inside…" Denver glanced beside him. His radar picked up five more behind the wall beside him. When he looked, he sighed at the sight of the refrigerators. If things got ugly, he couldn't grab the juices and, more importantly to some adults, the alcohol.
Bang!
A muffled gunshot echoed from the backroom. The three mimics rushed to the door, and more shrieks followed. Denver figured they had live human food inside. That person also had a gun.
Denver quickly moved to the door. When a mimic walked out to avoid the confrontation inside, Denver got to his feet and shot the creature's throat. The mimic shrieked and croaked, but its sounds couldn't ring out. It even failed to move as if paralyzed from the shot. Its body fell to the floor, and Denver severed the head decisively.
The Crybaby's shrill sound alerted the mimics inside the room. They left and attacked one by one, only to fall defenseless in the same fashion. Denver kept shooting their throats as if he found a weak spot in pack ravagers. Instead of severing their heads, he could only stab the necks before shooting the next.
In his mind, Denver was counting his shots. When the twelfth mimic came at him, he gambled on his gun. Bang! The bullet went through just fine. The mimic was stunned at the neck shot. Denver stabbed forward and damaged its neck more with the dagger.
"Above you!" a male voice screamed despite the difficulty. Denver retreated, but his leg got caught in a paralyzed mimic. He fell on it, only for the thirteenth mimic to jump on top of him.
"Dammit!" Denver growled, struggling to get his right hand from under its callous palm. He grew complacent in his tactic. When the mimic bit toward him, he could only shove the gun in its mouth. He clicked the trigger before remembering that the pistol was already broken. However, instead of merely jamming, it exploded right before the mimic's face.
The shards scattered in the air from the force of the explosion. Denver also screamed as his hand felt like toasted from the generated heat. The mimic's lower face and neck were blown off, as much as Denver's palm and fingers.
Pain and shock rattled Denver's body. He was the one paralyzed this time. Worse, the other mimics he failed to kill started to recover from the paralysis. Denver could only use his will to grip the dagger tighter and swing at the next mimics to attack him.
Blood rained on his face and body as he swung the dagger wildly. Since the dagger was sharper than normal blades, every swing could leave deep cuts on the mimics' faces, hands, and torso. The last he killed was the one under him. He stabbed the neck multiple times until the head rolled off from the impact of his strikes.
"Hey… are you still alive?" the same person from earlier asked in a soft voice. Denver woke up from his rage and pulled himself off the dead mimic.
"Yeah…" Denver vanished the dagger after getting the blood off it. He carefully rose from the floor and stared at the injured left hand. What made him frown was that Whistleblower reformed back into a pistol as if it didn't explode. His right hand took it and holstered it just the same.
He exhaled aloud and wiped the blood off his face. Denver turned to the person tied on a toppled chair. His eyes flickered. Did he just save a soldier?