It was well past midnight. Valeria sneaked to another building, searching for a place without undead. It was pretty important. It’s not like she would notice any marks left by little David when it was completely dark outside. After all, not even the stars and moon were glowing, courtesy of heavy clouds hanging in the sky, and of the dense mist shrouding the town.

  Or was it a city? Hard to say before visiting the entire thing.

  Valeria would need to wait for the light of day. It would help with tracking, and it could possibly scatter those skeletons walking around this place.

  She looked inside the next house. Inside, there was a skeleton of a not entirely humanoid creature. It looked like it was made of a human – lizard mix.

  It’s tail was dragging behind it, like in old depictions of a T Rex, its clawed hands rested on a halberd.

  It wore chest armour of inhuman design, and on its head rested a helmet visibly made for a long, lizard - like head.

  Valeria shrugged, and decided not to question things she encounters anymore.

  ‘Oh, right. The glass!’

  [Lizardfolk skeleton warrior, rank C]

  ‘That doesn’t help much. At the very least, I think its stronger than the ghast?’

  The problem was, Valeria would have to think of a way to crush both its thorax and the head without doing much noise, and fast, since she could hear rattling nearby. If she didn’t deal with this one quick enough, she would find herself in a pincer attack.

  ‘The moment I see a pickax or a sledgehammer, I’m taking it with me.’

  Those would do wonderfully against such a tough, yet brittle opponent.

  ‘On second thought, a halberd would do just as well.’

  Valeria closed the distance. Before the skeleton could turn around, it was mounted by a massive woman, who grabbed its halberd, and slammed its head with her shield.

  Before the skeleton regained its balance, it was decapitated with its own polearm, and knocked off its feet.

  The rattling outside got closer. ‘So they noticed, huh?’

  Valeria decided to wait for them inside. What entered the home, was much less scary than she thought.

  The skeletons this time looked like those of short humans, and were armed with nothing but crude clubs, quarterstaves, and rusty knives.

  Not even their numbers counted for anything, as Valeria went through two dozens of the things before they stopped pouring in.

  ‘You look quite different from those archers or the lizard. It feels like I’m fighting townsfolk desperate to repel a danger to their daily lives… How unpleasant.’

  The last one was still moving, so Valeria used her identifying glass to check its name.

  [Skeleton, rank G]

  ‘So it’s true. The closer it is to A, the stronger the creature is. I wonder how I measure up.’

  But the glass didn’t want to give an answer to that question. Valeria looked around, and found a chest. Inside it, there were only old clothes, so she dumped them outside, and carried the chest to stand in the entrance to her new hideout. She filled it with bones and bits she picked up from the ground, so that it would serve as a splendid barricade.

  Valeria walked over upstairs to check for further dangers, but found nothing, except for furniture. Fortunately, that included a bed.

  She took out her thermos, and poured herself some chamomile tea. The cranberry cookies with honey didn’t go with it too well, but they were good enough to replenish some of her energy.

  “I should’ve taken some actual food with me.”

  Afterwards, she made herself somewhat comfortable with her pillow, a blanket, and all the old clothes she got from the chest. The bed wasn’t the softest, and it was much too short for Valeria to stretch herself out, but it did the trick in a pinch.

  This night, nothing happened that would interrupt her beauty sleep.

  When Valeria woke up from the dreamless sleep, it was already morning. Her wristwatch told her it was 9 o’clock. She got up, and packed her things. Surprisingly, she felt pretty good, at least for a woman well past twenty who fought a swarm of undead the previous day.

  She brushed her hair, rinsed her mouth, and prepared to set out.

  The chest she used as a barricade was still in the entrance. She moved it by turning it over, to get rid of its contents. After all, it wouldn’t make sense to just move the entire thing at once.

  Accidentally, she took a peek inside. In the light of day, a mark could be seen. It was now filled with bone dust, making it clearly visible, even to someone with impaired vision.

  ‘Smart boy. Thanks for making my job easier.’

  She now had a clear direction she had to follow to search for more signs. It wasn’t a big stretch to think the boy would keep going this way.

  Valeria took a peek outside, and saw no hostile creatures.

  ‘I suppose this place should end at some point. The more ground I cover today, the better my chances of finding little David, or at least getting to somewhere I can ask for directions.’

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  She exited the building, and entered the next one to search it.

  Aside from a [skeleton warrior, rank F] she found nothing of note.

  She didn’t find any further signs until she got to the tenth house. She almost gave up on searching in this direction too, until she found another mark near the tenth houses’ doors.

  ‘Alright, that confirms it.’

  It was definitely the right direction.

  Clearing confined spaces with hostile monsters inside was tough, slow work. The only silver lining was the fact, that undead seemed to get sluggish and unresponsive under the sun. Valeria hoped they would burn in the light of day, but no. They simply lost their desire to kill her.

  After dismantling a few [Ghouls, rank E+] with her new halberd and finding one mark left by little David, Valeria decided to stop for the day. She found yet another house with a working bed, cleared it of undead, and barricaded the entrance.

  Before it got dark, she was already sleeping.

  She registered some bone rattling noises outside several times during the night, but otherwise, had no trouble sleeping. After all, when she was younger, even dozing off in city’s sewers wasn’t much of a problem.

  One of the most important skills to have, no matter who you are, is the ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

  ………

  Once Valeria woke up, she continued her search. The marks were few and far between, but got easier to find. Earlier, all of them were carved on walls, floors, and so on, but at some point, little David must’ve started to walk around upright, and leave his marks higher.

  This obviously made Valeria’s job easier. She was around two meters tall, and her old back injuries didn’t help with bending down to inspect various nooks and crannies.

  All in all, she was starting to feel relaxed. Undead rarely attacked her during the day, except in buildings, so she could just stroll calmly and search to her hearts’ content.

  ‘If not for urgency of finding David, this would be pretty much like vacation.’

  She walked over to yet another house, this one on a square, and found another mark. Yet this one was… unfinished.

  “Oh? Did something interrupt him” She sniffed the air. “This place really stinks, doesn’t it?”

  It did. It was no longer just smell of rot. Whatever was decomposing here, could boast of a stench vile enough to make even her grimace in disgust.

  Valeria had a bad feeling about this. She had drawn her gun, and started listening to her surroundings.

  As usual, her hunch was right, although listening so attentively proved to be useless, as a shrill roar resounded high above.

  HRGHAAAAAGYA!!!

  Valeria looked, and saw a big ass lizard. Or at least that’s what it looked like. The differences were, however, present and very obvious.

  Tattered, leathery wings replaced the front legs, and the fact that the thing was flying set it apart from a regular old sand lizard.

  Valeria was getting used to whipping out her non magnifying glass very quickly.

  [Undead Wyvern, rank B]

  “Well, you’ve made a lot of noise anyway, I guess.”

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

  She emptied her weapon into the thing. It dived down, but Valeria wouldn’t be fooled. Now that this Wyvern thingy knew of her ability to deal ranged damage, it would close the distance, not letting her reload her python. She quickly holstered her weapon, and grabbed the halberd she set aside a moment ago.

  Contrary to expectations, the wyvern didn’t attack with its legs, like a hawk, or by biting, like a lizard.

  Valeria barely deflected the tip of the wyverns’ tail. It was fast, and it hit heavy.

  After the fourth strike, a pattern was revealed. The tip wiggled violently, but always hit where it was aiming before it started moving, and the moment the tail was retracted, it bend to the side, giving it an illusion of unpredictability.

  She simply twisted her halberd sideways, so that the retracting tail would skewer nicely on the polearms’ spike.

  The wyvern jerked in the air, and turned to face Valeria with its maw.

  GLEBHREHEREEEEEE!!!

  It vomited a cloud of dirty purple mist.

  “So that’s what this stench was… It’s probably poisonous.”

  Valeria held her breath, and dived inside the house. The wyvern followed, constantly vomiting what was possibly the vilest miasma to ever intrude upon a human nose.

  Once its head entered the house, it was welcomed by a bashing with a halberd. It was a bit too dark to accurately hit its eyes, and so Valeria’s strikes were ineffective, as the flying zombie lizard simply pumped even more stench into the enclosed space.

  But She wouldn’t simply wait for death in such a gas chamber.

  Fortunately, the purple farts got thick enough to obstruct vision.

  Valeria tossed her backpack into the corner, only taking some rope, bolted to the staircase and climbed to the second floor. She immediately, albeit quietly, approached the window hanging right above the entrance.

  Entire wyvern body, besides the head and the neck, was right below Valeria.

  ‘I hope this thing is soft enough to not make my knees pay…’

  She jumped, landing right between the beasts wings. It reacted without delay, launching its tail towards her, but not before she chopped one of its wings with her halberd.

  And the tail, well… She already knew how to deal with it. The beast freed its head, and jerked, trying to shake her off.

  It succeeded, but only partially. She hooked the halberd on the other wing, and tore it apart, using the resistance to slow down her aerial travel.

  SHRIEEEEEK!

  The wyvern could no longer get out of her reach.

  Valeria took out a piece of rope with a loop already tied, and prepare herself.

  The next tail strike came with a boring predictability.

  ‘I guess you really are just a corpse.’

  She tied the loop around the tail, and let go of it, only holding the other end of the rope. The nimble appendage prepared for another attack, but Valeria was already prepared. She run towards the beasts legs, and made use of her superior on-the-ground mobility to simply tie up the Undead Wyvern.

  Well, not really ‘tie up’ The monster simply bundled up, tripping on a smartly directed piece of rope.

  It fell to the ground. Its maw opened, the beast preparing to bite its bindings apart, but Valeria moved faster. The tip of the wyverns’ tail laid on the ground like it was a chopping block.

  And so it was lobbed off.

  Valeria let go of the rope. Now that the tail lacked the protrusion that made the bindings stay in place, the wyvern freed itself within seconds.

  Now, the only weapon remaining was the head. As the vomit-breath didn’t work, the wyvern must’ve decided that biting was the only real course of action. The halberds’ spike removed it’s eye, but it persisted.

  Valeria dodged. Another eye was removed.

  It tried to use its tail to attack again, this time in a manner resembling a whip, or a bendy club, but it was no longer even sure where to attack. Besides the first time, Valeria didn’t have the need of dodging.

  It shrieked, it roared, but ultimately, it presented her with the perfect opportunity to strike.

  Inside the building, Valeria had trouble putting her whole weight behind her weapon, as she was simply too big to freely move around.

  But outside, she could strike as hard as she wanted, as heavy as she wanted.

  The spike pierced the scales, and severed the spine. The connection of the head to its body had gotten weaker, and the wyvern found itself capable of nothing, but flailing around.

  A good thing, Valeria was starting to get winded.

  Next, she shredded its legs. As the wyvern wiggled on the ground, Valeria took a breather.

  “A tough customer, aren’t you? Normally you should’ve dropped dead already.”

  She thought back to the unfinished mark she found.

  “Were you the one to interrupt David? Can’t say I appreciate that.”

  A thought occurred to her.

  “Wait, what if David didn’t run away, but got eaten?”

  She shrugged.

  “ Oh well, all the more reason to dissect this thing.”

  She cut opened the wyverns’ stomach, and started searching.

  It didn’t contain anything like a young boys’ corpse, so Valeria changed her approach. She went lower, and found something interesting.

  “Oh? This one has it too?”

  A fleshy orb was revealed. Once she pulled it out, the wyvern stopped trembling.

  Light press of her fingers later, a fist sized black pearl found its way into her bag.