Rey did his best not to throw up from the smell, but it was getting to him. It had been almost two days, and they still hadn’t cleared off all the dead demons, which had started to rot and reek. Then, all these random demons kept attacking, and none of them were Rank 3 or 4, which was just great. So, Rey just let the others handle them because they could rank up with Rank 2 demons.

  Kassandra still wasn’t awake, another awesome fucking thing. However, the group had fallen into their roles quite well. Jerry was not a bad cook, so he was good for something. In his last life, it was mostly Filomena and Ajay who had taken up the task, and it became the cause of a lot of their fights. They both felt very strongly about how to cook, even though there were no spices or even salt for seasoning. Jerry, however, created this broth that just hit the spot.

  The room with the weapons also contained a few cooking utensils. Thankfully, Tibras had taken care to put some utensils in the castle. He needn’t have, since Jerry had survived and could make whatever he wanted from metals. If Zalathar didn’t have his Minion, they would have to eat raw demon steak all the time. That, of course, came later, but only for Rey once he went through a certain transformation.

  For now, he was using his gravitational skills to stack the corpses in the trees. It wouldn’t create a barrier or wall of any kind, as there weren’t nearly enough corpses, but it would free up some of the space, and it wouldn’t reek like an undug graveyard.

  [+1 Magic Affinity]

  The stat increase popped up when a corpse shot off as if it couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Rey. If he wanted to, he could have cleaned up the whole thing with one massive Repulsion wave, but then he wouldn’t be able to grind out his Magic Affinity and Magic Power stats.

  “Hey, idiot, what about this one?” Tia called as she pointed at a big, hairy demon.

  Too bad Identify didn’t work on corpses, and Rey didn’t remember what the name of the hairy beast was. It looked like a cross between a boar and a crab. An arrow stuck out of its neck, which must’ve felled it.

  Kassandra must’ve gotten a lot of shooting practice in this fight. Once she was awake, he was going to have her do more practice.

  Rey walked over to the blonde’s find and inspected the corpse. “Hm, tell me something, Tia. Do you think we can use its ribs for a barricade?”

  She shrugged. “It seems big enough. How the hell should I know?”

  It wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to big enough, but they were running out of large corpses. This was the project they were working on, creating a spiky barricade around the castle with the rib cages of their downed foes. They had so much meat that they were literally throwing it away. All this could have fed them for the entire year, provided they had a fridge or the knowledge to make one, but the closest thing to an engineer was Jerry, and his technical skills maxed out at heating water.

  Rey patted her shoulder, and she quickly swerved away. “Tia, hold my beer while I process the sheer magnitude of your discovery.”

  “Really?” Even she frowned, disbelieving herself.

  He gave him a blank look. “I’m trying so hard not to be mean to you.”

  “You could’ve just said no, asshole.”

  “Now, who’s being mean?”

  He and Tia were the only ones out here. It was their shift. Rey tried to be out here as much as he could, especially with her. How else was he supposed to get close to her and become the Brutus to her Caesar? Be the Gollum to her Frodo. Perform the Red Wedding with her being the only Stark.

  Babe, you need to make it easier for me to betray you. Let me in.

  She ignored him and moved on, but he followed her this time, after using Repulsion on the corpse she had pointed at, throwing it away in the treeline, and a few others that lay around it.

  “If only we had a way of touching that pickup truck of a corpse,” Rey mused.

  The Luthrol he had killed still lay there, almost in the middle of the clearing, not too far from the castle door. He was being serious about it, too. The corpse was still excreting poison, or did when they tried cutting into its flesh. Jerry had narrowly avoided getting splashed more than a few times and then finally gave up after a drop landed on his metal cheek. Even then, the poison ate through it to the muscle underneath. It was like acid, and the worst kind or Jerry’s metal magic just wasn’t strong enough.

  Thankfully, the good doctor was able to fix him up in a matter of minutes. Even still, Jerry was howling and shrieking like a little kid who had gotten his little pipe stuck in the zipper.

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  Finally, Tia took the bait and responded. “You saw what it did to that metallic shit for brains. You want others to get hurt, too.”

  “Depends on the person.”

  She paused and snapped her head to him.

  “Just kidding, my overly serious Goldilocks,” Rey replied. “Of course, I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Maybe Dr. Bahar could take a swipe at it and, you know, heal herself.”

  Tia scoffed. “Fat chance it’ll work.”

  “What about you?” Rey came to it at last. “Filomena said that you could heal yourself, so why not give it a try?”

  Her expression became cagey, and she turned the other way, pretending to inspect another body. “My Talent doesn’t work like that.”

  “How come?” Rey pushed. “One healing Talent is like another. Sure, you may heal yourself differently, but in the end, you’ll get healed, right?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” she drawled.

  “But how will we know if we don’t try?”

  “Because I know.”

  “Come, let’s try at least,” Rey pushed.

  “I said it doesn’t work like that,” She snapped, almost shouting. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

  Rey raised his hands. “Hey, I’m sorry. If you don’t wish to share, then that’s fine. No rush.”

  This made one thing clear to Rey—she could only transfer injuries to living enemies. If the Luthrol’s poison burned her, she wouldn’t be able to transfer the damage back to it. That was the only reason she was so adamant about not testing it out. It would be like if she had cut herself with a knife; since she couldn’t cut the knife, she wouldn’t be able to transfer the cut back to it. In the same way, she couldn’t transfer the damage back to Luthrol because it was dead. In essence, she can only transfer the damage to living enemies.

  That is an evil fucking Talent.

  It told Rey what kind of a person she was. If he could figure out a way to be done with her without the others knowing about it, he would’ve finished her off by now. She walked off, and he let her go and focused on his training again, which was moving stinking corpses.

  [+1 Magic Power]

  The notifications kept popping until he was almost out of Mana, and then he started pushing the corpses away with his scythe. Soon, Filomena blew the horn from the watchtower, signaling the end of their shift.

  Rey took a swig from his waterskin that Maria had sewn for them. Jerry had created the needles, and as Rey had suggested, they had used the rolled-up intestines as thread. She had popped out nine skins in no time.

  He looked back as he got to the door. The day had been productive. Nearly all the corpses were clear, and they made a nice pile for Jerry to cut open and pull out the ribs. Sergei was in charge of planting them in the ground. The barricade was half ready. Rey didn’t think they had enough bones to cover the castle fully, but he only cared about covering the door. The rest could be left open, and it wouldn’t matter as the walls were strong enough to withstand any demon.

  Rey opened the door, and he was greeted by a beautiful surprise.

  “K-Kassi?” he asked with unbelieving eyes.

  She was sitting on the stairs with a dark fur draped around her shoulders, eating hot soup from a steel bowl. The bowl and spoons were Jerry’s creations. Tibras had not been so generous.

  Kassandra looked up from her bowl with deep, sunken eyes. She appeared to have lost several pounds in the last couple of days. She had gotten paler, so the dark circles under her eyes looked even more prominent, but her smile was still as bright as ever. Those dimples could light up any room.

  “Kassi, you’re awake.” Rey had a strong urge to run up to her and put his arms around her.

  “K-Kassi,” she frowned. “Is that my name?”

  Rey’s heart skipped a beat. He looked around. Doctor Bahar was equally confused.

  “I’m sorry,” Kassi said. “But who are you?”

  Suddenly, Rey’s mouth felt as dry as sandpaper. He swallowed. “I’m Rey...”

  She furrowed her brow. “Sorry, I don’t know any Rey. Am I supposed to—” She burst out into a hearty laugh. “Oh, you should see your face.”

  She mocked Rey’s worried expression, though he was sure he didn’t look remotely as worried as she made him out to be.

  “I hate you,” Rey said.

  She laughed even louder, and he couldn’t help but join her with a shake of his head. It had been years since he had heard her laugh like that, and that sound was perhaps the most melodious sound he had ever heard.

  “I’m sorry, Rey,” Kassandra finally said after she had calmed down. “I just couldn’t resist.”

  “Yeah, sure. How are you feeling, Miss Jokester?” Rey asked. “You look like you’ve just risen from the dead.”

  “I feel like I’ve just risen from the dead,” she replied. “That demon nearly got me.”

  Rey nodded. “It was my fault for distracting you. I’m sorry.”

  “Damn right, it was your fault,” she replied. “The others filled me in while you were cleaning up the mess you made, supreme leader.”

  He shrugged. “Someone had to do the hard work since you were taking your beauty sleep. By the way, it didn’t work.”

  “Well, that means I need a longer nap.”

  “No more naps for you, slacker. You’re going straight to the watchtower. Filomena has been picking up your shifts.” Rey leaned and whispered conspiratorially. “I saw Ajay making frequent trips up there and didn’t return for many hours. Who knows what those two have been doing up there?”

  “I’m right here,” Ajay called from Rey’s left. He had his hands on his hips and his head cocked to the right. “And Kassandra, that did not happen.”

  Rey had missed her. It was totally Kassandra’s fault. It must be part of some Talent of hers to make herself the center of attraction for Rey because that totally would not happen otherwise.

  There was commotion upstairs as if someone was running down the stairs at top speed. A moment later, the sultry Sicilian appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Filomena huffed. “Rey, you’ve got to come see this.”

  Rey groaned. “What happened now?”

  “Just come.”

  With that, Filomena dashed up the way she had come. Rey took off after her and just about everyone else, aside from Kassandra. He, unfortunately, had no time to wait to make sure she was okay. Someone else would do that. At the top floor, Filomena took a left and dashed to the balcony. Rey was right behind her.

  “There.” She pointed to the Luthrol’s body

  The Luthrol, which excreted poison when you touched it, and so none of them could even bear to cut it to pieces, even with weapons, was being eaten by a demon in the shape of a man. The demon turned to them, smiling, and waved.

  It was Phil.

  [BEGONE CLIFF]