13 These Dogs Were Clearly Having a Party

After two whole days of searching for and killing dogs Kasdeya finally managed to make it to level 14. Once again, all her stats improved by 1 except for luck which stayed on 3.

'Even after doing nothing but killing dogs for the entire night for the past two days I still haven't run into any dogs above level 4. I have explored almost three quarters of this place but I still haven't found any. Maybe they're just in an area I haven't discovered'.

While pondering on this strange occurrence Kasdeya stumbled across a large hall. It appeared to be a town hall or something similar that would be used to host large events or gatherings. Quite intrigued about what this place might hold she walked to the entrance and peeked through the large door that was already open. What she saw inside shocked her.

Hundreds of dogs were sprawled out across this open building and all of them were between level 5 and 14.

'Well, you know what they say, speak of the Devil and he shall appear. Though in this case it would be she shall appear and I'm the Devil so it doesn't really work. But I guess I discovered where all the high level dogs are.'

Upon further studying the room Kasdeya saw great crystals and shiny minerals that seemed to be growing out of the structure in random places and when she breathed in she felt that the air was invigorating, as if simply by being in this area and breathing her strength would grow.

'Well I guess I now know why the dogs like this area so much, heck, I would love to stay here myself. Actually, I've decided that I am going to stay here myself, but I'm not sharing so the previous tenants are going to be evicted. The only problem is their numbers, I can take on quite a few at once but that amount is slightly overwhelming.'

Pondering this question for a minute Kasdeya came up with the perfect solution. Spending a minute to pick up a bunch of stones she walked back to the entrance and lobbed one inside, it hit the side of the dog closest to the door, in reaction to which, it immediately woke up and, as it got up, the two dogs next to it also woke.

The three dogs walked over to the door sniffing around and just as they left the building, Kasdeya, who had been hanging onto the wall right above the door, dropped down and killed them instantly before they could even react.

Kasdeya then picked up another stone and repeated this process numerous times. After she had thrown the 32nd stone and killed over 90 dogs Kasdeya started to get a bit bored and because of this miss judged the next throw, resulting in the stone missing her intended target and clattering loudly against the floor before hitting a dog in the middle of the remaining group, causing all the remaining dogs to leap up and look at Kasdeya who had entered the building slightly in order to accurately make the shot.

'Oops.' Kasdeya thought as she turned and bolted out of the room with all the dogs, barking and chasing after her.

Not particularly worried though, Kasdeya climbed around the building picking off the dogs as they tried to find and attack her. She had to relocate herself a few times because as soon as she was spotted the dog would start barking, attracting the rest of them to her location.

Eventually though, all that was left was a large number of dog corpses around the entrance to the hall with a few around the perimeter. This made for a very gruesome scene as a lot of the dogs had large pieces of flesh torn off of them from suffering attacks from Kasdeya's claws. The culprit of this massacre however was indifferent as it was survival of the fittest.

'Few, that took some effort, but the pests have been cleared and I can now go and reap the rewards of this latest triumph.'

Quite proud of herself Kasdeya happily skipped towards the entrance of the hall before immediately going inside and taking a long breath to truly experience whatever it was that made this place so great.

Her gaze was then attracted by one of the shining minerals jutting out of the wall and when she walked over and inspected it she got a notification from the system.

[Mystic Copper]

'...That's it? No further explanation? Just mystic Copper? Well that's not very helpful, but if I was to take a guess it is copper that has popped up after the apocalypse started and it's better than normal copper. As I'm fairly certain that there was no such thing as mystic Copper before the apocalypse and anything labeled mystic would probably be better than it's normal variant. It's not like it matters to me though, this might be quite useful to humans but I don't have the required skills or technology to turn this into something useful and it's not like I need to anyway.'

Looking around the hall some more, there was some more mystic copper as well as a small amount of mystic iron and some mystic amethyst, as well as a couple of bins at the back of the hall with writing in an known dialect that looked like bins outside of second hand shops were people would put unwanted items and one of these bins had a few clothes at the bottom of it.

'Sweet, I finally managed to find some clothing, I don't particularly mind being naked when I'm on my own but it's still slightly uncomfortable and I'd prefer not to let others see me like this.'

Reaching into the bin and taking out a few clothing options Kasdeya found a few shirts and some jeans but nothing else, so she put on a black t-shirt, as the normal shirts were too awkward to get around her horns, and slightly faded dark blue jeans. The shirt was slightly large and wearing clothes that were obviously designed for a human was a bit weird with the addition of her tail as the back of her jeans was sitting low to make room for her new appendage but apart from that it was basically fine.

'I wouldn't call this an amazing discovery but finally having clothes again is definitely nice and an added benefit of this place would be being able to sleep here for a few days and experiencing this wonderful sensation so I definitely would call this a worthwhile discovery. As an additional bonus I probably levelled up at least 5 times from killing all those dogs so I might as well check my status.'

[Name: Kasdeya Votumea

Race: Devil

Gender: Female

Age: Ageless

Level: 15

Strength: 20

Endurance: 22

Soul: 25

Luck: 3

! EVOLUTION AVAILABLE !]

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"We refuse." Stated Michael, John and Joey in unison.

"Why not? Aren't you people mercenaries? All we are asking is for you to take me and a few of my people to the church that you found." Stated a supposed member of the church that had interrupted the three men's breakfast.

Three days after the trio who managed to cleanse themselves got back, a suspicious man claiming to be a member of the church had found them while they were eating and asked them to show him and a few of his people where the gate site was. Obviously the trio refused.

"One of my people is a priest so they can cleanse anyone if they are afflicted in the same manner that you were and I will be bringing quite a few trained and well equipped people with me who have explored the outside world before and ventured into numerous dangerous places so you don't need to fear for your lives, all that I am requesting is that you show us the way. I will even sweeten the deal a bit and give you each a kilogram of mystic ore on top of the original payment."

This immediately got the attention of the trio as they, like every other mercenary and person that made there money through fighting, desperately wanted mystic ore, however it was quite hard to get as it only ever appeared in areas that were rich with magic energy, otherwise known as mana, and unintelligent and intelligent monsters alike would naturally be drawn to such areas due to the mana purity.

The only positive about this is that mystic ores seem to replenish overtime so the humans weren't worried about it running out, even though this rate of replenishment was really slow.

After five minutes of quick debate amongst the trio they decided to agree with this request as the reward, compared to the theoretical work, was just too good. They even suspected that the employer had ulterior motives but there would be no benefit for tricking a bunch of weak mercenaries so clearly this site must have some sort of value to the employer instead.

"Fine. We'll take you. When do we leave?" Asked John.

"In three days, be waiting at the main gate at sunrise. I look forward to working with you."

And with that, the employer left the three to their own thoughts.