48 Gems

Aida hopped onto a balcony to observe the Enraged and Reapers as they approached. It seems they were able to sense the death of a Reaper. She was still in her nothingness state, so none of the Enraged noticed her and she hid carefully to ensure the Reapers wouldn't notice her presence either.

One of the Reapers was clearly faster than the rest as it jumped onto the dead Reaper's body and dug through the dead Reaper's heart to pull something out. He then stuffed it in his mouth and dashed off. The other Enraged and Reapers saw this and began chasing after him.

Aida watched on with curiosity. This was the first time that she saw the Enraged and Reapers interested in something other than pure destruction. What exactly was in the girl's heart?

While curious, she was not keen on the idea of chasing after the fast Enraged. Instead, she decided to move onto her next victim. She could dissect the next Reaper's body and discover its secrets instead.

A couple blocks over was a yellow aura Reaper that had not been attracted by the noise of the previous reaper. Based on its aura, Aida suspected that it would be an Earth powered Reaper. She chose to approach the Reaper in the same way she had approached the previous one.

The Earth Reaper reacted similarly and threw sharp stones at her the moment she entered within range. Because it was a more troublesome element for Aida to dodge, she decided not to play around with the Reaper and quickly ended the fight with a knife to the carotid.

After confirming the Earth Reaper was dead, she walked up and slashed through his heart. Within, she found a tiny yellow gem the size of a sunflower seed. Inspecting it curiously, she quickly cleaned the gem using the dead Reaper's clothes and stuffed it into her pocket. More Enraged and Reapers were headed her way after she defeated the Earth Reaper.

At first, she thought she got away cleanly but soon noticed that all the Enraged and Reapers were now chasing after her instead despite being in her nothingness state. Realizing that they were probably following the scent of the gem, she quickly broke into a nearby store to find a jar to conceal the scent of the gem.

As she broke into the store, all the Enraged and Reapers also dashed madly into the store, entirely disregarding the door and walls. This caused a normal, sturdy store to collapse to the ground as though an earthquake happened.

Seeing this, Aida quickly secured the gem into a tiny glass jar and climbed up a different building. Losing the scent of the gem, the Enraged and Reapers began to slowly disperse as they continued their aimless walk.

These Enraged and Reapers were different than the ones she had previously encountered. The ones from the lobby seemed to have personality and maintained their intelligence in spite of their Enraged state. They were able to open doors, use scissors, and operate as high-functioning beings, despite being intent on humanity's destruction. In contrast, these Enraged and Reapers seemed to be entirely mindless and didn't even know how to walk through a door properly.

Shrugging to herself, she was sure that some explanation would come to light soon enough. She remained at her location for a while as she waited for the Reapers to disperse. It was not yet time for her to start such a high profile fight.

She continued this process of fighting and killing Reapers. Every time she successfully killed a Reaper, she would quickly stuff the gem into the jar and hid until the crowds dispersed.

As the day went on, the red tint in her iris was growing deeper and deeper while her smile was also growing wider and wider. She really enjoyed the sound of the gems jingling inside the glass jar.

She continued fighting until the sun began to set, then headed back to the house. By this time, she was completely soaked in the blood of the Reapers with a maniacal grin and her trademark glint on her face. She controlled her impulses and reluctantly turned off her nothingness state and the red tint in her eyes were slowly fading away.

She had a relatively large harvest. Aside from the two elemental Reapers she met at the beginning, she fought 8 other Reapers. Of the remaining 8, there was only one other elemental Reaper that was also Earth-based. Interestingly, the second Earth-based Reaper fought very differently than the first one. Instead of throwing stones as an attack, it was able to manipulate the ground to create holes and protrusions wherever it wanted to.

The other 7 Reapers either seemingly had no superpower or were physically enhanced Reapers. Aida suspected that every Reaper had some kind of superpower, and that the Reapers with seemingly no superpower likely had very specific enhancements such as eagle eye, sharp hearing or eidetic memory that were not able to visibly manifest itself in their fight against her. In general, none of the physically enhanced Reapers had very obvious visible physical changes. The strength-type Reapers were just slightly bulkier than the average human, while the agility-type Reapers were leaner than the average human.

It seems elemental and animalistic superpowers were much rarer than physical enhancements. She was a bit disappointed that she didn't pick out the spiderwoman and the water-powered Reaper's gems as they were both rare gems to come across. The usage of these gems still weren't entirely clear but she was sure that it would come to light soon.

Having been infected by the virus and owning a superpower, she suspected that her body also had a gem. There were most likely others like her who survived the infection and gained a superpower while maintaining sentience. It didn't matter too much regardless of whether there were others like her, she was still confident in her ability to survive and enjoy this apocalypse even if they did exist.