Chapter 20: Rank up

Kennen woke up at noon after a few hours of sleep.

He met up with his friends and Amelia seemed to have decided what to do with James' body.

She decided to burn the body and spread James' ashes in the sea and apparently already absorbed James' crystal.

It wasn't his wish or anything like that but they didn't know where the cemetery was so it was kind of the only solution.

Apparently, there was nothing special about a crystal from James as the feeling it gave was no different than any crystal dropped by any of the other monsters.

If Kennen's math was right, it was 15 crystals disappearing to nowhere and going to the drain.

The problem with the cremation was that it ended like when they burned the pig orcs' bodies.

They couldn't burn the bones as the fire wasn't hot enough so they had to throw the whole bones to the sea.

The whole ceremony was a bit awkward but Amelia and Brandi seemed to handle James' death alright.

As for Kennen, he wasn't that close to James and didn't particularly feel anything at the makeshift funeral.

He only knew him for a week, sure, they fought together, but no deep bond was formed between them as James was focused on his girlfriend and Kennen was focused on how to grow stronger.

He felt more pity than sadness at James' death.

With the corpses being dealt with, it was time for them to build a barrage at the hotel's entrance again.

Since using the hotel's furniture clearly didn't work with how weak it actually was, Kennen and his friend went on a quest to find two big SUVs to block off the entrance.

They managed to find two suitable cars not far from the hotel and drove it to the entrance.

The cars actually weren't enough to cover the whole entrance as there was some obvious gap where some monsters like the mini cyclops and wolves could pass through to it.

None of them could come with a better solution other than take some draps and cover the entrance.

They weren't builders after all.

Hopefully, the monsters would stop after seeing there was no entrance. They couldn't guard the gate 24/7.

Kennen saw Julio and Michael's group come back while they were working on the entrance and also saw they came by with a couple crystals.

It wasn't for us but for the other people in the hotel that had yet to receive their first one. They wanted to increase the size of their group so their hunt would be faster and safer, which was a smart decision.

Julio just had to pay up 20 crystals at the end of the week. He could give a few each day or all at once on the last day. It didn't matter to Kennen or Frank.

Ryan went on an expedition with them and rejoined their team. He told Kennen and his friends that he wanted to use his experience with Kennen's group to guide the others so they could avoid casualty for their first hunt and the hunts that came after.

From their little interaction, Ryan came off as being a really good guy.

Always positive but Kenne found him a bit naive.

Hopefully, Michael's group wouldn't be stupid and try to betray someone who clearly wason their side and helped them.

After being done with the entrance, there was still time before nightfall so they could go out on their own expedition.

"God… work and more work. Can't relax and have some fun at all." Rafael sighed.

"It's the apocalypse, what did you expect? A vacation?" Enzo chuckled.

"It's all about the grind in time like this. At least, you can feel the grind paying off." Evan added.

Kennen had to agree that all the fighting was taking a toll on him mentally as they didn't have any activity to release stress or help decompress.

"There's no electricity, I wonder what we can do in order to have some fun?" Kennen wondered.

"We only have free time at night, and you kinda need a significant other for nightly activity. Maybe, the boys can replace the SO for the activities, no homo, it's just the boys having fun and looking out for each other." Enzo gave a troll face.

"Ayo." Evan gave him a disgusted face.

"I remember a toy shop not far from here. Maybe they will have some board games?" Frank suggested.

None of them had really played board games before but at this point any game to take their mind off the current situation would help.

"Better than nothing, I guess." Rafael said.

Kennen and his friends went on a short expedition and they got nine crystals out of that short trip because they decided to take it easy after what happened last night, and they did decide to go to the toy shop and get the board games.

***

Kennen and his friends did end up playing a board game that night and it was a monopoly game.

It was a nice change of pace after a week of gruesome fighting and a nice way for them to relax aside from sleeping.

"Pay up b*tch!" Rafael declared with a greedy grin after Evan stepped into his land.

"Stop increasing rent on me, ya c*nt." Evan said in frustration as his money dwindled.

"What else do you expect from a landlord? Reduce the rent?" Rafael crackled evilly.

"Well, at least you don't have to pay when in jail." Kennen muttered as his pawn was in jail.

Kennen wasn't having a good game.

He would be penniless soon and about to lose the game.

Rafael and Frank were taking everyone's paycheck, dominating the game. At this rhythm, it wouldn't take long for this game to end, which would be welcomed by Kennen as this was a torture.

It was what he felt at that time but Kennen enjoyed the night and they had fun for the first time in the past week.

However, they didn't play for long as they still had to sleep earlier than when the world was still normal.

Kennen used to sleep at midnight before, unlike now where he slept at 8 or 9 pm, it was like being back to a kid when he was forced to sleep by his parents while he wanted to stay up and watch TV.

It couldn't be helped. They must have the conviction to follow through harsh regiment if they wanted to keep on living.

Couldn't be as lay back as before anymore.

***

Four days had passed since they were invaded by pig orcs, things went back as usual and the hotel didn't get invaded by any monsters.

During those three days, they went out on expeditions everyday and collected many crystals.

They had to go further and further away in their expedition to find more monsters as Kennen and his friends extermined the surrounding ones, except those at the park and at the embassy since they still avoided those areas.

Surprisingly, they had never met with Michael's team outside while both teams were hunting. It even seemed that Michael's team actively avoided them.

They also didn't give them any crystals those days.

Kennen at least hoped that was because they planned to pay everything at the end of the week, because if not, Kennen and his friends would have to follow through with their threats and kick them out, and that would probably end violently.

Sadly, Kennen saw that expedition for them didn't go as well.

Kennen noticed that one person from their team was missing and then another one disappeared too. He learned from Ryan that they died during their outing but Ryan didn't elaborate so Kennen wasn't sure how they died.

He remembered that everything went well in Michael's team's first expedition as everyone came back alive but how come people died when they added even more members?

Did they get cocky? Careless? Or some of them made a mistake during a pressing moment?

It was weird since Frank even went out of his way to tell Ryan what to look out for each monster.

Kennen didn't know what happened but that had to be hit to their team's morale.

He did notice that Michael seemed to be even more hostile to them and the other people weren't as friendly toward him and his friends anymore.

He didn't notice anything suspicious from their actions and just guessed they were dissatisfied that they had to pay a taxe to them but Kennen would keep an eye on them just to be safe.

As for Kennen and his team, they were doing pretty well.

Everyone was a little stronger for each day that passed.

Kennen kept count of everyone crystals count in their team and Frank had 39 crystals now.

Frank was stronger but still within human's limit.

Evan had 43 crystals and still acted as their team's only tank.

Enzo and Rafael had both 38 crystals.

Amelia had 36 crystals while her Brandi had 22 crystals.

In the past few expeditions they had since James' death, Brandi had noticeably been trying harder. She no longer stayed at the back and was content on being a passenger in their expedition.

She was actively participating in the hunt now. The only problem was that she needed babysitting as she still swung her sword wildly like a kid trying to do a helicopter attack and closed her eyes when attacking but at least she was trying, which was a lot better.

Even Jordan received a few crystals to thank him for conserving the foods and was now sitting at 18 crystals. As for Nina, she didn't receive any, it would be like wasting crystals if they gave her any since they didn't use her powers.

Lastly, Kennen had now absorbed 39 crystals.

He could notice that it took more effort for him to get tired as he absorbed more crystals and the goblins were steadily growing stronger although there was a limit to that since they were goblins in the end.

But no complaint would be heard from him since his power was probably the single most powerful one in their team as the goblins could probably beat anybody one versus one.

Well, technically it would be three versus one.

They went further south during their expedition and were now in a primary school and just killed off six wolves and one mini cyclop.

It just so happened that Evan just needed seven more crystals before he would hit 50 crystals absorbed so everyone decided to let him have those seven crystals.

"With that, I'll hit fifty crystals, it better give me some boost." Evan said before he absorbed the seven crystals.

Kennen patiently waited for him with his friends.

He really hoped that fifty was the next goal and not one hundred.

It only took a few minutes for Evan to absorb the crystals.

"Oh! I feel great!" Evan yelled and posed like he was about to launch a big missile… from his back.

Kennen was sure Evan got a power up by how long this had taken and how he was looking at the empty air with concentration, which meant he was looking at skills description.

"Finally, I got a new skill!" Evan exclaimed in excitement.

"It's called Shockwave!"

Evan tested his new skill in front of his friend.

It was basically a Shockwave punch. The punch would release a shockwave up to three meters away from the point of release.

The closer it was to the punch, the more powerful it was.

With that, Evan could even make a hole in the wall now and could probably one shot an armored orc with this.

That was quite the punch and power up.

50 crystals seemed to be the next rank up as Evan was now a F+ rank and that discovery was quite motivating.

They would all try to rush everyone to 50 crystals and maybe with that, they would no longer have to worry about their safety.

With that, they could finally focus on finding a way to leave the island since they could confidently explore more areas.

With renewed hope, Kennen and his friends continued their expedition to find more monsters to hunt.