Chapter 42: Attack of The Hospital

'I wonder why I didn't gain XP from creating a grade-B base,' Lucas thought while he jumped down from the roof of the Laundry Mat onto the concrete pavement below him.

He bent his legs gently and landed in a squat before popping up a moment after.

"Phew... Stuff just keeps getting easier and easier,"

Lucas opened up the door to the headquarters and entered to find Lina reading a modern-looking book.

After approaching, he managed to read the title and was surprised. It read 'A Beginners Guide to Medicinal Herbs and How to Use Them'.

Lucas knocked on the door to alert her that he was here but she simply raised a finger to him to signify to him to be quiet.

He stood there for nearly 20 minutes before she carefully placed a piece of paper in between the pages she was reading and closed the book delicately.

She stood up and began stretching lightly, her wings coming out from behind her back slightly as she turned left and right.

"So... Lukey, whatcha up to?"

"Not much kiddo. I just upgraded the colony a bit... by the way, it's named 'The Mouse's Respite' now," Lucas said nonchalantly as he looked away casually from the little fairy.

"What?!"

He could almost hear the frown in her voice as he stared at the wall in front of him.

"You know.. after Lee,"

Lina flew in front of Lucas in an instant and folded her arms across her chest with a look of anger on her face.

"And you didn't even think of telling me?"

He shrugged lightly in response before looking away in shame, to which she just simply moved in front of his view once more.

"Come on... It was a spur-of-the-moment decision," Lucas said with a huff.

Lina frowned lightly before turning her back towards him and remaining silent.

He looked at the sulking fairy in front of him and looked at the white butterfly on his shoulder for help but it seemed to flap its wings lightly as if shrugging.

"Well... anyways, Lee needs me to do some work on the other side of the city, so I may end up being gone for a few weeks,"

"On top of that I need to go monster hunting a bit, so that might just take the rest of the month,"

Lina's shoulders visibly slumped as she slowly turned towards him with a pouting look plastered on her face.

"R-really?! Again? And a whole month at that!"

Lucas simply nodded in reply with a grimace on his face.

"I can't shirk out on my responsibilities... so make sure to take care of The Mouse's Respite for me, okay?"

Lina just nodded sadly and with that, the two of them departed.

---

Lucas met up with Gavin at the gate only to find that they were carrying wounded men with them and seemed to be half the number that they were when they left.

He quickly opened up the gate and ushered them in but found that they had dull and vacant expressions on their faces as they plopped down on the ground with exhaustion.

'How is this possible... I'm fairly sure they were only gone for a few days at the most,'

Gavin seemed to be the least injured out of the bunch but his expression was just as emotionless as the rest of the group.

"Gavin! What the hell happened out there?"

The Ex-Boxer glanced at Lucas before shaking his head lightly as if thinking of something deeply disturbing.

"A-A group of humans attacked us... There weren't many of them but they were strong,"

"What did they look like?"

Gavin's expressionless face glazed over with fear as he seemed to recall the past.

"They all were wearing civilian clothes. There were only about a dozen of them. Less than what we had with us at the time."

"But the leader... he had goggles on that seemed to stare right through us. He had a strange power that let him stun us. It was a feeling I had never felt before. It was like something deep inside of me broke after he touched me,"

Lucas hurriedly used the Appraisers Eye skill on him to see if he could figure out what status effects were on them but only found that his skill was too low for him to see that detail of information.

"Are there any status effects on you that you know of? A curse perhaps?"

Gavin nodded his head lightly before responding.

"Y-Yeah... It said we have an unknown curse afflicting us. S-Something about our souls being damaged, I think at least,"

'Fuck, this is bad,'

'We have no real healers so we can't even take care of them if we wanted to... Looks like we need to just let them rest and try and recover what they can,'

"Gavin, Halt all scouting missions for the meantime. I'm gonna deal with this group. But before I do that I have one more question for you... What did the goggles look like?" Lucas asked with a sense of suspicion filling him.

"They were pitch black and had strange lenses to them. When they attacked it was dark outside but he seemed to be able to see where even our hidden men were,"

Lucas nodded as his suspicions were confirmed.

'Those damn hospital freaks! I'm gonna kill them all,'

'I shouldn't have left those god damn goggles there in the first place. Why am I such a god damn idiot?'

"I need you to draft me a map of all the known settlements of survivors out there as soon as you get your men some help. I'll be back in a day or two,"

Gavin could only nod slightly in return before Lucas had already left the settlement with the bag he had prepped beforehand.

---

The road wasn't that dangerous. No signs of dead creatures on the road or people for that matter.

'I should have asked where the fight took place. It would have given me a clue if they were at their base or not... Looks like I have no choice but to just destroy the entire lot of them I guess,'

His face was emotionless at the thought of killing the entire group.

'If anyone that still stays with them knowing that they hunt and kill people... then they are as good as murderers themselves,'

Lucas focused back on his memories, retracing the steps he and Lina had taken to leave the hospital to get to where they were now.

'It's only a day's walk from The Mouse's Respite. But with my new speed, I should be able to reach there in a few hours if I use my new movement skill <Power Walking>. It effectively doubled his movement with no cost in stamina so it made trips like these incredibly easy,'

And just like Lucas expected, he had arrived at the hospital in about 3 and a half hours. The sun was still high in the sky by the time he arrived which seemed to be a good omen.

He inspected the building carefully, looking for the entrances and exits only to find that there were dozens of them, though most of them seemed to have been blocked off or locked.

But there was definitely one thing that Lucas noticed almost immediately that made him stop in his tracks.

There were 2 guards at the main entrance that had two large staffs on either side of their bodies. One in each hand.

They stared forward vigilantly while making small talk. There were no places for Lucas to sneak up on the two of them since the only thing in front of the hospital's main doors was a large parking lot.

Lucas quickly used his <Appraiser's Eye> Skill to see their levels, without looking for anything else in particular.

<Tier 1: Dual Caster LV: 27. Tier 0: Fishermen LV: 1>

<Tier 1: Chantless Mage LV: 18. Tier 1: Scholar LV: 12>

'Mages? I thought those were rare... How the hell can they spend two as simple guards... The last time I checked, the only proficient mage in the entirety of our camp was Lina,'

'Looks like I will just have to go in guns blazing... Or in my case bats blazing,'

Lucas pulled out his trusty bat and got ready to cast Sandstorm Blitz on his gloves to instantly get behind the guards to take them out.

It was time to rumble.