Life Is A Game : Rise Of The Bloodvolva

(Actually, I'm sure they're going to shoot even if their colleague are in the way. They're not soldiers, they do not have training for that kind of situation, just looking at how they're watching the surroundings and looking all over the place is enough to tell. Whatever moves or appears in their field of vision will be shot without warning)

This kind of armed group without training is surely what is most dangerous to join in the event of apocalypse. It's also so cliché! I already imagine a violent and calculating leader leading them, forcing local people trying to survive to submit to them or die. This is the kind of band to end up typically in post-apocalyptic Raiders in sum. Women are cattle to satisfy their low instincts, they also recruit other future raiders by promising them as much women/food/whatever as they want etc ...

The more I imagine the group and its possible future and the more I have trouble looking at them without feeling the irrepressible need to slaughter them. It is illogical, thoughtless and suicidal, and I am not one to defend the widow and the orphan, but my blood is boiling because I imagine my family under their reign ...

(Kill ... I have to kill them ...)

My hand holding a branch is tightening more and more without me realizing it and finally:

*Crack*

The branch gives in with a crack. I am surprised and jump from where I am, but I am not the only one to have heard the crunch: the whole group points their weapons to the place where I was standing before. Fortunately it is dark and the tree is has thick foliage, otherwise I would have been seen and have already been transformed into a pile of minced flesh. Cold sweat runs down my back.

(Quite frankly I would have preferred goblins, even hobgoblins would have been better than them!)

I give my grandfather new instructions that he repeat to the group standing outside:

"-Leave me time to discuss it with my group, we will come to the town hall to give you our answer.

- You do not understand the urgency it looks like. Monsters are everywhere, you can't survive alone. However, I understand your reluctance. I hope to have your answer quickly »

And I see him pointing out, outside the camera field, to his companions to leave. But instead of just leaving all together, they move away a bit from the property and then split into several groups that go around the surrounding wall.

(Fortunately a part is in the forest and they refuse to enter it otherwise they would be everywhere ...)

But their action confirms my doubts: if they can not convince us nicely, they will surely do it by force. The fact that the goblins hold the hypermarket has limited the access to food, and we have plundered the second place, they will come anyway to take our stocks. I start thinking about leaving here, but soon I give it up. We have a place that reassures us, where we have food and water. If we leave we lose all that. I know it's not a perfectly defended place, but in any case in the face of monsters, any sort of "human" defense would not hold out, I'm sure. No, definitely the best way to survive is to become strong, stronger enough to defeat anything that threatens our place. I begin to wonder if I should not try to use my skills such as [Blood Submission] and my [Dominator] title to get an army. I do not know if this is really possible, after all the description of my skill tells me that it only works against weaker targets or those who recognized me as superior.

(But weaker in what sense? The level? The stats? Mentally? It's not clear and I do not have time to experiment with it! Maybe if there were only a few monsters, if I was alone or if I was more powerful ... shit, we always come back to the same thing!)

I always feel like I'm going around in circles, I want to do things but I'm being held back because of my weakness or my family or this or that. I grind my teeth in annoyement, I can not do anything but trying to survive as I can ...

I go back to the house, morose. My family greets me, anxious to know what will happen.

"-For the moment I think they are watching us and looking for a way to get in. They are not that friendly from what I've seen: they were a dozen armed with rifles outside. It was the last group survivor who brought them here, I do not know how he survived in the middle of the Orc city but here is the result ... I think we should eliminate them before they try anything. The problem is their armament. A single shot will be enough to reduce any of us to tatters. There is also no way of going to them at the town hall, fighting on their own land would be suicidal ... "

Suddenly I have an idea. And if I redo what I did between orcs and goblins but this time between the goblins and this group ...

I talk about it with my family but my mother interrupts me:

"- And if there were innocents in the group? People forced by others to submit? You would send them to death too! "

I remain silent. In my head the choice is already made: if I have to sacrifice strangers for my family ... I'm not a hero, I'm not a good human being, I'm more like these people or the monsters around us but I do not care, I want to survive and make my family survive. And if I have to be hated by the world by becoming worse than now, then so be it.

I hug Alyssa against me and then summarize to my mother my reasoning in one simple sentence:

"- I'll do whatever it takes for you to live. "

My mother and Marie are trembling while looking at me. I see them shocked by my words again. I know this is neither the first nor the last time I see them looking at me like that. I prepare myself mentally but it is hard: loosing the loving look of his mother and seeing it being replaced with fear ... I think there is nothing worse.

Alyssa hugs me by the waist in her young arms, and the patriarch of the family suddunly says :

"- Nathalie, do not judge your son too fast. Understand the good. We are in a dangerous world and he is hardly strong enough to survive, and we chose him against his will as leader. You know he does not like responsibilities and yet he is willing to endure everything for us."

He puts his hand on my shoulder and continue:

"- My child, I am sorry to be so useless and not able to share more of your load. Wait a little longer for me to improve and you'll have someone else to support you.

- You can count on us too Blóðvölva !" Say the three dogs, placing their fists on their hearts.

"- Thank you four, it reassures me a lot ..." I tell them, really reassured.

"Me too, big brother, I'll help you, you'll see," whispered my beloved Lyssa.

"I'll shoot at anyone who threatens you and threatens our family ..." she said even lower, almost imperceptibly, looking me straight in the eye.

I see then in her eyes a glow. I know this glow. I saw it in mine already. The determination of a killer ... It seems that Alyssa, my younger sister, is also a possible psychopath like me. It seems to be genetic.

(My family may be cursed ... successive generations of monsters and fantastic clans to finaly reach us ... the genes and the blood of the Emperors flow in her young veins, and this world will bring it out. Should I be proud or do I have to be horrified like my mother ? Time will tell me)

The Inus watching any enemy movements, my family took the opportunity to return to try to sleep, although the fear of being surprised by armed strangers arriving in the house will surely keep them awake...