The system notifications continued to scroll across my vision in a rhythmic, cold ticker of greed and death.
[You acquired 5,000 coins][You acquired 4,000 coins][You acquired 3,000 coins] ... [You acquired 1,000 coins][You acquired 800 coins]
The disparity was clear. The first batch of traitors I had cut down—those caught in the initial heat of the massacre—gave me a staggering amount of wealth. They hadn't had the time to react to my presence.
But the ones I killed later, those who had heard Allen's frantic command to empty their inventories, had managed to exhaust most of their liquid assets. Somehow, they had funnelled their coins into the System or used quick-purchase items to spite me.
However, in this stage of the apocalypse, even scraping single-digit coins from a corpse was a gain. To pull three-digit and four-digit sums from so many bodies was a windfall I hadn't dared to hope for.
I kept moving from one traitor to another, my hands reaching out to claim half of their life's work. Behind me, Angelica followed in a heavy, suffocating silence. I didn't say a word to her.
I let the silence stretch, using it as a whetstone to sharpen her guilt. I understood why she had done it—we were strangers bound by a forced contract, and she was looking out for her own interests in a world that had gone mad.
But understanding didn't mean tolerance. This was only the first quest; the damage she had caused by withholding loot wasn't world-ending.
But if this happened during a Tier-2 or Tier-3 quest, where every resource could mean the difference between an army's survival and its extinction, I would have to reconsider her position on my side—or her right to remain among the living.
"Not bad," I muttered, checking my new balance. I couldn't help but let a dark grin spread across my face.
The statistics of the Great Lawn were grim. Initially, we had a group of four to five hundred people. After this internal culling, barely two hundred remained.
The number of traitors was the truly astonishing part—over sixty of them in this group alone, not counting the ones I had dispatched earlier. It meant that nearly a quarter of the survivors I was protecting were actually sleeper agents.
The realisation settled deep in my gut. The Angels hadn't intended to use monsters to make me fail the subquest; they had seeded the group with human cancer from the very start.
What was truly terrifying was the possibility that they had anticipated my every move. They might have calculated my provocations and used them to trigger this specific response. It was a level of strategic foresight that was as impressive as it was repulsive.
"I got it big this time," I whispered, opening my inventory. It was nearly full.
The sheer volume of gear was enough to arm my entire core group with professional-grade kits: full sets of reinforced armour, primary and secondary weapons, helmets, and arm guards.
These weren't the makeshift pipes and kitchen knives normal humans were using; these were System-grade armaments. The monster cores and drops were also a massive haul, though they paled in comparison to the gear.
But the true prize—the thing that made my eyes shine with brilliance—was the small cluster of glass bottles nestled in the corner of my inventory.
[Hp Restoration Potion][Stamina Restoration Potion][Mana Restoration Potion]
I got it big this time! These potions weren't even available for purchase in the standard System market yet—at least not for the Classless. To access these consumables, one typically needed a Class or a high-tier merchant's favour. The fact that Allen's men were carrying these confirmed they were being supplied directly by someone with a Class—Allen himself.
I turned slowly to face Angelica. My eyes were cold. I now knew exactly how she had benefited from the first fifty traitors I had killed. She had been hoarding these high-tier consumables while I fought for our lives.
"I… I will hand you what you want," she said, her voice small. She clearly felt the weight of my threatening gaze. After the long minutes of silence, she realised I wasn't going to let her off for her thievery. "Just say the item you want. I'll give it to you. Anything."
"Humph. Trying to play smart with me now?" I harrumphed, taking a deliberate step toward her.
With a thought, my two swords reappeared in my hands. The killing intent I projected wasn't just a mental pressure; it was so thick and visceral that even the normal humans shivering on the grass nearby could feel it.
Angelica stumbled back several steps, her arms rising instinctively in a defensive posture. She was shaking—not just from the cold morning air, but from the genuine fear of a woman who knew she was standing in front of a predator. She knew my stats, and even halved, they were enough to erase her before she could scream.
"P… Please! I'll do what you want!" Her voice shook, cracked by the realisation that her "ally" was seconds away from becoming her executioner.
I watched her closely, letting my silence do the heavy lifting. She was clearly bewildered by the sheer pressure I was exerting, likely assuming I was still the "old monster" whose stats had pushed the limits of the first quest.
She didn't know anything about the penalty I had just incurred, and I didn't plan on enlightening her. In this world, the perception of power is often just as useful as power itself. If she realised I had lost half my strength, a sliver of hope might take root—a hope of bargaining, of leverage, or perhaps even of escape.
What she had just offered was nothing more than a carefully laid trap. By asking me to name the items I wanted, she was exploiting the fatal flaws of our basic System contract.
While the contract bound her to me, it didn't turn her into a mindless slave. As long as I didn't explicitly ask for a specific item she was holding, the System wouldn't punish her for "hiding" it. She wanted me to pick through her hoard like a blind man, hoping I would miss the rarest treasures while she appeared to be cooperating.
Humph. She had severely underestimated the man she was dealing with.
The presence of the potions had opened my eyes to a new reality. If people with Classes—like Allen—were already embedded in the enemy ranks, they would possess a logistical advantage that far outstripped a normal human. They would have access to consumables, tactical equipment, and perhaps even the rarest of drops: Skill Scrolls.
"I'll do anything you ask," she repeated, her voice cracking. She continued to shiver, the only visible portion of her face beneath her helmet appearing as ashen as the gray morning light. She was terrified, and I intended to keep her that way. Fear is the only leash that holds in the early stages of a collapse.
"Give me everything you have in your inventory," I said, my voice cold and final. I wasn't going to play her game of naming items. I wanted it all. I wanted to see every scrap she had scavenged, every secret she had tucked away. "Keep your coins and the race detection compass for now. Everything else belongs to me."
I sensed her body convulse with a fresh wave of tremors when I made the demand, but she seemed slightly more collected when I granted her the coins and the compass. It was a calculated bit of "mercy" designed to keep her functional.
"So at least you have some conscience left," she said, her voice dripping with a mixture of relief and bitterness. She was clearly mourning the loss of the wealth she had worked so hard to extract from the bodies of her former comrades.
"This is your punishment for crossing me," I said.
A moment later, a message appeared in my periphery indicating a private exchange. Since I lacked a Class, I couldn't initiate such complex trades, but her "Traitor" Class acted as the conduit, making the transaction discrete and seamless.
"I will think twice before doing something foolish like this again," she said. Her tone lacked even a hint of sincerity, sounding more like a scripted apology.
"Next time will be your last," I reminded her, leaning in close so she could see the lack of warmth in my eyes. "If you ever attempt something like this again, I won't waste my breath arguing. I'll simply use the contract to order you to take your own life with your own hands. Do you understand?"
"You…" Her eyes widened behind her visor, and her body shook again. "Don't go overboard over something worthless like this! They're just items!"
"Items and coins are never worthless," I said, shrugging as if I hadn't just promised her a gruesome end. "But what is truly important is trust. In the world that's coming, a partner I can't trust is a liability I can't afford. If I can't trust you, it's more efficient to get rid of you and look for someone else who values their life more."
"..."
She remained silent for a long minute as the massive data transfer of the transaction concluded. My inventory swelled, the interface flickering as dozens of new icons populated the grid.
"I promise not to do it again," she finally said. This time, there was a faint note of genuine fear—and perhaps a shred of sincerity—in her voice.
"I hope you stick to your words," I said, already turning my attention to the new spoils.
Under the force of the contract, she couldn't hide a single thread from me. But if she thought this was the end of her punishment, she was dead wrong. Taking her items was a lesson in loss; I still had a much more vicious move prepared to hammer that lesson into the very foundation of her mind.
I began scanning the loot. As I had suspected, the potion count in my inventory had exploded. The small handful of bottles I had taken from Allen's men had been joined by a massive influx from Angelica.
In this tense standoff, the balance of power shifted from physical violence to psychological subjugation. Hye, despite his halved stats, proved that his most dangerous weapon wasn't a blade, but his ruthless understanding of the System's leverage.
He forced Angelica into a corner where her only options are absolute obedience or total ruin.
Wow! There are even stat potions here. I pulled a small, delicate bottle from the newly acquired hoard and examined it under the grey morning light. It was barely the size of my fist, but it felt heavy with potential.
Inside, a shimmering silver liquid swirled with a life of its own, emitting a faint, ethereal glow that illuminated the blood-stained grass around my boots. In the old world, this would have been a miracle; here, it was simply high-tier currency for the elite.
"You got such nice things and didn't think of using them? How mean!" I looked at Angelica with a grin—a sharp, jagged expression that offered no warmth. My intent was clear: she wouldn't be touching these prizes again.
"I was busy chasing after you," she shot back, a flicker of genuine regret crossing her features. "Who would have thought that my kindness and worry would be repaid in such a way?"
"You have only yourself to blame," I said, shrugging with indifference before storing the silver potion safely in my inventory. "If you had been transparent about this loot from the start, you would have walked away with a generous portion of it. I'm not stingy with those who are loyal to me, but I am infinitely strict with those who aren't."
She glared at me in a heavy silence. I hoped my words were finally sinking through her stubbornness. I didn't actually want to break her; she was too valuable, and her combat prowess was significant. But value without discipline is just a liability waiting to explode.
"Gather up everyone," I commanded.
Unlike what the survivors expected, I didn't head toward the crippled Allen. Instead, I stood in the centre of the Great Lawn and issued an order that forced every living soul to converge on my position. It was time for Angelica's second—and far more painful—punishment.
Unaware of the trap I was setting, the remaining two hundred humans gathered in a ragged semi-circle. Only Isabella remained at her post, her sword tip hovering inches from Allen's throat. Even Angelica seemed ignorant of the humiliation I was about to visit upon her.
"Line up," I barked. "One single line, all of you."
The survivors moved with frantic haste. After the bloodbath they had just witnessed, no one had the boldness to defy me. They knew that if it weren't for my intervention, they would all be cooling corpses by now. Fear made them obedient.
Sara approached me, her brow furrowed. "What do you want to do with them?"
"Make my team form a separate line first," I told her. My voice was as cold as the steel in my hand, treated her with the same distance I would an enemy.
Her expression shifted, a flash of hurt crossing her face before she realised that I was in "Commander" mode—and that something was very, very wrong. Without asking for details, she led the core team into a short, disciplined row.
"What about me?" Angelica asked, sizing me up. She seemed to be bracing for a blow, but she wasn't prepared for the psychological one I delivered.
"Take out your compass," I said simply. "And test every single person here for loyalty. One by one."
"What the f*ck…?!!!"
She exploded in rage, her face turning a deep crimson behind her visor. "You can't ask me to do this! No way! Hell no!! Do you have any idea what that costs? The energy, the focus—it's invasive!"
"What's wrong, dear?" I replied, my tone soft but devoid of any actual affection. "If you won't do it voluntarily, I can always take the alternative. I'll just strip you of the compass and every last coin in your possession and do it myself."
She glared at me, her eyes filled with a toxic mixture of hatred and desperation. "You can't do that! That's simply outrageous! It's theft!"
"Do you want me to force you through the contract, then? Or do you prefer the total loss of your assets?" I spoke calmly, as if we were discussing the weather. There was nothing left to negotiate. She had dug this hole with her own greed, and now she had to live in it.
She stood there, her body shaking with fury, her face flushed. "My coins won't be enough to scan this many people," she spat in a final act of defiance.
"Then I'll let you 'donate' them to me, and I'll check the balance myself," I countered, throwing the answer back at her pretty face.
"You…"
She shivered with rage, but the logic of the situation was a cage she couldn't break. If she refused, I would take everything—the compass, the gold, her pride—and do it anyway. I knew she had a staggering amount of coins hidden away; I hadn't focused on it before because I wasn't obsessed with money, and I had enough to reclaim my lost stats on my own.
But I needed her to understand the hierarchy. She was my market access. She was my bridge to Class-restricted items. All of this was a masterclass in discipline, showing her exactly who the boss was in this partnership.
She hesitated for a long, agonising minute. I remained silent, indifferent to her struggle.
"Then promise me one thing in return," she tried, one last desperate attempt to turn this into a deal.
"I'm not asking," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "If you mistook my words for a proposal, I can always give you a direct Command through the System if you'd prefer."
The meaning was clear. I wasn't bargaining, and I wasn't making a deal. I was giving her two dead ends to choose from. If she didn't want to walk through the fire willingly, I was more than happy to push her in.