Mark hurriedly cut the girl down from the statue and removed the tubes sticking out of her wrists. He cast his three skills [Diagnosis], [Heal], and [Mend Wounds] on the girl and found something disturbing, she was actually repeatedly healed while they drained her blood. From what his diagnosis skill told him, they had been draining her blood and replenishing it repeatedly for days before they managed to save her.

“That’s fucked up…” Noah remarked as he heard the news. His heart broke as he watched Mark heal the child. He couldn’t imagine how that must have felt like, seeing your mother killed right in front of you, then being taken and drained of blood repeatedly. It was simply too much for a child to bear, especially for a child who looked no older than seven years old.

“Yeah, but she’s with us now, right?” Mark said while he brushed the girl’s hair “Everything is going to be fine now” he whispered.

A few cycles of healing later, the girl’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at the sky, then at her wrists, a confused expression on her face. She then looked at the two men hovering above her with gentle smiles on their faces. Suddenly, she experienced a massive headache and with it, memories of what happened came flooding in. She and her mother were out camping in the forest when the apocalypse happened. She remembered the red columns of light and the blue screens that appeared in her vision right after. She remembered how her mother killed a bunch of weird animals and they survived for a week out in the wilderness… until…

“Mo… Mom she… She’s dead, isn’t she?” She said while looking blankly at the sky. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision. But, she wiped them away, remembering the last words her mother said to her. “You have to be strong Lily!” The image of her mother’s half-body was still clear in her head. So, with conviction, she stood up and bowed to the two men who she assumed saved her from the monsters. “Thank you for saving me, Misters.”

Looking at the bowing little girl, Noah’s heart ached as she was obviously trying to keep the emotions bottled up. Which in his experience, was never a good idea. But, he couldn’t do much, they’d only just met and were not familiar with each other yet. “No need to bow, we did what anyone would’ve done.” He told her as he helped her up from her bow. “Anyway, would you like to come with us? We have a whole apartment building to ourselves and you can have a pick of your own room.” He saw that the little girl backed away a step, visibly hesitating. “Ah! Where are my manners my name is Noah, and this is my cousin, Mark.”

“Ummm. My name is Lily… Is it safe there?” Lily asked as she thought about the ‘No talking to strangers’ rule her mother always told her about. But, she can’t really go anywhere else, can she?

“Of course it’s safe! We might not look like it but we’re very strong!” Mark chimed in as he saw that she was still hesitating. “Oh, and we have seven really cute piglets!”

Lily’s eyes lit up at the mention of the piglets. She always loved the character Piglet from that old cartoon that her mother introduced her to. At the thought of her mother, tears welled up in her eyes again.

Mark looked on helplessly as he didn’t know what he did wrong to cause her to cry. Were piglets so bad? But then she wiped away her tears yet again and looked up, stared straight into his eyes, and said.

“Take me to the piglets please!”

That surprised Noah and Mark as they could see a hint of a smile almost forming on her face. Almost. “So close.” Mark mumbled. “I’ll pick you up and carry you there okay? So that we’ll get to the piglets faster.”

“Okay!” Childish excitement finally broke through and showed on her face as she couldn’t wait to see the piglets.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the apartment building and were greeted by seven cute oinks.

“Oink? Oink? Oink? Oink! Oink? Oink? Oink?”

The piglets all tilted their heads to the left as they saw a new addition to the humans that they usually played with. Out of all of them though, one was brave and curious enough to march forward and sniff the new smaller human.

“AH!” Lily let out a scream as the brave little piglet sniffed her foot. She jumped back and hid behind Mark “They don’t look like Piglet… Aren’t they supposed to be pink?”

“You mean Piglet from Winnie the Pooh? Surprised you know about that cartoon given your age.” Mark said as he picked Prancer up from where Lily had previously been. “These cute little guys are wild boar piglets, that’s why they’re all furry with stripes on their backs.” Mark carefully held Prancer close to Lily and “See, they’re not so different from normal piglets, I’d say they’re even cuter!”

Lily stretched her hand out and slowly patted the piglet on its head. Prancer oinked in protest at being held but calmed down when Lily’s hand touched its head.

“Huh. Prancer seems to like you. Want to hold him?” Mark gently handed Prancer over “He won’t bite. Maybe he’ll wander around sometimes but he’s not a biter. Besides, I’ll use my spell [Soothe Animal] if it makes you feel safer.” Then, a warm glow started to emanate from Prancer which made Lily’s eyes sparkle.

Lilly gently took Prancer from Mark and almost screamed out in joy when Prancer licked her face. “Hehe” she giggled.

Noah saw this and couldn’t help but sigh in relief. “I thought we were going to have to coax her out of hiding from us or something. Guess therapy animals were a thing for a reason.”

After playing with the piglets for a bit, Noah decided to leave and do some light hunting for their dinner. He found a few rabbits with his radar but decided that he’d try the meat of something new today. He remembered encountering that herd of deer by the river but decided against it. “Those guys probably don’t deserve to get eaten… Wait… Am I getting soft over a couple of deer?” Noah shook his head “Must be the effect of those cute little piglets.” He thought as he pulsed his radar again seeing a red dot pop up which usually means something hostile. “That’s better.” He activated his movement spell and rushed in the red dot’s direction.

When he arrived he was surprised to see that there were actually two animals fighting, a bear and a panther. Oddly enough, neither of them was the red dot, it was the baby bear off to the side watching the two predators fighting. Noah analyzed the cub, curious as to why it was hostile.

“Well, that doesn’t sound good.” He thought as he furrowed his brows. He then analyzed it again but this time with fifty mana pumped into the skill.

“That doesn’t sound good at all. I really need to buy an information packet for that later.” He didn’t hesitate and immediately sent a wind blade in the direction of the cub, but, before it could hit the cub, a black gas came out of it and blocked the blade. The black gas then went back inside the cub and changed it. First, it grew horns on its head, then changed its color from brown to red.

“Wtf?” Noah cursed as he watched the cub-turned-demon pounce on the two predators fighting. Not expecting its own cub to stab it in the back, the bear was quickly killed off in one swipe of a claw. The panther on the other hand realized that the cub was too strong, it turned around and rushed to get out of there. But, the cub had a sudden boost in speed and bit into the panther’s leg. That was when Noah decided to step in, he first activated earth armor and then cast an explosive bullet immediately after. The bullet hit the demonic cub in the leg, taking a good chunk of meat along with it which made it release its grip on the panther’s leg.

That made it turn its attention to Noah. It looked him in the eye and growled a growl unbefitting of a cub. This made Noah’s hair stand on end. “I need to kill this thing.” Noah immediately conjured a few more explosive bullets that blew holes in the cub’s body, but that didn’t kill it. So Noah decided to end it once and for all, he conjured an explosive spear and launched it at the cub that couldn’t even stand anymore because of all the holes in it. “Detonate”

BOOM

The cub was blown to smithereens and finally died. “That was probably the creepiest thing I’ve experienced since the apocalypse.” He thought as he checked his notifications just to make sure.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that and looked at the bear’s body, “Guess we’re having bear tonight.” He then put it away in his artifact and swiftly headed back to the apartment building.

When he arrived at the building he found that Lily and Mark were still playing with the piglets. Lily even had Prancer on her head and a piglet in each of her arms oinking away without a care in the world. Noah couldn’t help but smile “It was a good decision to bring home the piglets it seems” he spoke as he neared them.

“Oh definitely!” Mark exclaimed as he set down the piglets. “So what’s for dinner?”

“Bear” Noah took out the bear from his artifact “Creepiest thing happened to me while hunting though. Apparently, things can get corrupted by something called demonic miasma. This bear got killed by its own corrupted cub.”

“Is it safe to eat?” Mark asked as he looked at the bear hesitantly.

“Let me make sure. [Analyze]”

“Looks good to me!” Noah said after he sighed in relief.

Noah proceeded to burn the bear’s fur off and handed it off to Mark who then carried the bear to the fire spit that they used for the boar. They sat down around the fire and were joined by Lily and the boars a minute later as they smelled the cooking meat.

“I’ve never eaten bear before.” Lily mumbled as her mouth drooled in anticipation.

Mark looked at the slow roasting bear “Neither have we actually.”

“I read somewhere that meat from predators tastes bad compared to prey animals.” Noah yawned as he looked at the huge bear. It had been a tiring and eventful day, he couldn’t wait to just lay in his bed and sleep. “Maybe we can do the tally tomorrow?” He thought as he yawned again

“With mana, hopefully it will taste better,” Mark remarked as he also drooled because of the smell coming off of the cooking meat.

A while later, the first layer of meat was finally ready. Mark went up to the bear and sliced a piece off with his axe that was extensively cleaned by Noah with water and then sterilized by burning over the open fire. Noah, Lily, and the boars looked at him in expectation as he sighed.

“Okay okay. I’ll take the first bite.” He brought the piece of meat to his mouth and took a bite. His eyes widened as there was an explosion of flavor on his tongue. Noah saw that and immediately took his axe and started slicing off some meat for Lily and the boars. After that, he sat down and dug in himself. “This is pretty relaxing, all things considered”

“Mmm” Mark replied with his mouth full