Reinforcement

Standing on unfamiliar ground, Arthur lowered his head slightly and looked at the three corpses lying on the ground, already reduced to dried husks.

"They've been dead for at least three or four years," he murmured.

The Chip in his mind was running rapidly, analyzing when the three bodies had died and the exact cause of death.

After a while, he shook his head, picked up the black-and-white photograph from the ground, wiped it clean, and put it away.

"At least someone can still remember what you looked like."

He said the words softly, then left the spot and slowly walked toward the street ahead.

This city was strange.

An oppressive silence hung over the entire city. Not a sound could be heard.

Such a situation was rare.

Under normal circumstances, even if everyone in the city had died, there should still be a few small creatures around. It was impossible for there to be no sound at all.

An unnatural silence like this usually meant there was an even greater danger nearby.

Arthur understood that, so he kept his footsteps light as he walked down the street, making almost no sound.

Before long, he reached a tall building.

It was a towering structure, and it was clear that it had once been built in an ornate style. A few characters were written across it.

They were the writing of this world. Arthur couldn't read them, but he could vaguely guess that this place was some kind of public building.

A large number of remains lay around the entrance.

Many human-shaped bodies had fallen there. Most of the flesh was gone, leaving only horrifying skeletons.

It looked as though some sudden disaster had struck at some point in the past, sending everyone fleeing from inside. All the remains faced outward.

But judging by what had become of them, they had clearly encountered something and fallen at the entrance, none of them making it out alive.

Arthur's gaze swept to the side.

There were many more bodies around the building, scattered all along the way.

Hiss!

A faint sound suddenly came from far away, catching Arthur's attention.

He looked in that direction. His keen eyesight allowed him to see what was happening there.

In the distance lay a corpse that looked relatively fresh. It had probably died only recently.

It was the body of a woman, badly mangled and chewed to pieces, with only scraps of flesh and bone remaining.

Something was wriggling in the scraps of flesh still clinging to the corpse, making a faint sound.

After standing still for a moment, Arthur started toward the body at a slow pace.

It didn't take long for him to reach it, where he saw a revolting sight.

The scraps of flesh were riddled with tiny holes, and green worms were wriggling inside them. It was a disgusting sight.

"Target organism detected: highly toxic! Avoid contact with its bodily fluids!"

The Chip's mechanical voice sounded in his mind, warning him.

It was a preconfigured procedure. Whenever something that might threaten Arthur appeared, the Chip would alert him, preventing him from touching it by accident.

The corpse's face was no longer recognizable. Its flesh and skull were stuck together in a bloody mess. Only the long hair on the ground and a few remaining features of the flesh made it possible to tell the body's sex.

Arthur watched in silence, his eyes free of sorrow or joy, then moved to one side.

He headed toward the building with all the bodies, hoping to find something inside.

This world seemed strange. He didn't know what it had gone through to end up like this.

For now, Arthur hoped to find a survivor nearby who could tell him what had happened to the world.

Cautiously entering the building, Arthur looked around.

A number of corpses lay nearby, dressed in the same shoddy uniforms. There were quite a few of them, and they seemed to be employees of the place.

He walked quietly ahead. Dozens of rooms lined the corridor, each with a sign hanging above it.

Cautiously approaching one of the rooms, Arthur slowly reached for his waist with his right hand and gripped his sword hilt before pushing the door open.

Click!

A faint sound rang out as the door opened.

Nothing unexpected happened. The room was empty—not a single corpse inside. Aside from a little dust, it looked quite clean.

Arthur walked quietly inside. His soft footsteps echoed slowly through the enclosed room.

Squeak!

At one moment, a mouse squeal and the sound of a sword being drawn rang out at the same time. Then a large object flew straight past Arthur and slammed into the wall.

At some point, Arthur had drawn his sword.

He turned to look behind him at the object he had just sent flying.

It was a creature resembling a rat, about the size of a human head, with red eyes. Half its body had been sliced open, spilling its organs and intestines onto the floor.

Even so, it was still alive, writhing where it lay with considerable strength.

"What incredible vitality."

Watching the creature continue to struggle, Arthur frowned slightly and strode forward without hesitation to finish it off with another slash.

He cut the creature into several pieces, and only then did it stop moving.

Arthur was about to leave when the Chip's mechanical voice suddenly sounded in his mind.

"Unknown force acting on host. Host's physical attributes have increased."

He checked his physical attributes and found that they had indeed increased.

The improvement was slight, though. If the Chip hadn't been monitoring his physical condition constantly, Arthur would never have noticed it.

"Could it be...?"

Frowning, he looked down at the dead creature and began to form a theory.

After standing still for a moment, he looked into the distance.

While the creature on the ground had been struggling, the other lifeforms in the room had been roused. Now they were rushing toward Arthur.

They were incredibly fast. In an instant, one was right in front of him, pouncing viciously from the wall to one side with its mouth full of fangs wide open.

Arthur didn't even move. He swung his sword with his right hand, cutting the creature in half.

Considering its terrifying vitality, Arthur stepped forward and slashed it several more times, cutting it into several pieces before he was satisfied.

Once it had completely lost all signs of life, the familiar sound of the Chip's alert rang out in his mind again.

So that's how it is, Arthur thought as he felt the alert.

For some unknown reason, killing the lifeforms in this world gave Arthur a small amount of an unknown power, which increased his physical attributes.

The increase was minuscule. An ordinary person wouldn't notice it at all. According to the Chip's analysis, it would probably take killing several thousand of these creatures to increase even a single physical attribute by 0.1. Yet the effect was real.

With that in mind, Arthur instructed the Chip in his mind, "Chip, can you analyze the principle behind this?"

"Insufficient data. Unable to analyze!" The Chip gave a negative answer in an instant.

Arthur wasn't surprised by the answer.

Although the Chip's analytical abilities were powerful, they weren't limitless. Getting reliable results still required sufficient data and information. It couldn't produce them out of thin air.