The four of us were standing across a small street called Floral Way which was the unofficial demarcation between the low-income section of Leoren and the slums. The way you could tell was the trees on this side of the street were sickly but still alive. The ones on the other side of the street were clearly dead. Over there, the branches were dead and the trunks of residences and shops looked like they had a bad case of fungal rot. Other trees were slowly being consumed by insects.

The trees on the other side of Floral Way were also quite a bit taller than those in the rest of the city. They were grown tall to house slum residents more efficiently. The attitude in Leoren was it was better to have excess space in the slums to keep them from spilling out into the rest of the city.

The other big clue was the spotty, pothole filled road abruptly ended and turned into tamped dirt. The tall trees and dirt roads created the effect that we were about to step into a fairy tale dark and spooky forest. The only silver lining was it didn't stink over there. As poor as they were, the city made sure to include toilet facilities, even though they shared benches exposed to the world, since the only thing worse to the city leaders than poor people were poor people spreading preventable diseases.

I rested my hand on my rapier and made my best heroic pose. As best as I could pull off with pink boots anyway. Then, in a deep, theatrical voice, I spoke. "You three ready?"

Lia turned to look at me. "I'm not sure why you're being so dramatic about going into the slums. I lived there most of my life. It's not that bad."

Alright, Lia was correct. It wasn't some dingy forest where a witch was waiting to eat us. There were people walking around and even kids playing in the street. We could see just fine down the roads since, while buildings were tightly packed, the dead branches let in more light than was normal midday in the wealthy districts just outside the castle.

"I'm just trying to set the mood," I replied. "The scene doesn't match what we're going to be walking into."

"You're one strange man," Void said with a smile and a shake of her head.

"Lead on, Lia," I said.

"Why am I out in front?" Lia asked as we dodged potholes on the way to the dirt road across the street.

"I'm a summoned hero. Tizek is a recent immigrant and if someone recognizes you, it would be weird for you to be following around Void," I explained. "You giving us the tour through your old stomping grounds would trigger the fewest suspicions."

"I mostly kept my head down," Lia said as we moved down the dirt road. I noted the lack of trash out on the streets. In this world, detritus out in the open was only common in the low-income section. Rich people didn't want trash on the streets while the slums were so poor no one ever threw anything out.

"Mostly. You'll still get people recognizing you from your time as a Sanitation Engineer at the toilets," I said.

Lia stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Why are you calling it that? I was responsible for cleaning off the shit stick after it was used."

"An honorable job must have an honorable name," Tizek jumped in for me. "You chose to perform a needed task. It is admirable you did so."

I gave Tizek a congratulatory slap on his back. Despite his table manners and focus on serving me, Tizek wasn't stupid. He just had a different cultural background. "Good observation! Yes, Lia did everything she could to avoid taking the easy route. She only fell into crime out of desperation. I'm glad she did and is a terrible thief because we otherwise would have never met."

Lia didn't know what to do with the compliment and looked embarrassed.

"That's a strange compliment," Void said.

"And I'm glad you turned out to be a terrible Guard. You were way too ethical for them," I added. She gave me a friendly glare in return.

"Are you glad I'm a bad warrior?" Tizek asked with a voice that lost all of its confidence.

"Tizek, buddy? You're very strong. When ostracized by your clan, you didn't give up. You recognized your worth and came here. I'm not glad you went through what you did, but I'm glad you're part of this team," I said.

It was going to take a while and constant reinforcement to build up Tizek's confidence. This was a good time to remind him of his value.

Lia led us through the slums toward our destination. As she did, she pointed out a few locations, such as a small corner shop which sold great sandwiches or the alley she slept in while working as a chimney sweep. The people in the slums couldn't afford magical fire cores and resorted to burning fallen branches from the treetops for cooking fuel.

We also passed the outdoor toilet she worked at. I made it a point to not look too long since staring at a long line of people doing their business out in the open wasn't comfortable. Not that I hadn't used them in my first few loops before I figured out I could sell my mug for a decent sum.

We also got a few curious stares, mostly in my direction. It wasn't the fact we were armed and armored. That was normal, especially since new Exterminators without family backing ended up living here. It was mostly why I, the summoned hero from another world, was visiting the bad part of town. The rumor mill already had me living in the middle-class sector and the people recognizing Lia were extra confused why a local was guiding me around.

As we walked, I noticed the clan makeup of the slums. While every race was represented here, the population was heavy on rabbit and rat-clan people. They were practically never seen in the middle-class or wealthy sections of town without a slave collar. This was because the two were diaspora populations from distant kingdoms.

The clans had cultures and behaviors strangely mirrored from their native region of origin on Earth. The rat-clan people had elements of Indian culture since the animal on Earth likely evolved there and spread with human migration. Apart from their appearance, they didn't share much in common with Earth rats. They were hard working, studious, friendly and they made incredible spiced foods. They just were ostracized to the slums since their culture didn't gel well with Vialina's.

Then there was the rabbit-clan. They were similar to Eurasian mountain rabbits and had a culture reminiscent of 19th century Ireland. They a were loud, boisterous and friendly people. One could see them having impromptu musical performances and they enjoyed evening gatherings. However, they also had a bit of a wild streak and made up a good portion of the slum's underworld. The criminal reputation driven by the minority made it difficult for them to integrate into the kingdom proper. Gully Jack was rabbit-clan.

As we continued toward our destination, your classic abandoned crafting district, we noticed fewer and fewer people out and about. The ones we did see were either zoned out drug addicts or people with dangerous looks in their eyes. We were left alone because few wanted to tangle with a group of four armed and armored people regardless of Advancement.

To get to our destination, Lia took us down an alley between a tree so rotted out it was getting ready to fall over and a building that looked like it had been taken over by squatters. I was getting the willies from when I knew something bad was coming. Having lived for a few centuries built up my subconscious pattern recognition.

"If it isn't little Lia," I heard a voice say from a hole in the partially collapsed building. From the opening stepped a brown bear-clan man roughly 20 years of age. He was thin from poor nutrition and was wearing Advancement 0 dungeon clothing. Along with him, a dozen more youth between the ages of 18 and 22 clogged the alley from the building.

"I heard you got caught and sold. Where's your collar?" the man sneered. "Oh, that's right. Federica got picked up. I figured you'd rat her out to get out of your sentence."

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"Hey!" one of the others shouted. She was a rat-clan girl. "That's insensitive."

"It's an expression," the bear-clan leader snapped back.

"Come on," I whispered to Lia. "Let's start backing away." No sooner did I say that did I hear noise from behind. Another six youth circled around and blocked us in. I made sure to position myself against one of the walls to keep an eye on both ends of the alley.

"You think you're getting away that easy? Not after we extract blood. No one messes with the Lords," the bear-clan man said with a dangerous glint in his eye.

"You have it wrong, Gerry," Lia protested with her hands up. She backed away to be between the three of us with me in the rear.

Before Lia could continue, Gerry snapped back. "What is there to get wrong? You're out and, for some reason, paling around with the summoned dud. What? You gonna say the king just gave you to him and he freed you out of the goodness of his heart?"

Crap, that wasn't good. Lia couldn't exactly tell the truth since Gerry laid it out there already. I discretely rested my hand on my rapier since I didn't expect this to go well.

"That's exactly what happened!" Lia exclaimed. "I was saved from the castle by the hero."

Gerry pulled a long dagger out from under his shirt. "Are you kidding me? You tried to just lie to me like that? I literally used it as an example and you copied it."

Tizek responded by pulling his mace and adjusted his buckler. Void unsheathed her sword with a slow draw of wood upon leather.

I put up my hands. "Gerry, was it? Look, we don't want a fight here. We're Advancement 1 and we'd rather avoid having to clean up blood. How about we all go home and forget this?"

"Why would we listen to you, pink boots?" a rat-clan girl retorted behind me. "You're the dud."

I pulled my rapier and gestured at my three companions. "They're not."

"What of it? I'm also Advancement 1," Gerry snorted. He extended his hand, palm up, and I watched him concentrate a moment. Then a ball of rock formed and hovered above his hand. "Besides, we outnumber you. There's nineteen of us and four of you. Three since I know little Lia is useless in a fight."

I didn't like the looks of this. The only magic we had right now were Tizek's spell and my utility magic. I couldn't very well blow-dry Gerry into submission.

"Good," Tizek snarled back as his frills opened up and vibrated threateningly. "That leaves one extra for me."

"You two? If you can, please handle Gerry. Just make sure they don't get past to Lia," I said as I prepared to face down the other six.

Gerry was done with words. The ball of rock in his hand began to rapidly rotate and then it launched directly at Tizek. Tizek swatted it away with his wooden buckler, sending the broken rock chunks against the alley wall. Now the fight was on.

I couldn't watch the fight going on behind me. I had my own six gang members to worry about on the other side. My objective right now was to keep Lia safe. No one was dying on this loop.

I quickly glanced around the alley while my six opponents drew their long daggers and warily eyed me. They were expecting me to flinch or panic at being outnumbered. Sorry, kids, I've known unimaginable pain and suffering. This is nothing.

As they began to bicker over who should attack first, my eyes darted around the surroundings. The alley's width would limit my attackers to two abreast without them getting into each other's way. Not ideal, but doable if I kept them from taking my flank. There weren't any obstacles or impediments on the ground I could use.

My evaluation had to end quickly since I saw the group moving. The biggest of the bunch, a jaguar-clan boy, had positioned himself behind the other five. It looked like I was dealing with a classic forced attack. Weaken me with the pawns and hope I die. Otherwise, the idea is I'll be too tired and injured to put up a fight against the lieutenant there.

The gang finally got their shit in order and the first two rushed forward to attack me. I adjusted my stance to take advantage of my superior reach and quickly thrust my blade just under the chin of the goon on the left, a squirrel-clan boy. His eyes widened in surprise at the speed of my weapon as the blade slipped through his skin. Blood began quickly gushing out and merging with his red fur.

I worked on instinct and practiced repetition as I flicked my arm to the right. The other goon, a rabbit-clan girl, barely brought her dagger up to deflect my blade. I was aiming for her throat as well. Shame her dagger didn't have a guard on it. I drew my rapier back, ensuring to cut along her wrist as I reset. She yelped in pain and dropped her weapon.

That was a big mistake. The gang wasn't used to pain. I took the momentary miscue to thrust out and slide my blade directly between her breasts and into her heart. She reached up and grabbed my blade with her bare hands, hoping to push it out. It was too late and I withdrew my weapon, cutting her palms in the process.

I had forgotten how taxing combat could be. Even though I made everyone jog during training, I wasn't going to turn into a competitive marathon runner after a couple of weeks. My lunge had already caused my stamina bar to fall. My experience and my body were severely mismatched.

The rabbit-clan girl collapsed in a panic and tried futilely to compress her wound. As this happened, the lieutenant in the back was already pressing the second two forward. They looked terrified of me but more afraid of the lunatic at their rear pushing them on.

The second pair, a wolverine-clan boy and a rat-clan boy, were better prepared for my attacks. I made a quick flourishing slash to the rat-clan boy on the right and he managed to deflect my blade. This gave the wolverine-clan boy an opening to try and close with me. An opening I left intentionally. I had to be creative since my arm was already starting to tire from the effort.

I shuffled back in a retreat and sliced with a renewal attack. My blade tip dug through his chest and left a nasty gash. Not enough to do significant harm, but enough to take a chunk out of his health pool. Like the first two attackers, he wasn't used to the pain. He yelped and stopped his advance.

I readjusted back to the rat-clan boy and gave a flick of my blade tip. The boy attempted to intercept my blade, but I quickly adjusted to a high overhand attack. I knew there was some weird French name to it back from Earth, but I didn't exactly have access to the Internet to check. More stamina plummeted and I was down to a quarter with two more, including the bigger lieutenant, to go. I also saw the wolverine-clan boy down with a slash to his neck. The jaguar-clan lieutenant had cut it out when the underling tried to flee.

My bladework surprised the rat-clan boy as I rammed my tip in over the top of his dagger and into his collarbone. He screamed in pain as I pulled back and gave him a follow-up to the heart. I couldn't let the poor kid live so long as I still had active threats.

The lieutenant was now shouting and shoving at his last underling, an otter-clan girl, who was trying to run out of the alley. I planned on letting her go, but the lieutenant shoved the girl directly into me. I was in my en garde position and the bizarre tactic ended up skewering the poor girl on my blade. Her momentum continued on and barreled me over onto my back.

This wasn't good. I tried to heave the weeping girl off of me and was having a hard time between the slick blood draining on me and her convulsions. The jaguar-clan boy had his blade in a reverse hand grip and stomped my way. He was preparing to ram it down on me while I was too gassed to push the body pinning me to the dirt away.

Or that was his plan. Before he could attack, he was pressed back by a powerful thrust from a wooden staff. It was the blunt weapon I had given Lia. She stepped past me and, as the boy tried to attack, Lia attacked with a beautiful right to left downward angled strike. Had it been a blade, it would have cut through the boy's head. Instead, the blunt weapon burst it like a ripe melon, sending his brain matter spraying along the walls.

I wiggled out from under the now deceased otter-clan girl, earning some grey in my stamina bar in the process, and turned to check the other fight. As I stood, I pushed back a slight sting I felt along my abdomen. I must have pulled something in the fall.

At the other end of the alley, I saw twelve bodies on the ground while Void and Tizek pressed Gerry hard. He was proving how effective magic was in this world. While Void and Tizek were both highly rated and had more combat experience, Gerry was keeping himself protected with a floating rock disk he used as a shield and was lashing back out when he had an opening.

I could tell Gerry wanted to get away, but he was unable to disengage from his two attackers. Neither Void nor Tizek were keen on letting him go. I agreed with their assessment since the gang leader had attempted to kill us.

I watched as Gerry winced. I could tell he was drawing down his mana pool and showing mental strain from keeping his shield intact. The shield then crumbled midair when Gerry gasped in pain. It was enough of an opening for Tizek to dart in with a devastating downward blow. The attack impacted on Gerry's shoulder blade, which staggered him. Tizek followed-up with a left hook, slamming the edge of his buckler into Gerry's temple.

I heard a nasty crack on the air when the buckler connected. A bead of blood began dripping down Gerry's head and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. He wavered a moment before toppling over on the ground. I could tell from his still torso the traumatic brain injury proved lethal.

I turned to check on Lia. She had a look of shock on her face as she stared at the bloodied end of her staff. She was still holding it at the ready. I reached over and lowered the end slowly. "It's over."

Lia's eyes turned back and looked at the pulped remains of the jaguar-clan lieutenant on the ground along with the other five. "I didn't mean to hit him that hard. I just saw him coming for you and…"

I went to reach over to pull her into a comforting embrace when I felt my torso twinge again. What a moment to have a muscle cramp. Lia looked at me and her eyes went even wider. "Oliver! You're hurt!"

I was? I focused on my health bar and, sure enough, I was down to half health and it was slowly falling. There was even an ugly grey bar building up next to it. I looked down at my torso and I saw it. There, in the gap between my chest plate and my greaves was a dagger. The otter-clan girl shoved into me ended up plunging her weapon into my body.

I peered down at myself and sighed. "Well, that sucks. Hey? Tizek buddy? Mind stopping this bleeding?"

Tizek turned toward me and his mouth fell open. "My lord! I'll take care of it immediately."

Void also noticed my injury and came over. "I'll pull it out. You focus on your healing form. We don't need a miscast."

Void looked closely at the dagger in my torso before pulling it out. "Tizek's spell will only close this up and fix your base health pool. Do you have any grey or black?"

"Just some grey," I replied calmly. "I'm guessing it hasn't hit anything too vital."

"Why are you so calm about this? Doesn't it hurt?" Void asked.

I shrugged. "Eh, it's not remotely the worst thing I've felt. I barely notice minor pain anymore." Void looked at me with concern.

"I'm about to pull it out. Tizek, you ready?" Void asked as she gripped the hilt with one hand and pressed her other to my torso.

Tizek was going through hand motions as he maneuvered his Light mana into the spell form in his body. "Ready."

Void pulled the dagger out of me and Tizek followed it up by pressing his now glowing hand against my wound. I watched my health bar stabilize and some of the red regenerate. "I'll need a few more."

Tizek repeated the process three more times to get my health back up to maximum, save the grey portion the magic couldn't heal. I'd need a day or two sleep to get that healed.

I turned back to Lia who was trying to flick the fluids off the end of her staff. "Lia? Are you injured?"

Lia shook her head. "No. I think I just need to process what happened. But not here." She looked at the ugly carnage in the alley.

"What about the rest of you?" I asked.

"I'm fine, just a minor cut from some of Gerry's rock attacks," I heard Void say. Tizek didn't respond at all.

I heard rustling behind me and turned. There, I saw Tizek poking around in the clothing of one of the fallen gang members. "Tizek? Buddy? We don't do that."

He looked up at me. "Why? We defeated them in honorable combat. Their belongings are ours."

"That's not how things go with me. It's disrespectful to loot the dead," I replied.

"I agree. Let the Guard handle this." Void said. Even though we were in the slums, the Guards would show up, if only to make sure the bodies were taken care of. The city didn't want the deceased on the streets potentially spreading disease. They wouldn't bother investigating it since they were gang members in a violent neighborhood, so we were in the clear.

"But someone else will strip them," Lia commented. That was also true, the addicts in the building next to us will have seen our fight and are waiting to strip the bodies. They needed the funds for their next hit.

"I know, but we shouldn't have that stain on our souls," I said. I really didn't. It was bad enough we had to kill to survive. "We need to get moving."

"A moment," Void said. She pressed her hands together in prayer, lowered her head and closed her eyes The rest of us joined her.

"Grand Creator. Please give these lost souls their final judgement and rest. We pray for you to weigh them fairly and see them to their just rewards." Void finished speaking and we gave the deceased a few moments of silence. Then we continued following Lia out of the alley. After we got back from Gully Jack, I would take time to talk with her about today. For now, we had a mission to perform.

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