Chapter 52 - Misery

Viktor first took Eva inside the hut. When he stepped in, Boris immediately stood up.

"I am sorry, master… I…" the bodyguard said with his head down and eyes averted to the side. He currently did not have the courage to look his master in the eye.

There was remorse on Boris' face. He was ashamed. For being helpless, for failing to protect his master.

Instead of protecting his master, he was instead protected.

"Don't worry about it." Viktor sighed and shrugged. He really did not mind it. After all, the gap in power was too much.

As for Barry, although he was knocked out, the kid was actually snoring. Eva could not help but chuckle when she saw this, and it lightened the tense air a little.

This took some pressure off of everyone's mind for a moment.

"You two go check on Torri, I'm going to check the situation outside," Viktor said to Boris and Eva before heading back out.

Glancing toward where the snow plain was, Viktor saw that there was no one standing anymore. There were a few human bodies and hundreds of lemmings, all of them lying lifeless on the ground. The battle was now over, and the humans lost.

The stone-skinned guy was probably the last human surviving, which explained his irrational behavior.

Either way, with Viktor's stats still affected by the skill drawback, he could only feel fortunate with the situation.

He started counting the corpses. Adding the two he killed and the seven laying there, it looks like one survived and made a run for it.

Well, with first-hand experience of being chased by those lemmings, Viktor doubted the runner would be able to survive.

When Viktor closely examined each of the corpses on the ground, he realized that ex-military captain Andrei was among them.

"I thought if anyone were to survive, it would be him," Viktor muttered with surprise as he observed the ex-military captain's body.

There were more than a dozen tear wounds on his body, each of them just as grotesque as the others. From the way it looked, he most likely fell, and in that instant, the lemmings began to go for his cheeks and neck.

What an awful way to die.

Even so, Viktor did not feel an ounce of pity for him. Instead, he felt that the man deserved it for trying to mess with him.

When Viktor was staring closely at Andri's wounds, however, the man suddenly opened his eyes.

"Yikes!"

He's still alive!

The man opened his eyes. Right after, his body stiffened and shook.

Looking at Andrei's wounds, it was clear to him that Andrei was in immense pain. Just imagining the amount of pain Andrei was feeling made Viktor's body stiffen as well.

The man looked toward him, but his eyes did not have a trace of hate. Instead, his eyes were filled with pleading. Andrei opened his mouth wanting to say something, but he could not get a word to come out of his mouth.

Andrei felt something well up in his throat, and in the next moment, he coughed out blood.

Viktor had seen a similar sight when he was young. At that moment, he understood that the man was asking him to put him out of his misery.

He did not know if his eyes were deceiving him, but Viktor saw a layer of tears in Andrei's eyes.

Viktor took out his dagger, but his right hand that was holding it shook. As he looked at Andrei's condition, memories of the past that haunted him surged back.

He found it hard to do the deed.

Viktor knelt next to Andrei, controlled his emotions, and decisively stabbed the man's chest, directly piercing his heart.

He was not sure that he would be able to push the dagger down if he did not end it fast.

Viktor could see Andrei's life gradually disappear in his eyes as they began to lose their luster.

The truth was, Viktor hated killing. He never liked it, and the years he spent on his early studies with the family only made the feeling worse. Consequently, once he reached adulthood, he stayed away from all of the Romanov family's businesses, no matter what it was.

It was when he pulled the dagger from Andrei's heart that he realized his hands were trembling.

Viktor closed his eyes and tried to calm his turbulent heart.

He knew that if he could not quickly fix this condition, he would not be able to survive in this apocalypse for long.

At this moment, however, his thought was interrupted by the sound that had been bugging him for a while.

Aooo—!

A long howl sounded, and this time, it was near. The moment Viktor turned to look toward the woods, half a dozen furry figures walked out of the treelines.

"Aah, this is just great… not now..."

It was the mutated wolves that came. As they slowly approached him, the expression on their faces was exactly that of a predator eyeing its prey.

It was only when they came closer that Viktor realized how big they were. Each of them had twice the size of normal wolves, and they looked almost like a white tiger. Unfortunately, without the Djinn, he had no way of knowing how strong they were.

Well, it was not like he currently had the power to fight these wolves anyway.

Of course, this did not mean that he was willing to serve himself to fill the wolves' appetite. Seeing that they were coming even closer, Viktor took an assault rifle that was laying on the snow and quickly stood to aim it toward the wolves.

He smiled at the incoming wolves and began speaking.

"You boys are fortunate. I've had enough fights today, so let's just schedule back for tomorrow or at least in three hours, agreed?"

As expected, the wolves ignored his words. Not only did they not leave him, but their expression only became more fierce, as if they were ready to tear him from limb to limb.

Viktor dryly laughed.

Well, he must be crazy to think they would understand his words.

"Darn it… I can't really use bluffs against animals, can I?"

The wolves approached him even more.

10 meters, 5 meters...

"That's it, you're all asking for it!" Viktor pulled the trigger of the assault rifle.

Clink, clink.

"...F*ck."

These guys died and they didn't even spare any bullets!

Viktor changed the way he held the rifle, ready to smash any of the incoming wolves with it.

"All right, motherf*ckers, who wants to get beaten first?" Viktor challenged the mutated wolves. He tried to seem as fierce as possible, but his grip on the assault rifle tightened as he spoke.

To his surprise, as soon as he said those words, the wolves halted and even took a few steps back.

He initially thought that the wolves understood his empty threat and were afraid of him, only to realize that a figure was approaching from behind him.

The figure was very similar to the wolves, but it had blue fur.

"Max!"