The first house they came to had no lock on the back door. Levi pushed the door, and it swung open. A female cannibal wandered inside, working in the kitchen as she stewed down a leg. At the sound of the door creaking, she turned, snatching up a soup ladle.

  Levi closed the gap in a flash. She didn’t even get the chance to scream before a knife slipped between her ribs. He caught her as she fell and eased her to the ground.

  “Serial killing, just for fun. Serial killing, blood and run!” he hummed. He stood there for a moment, listening, then looked at Isa.

  She shook her head. “No one else in this house.”

  “Excellent.” He dashed back out the rear door and hunkered in the bushes, looking left and right. When no cannibals were passing by, he dashed to the next bushes. This back door was locked, but when he knocked on the door, a man opened it. The cannibal’s eyes had time to widen in shock before the knife found its home in his guts. Levi twisted the blade and yanked it out, stifling the man’s cries with one of the Armalgam’s hands. Like the first, he carried the man to the ground.

  “You’re pretty good at this,” Isa commented. “Concerningly good.”

  “I did it a few times back in my homeland. Murder, I mean. Not usually door-to-door serial killing, but murder, yes.” He paused. “Murder for good. I only ever killed people who deserved it.”

  “Like cannibals?” she asked dryly.

  “Or kidnappers, or murderers, or rapists, or people who really pissed me off and were just kind of douchebags in general… but never normal people. Only Players. People who had Systems.”

  Colin nodded. Still, he looked at the man’s corpse uncertainly.

  Levi dragged the corpse into the house and shut the door. He listened, but this house was also devoid of any other cannibals. Emerging, he tossed Colin a nod. “If you’re not comfortable with this, you can head back to the hideout and chill with Isa. I can do it alone.”

  Colin shook his head. “In case you get injured… I want to be there.”

  “As you wish. Oh, hold on.” He vanished back into the house he’d just killed the owner of, then emerged with a pile of cloth. “Here. Everyone change.”

  “Won’t we stand out without the horns?” Isa pointed out.

  Levi handed out the clothes. “First, you can shapeshift if you want to, so no complaints from you. Secondly, they’re rooted into the cannibal’s skulls. I only managed to get a quarter-inch into those things before it blunted the knife I was using. I’d be here all day if I had to carve the horns off, and then we don’t have anything to attach them to afterward, so even if I got ‘em off, it’s a lost cause. Thirdly, yes we will still stand out, but less. And less is more, baby.”

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  “So you tried to get their horns,” Colin muttered.

  “Of course I tried.” Levi pulled the cannibal’s shirt over his head. The thing was ridiculously oversized on him, to the point that the shirt looked like a dress, but that was the same for all three of them. They looked like children wearing their parents’ clothes.

  “Now we fit right in,” Isa snarked.

  “Oh, shut up. We’ll at least blend with the color palette. A long glance will pick us out, but at a short glance, a corner-of-the-eye glance, they might not notice.”

  She waved her hand. “It’s not a bad idea.”

  “That’s cuz it’s my idea. All my ideas are good.”

  “Not sure about that one,” Colin replied.

  “Aaand… back to serial killin’.” Levi glanced left and right, then took off at a jog for the next house, darting from bush to bush. Isa and Colin followed after him.

  The cannibals inside the village weren’t the big, bulky ones, right now. All the big guys were outside, guarding the village, but that just meant that all the weaklings were unguarded, now that they were inside. Levi was the proverbial fox in the henhouse. He ran from house to house, murdered the house’s inhabitants, then ran on. Slowly, he worked his way around the edge of the village, then started through the inside ring. It did mean that all the cannibals inside were the weaker ones that gave less EXP, but on the other hand, they still gave EXP. Fighting them together with the beefy guys was incredibly hard, since they could mob him while the bulky ones worked up a big strike. But fighting them alone was easy. And once he killed them all, the bulky ones would have no support, and he could take them out two at a time, without an entire villages’ worth of weaker cannibals dragging him down and supporting their bulky champions.

  As he went, he rezzed the more powerful individuals, but left them in their homes for now. He’d need them later, but not for the stealth-serial-killing portion of his day.

  One after another, the cannibals fell. Once or twice, one managed to make enough noise on the way out to rouse the neighbors, but all that meant was that Levi had to kill three or four cannibals in one house, instead of one or two at a time. Isa joined in whenever they were about to break stealth, not wanting to let the ruse up before they were ready for the real battle.

  At last, they came to the house in the center of the village. This one was larger than all the rest of the houses. It was a ramshackle affair, but it nonetheless held a kind of authority that none of the rest of the houses had possessed. Levi paused at the backdoor, looking up at the huge construction. “Is this the mayor’s house, or something?”

  “Could be,” Isa murmured. She looked it up and down. “I remember this house. Expect a fight.”

  “Understood.” He glanced over his shoulder. He’d already wiped out the rest of the village. Except for the guards at the gates and on patrol, and whoever lived in this house, there wasn’t a cannibal alive.

  It had been easy. Almost… too easy.

  Either my level’s higher than I think, and these cannibals are weaker than Isa remembers—always possible—or something else is going on. And I don’t want to admit it, but I’ve had the sinking sensation that I missed something vital for a while now. Levi rubbed the back of his neck. Back home, he knew the streets like the back of his hand. He’d lived in his city, and it was his city. There were few who could claim to know it better than him. But here? Here he was a wanderer. A traveler, loose from his roots. And there were advantages to that, but also distinct disadvantages. Like a lack of situational knowledge. He had no idea who was who, or what was where.

  He looked up at the building before him slowly, taking it in once more, then shook his head. It’s just the heebie-jeebies. There’s nothing wrong. Let’s polish off this village, finish the guards, and go find the boss.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside.