บท 21: Chapter 21: Metro

Stroph was ready to spend 2000 coins, so he calmly bought another cell of inventory, after this purchase he had only 915 history coins left.

<Though it`s a bit expensive, but now I have the whole 2 cells of inventory, I can take away these two blades, they are definitely worth something>.

After these thoughts, Stroph picked up the blade lying close to him and placed it into the inventory, immediately after that he headed towards Julia's torn hand, where the azure blade was still clamped tightly.

But when he put it into the inventory he saw something interesting, the 2nd cell wasn`t filled, instead, in the 1st cell where the first blade was, the number "2" appeared in the lower right corner.

At that moment Stroph understood that if the items were the same, they didn`t need different cells, they were added to one. However, he wasn`t upset about his purchase anyway. In the 2nd cell he could put "Last Light", and the more space was in the inventory the better.

Except for the tablet there was nothing important in the car, however he found a flashlight. Stroph decided to take it, because he didn`t know if there was any light in the metro where he was going to.

Stroph's destination was a point called Metro-02, at least that's how it was recorded on the tablet, but it seemed that it had been abandoned for a long time and very few people knew about it.

Taking the last look at the car and at the wreckage under which Julia's breathless body was resting, Stroph slowly turned and walked towards the entrance shown on the map.

He reached it quite quickly, the whole way was about 500-600 meters.

Upon reaching his destination, Stroph saw that the entrance was practically blocked, it was obvious that it hadn`t been used for a long time or if it even had been used, nothing had been touched. Despite the rubble one could passed through without any problems.

<Eh, I had to be taken to Efliford in a warm and cozy car, and now I'm going down to some abandoned metro ... > Stroph clearly wasn`t delighted with everything happened, but after the incident with Julia, trying to get officially to the Slums through the Barrier was quite dangerous.

When he came down to the metro Stroph was happy and upset at the same time. There was no light and it was obviously not the good news, but the fact that he took a flashlight significantly improved the situation.

Stroph lit his way and checked with the map, many thoughts were spinning in his head: < I hope I`ll get out of here until the moment when the flashlight runs out, it certainly will last for some time, but I`ll have a long way. There are several junctions on the map too and they end with nothing. Most likely they are blocked dead ends and there is only one way leading to Metro-03 and passing through it, I will be able to get to a city called "Terein". Although I started my own way from the other end of the Barrier I will be behind it. >

Stroph was happy with the location of Terein, it can be called the midpoint, quite far from the border and also not the closest city to the Barrier. It could be said that it was the most suitable option for him.

The metro was abandoned many years ago, there was much cobweb and rust everywhere and a lot of cracks on dilapidated walls. If it hadn't been for total darkness, it wouldn't have been so bad, but Stroph was worried about one thing. It wasn't a secret that monsters could easily appear in the "Inner Circle" and "Outer Circle". They certainly didn't appear from the air, but the situation where monsters broke through the tunnels and got into the area inhabited by people wasn`t uncommon. There were even frequent cases when the monsters found themselves in a place where there were no people, such as in some forest and for some time before they were found they could settle there and gathered a small army. In special cases the Phantoms` intervention was essential.

But due to the fact that it was an abandoned metro and located at the Slums` territory, monsters could easily find themselves here, because there were a lot of monsters in the Slums, especially underground, where there weren`t so many people. But the largest concentration of monsters was on the border of the empire, it was also the border of the Slums, it is often broken through and the nearby cities were constantly under the monsters` attack.

Stroph had been going for about two hours and he had no idea how far he had gone, because the main number of turns was at the very beginning and there were only two left, which would be at the very end. So he didn`t know how long he had still to go.

<I'm hungry... I haven't eaten anything since this morning and I have no idea how much longer I have to go, what the fuck?>

About two and a half hours later, Stroph`s stomach started rumbling, he needed something to eat.

He could buy some food in the store, but he didn't want to spend coins of history on such things. That's why he had nothing left but enduring and going to Metro-03.

After about another hour, he heard the sounds of gunshots coming from somewhere far away, Stroph immediately rejoiced because it meant that there were people ahead. People necessarily had food and he could also learn more about the local paths.

Not thinking for a second Stroph ran forward, clearly hearing the shooting.

When he ran to the scene, he saw quite an interesting picture.

The place where Stroph was heading to seemed to be some kind of outpost. There were a lot of armed people and various kinds of barricades. One could say that it was a kind of checkpoint.

At the same moment from those very junctions at the end, a lot of monsters were coming out. People were trying to defend against them not only with firearms, but also with swords, sabers, axes, clubs and all the like.

There were fewer people with guns and it seemed to be a limited number of bullets.

The monsters were like huge rats, only unlike their smaller brothers, they could walk on two legs and their bodies were like humans`. They were all skinny and their claws were sharp enough to tear an ordinary man to shreds.

A remarkable part of these overgrown rats was their eyes or rather their number, as many as four. They looked fierce and formidable, but in fact, everything wasn`t as sad as it may seemed at the first sight.

There were about 50 rats and about 20 people, although the monsters were more than twice as many, people gradually coped with such a horde. It was seen that such things happen not for the first time, because there was no panic and several people could deal with the two rats at one time. The spectacle was quite impressive.

Stroph believed that they could cope without it, but he would have to kill several monsters, not so much to help them or to show himself off, as to make them see his power and treated him accordingly. He needed their help and the more loyal they would be to him, the better.

Overgrown rats didn't notice Stroph, because he was behind them, all their attention was focused on the checkpoint.

But before helping with the battle, Stroph took off his backpack and changed his ammo in revolver to worse ones, the electromagnetic cartridges were too strong and valuable to spend on such trifles.

The next moment seven loud shots were fired and along with them, seven heads of monsters were blown up, wherein each of the killed rats was quite close to people.