"Ugh."
Groaning a bit, Damon lightly jumped down from a pile of debris. The city and roads were blocked, and the only way for Damon to reach the other side of the blocked road was by crossing the debris that formed the barrier.
Looking back, the safe zone was still in sight. Knowing the monsters were running rampant, Damon didn't have the courage to wander far from the border.
It wasn't because he believed that if something went wrong he could run back to civilization. No, he wasn't an idiot. From his memories, he knew that if even a servant-class monster came after him, it would be impossible to escape their grasp, even if he were in his peak condition.
'Honestly, if it weren't for the intermediate mages guarding the borders of the safe zone, I wouldn't even be here,' he thought. Intermediate mages had the ability to perceive things in a supernatural way; within an area, they could sense their surroundings and any dangers ahead.
This perception ranged for meters, and if something were to happen, he hoped at least the intermediate mages could notice. If only something were to happen.
Limping forward, Damon looked around. It looked the same as the safe zone, but unlike before, a strong smell of rotting flesh now filled the air.
Raising his hands to block the smell from entering his nose, Damon winced. "God, the smell…"
Looking to the side, a human corpse lay under the debris, crushed, its organs now scattered all over the place. Blood was almost dried up, and most of the body had become paste. Shutting his eyes and looking away, Damon tried not to vomit.
"Uh…" The urge to vomit rose in his mind as bile started to climb his throat. Shutting his mouth tight, he barely contained himself from vomiting.
"..Fucking hell," he cursed, deciding to walk away before stopping in his tracks.
'Wait—should I?' The biggest reason Damon had risked entering this area filled with monsters was to heal himself.
He couldn't continue living in pain with all the wounds and fractures he was suffering from. First, Damon needed to heal himself to a more normal condition. That was his immediate goal for this trip.
Using Devour and Pride's Authority to consume monster corpses and heal his broken body—that was Damon's first plan. But was it necessary to use only monster bodies?
Damon never set any limitations on which race he could consume, did he?
For the recovery of his physique, a physical body was needed, and a human corpse was also a physical body… so it worked, didn't it?
For a minute, Damon let the idea settle before shaking his head. "No… not now."
He was kind of ready to cross the moral boundary but still held back for the moment. He wasn't desperate enough to cross it just yet.
"Search for other bodies… if I don't find any monster bodies… then…" Damon took a deep breath and walked forward, his eyes roaming, searching for bodies.
Parts of various monsters—burnt, charred remains—he found, considering some consumable, but he still walked forward, his eyes searching for a better-preserved corpse.
"Finally…" Inside a broken building, a corpse of a giant rat remained, its size almost reaching Damon's chest, one eye still open, and a bloody mess covering the top of its body.
"Charred… concentrated attack," Damon muttered, analyzing the wound. "Lightning strike." A primary magic of the lightning system had ended the life of the monster.
The stiff body, suffering from rigor mortis, was stuck to the ground. Damon lifted it with his left hand.
"Inventory," Damon muttered. A black swirling mass shot out of his hand, engulfing the giant rat's body before slowly swallowing it away, receding back into his left hand.
Concentrating on the tattoos on his left hand, Damon willed himself to see the contents inside, and the image of the corpse entered his mind.
Instead of devouring the corpse immediately, Damon stored it for future use. He wanted to use it, but he didn't know the aftereffects of doing so.
In the original novel he based the Beelzeebub on, any physical or transformative change caused the protagonist, Theodore to lose consciousness constantly. Hence, he maintained caution and didn't devour it directly to avoid getting knocked out immediately.
"Hah… now I should return back." With the corpse acquired, Damon had no reason to continue on this risky venture. He wanted to go back to the safe zone, camp, and live safely.
Leaving the building with the rat corpse in his inventory, Damon traced his steps back. He kept his vigilance high, noting all details carefully.
"Huh?" Damon stopped in his tracks as something caught his eye. Inside a broken bank building, the shadow of a giant beast lay down.
Moving closer, he discovered another corpse—a giant wolf-like creature, charred and burnt completely, lying under a broken wall. The one-eyed wolf lay untreated.
'Jackpot,' Damon thought as he quickly captured the beast in his inventory, gaining an extra corpse.
With a fast capture, Damon began walking back out of the building but paused to consider. 'Is it okay to just leave like this?'
His eyes roamed the wrecked bank, landing on the ATMs. Destroyed bank, no surveillance, and a lot of 'unclaimed cash.'
"If some little money goes missing in this wreckage… I don't think anyone would notice… would they?" Damon muttered to himself.
Greed flickered in his eyes. Coming closer to the ATMs, Damon raised his hands, storing all of them away before leaving the building.
In this world, Damon was an orphan, abandoned earlier and experimented on by a mad researcher. The only source of income was the government, which took care of his education, meals, and provided minimal allowances.
He was currently 17, turning 18 in a few months, after which these privileges would end. For a better future and more financial freedom, money was necessary.
Not to mention, as a mage—a profession that drained all one's resources—how could Damon continue his journey without any money?
With this in mind, instead of running back to base immediately, Damon took time collecting ATMs from other banks. He didn't seek gold or valuables, only the ATMs themselves.
After collecting ten ATMs, Damon rushed back to the camp, entering the safe zone, registering, and booking a ticket to Shanghai, planning to leave Bo City for good.