26 Ch. 19- Monster Break Pt. 5 Cleaning up and Reuniting with Mira (1/2)

The gilded bell at the top of the gate had finally rung signaling the end of the monster break with no monsters breaking through the line, it was a rather close call though as some of the faster tier 5 monsters almost made it through.

They would have if it wasn't for the plethora of summoners between them and the gate, and each fought back and stalled it until it was grouped up on by stronger summons that managed to take them down after a few summoners being killed by acting as a wall to prevent the monsters from going through.

The moment the break ended was visible as rows and rows of humans flopped to the ground to rest, they had long ago run out of energy and were only keeping upright through willpower. The dirt had never felt better, even if it was stained with the blood of the fallen and the beasts they fought.

My clothes were matted with blood, guts, and dirt and were in all sorts of disarray, some of my throwing knives were lost during the fight and remain in some of the bodies within the giant field of corpses. I could care less about them, they were only good for distraction at this point, but I replaced the lost ones with the last of my knives in storage.

After having recovered a bit, I summon out Emett and have him follow the example of other summoners. They are organizing the bodies in accordance to either monster or summoner, the valuable bodies tier 3 and up are stored or piled up for the association to collect. The human bodies were a more somber matter as most were ravaged and in pieces from all sorts of brutal attacks from vicious monsters.

Alexis was still resting from the exhausting ordeal, it seemed she wasn't as experienced with long periods of fighting. She had already returned Holly as soon as the bell had rung and any remaining monsters ran away as their desire to maul humanity was suddenly not nearly as prevalent.

I worked alongside Emett and began sorting through the piles of flesh, storing some of the more valuable ones left lying around in my little remaining space. With the amount of bodies in my storage, I had about 3 cubic meters left to store any worthwhile bodies to sell later on.

The prices would be much lower than normal due to the sudden influx of bodies on the market, but I would still make quite a bot of money today. I would keep the bodies until the market regulated again after a few days, but I can make more money by selling them and freeing up space for more monster bodies in the future.

Even when the material for the project is provided, it is still extremely expensive, a few thousand credits at least. This could be an invaluable piece later on with the defensive properties of such a sturdy chitinous limb, or maybe a spear with the stinger being the tip combined with another sturdy material for the staff section.

We cleared up our section fairly quickly and began to branch into other sections being worked by my fellow summoners. They nodded to me in appreciation for my efforts but remained silent in respect for the dead who had sacrificed themselves for our continued existence.

I had long ago given up worrying about keeping clean or touching questionable bits of I don't know, my hands were colored in all sorts of blood and bile amongst other things and I imagine they didn't smell much better than they looked.

As time passed, more and more people got up and worked together to take care of the destroyed field full of masses of dead. The groups of bodies pasted together to act as barriers were picked up whole by larger summons and placed in a separate pile to untangle the bodies and put them in their appropriate place.

The weaker monsters were placed in a huge pile meant to be shipped off to be processed into food and future rations for the poor to eat a lot cheaply. It wasn't a perfect system, but realistically it took care of two problems at once and everyone was happier for it. We couldn't afford to not be practical in such a dangerous period of our lives, as long as it wasn't human, most people would eat it.

About two hours later most of the bodies had been sorted and taken care of, and everyone was beginning to head back to their houses to sleep or a restaurant to eat something after the exhausting day.

Alexis and I stayed together enough to exchange info to meet up sometime soon to discuss our partnership, I had a feeling we would be seeing each other quite a bit. There wasn't much discussion between us, but I feel like I already knew her better than if we had spent a year talking to each other, being in life-threatening situations will do that to somebody.

After we parted ways, I was headed home immediately and didn't forget to message Mira that I was safe and would see her soon. I tiredly walked over to our larger apartment in the middle sector, which luckily didn't have any damage to it since no monsters escaped. People were piling in from the bunkers, and aside from being a little sweaty and tired they seemed fine for the most part.

An occasional person would be weeping at the loss of a loved one fighting during the break, but it didn't seem to last long as the risk of death came with a territory. One more name added to the list of deceased hardly made a difference to the mountain of bodies already killed during this era.

We couldn't afford to mourn for long, there was lots to do and little time to dally around with the current situation to deal with. There would be lots of production during the coming days from all of the monster bodies, and plenty of funerals would be held to commemorate the one who fell in the line of duty.

I just thought to myself that I was lucky I wasn't added to the list, I couldn't begin to imagine Mira's reaction to the news, but I couldn't give up on this dangerous path I had already ventured on.

To ensure our survival, one of us had to become stronger as we could only truly rely on ourselves to survive during dangerous moments where everyone is doing their best just to stay alive, they would be too occupied with their own imminent danger to be able to try and save others.

The shower felt heavenly, and I stored my armor in the small portion left within my storage space. It was cake with mud and had red splattered in various places all over, and would be difficult to get out any time soon.