The bandage was a single strip of fabric about ten metres long and wide as three fingers, dyed near black by the blood of the mummified monster to the point that the odd script covering its length was barely legible in places. Still, it worked. Nothing more than a mental command lit up the script a soft green, far less caustic a colour than when it had been wrapped around the monster.

John considered the implications as he ordered it to roll itself up for storage. In an instant, it straightened itself out to its fell length across the floor of the buses, then started curling up at the far end, rapidly rolling itself back towards him like a fruit loop. His mana was active the whole time, feeding the magical construct.

Questions abounded. Would other monsters drop things like this? Had they already been doing so, and he'd just missed it somehow? He was fairly sure the answer to the latter question was no. But if that was the case, what was the deal with these monsters? Was it just because they were green? That didn't seem right either, since he'd killed plenty of greens before, and several of them had possessed quirks similar to the bandages that he would've thought would be left behind in the same manner. Was there something different about killing them in the portal world?

That did seem most likely to John. It could, he supposed, be possible that this was a completely unique occurrence exclusive to the mummy monsters, and he'd never see its like again. But he didn't think so. When the bandage was finished rolling itself up, he placed it in his Inventory, and the label it was given cemented the idea in his mind.

Beast Blood Bandages

Focusing on them in his mind's eye gave him the impression of a green haze. Going back through his inventory, he focused on the strange parts of the bat monster's corpse: an Infernal Essence, a Monster Core, and, most pertinently, Beast Blood. A yellow haze accompanied them when he gave them his attention. At first, he'd thought of them as crafting items or alchemical ingredients, but now wondered if there was more utility to them than that. Were they magical items themselves?

Only one way to find out.

Quite irritated with himself for not bothering to properly check them out earlier, he started with the Monster Core, because 'essence' and 'blood' sounded like they'd be liable to make a mess if he didn't have an appropriate container for them.

Holding out his hand, a spherical gemstone the size of a golf ball appeared in his palm. It was filled with an unpleasant yellow light that roiled like it was trying to escape its prison. It was warm to the touch, like putting his hand to a radiator, and that warmth seemed to travel through his body faster than it had any right to. His mana sphere reacted, resonating with that warmth, and John understood.

A battery. Kinda cool, but that pretty much confirms it's more useful as a crafting item. Can't think of what else I'd do with it, right now. Got plenty enough mana to handle my own Spells, as far as I can tell.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to probe the glass-like bauble with his own mana, but manipulating his magical energy without the use of a Spell proved beyond him. If this object did anything flashy, he didn't know how he was going to unlock it. The bandage had made an instant connection the moment he'd touched it. There was nothing like that here.

After that failure, he stored the Monster Core away once more, deciding not to try with the other two, since they sounded even more ingredient-like, and he didn't want to risk losing them over his curiosity. Instead, he brought the Beast Blood Bandages back out. They were dried out, the colour having faded to a duller black, and the script stood out more, its green tint more legible. Again, the connection formed immediately, and he knew how to work the magical item. It was ready for his commands. Eager.

Though perhaps that was just him projecting, or something.

The others were messing about with the two other sets of bandages that had survived the battle somewhat intact. One had been so drenched with blood that whatever Spell worked through the script had been rendered inert, and another had been severely burned by the Howling Gale aspect of John's Elemental Bullet.

John had tuned out of their conversation as he pondered the bandages, and when he dragged his attention back to his surroundings, he realised they were discussing the very same questions he'd been pondering.

"Maybe it's only greens and higher that drop stuff," Jade was saying, frowning as Doug kept unrolling and rolling a bandage like a chameleon's tongue. "We killed a lot of blues, and I never saw them leave anything behind."

"Weren't there greens outside?" Chester said. He was wide-eyed, focusing on the bandages in Lily's hands as she manipulated them like a game of cat's cradle.

Lily nodded, expression thoughtful. "I think it's different inside the portal. I'm sure the monsters decayed slower in the bus garage than they did outside. It wasn't a huge difference or anything, but it was there."

"I was wondering about all that." Alissa was facing away from John, arms crossed under her chest, and he was forced to avert his eyes. That bodysuit was really ridiculous. Where did she even find it? "It seemed like they were behaving differently too, no?"

"They were rather coordinated, at times," Doug mused.

Alissa snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "Exactly."

John blinked. He hadn't noticed anything like that. Maybe he was just killing the monsters too quickly.

"It seems that many things are different in this place," Alissa continued. "There are rules the monsters must follow here. Even inside this…thing. They do not attack until we step into their part of the bus, even though no barrier separates them from us. I cannot imagine them behaving in such a way out in the real world. In my experience, they attacked with reckless abandon the moment they lay eyes on a living being."

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"And it may just be that monsters drop magical items for us in here," Doug said with a grin blossoming. He looked at John. "You'll have to let us know when we come up against anything stronger than blues, if there's loot on the line. We might not be so keen to sit back and watch you work."

John frowned at that. "If there are items, they should go to the person who could make most use of it, not who killed it."

That was basic raiding etiquette, in his experience. Though obviously there were always people who were dicks about it. Looking at the old man's grin, John had the sinking feeling Doug was going to be a dick about it. He really hoped not. Getting in vapid bragging matches over Aura was one thing, but actually having to stand up to someone being a selfish arse sounded like a considerably more daunting prospect.

There wasn't much left to say about the bandages, and they weren't going to gather more information by standing around, so they soon moved on. More blue enemies met them further along the corridor, and John let the others handle them once more. Now that he'd noticed their teamwork, he couldn't unsee it. Every further battle felt like it lengthened an invisible distance between him and the others. He considered asking if he could join in, but decided against it.

Part of his reasoning was over Aura. He was sure the system wouldn't take kindly to him meekly walking up to them and essentially asking the adult version of, "Hey guys, can I play with you?"

But he had to admit to himself that a lot of his apprehension came from experience. The sting of rejection was all too familiar to John, and it was a wound that never went away. It just faded a little, only to be reopened and torn wider. He supposed it was possible he could pull some gigachad move and pretend that their sloppy fighting offended his sensibilities and he had to take control and train them or some such, but that wouldn't even solve the problem, really. He'd still be apart from them. An outsider.

John couldn't help but sigh as he watched them work. They dealt with another group of rat monsters with ease, then went searching through the corpses to see if there were any magical items, positing that there might have been loot they'd missed throughout the garage because they just hadn't been looking out for the possibility. There was nothing, of course. A few more encounters with more blues went the same way.

It wasn't until they came across another set of greens that they confirmed their theory. They reached a bus with its four front seats occupied by turtles with prismatic crystal shells. The monsters were able to spin themselves up to the speed of a buzzsaw, throwing themselves around the bus like beyblades and shredding everything in their path. They were actually quite pretty to look at, creating an odd kaleidoscopic effect with their colourful shells as they blurred back and forth, ricocheting off anything they struck. John's Accelerate, Flash Step, and Air Step meant they didn't give him much trouble for the most part, but the others didn't have that kind of firepower in their repertoire.

Chester would have been torn to shreds in the opening seconds of the fight if Jade hadn't been quick off the mark, slamming her trio of golden blade projections down lengthways in front of the group, deflecting the spinning turtles back the way they came. The muscular teen quickly switched off his radiant light Spell and darted back to the previous bus, screaming in terror over the near-death experience, and the group was forced to briefly retreat, leaving John to it.

It took a bit of trial and error to figure out a reliable way to defeat the turtles. Luckily, the errors weren't so egregious as to lose a bunch of Aura. Trying to slash at them with Mana Blade just created a shower of sparks and sent them ricocheting away. Soul Arrows had similar effect. For a while, it felt like he was playing pinball. It was mildly amusing.

After that, he cycled through his list of Spells. Shadow Stream just made things more dangerous for him, since breaking line of sight to the fast-moving projectiles meant they were harder to dodge, so he avoided that after the first attempt. Rock Shield basically did the same thing as Mana Blade, deflecting the turtles back. Wind Shear actually slowed them down a bit and scored visible marks on their shells, but wasn't strong enough to break through. His first and only attempt with Fireball was the biggest disaster of the lot, spraying fire everywhere like one of those spinney fire wheel things at firework shows. The next minute or so was spent putting that out with a hastily-purchased Ice Breath.

Which actually turned out to be part of the solution. The Level 3 Spell did just what it said on the tin: he breathed out a stream of mega-chilled air, creating a layer of ice over anything it struck. The harder he blew, the stronger the wind and the larger the ice.

After he'd finally finished putting out the fires so it didn't engulf the whole bus and choke their air, he noticed that the turtles weren't spinning as neatly as they had been. They seemed to wobble, flew off at odd angles when they collided with solid objects, and definitely weren't as fast as they had been. The solution had presented itself quite by accident.

Blowing on the turtles as they passed him was a bit tricky, and required some really strange contortions and manoeuvres that just wouldn't have been possible without Air Step and the high Agility stat. The turtles had thoroughly torn the inside of their bus to shreds, leaving behind only piles of debris where the chairs had been, but Threadwalker let John balance on truly absurd things. Like, for example, the windowsill that couldn't have been more than half a centimetre thick.

They slowed further and further, and eventually they were moving sluggishly enough that the opportunity to blast heat vision through the gaps in their shells. He did so, and it turned out their innards were rather vulnerable. They smelled like chicken.

In the end, John killed three of the four, while the others teamed up on the last. While John repeated his new habit of killing the monsters in different ways (Soul Drain for one and a Soul Arrow through the head for the other), the burgeoning team performed a slightly modified variation of their trusty method. Chester lured it, Lily and Alissa slowed it with their projectiles long enough for Doug to get close and freeze its shell in time, leaving its body vulnerable for Jade's storm of blades to get inside and tear it to shreds.

Silence fell on the bus. There was a slight sizzling sound as the turtle monsters' bodies rapidly decayed. Notably, the four shells remained.

Jade was the first to speak, "Does that confirm it, then? Greens leave behind items we can use?"

"Seems that way," John said, picking up one of the shells. It was surprisingly light, feeling way too insubstantial compared to how tough it was. Whacking it with his Mana Blade only scored little lines on the shell, like scratching a table with a stencil, but it felt like he was lifting a flimsy piece of plastic. "You could probably make some pretty good armour out of this," he mused.

The Crafting and Armoury menus in the Inventory section were starting to look considerably more enticing. It wouldn't take long to get 20,000 Aura, at the rate he was going. He just had to resist the impulse to purchase any new Spells or Skills for a little while. Easy.

As the others discussed possible uses for the turtle shells and the implications of monsters dropping loot, John let out a few habitual pulses of Mana Sense for safety. He immediately noticed something was…not quite wrong, but a departure from the norm.

Between one heartbeat and the next, several monster signatures vanished. They didn't move to another spot. They were just gone.

It took him a second to understand why that might be. His first thought was there might be some kind of infighting going on between the monsters.

The second, more likely possibility filled him with mixed feelings he struggled to identify:

It seemed very likely there were other people in the portal world.

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