Lazar went through the panels again, unwilling to accept them on a first reading, then slowly exhaled through his nose when they remained just as frustrating.
"An apocalypse. Of course." He muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Exactly what I needed right now."
He had managed to piece together the general picture now.
That being said, some crucial details remained unclear.
Nowhere did it say what had caused the Apocalypse, nor why it had started now of all times, two questions Lazar had assumed would be answered the moment he opened the panels.
Still, for all his irritation, he couldn't deny that what he had just learned wasn't interesting, on the contrary.
He had suspected it before, but now he had confirmation : the creature he had killed earlier was far from unique.
More would come to Earth, and stronger ones at that, ones unlikely to make the same mistake of fixating on eating a guy long enough for Lazar to be able to drive his blade through the back of their neck.
That was significant information in itself, but compared to the rest, it was little more than an appetizer.
One of the things that truly unsettled Lazar was the identity of the monster he had killed.
"A Damned of the Circle of Gluttony." He repeated under his breath.
Lazar knew little about religion, but not so little that the name meant nothing to him.
In Christian belief, the Circle of Gluttony was a place in Hell reserved for sinners who, in life, had been guilty of that particular excess.
And that monster appeared to be what they turned into sometime after the sentence was pronounced.
'So Hell is real.' That should have been unsettling. Instead, Lazar found it oddly comforting, enough for a satisfied smile to spread accross his face.
'Even if I can't send you there ahead of time, that's still where you will end up.' The thought crossed his mind as his fingers unconsciously found the folder Viktor had given him earlier, tucked in one opening of the jacket under his bulletproof vest.
Now, there was another issue, one that overshadowed all the others.
'Awakened, power, level, experience points.' Lazar had never touched a video game in his life, but even he knew what those words implied.
Judging by what he had just read, killing the monster had earned him experience points.
Those points had triggered his awakening, pushed him up two levels, and, apparently, if he kept killing monsters, he would grow stronger.
'Power through slaughter.' Lazar had no real objection to the concept. It was brutally simple, and seemed designed to favor people exactly like him.
One thing, however, bothered him. He did not feel any stronger now than he had before killing the creature.
Which raised a rather obvious question : What exactly had he gained?
DING
A soft chime announced the elevator's arrival at his floor.
Before the doors even opened, he could already hear the noisy chatter of his neighbors on the other side.
'They must have gathered here at the first signs of the Apocalypse, seeking safety in numbers.' Lazar concluded.
When the doors opened, they were all there, clustered right in his path, much to his delight.
The old woman who lived two doors down took one look at him, covered in soot and ash, and gasped, "Oh my God, are you okay?"
Lazar sometimes found her a little too nosy for his taste, but overall he didn't mind her.
The fact that she had asked about his well-being, instead of immediately satisfying her curiosity, told him she was more considerate than him, and certainly more considerate than his other neighbors, who immediately swarmed him with annoying questions the moment they saw him.
"Hey! Can you tell us what's happening out there?"
"I saw a huge-ass pillar of fire. You saw it too, right?!"
"Look at him. His face is blacker than mine. He must've been right in front of it!"
This time, Lazar couldn't be bothered to humor someone, "Out of my way." He said, already pushing past them toward his apartment door.
"Hey!"
"What the hell?!"
"Don't touch me!"
One upside to being as filthy as he was right now was that many of his neighbors moved aside on their own, unwilling to risk him brushing against them.
In the end, he entered his apartment without much trouble.
'Finally.' The moment the door closed behind him, Lazar let out a long sigh of relief.
For many people, home was a sanctuary. He had never thought of his apartment in those terms, but right now, it was close enough.
That did not make it inviting though.
To the average person, his place could easily come across as sterile, both because of how spotless it was and how empty it felt even though the apartment was fully equipped.
Most people claimed a place as their own by filling it with pieces of themselves : favorite albums stacked on shelves, posters of the sport teams they supported, framed pictures of people they loved.
Lazar had no such habits.
His way of life left little room for distractions to begin with, and he didn't feel the urge to display the few he had.
As for keeping pictures of loved ones around, his 'profession' alone was reason enough to avoid it.
After setting Viktor's folder and his weapon aside, he stripped down to his underwear straight away, unwilling to spread filth all over the place.
He had no intention of coming back here anytime soon, but since he could help it, he saw no reason to turn the apartment into a mess.
Now that his body was almost completely exposed, one thing became even more clear : Lazar was on the short side, standing at barely 5'7 (1,70 m).
What he lacked in height would have been made up for by a physique both unfairly proportionned and impressively defined, were it not spoiled by the sickening amount of scars covering his back, his shoulders and, to a lesser extent, his arms.
It was not a sight made for sensitive eyes, most people would have looked away.
However, anyone who didn't and had an eye for that kind of thing, would eventually have noticed the truth : almost none of the scars were recent.
All of them had been deformed by time to the point that it was obvious that he didn't received them as a man, but as a child.