"Hey, don't you think it's a little shady to just snatch the crystal core like that?" A handsome man stepped forward, eyeing Ethan, Chris, and Henry with a mix of irritation and caution.
"Snatch?" Ethan replied coolly. "I killed the zombie. I take the core. What part of that sounds like stealing to you?"
The man frowned, clearly not expecting such a blunt answer. He turned to the tall, Amazonian woman beside him. "He really killed it?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Well, if he killed it, then I guess taking the core isn't exactly unfair…"
"That was a Tier 3 zombie," the woman said quietly.
"Shit. That changes everything."
The man straightened, suddenly more serious. He looked back at Ethan. "Look, no matter how you spin it, you wouldn't have been able to take that thing down without us holding off the rest of the horde. And Vivian here—she did a lot of the heavy lifting too. So no way you're walking off with that core like it's all yours."
