Are You Still Sane?

Jessica jumped on the sofa and tried to climb in one sweep. Unfortunately, she slipped from the smooth leather and the old man caught her backpack.

She wriggled her back and removed the backpack while managed to kick the zombie away. Upon getting free, she flusteredly climbed over the sofa and barely reached the other side.

Before she could even take a break, she saw Marco holding a stone ax and her expression soured. "Were you the one creating that noise?!"

Earlier, Jessica left the second floor after Marco tried to ditch her and went back to her room. As proud as she was, the circumstances by the roadside wasn't calming down after observing the situation from the peephole.

She saw people getting chased around by zombies and zombies wandering around in the rain. Although she doesn't know why her umbrella suddenly had several holes in it, she at least understands that staying in the rain was not a good idea.

Seeing the situation with her own eyes, she decided that it was dangerous staying on the ground floor. She hurriedly packed her clothes, ready to move to the second floor, adjacent to that stinky man's room.

When she was finally moving out, she peeked on the peephole and made sure that no zombies were nearby. She tried looking around as much as possible, unfortunately, the peephole doesn't provide enough vision to the side.

After stepping out of her room, she saw a zombie with its back at her. It was looking left and right, searching for something. At that time, she thought it lost its target, but a metallic ringing suddenly echoed and it turned its head.

They both stared at each other and she got chased up the stairs, resulting in the current situation.

"Were you trying to kill me?!" Jessica let her heart out while pummeling Marco with her soft hands.

When the old man grabbed her backpack, she thought she would get pulled back. Fortunately, she was able to take the bag off to get to safety.

"Hey, I didn't know you were downstairs. Stop hitting me, calm down." Marco caught her hand and noticed the tears dripping in the corner of her eyes. "I-I'm sorry. I thought you were inside your room."

Marco let her arm go and placed her next to the door. "Stay there. I'll go get your backpack."

Jessica didn't answer and kept wiping her tears as she silently cried.

"Grah! Guh! Raaah!"

The old man continued howling at Marco while trying to grab him. After some time, the zombie got tired of reaching out with no result and started hitting the sofa.

"Hey, old man. I don't think you can destroy the sofa even after a million years of punching it. How about you play with my long sturdy stick!?"

Marco performed a jumping kick and struck the zombie on both shoulders sending flying to the guard rails. The railing rattled due to the force and even creaked.

On the other hand, he fell back first on the sofa and bounced back up barely landing stably on two feet.

"Ow, ow, ow, that hurt. I think my back would hurt until later in the evening with that one. I hope that looked cool though."

Marco massaged his back lightly before holding the broom-spear with two hands. "Come on old man, let's at least make this entertaining."

The zombie recovered from the stun but became hunched back. It seems like some bones were affected due to the hard rebound. It growled at him before limping towards him.

Marco felt his hands become sweaty and his heartbeat throbbed endlessly. The exciting feeling when facing danger was starting to make his blood race!

Though not an expert, he managed to stab forward and hit the zombie's cheeks. However, it did nothing to prevent it from dashing forward and the zombie successfully stand in front of him.

Instead of dodging or retreating, Marco used his shoulder to tackle the zombie away. He could hear the zombie trying to bite him, together with the air that tickled his hair due to its breathing.

Marco already had half of his stamina bar depleted and he had to finish the fight before he runs out of stamina again. With his current prowess, fighting with no stamina was simply a death wish.

This time, he didn't waste any time and aimed the spear properly. He waited for the zombie to growl and open its mouth before piercing it with a hard stab, angled to enter from the mouth's palate and hit the brain.

Marco wasn't sure about the damage system, but if there was one, the attack should be a guaranteed lethal hit.

He forcefully pulled the broom-spear before it got dragged together with the falling zombie.

'Should I suggest HP Bars for enemies? I have one, so they should have one, right? But seeing HP Bars above the people's heads takes out the sense of realism and the producers want a realistic game.'

"Pfft." Marco suddenly laughed. "They want a realistic game? What part of this is realistic or do they have a unique sense of realism than common people?"

Marco picked up the backpack and stared at the entrance of the stairway. He thought, "I should probably block the entrance too. At least we can still climb from the side, unlike zombies who had to climb over.

He turned around and used his idea on the way up to the second floor. he climbs over the other side and slowly made his way up.

The idea was to fully block the stairway with furniture, and like thieves, crawl on the outside of the railings. The dangerous part was they would surely get injured if they fall, but it's their fault if they fall, so they can't really blame anyone.

When he got to the hallway, he saw Jessica crouched on the same spot with her head in between her legs.

"Can you help me clear the floor below? You don't have to fight. You'll be my lookout and I'll do the heavy lifting."

Jessica breathed in and out before raising her head. "Why do I feel that you're enjoying this... these absurd changes? Are you still okay in the head?"