An old grudge

Along the way, I noticed that there were trails of blood where the bodies of the dead risen were supposed to be at. Squinting my eyes, I decided to discuss this matter with Ken later.

Sneaking back up into the hall, I stopped in my tracks when I saw Ken sitting on the staircase with his head cupped in his hands, waiting for me.

"Why are you here?" I asked Ken before he could ask me anything.

"I just wanted to ask you a question. But whatever, I guess you wouldn't tell me anyway. I've got a report from Demetria." Ken sighed and said. "The walkers are more agitated during the night for some unknown reasons. She also stated that after clearing some walkers if you don't leave your eyes on their bodies, in at least 3 minutes, the bodies of the risen will disappear without reason. But a track of blood will be left behind."

"I noticed that too." I nodded my head and said. "Whoever collecting the bodies of the risen is someone we need to take care off. Tomorrow, we're gong to set off and follow the trail of blood."

Ken then walked towards me and said softly.

"Our weapons are all nearly breaking. We can't afford to launch an assault towards the one collecting the bodies of the walkers."

Smiling, if that was the reason Ken is stopping me from doing so, then I believe the weapons inside my inventory is enough to make him stunned. "Don't fret about that." I said as I walked past him up the stairs.

"Tang…" Ken started but stopped as I disappeared from his sight.

Finding a clean cloth from the hall's storeroom, I laid it down and stacked it one on another to form a makeshift bed.

+10 Points

Stunned for a second as I laid down, I never thought that I could earn points just from stacking a bed. The rules for gaining points were really unpredictable. As if anything I do would be a chance to earn points.

"Screen." I said as I stared at the ceiling.

Name: Tang Jun Wen

Age: 18

Race: Human

Condition: Slightly Tired, drowsy

LV: 3 (Upgradable)

Abilities: Death's Grasp

Points: 370

Mana: 100

Health: 100

370 points.. That would be enough for me to upgrade myself to level 4. But that was something for tomorrow. Staring at the ceiling and hearing to the constant rumbles of the risen, I felt… hollow out of a sudden. As If everything happened was just too fast for me to catch up on.

I didn't even know what got to me but I suddenly had the urge to cry. To let out my feelings. Just of a sudden, I didn't even know what was I clinging to. Why I wanted to strive in this apocalypse. Tears flowing, I continued staring at the ceiling until drowsiness hit me as I drifted into sleep and started dreaming.

Dreams suck.

In my dreams, I was running away from something that I didn't even know about. I felt so scared that I nearly pissed my pants running. A loud roar echoed from behind. The sound waves were so strong that I stumbled and fell face-first into the ground. Scrambling onto my feet, I scurried away just in time as something smashed the place I was in before. If I stayed there for a second later, I would already be a puddle of minced meat judging by the force involved.

I opened my mouth to yell, but no sounds came up. The thing behind me smashed the ground again and this time, shrapnel grazed my skin but to my surprise, I actually bled from that attack and felt pain, which surprised me.

'This is a dream… right?' I started thinking to myself.

I started running again. All I could do was just run. I tried as hard as I could focus, to take a look at the thing that was hunting me but my vision was just too blurry that I couldn't even make out if it was humanoid. The thing behind roared again, so loud and high-pitched that I felt my ears trickling blood.

I could feel my body getting lighter and lighter until I finally collapsed. I was so engrossed in running away that I didn't even remember to check my surroundings to make sure where was I. According to what I roughly noticed, the skies were red in color, the temperature was hotter than normal and the building around me were all reduced to rubble.

The thing chasing me came to a stop and studied me.

"This is a dream…." I started muttering. "I swear, if I get back here in this dream I'm going to see your true face, one-day big guy."

The thing roared again and smashed me into pieces.

Luckily enough, it really was just a dream. I woke up suddenly and felt my whole body aching. I swear I could almost feel the wounds I got in the dream. It was just too realistic to ignore the possibility of it being real.

Looking at the clock, it read 9:03 AM.

I groaned and sat up. Blinking and rubbing my eyes, I opened my screen and decided to upgrade my stats.

Name: Tang Jun Wen

Age: 18

Race: Human

Condition: Healthy

LV: 3 (Upgradable)

Abilities: Death's Grasp

Points: 370

Mana: 100

Health: 100

"Upgrade," I said.

Strength: 15 +

Stamina: 15 +

Wits: 23 +

Max Mana: 100 +

Max Health: 100 +

I liked the guandao I found yesterday very much. So I decided to upgrade my strength to 30 as its minimum requirement ASAP.

Strength: 20

Stamina: 15

Wits: 23

Max Mana: 100

Max Health: 100

"Upgrading again?" Ken's voice suddenly sounded. I looked at him, knowing I couldn't possibly hide anything from him, I nodded and said. "Just got to LV 4"

Ken raised his eyebrows and asked.

"LV 4? So fast? What did you do?" then as soon as he finished asking, he raised his hands like surrendering. "Oops, sorry. I forgot, no peeking."

"Are the others awake?" I asked as I stood up.

"Yeah, everyone is already awake. Big day today, still on the plan of searching for trails of 'He Who First Rises'?" Ken asked. "Before that, I would suggest that we go search for better weapons. Like what I said yesterday."

"And like what I said yesterday, don't fret about that. You aren't gonna find any good stuff there."

"Because you took it all yesterday when you left right?"

Raising my eyebrows, Ken always seemed to know what I was doing without a problem. I was starting to suspect that he could actually read my mind like an open book. Lazy to come up with an excuse, I nodded my head and came clean. "Yes, you're right. I took all the weapons I wanted inside the storeroom. What's left are normal weapons used by the wushu club or kendo club. Fake plastic weapons are unable to do any lethal damage. Would be just a waste of time to go searching for them."

"You're wrong Tang." Ken sighed. "It's important to still go. Not many people know what's exactly inside the storeroom or how many weapons are inside there. We can use this chance to test their determination to survive on their own by fighting. If all they do is whine and complain after finding out all the good stuff is raided, those are the ones who are useless and can't be counted on. Whereas those who pick up those weapons and make an effort to kill those things… THOSE are the ones we can put to good use."

"You do know a lot about testing people don't you Ken?" I smiled and walked towards the staircase.

"Same as you Tang. Just learning from you." Ken laughed as I left the hall.

I ran into a guy who was part of the refugees.

He was a boy about 17. A year older than me. He bumped into me and gritted his teeth. Just as he was about to lash out, he saw me and stopped himself. "S... sorry about that." He muttered. I nodded my head and decided not to bother him anymore when he asked out of a sudden.

"You… you'll protect us, right? I saw your fight with that big zombie. You have the ability to protect us. You'll do that right?" he stammered.

I stopped in my tracks. Then I turned over to face him.

"What's your level."

"I'm LV 1 of course."

"You've never killed one of those things. Am I right?"

He nodded his head.

"What's your name."

He looked into my eyes and said. "Kinesis. Pronounced as kai-ni-sis"

To be frank, I didn't really care that much about how his name was pronounced. I just needed to know which kind of people in that dump of refugees were parasites.

"You, a 17-year-old boy. Who never killed a risen has the guts to ask me, someone, who singlehandedly slew a mutant risen to protect you? I would admire you more if you were to put your guts into getting your hands on a weapon and stabbing the heart of a risen thus getting your bloody ass to level 2 or above."

Near the end of my speech, my voice started to cold down, forcing some pressure on him.

He gulped.

I then smiled and turned over. "I don't need parasites." I threw this sentence to him and walked away to find Demetria. I needed her to organize a search party for the plan I had later. Besides, the issue of the disappearing bodies of the risen was something not to be neglected. If we were to make the school a base of operations, it would need to be perfectly safe to live in.

"You're awake," Demetria noted as I walked towards her.

I nodded my head. Suddenly, the scene of yesterday's incident flashed across my mind. Coughing, I avoided her eye contact and asked. "Find a pack of people. We're first testing their attitude towards things. We need more weapons, we'll bring them towards the storeroom and look for new weapons."

Demetria nodded her head. "I know. Ken told me about the plan. He said you would've understood him." She then pointed toward a group of people. All muttering to each other, there were 10 of them in total. 6 boys and 4 girls. They all looked a little bit shaken but otherwise were ready.

"That guy over there…" I said as I pointed toward someone familiar. "That's Qian Feng isn't it?" if I was not mistaken, Qian Feng was a big bully back when the apocalypse hasn't started. He used to bully Ken and the others until I stepped up and stopped him. Resulting in the both of us getting a beating of course.

Demetria nodded her head uneasily.

"Tang… I know your past with Qian Feng but… isn't this the time when we should cooperate…" Demetria started but stopped out of a sudden when my eyes filled with hatred.

"I've wished him dead a hundred times." I snarled in a low voice. "And I give you a simple job of getting together a crew of people to start training and you find this… tumor for me?"

Demetria avoided my glare. I could feel that she was already extremely afraid inside because of her shaking hands. But she managed to blurt out. "I'm sorry. I just thought about we could use his strength or something. I totally forgot about your past with him."

I glared at her one last time. I hated her for doing this but it suddenly occurred to me that we were in the apocalypse now…

If someone were to get bitten and turned…

That's pretty common right now wasn't it?

A wicked thought started to form in my head.