8 The Safety

The minimarket was close to the library, so they could reach it in less than 10 minutes. Also, having Brian in their group, they were secure from sudden dangers and could avoid large groups of zombies.

Life Pulse was handy when it came to survival. Its ability to detect living creatures from a long distance was irreplaceable for their safe journey.

Along the way, Dave helped Brian and Adam to kill zombies. With his aid, Brian killed another two zombies, while Adam killed four of them.

After levelling up, Dave was able to easily handle several zombies. His high strength made it especially easy to deal with clumsy and dull zombies. But, killing ordinary zombies was no more useful to him since he needed to kill nearly a hundred of them to increase his level by one.

Sometimes, there wasn't a completely safe path to pass by, so they would pass just past a huge group of zombies. When they had met with such a situation and needed to pass past a large group of zombies, their group have stumbled upon old acquaintances. When Brian saw them from their hiding spot, he mumbled quietly, "So I wasn't mistaken. There were humans surrounded by zombies. But, thanks to them, there is an opening by which we can slip through."

Peeking from a corner of a building, they saw Lucas and another two students, who they met in the library. It seemed that the two of them had followed after Lucas, thinking that they had higher chances to escape as a group. Moreover, they were too scared to think of anything else.

However, their group of three seemed to be in a dire situation. They were surrounded from every direction and had no way to escape from them. As he observed everything from his hiding spot, Dave thought, 'Lucky me! I just wanted to kill him, but I believe I can also settle for Lucas being ripped by zombies.'

Silently observing everything, Adam heaved a sigh. Just a moment ago, they were trapped in the library together as their survival depended on each other. However, now, they were being eaten right before his eyes.

But, no matter how much he pitied them, Adam understood that they shouldn't risk their lives to save them. So he said, "I think we should start moving. It's too dangerous to remain here."

"Wait a bit," Dave whispered as he wanted to see everything till the end.

Backed to the wall, Lucas was trembling as fear was splattered all over his face. He shouted scaredly, "Don't come near me. Go away!"

As a zombie rushed at him, Lucas didn't know what to do and grabbed a female student next to him. Then, he pushed her towards the rushing zombie.

"Eugh!" The female student cried out as she crashed at the zombie and fell with it among other zombies. Immediately, like a wild beast finding its prey, they rushed at her, gnashing their teeth into her flesh and tearing her into pieces.

Seeing the fate of the female student, Lucas became extremely as he wetted his trousers. His legs grew limp as he plopped down on the ground. Having no will to fight back and finding his situation hopeless, Lucas and another student next to him were ripped into pieces as they screamed in agony while zombies wearing a bit of flesh from them.

Settling for such an outcome, Dave said satisfyingly, "Okay. Let's go."

Adam found the behaviour of his friend quite strange, but he said nothing to him. On the other hand, Brian stared at Dave's back for a while as shivers went down his spine. However, Dave didn't mind the stange looks they gave to him since they didn't know about his resentment of Lucas. He considered it as a small revenge for Adam's death.

After that, they smoothly reached their destination without having any trouble on the way. The minimarket was right before them. It was comparatively smaller than other supermarkets on the campus, but it didn't matter to them.

Dave knew that the number of zombies inside can't threaten their lives, yet he didn't lower his guard. Nobody knows what the world had prepared for them. Scanning the building with the Life Pulse, Brian spotted three zombies in the minimarket.

As Dave had anticipated, their plan to get into the minimarket went without a hitch. Except for one moment. Well, it was more a surprise than a trouble. "Dave, I've got a white chest!"

Clearly, Brian was excited by the drop. His face beamed with delight as he blubbered about how lucky he was. He still could remember how Dave had gotten his Rusty Sword from such a chest.

"Lucky you," Adam laughed sincerely. He didn't envy Brian since he believed that his time to get a Treasure Chest would come eventually. It was just a matter of time.

Brian opened the white Treasure Chest as it disappeared into thin air. Instead of it, a kitchen knife appeared in his hands.

"Pfft...Brian, you got a weapon fitting yourself." Seeing a kitchen knife in Brian's hands, Adam burst laughing as he teased Brian.

"It's not a kitchen knife. It's a dagger." As he said it, Brian became more depressed than before.

Dave was quite amused by his reaction. Brian received a weapon from the system, yet he made such a face as he ate shit instead of getting a treasure. Finding the situation quite funny, Dave shot a glance at a knife to read its information tablet.

[Failed Dagger

Attack: 7-9

Durability: 9

Description: Failed attempt to make a dagger.]

It was an excellent weapon for mobile fighters at the initial stage. The problem was in a Brian's fighting style. He wasn't a fighter who relied on his agility to kill zombies. Actually, he only knew how to kill them from their backs than in direct confrontation.

Still, it was better than a Wooden Club. Since Brian had a proper weapon to defend himself, he had higher chances to protect his life.

"Let's go to the storage room. It is much safer than here." Urging them to go faster, Dave led them towards the storage room. It was the only room in the market which was fortified by a metallic door.

The storage room was spacious enough to store lots of food. It had a lot of boxes lined by the wall and several bags of various grain. In his past life, the food here was enough for him to last a year, but with three of them here, the time to finish it may be reduced to 4 to 6 months, depending how sparingly they would use them.

As they entered the storage room, they all felt exhaustion. Wandering outside put lots of strain on their minds since they were cautious all the time. Adam and Brian sat on the ground as they relaxed their minds.

"Finally, we can heave a sigh of relief." Brian breathed leisurely as he tried to pace his breathing, while Adam lay on the floor as he tried to relax his tensed body. Both of them enjoyed the feeling of safety.

Only now did they start thinking about the future. Everybody had families to worry about and they weren't an exception. Adam and Brian both had parents, while Dave had his little brother, Carlos, and his uncle with an aunt.

His uncle, aunt, and little brother were on a family trip in another city. Due to attending university, he wasn't able to go with them. In the past, he had never seen his family in a 5 year time period since it was reported that the city they had travelled to was lost.

He had warned Carlos, so he could only pray for the safety of his family. Dave knew that it would be suicidal to drive to another city since it was the domain of beasts outside the city. Dave knew that, along with the start of the 2nd Cataclysm, their world was expanded by several times.

New places had appeared all over the world like forests and deserts that had never been on their planet, or new islands that have appeared in the ocean. And, except for the cities that were returned by military force, everything else was the beasts' territory.

Beasts were much stronger than zombies because they had no obvious weaknesses compared to zombies. They were dull and lacked even basic intelligence. Killing them stealthily was one of the ways to deal with them.

Dave even knew that the System had put a special barrier surrounding the cities to protect it from the beasts outside. It would go away only when the city would be conquered back by humans or wait 3 years till it disappears naturally.

People could pass through this barrier, while zombies and beasts can't. In that way, it protected the city from beasts outside, and trapped zombies inside for three years.

There is still a lot of time before the cities would be able to establish contact with each other. Dave can only hope that Carlos would find aunt and uncle and that they would survive this ordeal.

"Dave, what will we do next?" Brian and Adam rested enough to worry about the future. As far as Dave could remember, Adam was always like that. He was calm and collected calculating all his choices. Perhaps, it was the influence of being born in a wealthy family.

"It is quite simple. We should become much stronger than now. Only by becoming stronger, we would survive." Indeed, in a world, where the weak person is trampled on, it is important to have the strength to back their lives.

"Fortunately, we have Brian to detect zombies, so we can effectively hunt them. We should at least level up both of you and quip Adam with a weapon. But at first, we all should rest and restore our mentality." They locked the door of the storage room and sat against each other chatting about different topics like what they studied, what they liked and disliked.

They talked for several hours and filled their stomachs with the food in the storage. Then, they hadn't noticed how they had dozed off.

...

"Run!"

Dave heard as his captain shouted at him. He was slightly huge for a middle-aged man with thick muscles covering his body. His captain usually had a cheerful attitude, always joking and laughing, but currently, he had an ashen face as he ran from the building.

"There is a horde of zombies!" As his captain rushed from the building, a horde of zombies streamed out from it. Dave saw as the person who trained him was being torn by the teeth of zombies.

His heart turned cold from the look of it, as he and his teammates started shooting at streaming zombies. Dave sensed the smell of lead and gunpowder as he emptied a magazine of his rifle.

As they thought that they had killed all of them, a shadow leapt from inside the building. It moved so fast that it left afterimages. No matter how much they had shot, no bullet had reached it.

Dave saw how it had killed an armed man after another. Desperation had filled the hearts of soldiers as they started running towards their vehicle. It was only a hundred meters away from them.

Dave ran with all his might as he heard shrieks from behind. He had joined the ranks of soldiers to eat to his fullest and to be strong enough to keep his life, but he never thought that his first actual mission will turn into a nightmare.

The sudden emergence of a shadow from the building sent the formation of soldiers into disarray. The shadow barged in the ranks of soldiers as it slaughtered more than half of them.

As one of the soldiers heard how shrieks were coming closer and closer to him, he took a grenade in his hands and held a safety pin with his fingers.

When the shriek was heard too close to his location, the soldier pulled the safety pin and blew up himself with a decisive expression.

*Boom*