Chapter 52

- Xenon -

I have spent the last eighteen hours doing nothing but looting. I made full use of my passive ability to regenerate SP when resting, albeit it came at the cost of food: I noticed I got hungry very quickly for some reason, so I had to attribute it to it. It's a good thing it was possible to disable some Titles. ( [The Unbound] title, for example, could not be disabled. )

I can proudly say it has been the most productive eighteen hours I've had since coming to this world. I managed to get weapons, from Assault Rifles to Hand-grenades, knives, vests...

I looted a significant area around the CDC, going a bit further sometimes, wherever I could spot anything military-like, putting most of them in my inventory, and carrying the rest. It was also a good opportunity to train my [Sprint] and [Knife Throwing] skills in a relatively safe environment, and get experience from killing walkers. And even though they weren't my priority, I managed to kill fifty of them, bringing me to 51/130 EXP to the next level. All of them were done using my knives, obviously. I didn't need the extra attention.

For Assault Rifles, a lot of variants were available, though most used 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm ammo, which overall worked out for me. M4s and M16s were the most common, few had any attachment. I took a HK417, a 7.62 mm rifle, equipped with a bipod for stability and x6 scope. This particular weapon wasn't intended for walkers, I had my Glock in case it was needed, but for hostile survivors that needed a nice long trip to the other side.

Submachine guns were quite common as well, though most of them were MP5s with its many variants. I gratefully took them all with me, as it never hurts to have too many weapons. Most of the SMGs used 9 mm ammo, which worked out for me since it was a very common caliber. I grabbed a MP5A2 myself, just in case I lost my primary weapon for one reason or another, in case I had to surrender it when the odds were against me. My captors wouldn't know what hit them when it starts raining bullets. (I had one 30-Rounds Ext. Mag and a 15-Rounds Mag.)

Shotguns were plenty as well, but they didn't particularly interest me. They were terrible weapons for fighting walkers because of their short range and low fire rate. In fact, I dumped the one I had saved as well, as I had no further need for it.

Pistols and Revolvers were numerous as well. In fact, it is the category of weapons I found the most of. I snatched a revolver for myself that I felt comfortable with, in case I wanted to use my unlimited ammo strategy. But to be fair, Glocks were the most numerous, and I could easily grab enough magazines to hold all my ammo, but I didn't want to waste more of my limited inventory space on things that had better solutions.

Machine guns were a dilemma for me. I pondered if I should take them or not, but my greed eventually won out. I had to find a way to take them, regardless of how useless they would be. The reason I say useless is because of the limited amount of ammo I found, and with the fire rate of these monsters, a few uses is all it would take to deplete them. But maybe we could find more later, I wasn't sure. They took a lot of space, and I definitely couldn't store them on my van or on the RV as I had been doing for everything else. Instead, I moved the bike on Daryl's pickup to make some space, before stacking them there. A very inefficient way to do things, but I couldn't care less at the moment.

I also found a few hand-grenades, a total of eight, three of which I placed in my inventory, which was getting full by now, even with dumping some food I had stored. I also found some Kevlar vest, one of which I equipped. Most of them were in disgusting states, but they were functional, and beggars can't be choosers. We will have to clean them when we have the time, and the water, because that's something we didn't completely take into consideration before we made this trip.

Finally, Ammo. The most important thing, in my opinion, because at this point, I had more weapons than we could possibly use. Ammo is what we lacked the most, but thankfully, my eighteen hours were not wasted.

Although most of the crates I found were used thanks to the heated meetings the military had with the walkers, I managed to get some scraps. More than 2000 bullets, and yes, it was 'scraps' compared to what the military had before using them up. Around 500 x 7.62 mm, 700 x 5.56, and 900 x 9 mm. The rest were a few other calibers, but few of ours weapons used those.

It was 2 PM, and I was exhausted beyond measure. My body begged for a temporary shut down, and I had a suspicion I was burning through my SP just to keep my eyes open, that felt heavier than anything machine gun I had to carry. I had never wished to sleep more than I did at that moment, and I intended to do just that.

I didn't want to be caught off-guard in case the CDC went Kaboom, but at the same time, I didn't want to miss the group's departure after all the efforts I've expanded. Therefore, I planned to get into my van (Although the RV was the best place to sleep in, I promised Dale I wouldn't move it), drive a few minutes away from this location, park it in such a way it would block the road, so that when the others were making their getaway, they would have no other choice than to come out to move the van themselves, waking me up in the process.

But it seems the universe swore not to give me any chance to have my well needed shut-eye, as heard an explosion that drained the color out of my face. I assumed the worse, but a few seconds later, I realized that it was on a much smaller scale than what the CDC's 'decontamination' would be, especially when I noticed the group of people running away hastily.

I got out of the van and activated my [Sprint] skill, in case someone's ankle decided it was a good time to get sprained, as it always happen. I'm surprised I even considered that possibility with half my mental faculties shutting down.

"The CDC's gonna blow up! Run!" Shane warned loudly as he saw my approach, I still went ahead and took the rear just in case. I noticed the only one missing was Jacqui. It seems she would be dying, like on the TV show, and quite frankly, I didn't particularly care. If she decided to take the coward's way out, good for her.

"Glenn, come to the van with me, I need someone to drive!" I shouted. He just nodded his head and went directly for the van. We drove off with haste, away from the time bomb the CDC has become. We only drove for about four minutes, before we heard a deafening explosion behind us, making me realize just how close a call this was.

Had I stayed for a few more minutes, I would be dead now. Perhaps investing my stat points in LUK could be worthwhile after all... But this experience was also a wake-up call for me. In fact, I made a decision that minute: I would be putting my foot down. Worst case scenario, I'm leaving the group with my arsenal of weapons. I'm sure Daryl would be interested and perhaps a few others would be interested. I am done with Shane and Rick's stupidity, and even though it was 'technically' the first time they made such a horrible decision, I had no intention of giving them the opportunity of making more.

"Glenn, I haven't slept all night. I'll get some sleep, make sure nobody touches any of my stuff in the van, alright?" He nodded in understanding. I could finally get some rest, and sure enough, I fell into deep slumber as soon as I closed my eyes.