Blade Fire

In one of the rooms, Miles was sleeping in one of the rooms at the Administrative Building.

At about midnight, he groggily woke up and sat on the bed that office workers use during breaks.

After tapping a few muscles of his body, he slowly opened his eyes.

The blanket fell onto his legs revealing his bare top body. There were no signs of injury or wounds on it.

"They healed me perfectly." He muttered as he checked his body. His broken bones and bruises were all gone. Miles immediately thought of Helen and wanted to thank her right away.

Although his body was already fine, his energy was still lacking so he performed the Serene River Meditation technique.

While he was recovering his energy, the door opened and Michelle came in. Seeing the sitting Miles, she smiled and greeted him.

"You wake up? Is your body fine?" she asked.

Miles stopped meditating and smiled at her.

"Yeah."

"Helen healed you." Michelle informed Miles as she passed a shirt to him.

"Thanks. She did a great job." Miles descended from the bed and wore the shirt. "What time is it?"

"It's already past twelve. You've been out for seven hours." Michelle told him.

"Is that so?" Miles thought about what happened and sighed. They fought for less than an hour but it felt like it was a whole day.

"How about you? Are you alright?" Miles asked Michelle.

"Oh. I'm fine. You arrived at the perfect time so I'm safe. Thank you for helping me." Michelle smiled sweetly.

"Good to see you safe. How about the others?" Miles asked.

"Well, everyone's fine. They're just very tired from fighting." she said.

"That's great to hear." Miles was relieved.

"I just returned from the night watch with Julia and Paul so I'm going to rest." Michelle said.

"Here?" he asked.

"Huh? No, no. I'll sleep with Julia in the next room. I just came here to check on you." Michelle explained.

"Oh..sure.." Miles said. He remembered something and asked her. "Do you know where Samuel and David are?"

"Oh them? They're also resting. I asked them to go here but they said they don't want to disturb you so they went into another room." she said. "Do you want to meet them?"

Miles just waved his hand. "Nah, I'll just talk to them in the morning."

He stood up and patted Michelle's head. "You should go and rest."

"Mm. You should too."

After Michelle left the room, Miles reached for the bread that was on the table and began eating it.

While doing so, he was staring at the points that he had accumulated from the recent fights.

[ Current Points: 7,560 ]

"I've earned this much in just a short amount of time." He thought to himself.

His recent kills were mostly enraged zombies that raised his points like a rocket. It was also thanks to the fact that he could still get points by using guns while the players couldn't get any exp points.

The points from Jason were large too.

Remembering him, Miles felt sad.

"I'll be stronger so that I can protect the ones I love." he vowed to himself.

He took a few moments of silence before turning back to his points.

"With this I can roll seven 1,000-point dice."

He then sighed. "I just hope that I can get something good this time."

Although there were some good results from his past rolls, they were outnumbered by the trash grades that he received.

"Let's roll three items and four skills."

[ Items ] [ 1,000 ]

The familiar small Heaven's Dice appeared and Miles held it with his two hands. "Please, please, please."

He threw that dice and after rolling a few times on the floor, it stopped with the familiar white color on top.

"Are you serious?" Miles already knew what it was.

[ Congratulations! You have received the item, 'Empty Milk Carton(Trash)'. ]

"..."

Miles clenched his teeth and fist at the same time before rolling the second 1,000 point Item dice.

This time, it also stopped at the white color.

[ Congratulations! You have received the item, 'Broken Mirror(Trash)'. ]

"I can't believe it."

Without wasting any more time, Miles rolled another one.

He became a little relieved after seeing that the green color was facing up.

[ Congratulations! You have received the item, 'Cement Bag(Normal)'. ]

[ Cement Bag(Normal) - A 40 kilogram bag of the highest quality cement. ]

"It's at least normal but…what am I gonna do with this?"

"Whatever, I'll just give it away or something."

Miles moved to the skill dice.

[ Skill ] [ 1,000 ]

[ Congratulations! You have received the skill, 'Straight Paper Ripping (Trash)'. ]

[ Straight Paper Reaping (Trash) - You can reap any paper in a straight and clean line. ]

[ Would you like to learn the skill, 'Straight Paper Ripping (Trash)'? ]

"I don't know anymore."

Seeing the trash grade skill, Miles' expression soured.

However, he thought of learning it for fun.

"Yes."

[ You have learned the skill 'Straight Paper Ripping (Trash). ]

Miles took one paper from the drawer and reaped it.

Chiik.

It was reaped in a straight line.

"Ahem..That's a bit satisfying."

Looking at the clean ripped paper, he felt a little satisfaction.

He took a few more papers and ripped them one by one.

"Okay that's enough."

Miles clicked another 1,000 point skill dice and rolled it.

[ Congratulations! You have received the skill, 'Loud Whistle (Trash)'. ]

[ Loud Whistle (Trash) - You can whistle loud and clear. It could be heard from a kilometer away. ]

[ Would you like to learn the skill, 'Loud Whistle (Trash)'? ]

"Yes." Miles decided to learn the skill despite it being trash grade.

However, he didn't use it, afraid to wake everyone up.

"I'll just try it later."

He rolled one more time.

[ Congratulations! You have received the skill, 'Unblinking (Trash)'. ]

[ Unblinking (Trash) - You can open your eyes for six hours without blinking and without any side effects. ]

[ Would you like to learn the skill, 'Unblinking (Trash)'? ]

"Hoh? It's trash grade but I think it's pretty decent?"

"Yes."

He learned the skill and said, "It might be actually useful to me."

So far, Miles rolled five trash grades and one normal grade item and skills from the Heaven's Dice. He was still a bit disappointed about the results that he was getting from his rolls.

"Man, just give me a good one."

He held the Heaven's Dice close to his head before throwing it to the floor.

Finally, the last 1,000 point skill dice gave a good result.

[ Congratulations! You have received the skill, 'Blade Fire (Rare)'. ]

[ Blade Fire (Rare) - Coat the blade of your weapon with burning fire that attaches to the things it touches and sliced for some time. ]

[ Would you like to learn the skill, 'Blade Fire (Rare)'? ]

"Nice!" Miles smiled.

"Yes!"

He took his axe to try the skill but stopped for a moment when he saw the nicked and dull edge of the axe. This weapon was used by him since the very first day of the apocalypse and chopped thousands of zombies with it.

It was obvious that it would become this damaged after some time.

"I need to get a new weapon." he muttered.

Miles pointed the axe forward so that it was not too close to him.

"Blade Fire."

Fwoosh.

A pure red fire covered the blade of the axe and illuminated the room.

He looked at it closer and confirmed that although the blade was covered in the red fire, it was not melting it away.

Still, from what he just learned, the fire was even hotter than a regular flame.

But Miles was not hurt by it and instead, he felt comfortable from his own fire.

And as it was burning, Miles felt that his mana was being consumed continuously.

He stopped after half a minute of activating the skill.

"With my current mana pool, I could only activate it for less than a minute. If I'm gonna use Flame Bullet, that would shorten it even more."

He scratched his head. "My mana pool is very small. I need to find something that could expand it."

After seven rolls of the Heaven's Dice, Miles decided to stop and reserve the points for later.

[ Current Points: 560 ]

He already got something good and it was enough for him.

After sitting back onto the bed, he performed the Serene River Meditation technique.

…

Before even the sun rises, Miles went out of his room.

He found Paul, Lilia and Brent that were on watch in the hallway.

They chatted for some time before he found his way into Samuel and David's room.

"Thank God you're fine." Samuel said with relief.

"I have something to tell you.." Miles then began to tell the two what happened to Jason and how he gave him peace.

Samuel and David already knew that Miles killed Jason but hearing it from him made them emotional.

Seeing the sad and disappointed eyes of Miles, Samuel patted his shoulder.

"You don't have to blame yourself. Jason was already gone when you saw him. What you did was give him the peace he deserves."

"It's best to give him a proper burial." David suggested.

Miles wiped his tears and nodded. "Let's get his body and bury it."

The three left the room and passed by the people on watch.

"We'll bury the body of our friend." Miles informed them.

Paul nodded and put out a map.

"You can bury him here. Everyone decided to use it as a burial place." he said.

"I understand. Thank you."

"There might be zombies around so be careful." Lilia warned.

"We will."

…

After descending the Administrative Building, Miles walked straight on the tree where he left Jason's body.

There were countless corpses scattered outside and a few zombies walked towards them.

Miles could kill them easily but instead, he let Samuel and David kill them for them to level up.

They found Jason's body and buried it to where Paul told them.

After offering a few minutes of silence for their friend, the trio returned to the Admin Building.

The team gathered in one of the conference rooms.

"Oh! You look good." William patted Miles' shoulder.

"Yeah. You too." Miles chatted with the others as they walked inside.

"Where's Helen and Julia?" Miles asked as he sat down.

William sighed and spoke with a low voice, "She's trying to calm down the people."

Miles raised his brows. "What happened?"

"It's nothing serious but…" William sighed once more.

"Some of the survivors were actually raising their voices against us." Paul continued.

"Not just raising. They're blatantly blaming us for not rescuing them early." Brent said with obvious annoyance. "Some of them were even angry saying that the strong should protect the weak or something."

Paul clicked her tongue.

Dante tapped the table with his finger. "Just understand them a little. The people went through a traumatizing experience so they must still be in shock. Let's just give them a bit of time and patience. I'm sure Helen and Julia could pacify them."

After the people were all seated, William stood up and spoke, "Just like we planned, we gained access to the control room and closed the gates. Now, the zombies inside won't increase, unless the survivors become infected. So, be careful guys."

"For our next step, we can now start clearing the remaining zombies and rescuing the hidden survivors. You can ask the others if they want to come with us but if it's me, I would like many players to come with us and level up."

"We'll use the control room to see what areas have the densest number of zombies and concentrate on them first. We still have a small amount of ammunition left so we can use them for emergencies but as much as possible, let's kill zombies without them to gain more exp."

The meeting continued and the team discussed their next plans.

After an hour or so, they've finalized their plans.