Chapter 4: Bigger problem

Adam advanced down the corridor to the Crawler's corpse and remembered that he had forgotten the objects left behind by the Crawler. It was another handful of crystals and a small, rough-looking backpack. However, appearances were deceiving.

[Spacious backpack].

He stuffed the crystals inside. He was struck by the inside of the backpack, for it was larger than it appeared. When he finished, he descended the stairs again. For a second he thought about trying to talk to Jane, but remembered how she had abandoned him. So he picked up the zombie crystals on this floor and moved on.

He entered the apartment from which the Crawler had emerged and, at first, as he expected, found nothing but a few zombies. However, to his surprise, he found another Crawler.

The zombie jumped at him and Adam barely had time to dodge it. He ran into one of the rooms and then waited for the zombie to attack. When the zombie approached again, Adam waited until the last moment to fire the flamethrower. The crawler's head exploded under the assault of concentrated fire and the battle was over in an instant.

Adam breathed a sigh of relief and tried to calm himself. He realized that he had reacted very quickly when the Crawler had attacked him. It seemed that his reflexes had improved as he had leveled up. In addition, his new flamethrower skill allowed him to find the right moment to fire.

He could now fight the evolved zombies successfully and felt more confident in what he was doing. Those who locked themselves in their homes were going to regret it in the end, when a zombie too powerful for them broke into their sanctuary.

[You've killed the owner of the single apartment...].

Adam ignored the repeated message and continued to explore the house. As he expected, he found no special package. He remembered that the couple who lived there must have been at work.

On the other hand, he noticed that the apartment had given life to two crawlers. The first must have been the original owner when the zombies appeared in the empty house, while the second must have acquired the property after the death of the first. He did not know if there was any other way for the zombies to evolve.

In addition, he realized that even though he had killed the first owner, he did not get the property right away. He assumed he needed to be inside the apartment to claim it as his own.

At the next apartment, Adam expected to meet the Zoila family. They were supposed to be inside at the time it all started. However, he felt a lump in his throat when he encountered another type of zombie.

[Zombie Gorger].

The zombie was so obese that he couldn't move, and he was trapped in one of the rooms. When Adam saw him, he thought it would be pretty easy, but he couldn't have been more wrong. The Gorger began spitting out jets of acidic saliva that Adam could barely dodge, plus, he seemed to be able to shoot them non-stop.

The room the Gorger was in faced the hallway, which Adam had to walk through while avoiding the acid without any protection. He hid in the kitchen and tried to think of a plan of attack.

He looked at all the objects in the kitchen and his eye fell on the refrigerator, which gave him an idea. From what he had observed, the saliva was effective against tissue and organic matter. The former he noticed when a squirt hit one of the chairs in the living room and the fabric and wood disappeared almost instantly, and the latter he tested by throwing a fruit towards a spittle pit that had formed on the floor. However, the acid-affected floor was slowly corroding.

So if he could use some kind of shield, he could get close enough. Using small flames, he removed the fridge and refrigerator doors. The refrigerator door was quite a bit smaller, so he used it to test its resistance to spit. Adam peered into the hallway with the door in front of him and waited for the Gorger to fire.

Then he returned to the kitchen and watched in satisfaction as the door slowly burned down. He grabbed the refrigerator door, stepped out into the hallway and ran toward the Gorger. Before he reached the room he was hit twice by the acid, but managed to get close.

Then, the Gorger's stomach opened and revealed a row of multiple teeth and a thick tongue that shot out like a whip and struck Adam's shield.

The door flew off along with Adam, who hit the wall and fell to the ground. He cursed and immediately rolled over himself to dodge the jet of acid that hit the floor next to him and splattered some of his clothes.

Before he could scream in pain, the horrible tongue grabbed his left arm and dragged him towards the mouth. The flamethrower fell to the ground. Adam knew that if he didn't grab it he was dead, so he bent his body and resisted the pain to grasp the flamethrower with his right arm.

He then suppressed the panic he felt and waited for the zombie to drag him even closer. To his luck, the Gorger had stopped firing acid, considering that the prey was already his, so Adam didn't receive another attack. Just as it was about to be lifted off the ground to be swallowed, Adam took aim as best he could and fired.

Flames poured in through the mouth and left the inside of the zombie completely scorched. The Gorger screamed in pain and tongue lashed Adam to the ground before it stopped moving. The monstrosity died a few minutes later as the fire consumed it from the inside.

[You have killed the...].

Adam was in complete pain and dazed, he didn't even notice the system message. It took him a few minutes to recover and get his mind clear again. He was a mess. The final blow had broken several ribs and torn some of his clothing. In addition, several sections of his skin were missing due to the acid.

The Gorger was ridiculously strong. Adam was aware that he had been saved due to the zombie's ignorance of the flamethrower's capabilities. When he was calm again, he got up and began to search the apartment. He hoped to find some clue that the Zoila survived, but feared what he would find.

His worst fears were realized. In the room where the Gorger was, he found two special packages and two more in the next room. Adam looked at the second room, with the children's decorations and toys and felt sick. The system had thrown two children to horrible deaths. He rummaged through the packs without much encouragement and even the finding of another healer pack and a warrior one didn't thrill him.

Adam used one of the health potions from the healer pack and felt intense pain as his ribs healed and his skin regenerated. Again he was exhausted, but he continued to examine what he had found.

To his surprise, the healer's pack contained an extra item, a gold-colored book.

[Holy Light].

Adam wondered what it did and immediately received an answer from the system. He was still not used to it.

[Heals non-lethal wounds to living allied creatures. Causes light wounds and paralysis to enemies. Can only be learned by Classes dedicated to healing].

Emma must have learned it before she died. On the other hand, the children had died without even opening the box. Adam set the book aside and opened the warrior packet.

[Simple short sword].

It was the weapon that came with this one, along with some stamina potions. He also found a manual for learning a short sword fighting technique and a suit of armor that was visibly designed for a child's size.

In the parents' room he found a warrior's pack and an archer's pack. In all, he got an axe, a bow with a quiver full of arrows, more potions, two leather armors and a book with axe and bow fighting techniques.

Finally, Adam approached the Gorger. He tried not to vomit from the smell and horror that was that giant greasy mass. The zombie left a blue crystal that Adam had not seen before and an object that looked like a small gas canister.

[Ordinary blue crystal].

[Miniature gas cylinder].

Again he wondered its use and waited for the system's response.

[By connecting it with a flamethrower, the flamethrower gets an extra charge to fire. Its recharge time is also half a minute].

The canister was a pleasant surprise and, along with everything else, the total haul was significant, but Adam's mood couldn't have been worse. After dropping everything off at his house, getting something to eat and sleeping for about ten minutes, he felt much better. It was then that Adam stopped to think about the presence of a zombie as dangerous as the Gorger.