Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

4:30 p.m.

Even though the sun no longer shines directly towards me from over my head, the scorching heat is still torturing me. On top of that, since the zombies no longer move individually and start grouping up, their momentum grows stronger, which means I need to move around with more caution and quicker than I was. I couldn’t even use my motorcycle anymore as it would attract too much attention and ended up returning it to the forest.

“How do I break through that…” I murmured as I saw dozens of zombies clamouring on the camping supply store’s door to get inside. From their actions, I was certain that there were survivors inside. And my hunch was instantly proven to be correct as from the shattered windows, several arrows came out, burying themselves on the zombies’ head. However, even after the death of those zombies, their number didn’t dwindle much. Rather, more and more zombies were flocking towards the door.

“Are there a lot of people inside?”

Whoever is inside there, they probably weren’t originally in the same group. They must’ve decided to temporarily work together as they were trapped together when they came to rob the store. Looking at the arrows, there was a possibility that they were well prepared rather than just some random survivors who just came to save themselves. If that’s the case, they wouldn’t have the heart to make concessions to others, so there’s a high chance that a fight would break out amongst them sooner or later.

After several minutes passed, as expected, the sound of fighting could be heard from the broken window.

“Get out of here!”

“Are you kidding me? We came here first!”

“Do as I said or I’m going to open the door!”

“I dare you! Open it!”

The extreme situation they found themselves in amplified their negative emotions, making them fight against each other. Now that they had no way out, they would be aiming at each other’s neck.

“Ah! That bastard shot me!”

“Shoot him!”

“It was a mistake! It was a mistake, I said!”

Can you really say it was a mistake after you shoot someone?

“Well, I guess I will also say those words after I kill someone.” Though, I would only kill those who tried to kill me first. By the way, it seemed that the zombies wouldn’t simply leave. Therefore, I climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and waited for the incident to end.

“One hour and twenty minutes left…” Waiting patiently, I finally heard a loud noise from the inside of the store once again.

“Don’t open it! We will all die!”

“You guys shot at us first! Let’s all just die!”

It was such a chaotic dialogue.

After a while, another loud sound broke out. It seems someone opened the back door of the store. Naturally, the zombies noticed the sound and rushed towards it.

“Run! Run!” A high-pitched voice said urgently soon after the zombies started to move. It was a commendable decision. In this kind of situation, escaping was way more important than fighting.

By the way, the scene of dozens of zombies rushing towards the back door was truly spectacular. It was as if they had become one entity which was connected to a single brain.

Without any more delay, I calmly descended to the ground and approached the front door of the camping store which was now pretty deserted as there were only a few zombies left standing there.

“Hmpph!” I swung my mace to one of their heads before quickly moving towards another zombie without a delay. I repeated this for a few more times until there were no zombies left standing in front of the door. Then, with a hammer I took from the portal, I smashed the hard glass door.

A pretty loud shattering sound rang out around the area. But nothing came towards me. It was all thanks to the survivors who had escaped earlier while taking the aggro of all the nearby zombies with them… or not. Turns out there were still four zombies walking around inside the store.

“You should have chased them too…”

As soon as they saw me, they started to walk towards me while limping. Disposing them wouldn’t be too difficult. However, it wouldn’t always be the case, as after the tutorial ends, reinforced zombies will start to spawn around me, making it harder to kill all the zombies.

I stepped towards one of the zombies rather than waiting for it to come and smash its head with the mace. However, after that, instead of running towards the other zombies just like what I did in front of the store, I dashed towards the back door first, then I closed it and locked it with the chain sprawling on the floor. Afterall, It was more important to close the back door quickly so that other zombies wouldn’t be able to come in and sneak attacked me while I was busy.

Growl-!!

The three zombies limped towards me with their hands stretched. Their mouths were also strangely twisted. It was as if they were smiling since they thought that I was trapped and had no way to escape.

“Unfortunately, you guys are wrong… I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me!” (E/N: I miss you Rorschach…)

I swept the distance between me and the zombies in a heartbeat and turned the three zombies into points.

“Let’s hurry up and get out.” If possible, I also want to loot the heavy equipment company where I rented the mini fork crane from. They had so many mouth-watering equipments which would undoubtedly make my life easier in the forest.

I opened the portal and hastily threw all the camping gear I could find inside. And just like before, the heat was getting to me as I felt my head start to spin. So I decided to stop for a moment and put my head inside the portal for some cold fresh air.

“Ah… that’s refreshing…” I could see Dingo barking towards me in the distance as I put my head in. I’m sorry, but please be patient for a little bit more.

Since I don’t have much time left, after resting for exactly one minute, I forced my body to move and once again indiscriminately put anything I could find into the portal. Tents, sleeping bags, tableware, kitchen set, folding tables, chairs, stoves, braziers, ropes and the list goes on.

“There is no end to these things…” Fortunately, the items in this shop were organized by types and price. So, I was able to put in a few expensive looking ones before heading to the other sector. Titanium-made kitchen set was certainly something I really wanted. However, there’s no need to take so many of them. “Let’s take the pottery set too.”

And when I entered the portal to cool off once again, my eyes widened. The open lot in front of the cave was now filled with the materials I had looted. Even Dingo couldn’t be found anywhere. It seems that he already ran away to the cave, perhaps because he felt stuffy outside—a very odd statement that I had never thought I would say.

One hour left… Let’s keep on giving it all a little more.

“Wow… I’m going to die.” As I squeezed the last bit of my remaining energy and went around the camping equipment store once more, someone raised the shutter from the outside. Because of the light from their flashlight that is pointed directly towards my eyes, I was momentarily stunned and couldn’t react properly.

Thankfully, the people who opened the shutter, which consisted of two men and one woman who looked gaunt and messy, didn’t seem to have any ill intention.

They looked at me with a puzzled expression on their faces.

“What, what? When did you come in?”

“Is he one of them?”

Ah… It seems that they were the ones who ran away from here earlier. I came to my senses and shook my head. “As you can see, I’m alone here. There are a lot of things inside, so you can just take them with you.”

All I had in my hand was the ceramic tableware set.

They glanced at me and whispered.

“Isn’t there a pottery set here? Who took it?”

“Is it perhaps that guy?”

“Hey stupid, he doesn’t even have a backpack, where do you think he stores it? Just hurry up and take what we need.”

Now there’s 40 minutes left. I’ve properly looted this place and have to move quickly in order to to loot the heavy equipment company next. I looked at the situation outside once before walking out. Meanwhile, the other survivors were still busy picking things up. I could feel in the back of my head that one particular survivor kept staring at me even after I went out.

“Are we just gonna let him go like that?”

“Then what do you want us to do? Kill him?”

“Hey! If you have spare time to think about something like that, use that time to move quicker instead!”

That guy is quite smart.

After I walked away from the camping equipment store, I pulled out my motorcycle from the portal and drove it towards the heavy equipment store. Surprisingly, when I arrived, there were hardly any zombies there. They probably left to look for food because they were hungry. Afterall, there was hardly anything to eat around here.

I cut the lock attached to the door with the oxygen cutter before entering. Just like what I did in the other stores, I moved all the equipment and consumables inside the portal.

“Huff, huff, huff, I really am going to die.” I want to just lie down and rest for the rest of the day. But I know I wouldn’t be able to do that since in just a couple minutes, the corrosive disease would arrive. And then, the tutorial will begin. Moreover, I feel like the agriculture tools store next door for some reason keeps beckoning me to loot it. Fertilizer sacks, pesticides, farming tools, seeds… all of it could not be missed.

I quickly moved to the store next door and threw everything I could get my hands on towards the portal. And when I finished, there’s only 20 minutes left.

When I looked outside the store, I could see buildings with several one-rooms, presumably a boarding house. From what I know, since the monthly rent was cheap in this area, the boarding house was mainly used by college students attending nearby universities. And since it was a boarding house where a lot of college students live in, there must be at least one PC inside, right?

“Did they all went home because it’s currently vacation time?”

With only 20 minutes left, I couldn’t loot something big, like a store or a warehouse. But it was still enough to rob a couple of houses. I ripped the iron bars out of the windows on the first floor with the oxygen cutter and entered. As soon as I barely put my heavy body in the room, bingo… There was a desktop and a NAS sitting on a desk in one corner of the room.

“The case looks expensive.” A good computer must have a lot of good data. I unplugged all the cords and moved the computer with great care as if I was carrying a baby towards the cave, as I can’t just throw it to the empty lot where I put the other things that I looted today.

And now, there’s not much time left. After looting one more room on the first floor, I moved the portal entrance a bit further from the shelter. It was some sort of precaution for corrosive disease. If my assumption turns out to be incorrect, all of the metal in the shelter would be destroyed and I would be forced to live as a complete caveman.

Then, I left a single nail under where the portal was anchored at and left. It would act as a test subject to see whether the corrosive disease can infect the forest through my portal or not.

I sat on the stairway right in front of the room that I had just looted and just waited in silence. At exactly six o’clock, the ground suddenly shook as if there’s an earthquake. At the same time, the sound of metals being squeezed could be heard from everywhere.

“It’s here.” I rose to my feet and strolled towards the middle of the road. The corrosive disease is a disease that will destroy all kinds of metal. Therefore, when the disease strikes, an empty space without metal is the safest place to be.

Creak-!! Creak-!! Creak-!!

The sound continued to ring. Then, moments later, a skyscraper in the distance tipped into one side before falling into the ground.

Rumble-!!

“Ho…”

That building was an apartment complex. And that very building which had stood firm for years had just collapsed, shaking the ground, creating a mini earthquake as well as blowing a lot of dust.

It was just a start—A fanfare which indicated that a true apocalypse finally happened. Following the falling building, the frame and exterior of all cars in my surroundings started to crumble. A gas pipe attached to a villa also collapsed and hit the ground in the form of dust. Street lamps lost their shape before being broken to dust and scattered in the wind.

I touched a piece of metal that landed close to my feet. The metal, which was around the size of a thumb, quickly turns into something like a grain of sand. It’s just like the corrosive disease I know from the game.

When I looked at the building closely, there were stains everywhere on the wall. “It’s definitely not a disease caused by bacteria or viruses…”

Judging by the fact that the whole apartment collapsed in just a very short time, it seems that the identity of the corrosive disease was indeed a radiation particle rather than a normal disease. However, it was still weird as it didn’t harm the human body at all.

“I remember in the game, when the tutorial begins, there was an iron gate near the user.” It might be placed there just to increase the tension of the user rather than based on the real world. However, a much more frightening thing happened when I was thinking about it. The wind which was pretty tame up until now suddenly blew wildly as a loud boom swept the area just a moment before a mushroom cloud appeared in the distance.

“What is happening?!?!”

It was such a huge explosion to the point I couldn’t help but to think it was a nuclear explosion for a moment. However, there was no such thing in Busan. And if it was indeed a nuclear bomb, I would’ve been turned into ashes by now.

If so…

“It’s an explosion from the ammunition depot.” The place where the mushroom cloud came up is in the same direction as where the infantry battalion is. It seems that some shells of the ammunitions stored in the depot shattered and somehow caused a spark which lit the gunpowder inside it, which caused a chain explosion and exploded the entire ammunition depot.

“If I had gone to the military, I would have been blown into smithereens.” With a sigh of relief, I entered the boarding house and opened the portal. The nail that I placed in front of the portal was still unblemished, and there is no sign that the corrosive disease had affected it.

“Good.” My assumptions turn out to be correct. The world inside the portal was unaffected by the corrosive disease. Then, it means that there’s nothing I have to be afraid of. I quickly moved the location of the portal once again to the empty lot in my shelter which was currently not-so empty.

The motorcycle… was no longer usable on Earth.

“Which means, I could only use the war club and the weapon which would be distributed at the start of the tutorial.” Ah, also the 100lb composite bow I bought before. Its arrows were made of carbon so it wouldn’t be affected by the corrosive disease. Moreover, I wouldn’t be short on arrows as I already bought around 100 arrows.

I took several essential things such as food, bottled water, first aid kit, and firecrackers and put it on a metal-free backpack. From now on, this backpack will be my survival backpack.

“There’s no guarantee that the portal will always open…” If the developer team of Survival Life were deeply involved in this whole mess, there’s a chance they would patch the system just to fuck with the users. “They’re just that much of a sadist.”

Also, I remember there’s quite a lot of reinforced zombie types and reinforced ghoul types with the ability to block the effect of an item or skill throughout the game. So, I better be prepared. I checked my equipment for one last time. And as expected, there’s no metal on it at all. Afterall, I had changed all of the metallic zippers into strings.

Then Dingo came next to me and barked loudly.

“It’ll be dangerous for you.” I giggled and walked towards him with my hands outstretched just like zombies to scare him a little bit. But Dingo didn’t even take a step back and just barked towards me. Well, it seems like he’s been really bored because he has been alone in the forest for the past several hours.

“Okay, let’s go together then.” He’s much quicker than me, so I was certain that he won’t be caught by zombies easily.

With Dingo in tow, I crossed the portal towards Earth. More buildings had collapsed in various places in such a short time when I was on the other side. On top of that, clouds of dust were literally everywhere, considerably limiting my sight.

“The atmosphere is no joke…” It’s exactly the same as the apocalypse I know.

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.

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As soon as the zombie apocalypse breaks out, the supermarket becomes the most dangerous place in the world. It was because all of the zombies around the area would naturally flock towards it, attracted by the foods inside it.

“Whoever sees it will think the mart is opening a huge sale.” The grocery store in my neighbourhood was no exception. It was full to the brim with groaning and rotting zombies.

I hid myself in the shopping mall across the grocery store and peeped inside it.

All the shelves inside the grocery store had collapsed. And it was hectic inside as more than a hundred zombies were flocking together while eating every food they could find. At the parking lot, there were dozens of cars… No, to be exact, a wreckage of what used to be cars scattered all over the place.

“Good, I think there’s enough oil…” The fuel which was once kept inside the fuel tank was now scattered all over the ground together with debris from collapsing buildings as well as various metals. With only a small spark, there’s no doubt that all the gasoline would lit up, and then this place would’ve turned into a literal hell.

I retraced the route in my head again. “Go to the left then kite the zombies out to the right…”

I need to light the fireworks in advance and lure all of the zombies towards the location before the wick burns out.

“I have to run around to attract them but also carefully keep my distance far enough to not get surrounded.” I wasn’t the type to kite a lot of monsters at once before hunting them. That was the specialty of the Rabbit Pwincess and the Duck Buttocks Goes Kwek Kwek. However, I can also do it to some extent.

“Dingo, you stay here, okay?”

I need the zombies to be fully aggro-ed on me. But zombies are creatures that can be easily distracted when there are several targets that they need to catch. That’s why I need Dingo to stay still in order not to distract the zombies from me.

I took one firecracker, lit it up and ran. As soon as I was out of the mall’s building, I shouted at the top of my lungs. “Here! here!”

Kuaaakkk-!

The result was instantaneous. All of the zombies in the area, whether they were just mindlessly walking on the street or hungrily eating the food inside the grocery mart, turned their heads towards me and bared their ugly teeth.

Rather than being terrified, I smirked and swayed the firework in my hand towards left and right, as if saying that a real, still alive and moving food is right here. “You guys are hungry, right? Come here!”

A zombie’s sense of smell is either completely dead, or it’s crippled to the point where they wouldn’t be able to smell anything further than their nose. However, their eyesight and hearing were relatively intact. Therefore, the best way to lure a zombie was by using some loud noises or a bright light.

Fascinated by my movements as well as the light from the firework’s wick, the zombies started to follow me. Dozens of them came out towards the parking lot in an instant. Meanwhile, I keep running while scanning through the ground, searching for the driest ground. Afterall, if the spark from the wick suddenly touched the ground when I passed by, it wouldn’t be the zombies who were burned to death, but me.

“Hey!” More and more zombies joined the bunch who were chasing me. It was as if I was the flute-blowing man while they were the rats. (Note: A reference to a German folklore, the Pied Piper of Hamelin.)

And finally, when I deemed their numbers to be enough, I quickly ran out of the parking lot and tossed the fireworks into the air. When the fireworks touched the ground, a fire instantly broke out, enveloping the whole parking lot in a mere second.

“Wow!”

The fire ruthlessly burned everything inside. Wreckage, debris, and all of the zombies, nothing was able to escape its grasp. However, the zombies didn’t just stop chasing me. Even when they were being burnt, they were still limping towards my direction. But, not for long.

One by one, the zombies fell to the ground. And every falling zombie became an obstacle to other zombies who were chasing me, slowing down their movement which made more and more of them die in the fire.

While the parking lot was burning bright in red like a campfire, a message appeared in front of my eyes.

「Level has risen to 11」

「You have earned 104 Points 」

「Congratulations for reaching level 10, an additional effect will be added to your unique ability. 」

「Dimensional Slot」

Once I finished reading it all, I brushed it away and ran as quickly as I could towards the now-empty grocery store. As soon as I arrived, I opened the portal and threw anything intact towards it such as chewing gum, candies, and jellies. The amount was huge, it was to the point where I wouldn’t run out of food for months even if I ate it every day. (E/N: More jellies for the scarabs, yay)

“Huff, huff…” While in the middle of looting, the ‘exhausted’ debuff and Survival Instinct skill got activated at almost the same time. Without thinking anymore, I ran outside and avoided all the zombies that came late to the party. Afterall, if I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be able to run away anymore, considering how exhausted I was.

Dingo also came out from the mall building and followed after me.