On the streets of SC12, Rick and Joe walked side by side, observing the apocalyptic city. There were still traces of the initial chaos of the first day, with many bodies, looted, destroyed, and burned places. This time, Rick had left Fulmen at Pineview Base, taking care of his family. Today was their first day looting the city... They were not only cleaning the small markets and convenience stores, but also removing any cars that were blocking the streets to facilitate the next days and future expeditions...
Rick took a map from his inventory and began to make markings. For now, they only looted strategic and commercial locations, leaving the houses and apartments untouched. SC12 was a city with over 50 thousand inhabitants. They would only take the essentials from a few important locations while moving towards today’s objective, the Fire Department.
There were many quality axes there, and many masks, and clothing that provided protection against flames and even bites. Oxygen tanks and fire extinguishers were something that their new base would need as well. In addition, next to the fire department, there was a rural store with lots of seeds, fertilizers, and rations. It wasn’t important at the moment, but it was part of one of Rick’s plans for his bases to achieve sustainability.
As they finished driving two other vehicles off the street with their superhuman strength, Joe asked a question that had been on his mind for a long time.
"You said the captain was at home when you took his motorcycle. Did you eliminate him?"
Rick found the question strange, but he understood where Joe was going with it...
"When the apocalypse happened the first time, he died at home, a victim of the first variant of the ZY virus. But this time, I didn’t go inside the house, and just took his motorcycle from the garage."
"That cure you used on my father, is there any left?"
"It’s made using something very rare, I don’t have many quantities of this item..."
"I thought of the Captain as a possible leader for the new SC01 base..."
"You don’t want that position?" Rick asked, observing Joe’s reactions.
"I don’t care about that, if that’s what the group needs, I’ll do it... But I prefer to go out and do missions outside the base alone, or with you, after all, someone has to watch your back, since you tend to be very distracted..." Joe said the last part with a slight smile on his face.
"Then we’ll have to include that in today’s task. You go to the Captain’s house and see if he’s still there. Be very careful, he could already be a level 2 zombie. In the meantime, I’ll go to the firehouse and the store. If the Captain isn’t home, we’ll have to spend a good amount of time looking for him in the neighborhood..."
"Okay, I’ll let you know on the radio if he’s not there," Joe said, signaling to the radio on his waist.
The radio they were using was one of the many wireless radios Rick had bought and stored in the system. At that moment, the quantum antenna had been activated, but only providing a short-range radio signal. The antenna was outside the city, inside the box truck. And three people were there waiting for Rick and Joe to return. One of them was Ethan, the other two were the truck driver and a hunter responsible for Ethan’s safety.
Every afternoon, after clearing the town, Rick would go to the box truck outside SC12 to send all the supplies he had collected back to Pineview Base. This was done by Rick to ensure that his inventory was always empty each day. His group was also looking for more vehicles, and Rick might need extra space depending on the loot he found...
...Rick, Joe, and Ethan would stay behind and spend the night on the outskirts of town waiting for the truck to return early the next day, before starting the search again.
This process would repeat itself for 5 days, while Rick would spread Ethan’s transmitters throughout SC12, and loot strategic locations such as the fire station, the police station, the university, the hospital, and a large gallery on the last day...
As soon as Rick separated from Joe and was about to reach the fire station, he came face to face with a street full of zombies with red eyes. Most of them also saw him coming... But that wasn’t what worried Rick. On some rooftops and dark alleys, Rick could see several zombies with intelligent eyes stalking him...
Taking his axe from his inventory, Rick couldn’t contain himself and went after them, starting a massacre. As he cut down the zombies, his breath formed a mist coming out of his mouth, reminding Rick of the harsh winter that was coming. Each swing of his axe easily cut down more than one zombie at a time, even though most of the zombies here were level 1 and had an instinct that made them try to dodge danger, Rick cut too fast for them to be able to do that...
[Survival points acquired x8]
[Survival points acquired x4]
[Survival points acquired x6]
[Obtained level 1 mutant crystal x18]
As Rick continued his massacre by advancing down the street, his survival points continued to rise. His goal this time was to collect more melee weapons and reinforce them through the system to increase the firepower of his base. The bows and crossbows obtained from the Hunting Shop were good, but too fragile, and could not keep up with the growing strength of the level 2 mutant hunters.
That was why his focus was on the Olympic competition bows that were at the university. That after the improvements to their system, they would be usable even if the hunters evolved to level 3. The same would happen with the fire department’s axes. The police station’s weapons were superficial at the moment, but if in the future there were ways to improve them, it would be good to have a good arsenal in advance.
When Rick was halfway down the street, what he had been observing since the beginning of the fight finally began to move...
The zombies that had been hiding in the alleys slowly blended into the crowd of zombies, heading towards him... Those that had been on the rooftops pretending to be inert finally made a move as well, slowly approaching the edges...
Rick had already warned Joe and the others about the behavior of the level 2 zombies. Therefore, he had been observing them since the battle began... Not only that, but Rick had never shown his true fighting ability. He had only displayed an average level 2 strength and never used any skills. But now that everyone was preparing to ambush him, Rick smiled and switched weapons.
A pair of daggers appeared in his hands, and he completely changed his fighting style. The daggers he threw had a barely noticeable shiny silver tip, and they pierced the zombies’ heads and continued forward to hit others in the back. Before they glowed with a silver light and returned to his hands. It was with such a blow that he finally caught the first level 2 zombie.
[Survival points gained x2]
[Survival points gained x4]
[Level 1 mutant crystal gained x1]
[Level 2 mutant crystal gained x1]
Soon, more of the level 2 zombies continued to fall to blows from flying daggers that pierced their heads from blind spots. The same happened to those zombies who thought Rick hadn’t seen them on the rooftops.
Before they could even reach Rick, they were killed while still in the air, pierced by daggers and fell motionless to the ground after the ill-planned fall.
Among these level 2 zombies, the closest he came to ambushing Rick was hiding under a vehicle on the side of the road. But since Rick was already level 3, his heightened senses helped him sense it well before the attack. Besides, this was also a very common strategy of these monsters in the previous apocalypse. And Rick was already fed up with it...
Soon, the number of dead on the street began to decrease, and Rick finally approached the fire station. Finally discovered the reason why there were so many zombies on this street. The many doors and windows of the place were all barricaded with wooden boards. The place seemed to have become a temporary shelter for some survivor...
Slowly approaching the place, still not knowing if the person inside was an ally or an enemy. Rick got close to one of the barricaded windows and, through the crack between the woods, confirmed that there was no one inside the room. He smiled and his entire body disappeared outside the building, appearing inside the fire station... A single whispered word was heard from his lips at that moment: "Blink..."