Level up Zombie

by Stayrr

Zain Talen, your average college slacker, was busy skipping class to go play a new video game he had just bought, when a strange woman came running his way. Before he could get out of the way she collided with him. Quickly picking herself up she ran away leaving behind a pendant. Without knowing where she went Zain pocketed it and decided to look for her after his gaming session. D

3. 65 - 96

Level up Zombie #Chapter 65 A Startled Zain - Read Level up Zombie Chapter 65 A Startled Zain Online - All Page - Novel Usb

Zain tried to recall what had happened in his head. Looking around the room, he noticed a frightened Fingers. Pink was also still on the floor, she hadn't moved as she was witnessing the fight between the leader Shark and Zain.

'When I saw the person touching Skittle...I thought it was the faceless man, I thought I was still hallucinating...I guess in a way I was, but the visions from that place had disillusioned me even though I have woken up.' Zain thought, touching his head.

Walking over, Shark, with no worry, placed his hand on the other's shoulder and asked with a smile.

"Are you awake now? It looks like you have gone through a lot."

"Hey, I was nearly killed, and that's all you are going to say to him?!" Fingers complained, but after a quick look from Shark, he had shut up.

"Honestly, this is a first for us. Never before has someone just collapsed like that. We didn't even know if you were alive, you know, with no heartbeat and all. So we brought you in this room for now, and your friend followed you in here." Shark explained.

It was as Zain thought. He himself had no clue why but he had practically been knocked out, and while having those visions, his body was still active in this place. From the sounds of it though, it didn't sound like a zombie thing and sounded more like his own problem.

"I'm sorry," Zain replied, looking toward Fingers. "I had a nightmare, and when I woke up, I thought I was still in it. I thought you were trying to hurt Skittle." Zain explained, but he could see from the looks on the others' faces that now they no longer trusted him the same way as they did before.

"Because of Kun, you let me in this place, and I don't want to cause you any trouble. You're a good group of people, so I'll take my leave." Zain said, already walking toward the door.

Pink felt a bit pity and down. Although it hadn't been long, this world was incredibly lonely for them. On the first day, she remembered approaching a few humans who had immediately tried to kill her.

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At the moment, they didn't fit in with the zombies, nor did they with the humans. This place was essentially the only group they could stay with, the only family they had. Kicking Zain out of this place would mean he truly would be alone outside.

'This person will be valuable to us.' Shark thought. 'His Zombie friend was strong enough to overpower Pink, and I know how strong her kick is. Then there is Zain himself. Can he control other Zombies? On top of that, his skills. He is no amateur fighter, that's for sure.'

Thinking about all of this, Shark had to say something.

"I want you to stay," He broke the silence. "You should know it better that we stay together, and if something like what happened just now happened outside, then there is a good chance you would be dead. Sure, you have your bodyguard." Shark nodded towards Skittle. "But he won't be enough to protect you from the things out there."

"I want you to stay as well," Pink spoke up, getting off the ground and jumping to her feet. "I don't want anyone to leave. That's why I tried stopping you, even creepy Fingers. I want both of you to stay alive and remain as a part of this group."

"You already explained yourself, so don't worry, we understand, right Fingers?"

Turning back, she noticed Fingers was uncomfortable. Strangely if one just looked at his eyes, it looked like he was smiling, but he was clearly uncomfortable about the whole situation.

"I guess I shouldn't have been touching Skittle in the first place." Fingers rubbed the back of his neck. "And I know you could have killed me, but you didn't, so you did hold yourself back."

Hearing this, Zain was surprised himself. It was as if he hadn't noticed, but if he had thought the faceless man was hurting Skittle, then why didn't Zain stop him straight away? The faceless man had no problem attempting to kill him.

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"Well, then it's decided, Zain, you can stay, and we will just have to be careful around you next time if you blackout again, I hope you understand," Shark said.

"Of course, if it happens again, I would leave myself anyway," Zain replied.

With the little scuffle over and everything turning out alright, Shark wanted to call a meeting and asked everyone to head over to the stage area, where he had shown the whiteboard to Zain earlier. While they walked there, Shark had a question that had been on his mind for a while. He waited until the others were ahead and pulled on Zain's sleeve a bit, indicating him to stop.

"You're a good fighter. Are you sure you're just a normal student? If you are with an organisation or a certain group, I will keep it from the others." Shark asked.

"Me?" Zain repleid. "Im just a normal unvieirsty student that likes to play games."

"Yet knows how to use guns, takes down a Stage 2 Zombie and can fight the way you did there?"

"Then let me ask you a question. It's clear you are not an office worker. All the information you have on Zombies and different types. How would you know that we can last up to 7 days without eating brains when 7 days hasn't even passed yet?" Zain asked.

This had left Shark a little quiet for a while until he eventually smiled and walked past.

"When you tell me who you really are, then I'll tell you who I am? I think that's fair, right?" Shark winked.n0𝗏𝑒𝓵𝐮𝓈𝓫.𝓬0𝔪

The only thing was, Zain wasn't lying.

When reaching the white bored, it looked like Shark was ready to say something to them all.

"In truth, I had been waiting to either train you guys up to a more capable level or for a more capable person to join our group, and since we have somewhat done both, I think we can move onto the next step." Shark explained. "There is something we seriously need to get, and that is Brains. I suggest we go out on a group outing together. It will be safer this way, and we can get to know each other better. Time is short so we should do it today."

The others looked at each other nervously. Outside was dangerous for many reasons but what they were worried about was if they needed brains, it meant they needed to look for humans.

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Zain had been in the strange vision for much longer than he thought. At first he was confused by Shark's wording as he believed that in a few hours time it would be night. Zain had remembered the number one rule of the Reborn, and that was to never go out at night, and for now until he actually knew how dangerous these Demon's were he would comply.

It only further proved that he needed to continue to level up and gain exp to fight the new dangers in the world that were popping up.

In the end, he found out that an entire day had passed, and it was the next morning already. How that was possible Zain didn't know, and it was hard to say without observing himself or going through a few more of those visions, which he didn't want to experience any time soon.

Either way, he was surprised when Shark said they would be leaving today.

After checking his system out, he now realised it was indeed the case.n0𝒱𝑒𝓁𝗎𝑆𝓫.𝑐0𝑚

[Body Functionality at 84 percent]

'Hmm, it's hard to tell if the body functionality is decreasing at a slow rate because of my intelligence or the fact I was just lying idle doing nothing for the entire day. Probably a combination of the two reasons.'

In terms of energy, it didn't matter much as there was so much flesh in the fridge being stored that the group didn't even see the need to ration it. The meat was pretty easy for them to get by heading outside, but it did make Zain wonder that although it wasn't a problem right now, there was a chance it could become one in the future.

Flesh that was fresh enough for them to eat was abundant because plenty of newly killed bodies were lying around, even from the attack not too long ago. However, as time passes, the flesh on those corpses would begin to rot, and it would be harder to get hold of fresh meat.

After the initial stage, the number of human deaths would decrease as they build Shelters and adapt to the world's current situation. Then, the only way they could get fresh flesh would be by killing humans themselves. It would no longer be available on the streets like so.

'This might also be a factor for all the other Zombies as well. What is going to happen when they have nothing to eat? Hopefully, unlike those games, this whole situation will be solved by then, and we might even have a way to cure ourselves as well. Either way, if Shark hasn't thought of anything I should bring it up. We could always use the freezer section here, and in other places nearby.'

Whether this would be a long term base for Zain or not, it was hard to say. But he had to be prepared for anything, and staying here for a while might be one of them. If answers were unable to be found by the military then Zain was sure he could find some from Shark, but it was getting the other to trust him enough that he would spill them.

The rest of the group started to make preparations, each of them gathered weapons and took a bag to store valuable items, like the crystals, they might find on the way.

The only one that wasn't packing was Jelly. Apparently, Shark didn't include him when discussing all of them going together. Jelly was the protector of the place. Although it did make Zain wonder if there was any other reason for leaving him behind due to his large size, the former did seem slow, but it didn't concern him too much, for Zain would be bringing his most valuable item, Skittle.

Turning the large white board over of notes about the Evolved Zombies and more, there was a large map of the city. It was an old fashioned map that Zain hadn't seen in ages, since nearly everyone used their mobile phones these days.

It had a red dot for where they were, and then arrows pointing out words along with circles and more.

"Where are we going to be heading to this time? An area we have been to before, so we at least know the layout would be safest, right?" Pink asked, pointing to one of the circles on the map that wasn't too far from where they were.

"But we have already been to those areas before, and we didn't find any people. I think we have a better chance of finding people holding up somewhere in one place. Many will think the military is coming to save them." Kun explained. "It's unlikely they would move about unless they don't have any food."

"Oh, then a supermarket or a shopping mall would be good." Fingers suggested. "I know that there are a lot of people in those areas, which means a lot of zombies, but there are also plenty of places for people to hide and unlimited resources for them to use. People get hungry so they will eventually go to these places."

"Yes, eventually is the problem." Kun replied.

The conversation between everyone continued as it was unclear which would be the best method, but that was why they had a leader for making these decisions. When they all turned to Shark though, his response surprised them.

"What do you think, new guy?" Shark asked. "Where would you go if you were travelling on your own or in charge of this group?"

Zain hadn't expected them to take his opinion, not of a new guy, and his way certainly wasn't the safest way, that was for sure.

"I would have gone to one of the craters, where the meteorites had landed. There are other personal reasons, but I mainly want to see what they are or do. There might be others thinking the same, and the military seems to be after them as well.

"We might not find any brains or humans, but time is precious for us, right? So we might as well get something done." Zain replied, and there were a few pulled faces around the room.

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The others didn't like the sound of Zain's idea. There would be military personnel with weapons, and it would also be unfamiliar territory.

"Zain is right. There are no rewards without risks." Shark replied. "If we don't get brains, then we die. This will give us new ground to cover as well."

The others weren't so sure, but at least this time, they would be travelling together, and if Shark thought it was a good idea, they would follow him.

——

Once the group was done with the preparations, they stepped out of the club. It was a bright sunny day today, and as usual, zombies were slowly roaming around the streets.

"Look after the place, Jelly. We'll bring you some nice treats." Kun said as they waved him off.

While on the way, Shark told Zain that they had already searched two sections of the city, although not thoroughly.

They had gone in the four-mile radius of the club to the east and west of them but hadn't gone towards north or south yet.

They wanted to explore the area around them first, and once they had made sure it was all clear, they could start planning and making safety bases around the city they could use to stay overnight. It looked like Shark had managed to think it all through quite well.

Looking at the shape of the city, the north looked to be in the worst condition. Several large skyscrapers had fallen over on the side, while others were still standing but with large holes in them.

It was clear which side they should take, so they decided to head north. While walking through the streets, there was, of course, something that was going to occur, and it didn't take long for the first obstacle to appear in front of them.

[Mutated Zombie has been detected]

A zombie turned its head toward the group and began to run. The first one to act out of them all though, was Zain, as he threw a knife straight towards it hitting it right in the head and killing it in a single hit.

"That was some quick reflexes you have." Shark commented.

Although Zain's actions were quick, it was because the system would usually inform him of a mutated Zombie before they had acted, and out of instinct, he had gone through the motions as he had done so far.

"Check the zombie for a crystal. There should be one inside." Kun was on the task and had already started heading towards the zombie before anyone had said anything. However, this made Zain realise something.

'Crap, there's not going to be a crystal in that zombie…What should I do? I should have been more careful!' Zain frowned.

After a short while, Kun stood up with bloody hands.

"I Can't find anything."

"That's strange. I was sure that it was showing aggression to us. Was it just acting strangely?" Shark commented.

"Is it so strange?" Pink shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, you were the ones that told us that not all zombies have those crystals in them, and there was no way of telling who had what."

Although it was true what the others had said, there was an exception: if the zombies showed aggression towards you. Like Stage 2, the Mutated Zombies also tended to attack the Reborn.

Regardless, Shark decided to just let this one be gone as they continued to move, and Zain was happy he didn't have to come up with some type of excuse. After long hours of walking and coming across a few more Mutated Zombies, Zain did nothing, and the group found crystals whenever they hunted a Mutated Zombie. They put the crystals in a small pouch as they walked through the wide streets until they noticed large shards of glass all over the roads and streets.

"This means we are getting closer to the meteor." Shark explained. "The shattered glass is from the shockwave. We don't know what we'll be here from now on, so let's walk through the alleyways.

Whether it was military or stage two type zombies, they had to be careful. The gaps between the buildings were quite large, and at the same time, there seemed to be fewer zombies and dead bodies.

Eventually though, they wanted to go straight ahead and see the scene in front of them, so they went through a back door of the building. With a light push, Shark realised the door was already open, and they soon found themselves in the back of a kitchen, it was fairly a large one as well.

"I remember this place. It was a famous Chinese restaurant." Fingers chirped as he felt his footstep on something. He looked down and saw it was a dead body, but its skin looked slightly grey, indicating that it wasn't a human but a dead zombie.

The others seemed to know this as well, not just Zain since they had experience collecting flesh.

"There are a few bodies over here as well!" Pink pointed down one side of the kitchen leading to large double doors.

'A few dead zombies, does that mean humans were here?' Zain thought.

The look on Shark's face was also unsettling as he walked forward. And upon pushing the double doors, he stood still as if frozen on the spot. The others looked at each other before running towards him, but they also came to a screeching halt upon seeing the scene on the other side. The entire restaurant was covered in dead zombies.n0𝗏𝚎𝔩𝚞𝑠𝑏.𝗰0𝓶

It looked like a horde of around a hundred or so zombies had been killed in the restaurant, and they all had pale skin. They could hardly find a regular human corpse in the pile.

"We...have to get out of here. This is a mistake!" Shark spread his arms and pushed everyone back while he also stepped back.

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While roaming through the streets, apartment buildings, and even the university, there was something that Zain noticed, and he was sure it had become obvious to anyone who had traversed through the area. Most of the dead bodies that were on the ground were of humans rather than the undead, such as the zombies.

It was easy to tell because when one gets turned, their skin will turn slightly pale, almost a shade of grey. The Reborn didn't have this characteristic, but the other traits gave them away. However, with Skittle, it was easy to tell that he was a Zombie due to his pale skin.

It was clear that not many zombies were being killed. This was because in a short period, at least where they were currently, the Zombies seemed like the majority, and they didn't attack each other.

This was why the scene in the restaurant was so bizarre for all of them. Usually, where there were dead zombies, there would be people too, but something definitely was not right for there to be this many zombie corpses.

"What do you think happened?" Pink asked as she started to step in the few spaces on the ground, heading forward, ignoring Shark's prior warning.n0𝔳𝗲𝓛𝑢𝑆𝒷.𝓬0𝑚

"It's most likely the military, right?" Kun asked. "I mean, they're the only ones that would have this amount of firepower to even do something like this. Normal people can at most hunt a few zombies, even that would need a lot of luck."

Ever since seeing the pile of zombie corpses, apart from his first words where he said they should all get out of there, Shark hadn't said anything else and remained silent while looking around. But suddenly, he started moving and headed to one of the two staircases at the side of the restaurant leading up to the second floor.

"Where are you going? Should we follow?" Fingers asked.

"I'm just checking something out," Shark replied. "But just to be safe, all of you get ready to leave this place if you hear anything worse, and don't head upstairs for the time being."

Although the others didn't question Shark's strange actions, Zain, however, had been wary of the former since the beginning, so he was more interested in solving this thing himself. He knelt down to one of the bodies and inspected them one by one.

After looking at a few, Kun had also eventually come over and began to do the same, or at least he made it look like he had done the same.

"So, what do you think?" He whispered to Zain.

Zain lifted one of the dead Zombie's bodies and rolled them over. A large gap was missing from their shoulder and other parts of their body. The main noticeable thing was the missing portion of its head.

"None of these wounds look like they came from bullets, at least not from the conventional ones anyway. If it was the military or some type of police force, then they would have used guns to kill this many, right?

"Even if they didn't have these markings, they don't look like they were made from some type of blunt weapon. At the same time, there are no bullet shells, guns, dropped magazines or even holes in the restaurant walls that would indicate a shootout had occurred. It's almost as if a beast of some sort has killed them." Zain explained his conclusion.

Kun gulped listening to this. For him, the unknown was scarier than the known. If it was the military, then they knew what to avoid and how to be safe, but he was trying to understand what exactly Zain was saying here, and he didn't like it at all.

"Thanks for all that information." Kun scratched the back of his head. "But I was actually talking about the leader Shark. I mean, don't you think he's strange? Like as in, not you strange but stranger than a normal person."

Zain was quite surprised that Kun had brought this up because he thought he was the only one that had noticed the leader's strange actions, and then it clicked in his head.

"You don't trust him, do you?" Zain asked. "But you are scared of him as well. He's a strong person, and due to his mysterious background, you are worried about what will happen if you choose to leave or press him for answers. Now I know why you wanted me to come back. You wanted someone who could push up to him and find out the truth."

Kun chuckled and turned his head around to look at the others.

"Man, you are too smart for your own good, you know? You see, Shark has looked after us well, but the others haven't known him for as long as I have.

"I was the first to meet up with him. Look, you do strange things as well, but I don't get these weird feelings from you, but Shark, he's always doing strange stuff and not involving us.

"Like collecting crystals and using the radio communicator to talk to someone. He always seems to be hiding something from us," Kun added.

All of these things, Zain had noticed as well, so he understood Kun's feelings, and in the world of survival, one needed to know, even if the other person was hiding things when to use people to their advantage.

"I wouldn't worry so much. Shark needs the group, and he knows that, which is why he is doing everything he can to help you. You don't have to worry about him so much if it stays that way. Also, don't worry about the other thing either, I will eventually get to the bottom of it." Zain replied, standing up.

He then headed to the restaurant entrance and was ready to push open the double doors to the other side. Not too far from where the restaurant was, was the meteorite and all the other destroyed buildings around it. However, before he could, a sudden shout attracted everyone's attention.

"Everyone!" It was Shark from the second floor, "It was as I thought! The one that attacked this place, and killed all these zombies, was a Demon or maybe a group of demons. We have to leave this place right now!"

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For a second, Zain's hand hovered over the door handle. He was so close to finally finding another meteorite. It was only a few metres away for him to see what these things were. However, there was also the chance that it could be nothing, and the meteorite was not even active unlike the last one he had seen.

The most likely case was that the military had already taken all the living and brought them in for testing. Still, there was a small chance, and it was just past that door.

"Hey Zain, come on, let's get out of here," Kun said.

In the end, Zain believed that, for some reason, Shark knew more than him in this situation, and as the saying went, curiosity killed the cat; it was better to play it safe and follow what Shark wanted, at least for now.

He stepped back, and soon, everyone was back in the alleyway, having exited from the restaurant's backdoor. Shark was already walking ahead and heading back in the direction they had come from.

"Wait, you have to explain, Shark!" Pink said. "What did you see up there? I know you said Demons were dangerous but don't they just come out at night? Aren't we safe then?"

"I don't know," Shark replied. "I don't know much about these demons. In fact, all I know is right now isn't our time to face them. We are too weak."

These words Zain latched onto, slowly like a puzzle piece he was going to put Shark's knowledge together.

"I don't know much about the demons, but upstairs there was a stage 2 Zombie, the Spitter, and it was also 'dead' like the other zombies. The Demon killed each of those zombies, so we are all dead if we run into it too. We will continue on the mission in the safest way." Shark replied, turning around.

"What about the brains?" Zain brought it up. "I agree with getting out of here if it is that dangerous and away from the meteorite if that might be related somehow, but we are running out of time. Is there another place nearby that we can check out?"

Shark clenched his fist as he knew Zain was right. Honestly, more than anything, Shark wanted to head back to base and find out what was going on himself, but they needed to think about themselves first.

"I have a suggestion. Around a kilometre away from here is Chinatown. It's a nice open street with plenty of shops, supermarkets, and low building apartments, no giant skyscrapers like over here." Pink said. "If I was still human, then it would be somewhere I would hide..and…"

Pink didn't say anything after the end, but Zain could tell that there was another reason why she wanted to go there, and if he was to take a guess, it was most likely to check up on her family. In these types of situations, the first thing people wanted to know was if their family was okay.

Without the availability of cell phones or the internet working, they could only check in person.

While debating about it, Shark wondered if a kilometre was far enough, but pulling out a map from his backpack, similar to the one in the club, he figured since it was more inward and away from the fallen meteorite, it was a safer option.

With that decided, the group was walking again, but they had already wasted quite some time on their last trip, and it was now around 2 PM. The sun tended to set around six, so they had around four hours to complete the task in front of them and return to the club.

Chinatown was a walking shopping street. Cars were not allowed to travel during a certain time of day, and it looked like there were next to none in the street. Decorations of red lanterns and good luck charms were out all over the place, and strangest of all, the street itself seemed to be quite empty.

One or two zombies could be seen just strolling around the area.n0𝓥𝞮𝓵𝓊𝗌𝗯.𝒸0𝐦

"China town is quite big, and there are a lot of shops." Zain prompted. "With a large group like ours, it's going to be hard to go through it without getting spotted. So it will be best if we split up in pairs."

Kun and Shark group in a pair, while Fingers and Pink group together, and though it didn't really count, Zain and Skittle paired up as well. Although Zain was the one that had made this suggestion, he preferred it this way.

"After an hour of exploring, we'll meet up underneath this archway to report anything we find. If you see people, then don't engage on your own." Shark instructed everyone.

Everyone understood, and they split up going through Chinatown. After a while, Zain had gone through quite several different shops, restaurants, gift shops and more, but he had yet to find anything. However, he noticed signs of raids and looting throughout the streets, so there were sure to be people who had at least been here before.

That's when he entered a hairdresser shop of all places. The place looked empty apart from the fact that there was a smear of blood across the floor leading to the back room. And, when walking close, Zain pressed his ear against it and could hear something through the door, and with a sniff, a scent went into his nose.

It was clear that there was a human on the other side of this door, but the question was, was it the only one? There didn't seem to be any conversation, and Zain decided to push the handle in a few minutes after hearing no other signs.

It was locked, but he easily broke through it with his strength. The door snapped open, and right in the centre of the storage room, there was a person, who had been tied up to a chair, and her body was beaten and bruised.

When the woman looked up, life came into her eyes as she saw a familiar face.

"Kelly…" Zain was shocked.

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The young woman tied up in the chair wore the same dress that Zain had seen her the last time. She looked like an office lady who was wearing a tight skirt, stockings and a light blue shirt. Zain could never understand why one would choose to wear such things in the situation they were in.

But it was because of these clothes that Zain went to take a second look at the person. Her face was quite badly beaten, and one of her eyes was black, while her lip was busted and swollen.

That's when he glanced carefully at her face, and without a doubt, this was Kelly. The person Zain had met in the supermarket and the one who had let him inside that store.

'So they decided to come to the city of all places, and what's happened that's made her get herself into this situation?' He couldn't help but wonder.

Closing the door behind him, Zain quickly went to inspect her body. She smelt like a human, so it was unlikely that she had been bitten, but he just wanted to make sure, and it was as he thought. He couldn't find any bite marks.

At least not where her skin was visible. Anyway, if he wanted to do a thorough check, he would have to take all her clothes off, but Zain assumed that if she was hiding the bite, it would mean she was bitten a while ago, and by now, he would have detected the scent, so there was no need to go through any more trouble.

As Zain was observing her, Kelly was screaming. While making muffled noises, her eyes widened, and her heart jumped consistently. It was as if she had been left in a room with a tiger.

However, this fear wasn't towards Zain, it was toward the person behind him. With his mouth left slightly open, his arms dragging by his side, and his pale skin, Kelly was afraid that the zombie was about to eat her.

"Will you calm down, Kelly?" Zain finally couldn't hold back, "You remember him, don't you? He's my friend Skittle."n0𝒱𝓮𝐿𝑈𝚜𝑩.𝗰0𝓜

Hearing these words, images flashed through her head. She hadn't noticed the person who had entered. She was just thankful that someone had found her, and she would be saved until she saw the zombie.

With her struggle coming to a halt, she noticed that the zombie just stood by the door and was doing nothing. It wasn't attempting to attack her or anything like that. Although she was no longer screaming, her heart was still racing for what she was seeing in front of her.

With her having calmed down, her thoughts finally straightened after a while, and she soon realised who exactly had come into the room.

"It's Zain…he survived that...he survived the attack from the supermarket that day, but his friend…what happened to him, why is he like this?" Kelly had a hundred questions, but she could only blankly stare at the situation.

Pulling out one of the knives from his belt, Zain went behind her and was ready to cut her free, but his blade stopped for a second.

'Wait, if I set her free, then what?' Zain thought. 'I can't bring her with me, not while I'm with the Reborn group, and if the others find her…I don't know what they will do.

'From what I have noticed about Shark, if he believes the group really needs a brain, then he will kill her for the group's survival. And it's not even strange because I know that's what I would have done as well. The only thing was, she did me a favour back then, and I need to do the same for her.'

Instead of cutting the ropes that were tied around her arms, Zain went toward the tape that was on her mouth instead. He pulled it off and also could see something similar to a sock had been stuffed in there, making it almost impossible for her to speak anything and was another reason behind her muffled voice.

"Don't make any noise. We can't let anyone know you're here or attract anyone's attention, okay? If you do, I'm going to shove this sock right back into your mouth," Zain warned her.

Kelly nodded, and Zain pulled out the sock. Immediately she took in a few deep breaths and spitted a few times on the floor.

"Thank you…thank you so much, and I'm glad it's you who came here…I was so scared."

"I'm sure there are a lot of questions you want to ask me," Zain said. "And there are a lot of questions I want to ask you as well."

When thinking about this, Zain wanted to ask about Buke and what made him turn around that day.

"However, we need to get out of this situation first. It's dangerous outside, so let's stick to the essential questions that will help us understand our current situation." He added after the thought. He was afraid of the others barging into the room and finding Kelly. It wouldn't do him any good, especially when he had not gotten any answers.

Kelly understood, there were a lot of questions on her mind, like why Skittle was with him, how they got out of the supermarket and ended up in the situation they were in now, but she also understood that they weren't out of the danger zone yet.

"Who tied you up here? How many people were there, and where are they now?" Zain asked.

"It was a group of five men," Kelly answered. "I don't really know them, me and Cody came across them, and we joined their group since they seemed pretty strong and nice as well. They shared food and water with us and brought us back here.

"When we returned though, they started to act strange, one of them…one of them grabbed me… me from behind. Then, he started to pull at my shirt…it was obvious what they were planning to do. They wanted to * me!

"Cody had caught on pretty quickly, and the others were trying to convince him to get involved, but Cody…he…he…." Kelly started to sniffle.

"I know he's a good kid," Zain replied, remembering it was because of the latter that he was able to get his weapons to defeat the Stage 2 Spitter. He was quite talented for his age and resourceful as well.

"He tried saving me, he fought back against them, but their leader was faster. Still, Cody didn't give up, and I tried to help him as well. I don't know what happened and where they have gone, but they locked me in here while they took Cody somewhere else…Zain, I know it's not fair of me to ask you this...but you're strong, I have seen it first hand. Please help him, please save Cody." Kelly pleaded.

When she lifted up her head, she saw a deep frown on his face, and his eyes had turned a little bloodshot as he clenched his fists hard.

Zain was not a hero, and neither was he trying to be. But if someone does him a favour, he would surely return it.

"I'll kill them." He muttered.

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Kelly's heart started beating faster as she saw Zain like this, mainly due to fear. When asking for help from him, she never thought that he would outright decide to kill that group just like that, but she soon remembered the file, his file that the Principle had shown her, and shivers ran down her body as she felt goosebumps.

Zain's blood boiled i anger, and he wanted to punish these people, however, there were multiple reasons why he had accepted the job. First, he liked Cody's nature and also owed him a favour. They needed to find other humans in the first place, and lastly, if there was anyone who deserved to have their brains taken out, then it was them.

Having decided what he would do, Zain shoved the sock back into Kelly's mouth and placed the tape back on. He heard muffled cries again as she was confused by Zain's sudden actions. She thought he would help her get out of this place, but he was instead planning to leave her behind.

"Trust me. You're better off here." Zain explained. "You can't travel with me, and you will only slow me down. Sure, you could hide, but the zombies will come looking for you. I'll bring back Cody, or at least tell him where to find you.

"If it doesn't work out, then worst case, I'll come back later to give you some food and make sure you are alright. It will be a bit scary, but you'll survive. I will try my best."

Skittle and Zain soon exited the room, closing the door behind them and leaving Kelly in the same state she was earlier, although her emotional state was now much better, although it wasn't too good either.

'That damn Zain!' Kelly sighed. 'How could he leave me like this tied up? He could have just told me to stay inside, and I would have listened.'

After a while, Kelly calmed down and realised that at least he was doing something, and there was no point in her wasting any energy.

——

At the same time, Kun and Shark were walking around looking for any signs of humans. There were several different shops in Chinatown, and Kun enjoyed each of them as they went into them one by one. At the moment, the two of them were in a fancy dress shop in traditional Chinese clothing.

There was even a warrior's outfit, but Kun could immediately tell it was fake upon touching it. Something like this would only slow him down if he wore it.

"Can you not run around all excited so much?" Shark said. "Don't forget we're trying to be sneaky here, and unlike your friend, for the two of us, it's pretty hard to hide the fact that we're zombies."

Kun knew what Shark meant because almost at all times of the day, the two would wear a type of scarf around their face to hide their obvious bite marks and wounds. However, wearing the masks alone made them look untrustworthy, so it didn't really help much.

"Fine, but you need to lighten up a bit. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Will we die? Well, surprise, we are already dead." Kun replied.

"Fine, but do me a favour, the new guy you brought in, keep an eye on him. He has a lot of information, and there is a good chance that he might be on the other side." Shark whispered, seeing the chance to bring up the topic he was recently pondering about.

"I doubt it. The guy is just as suspicious about you as you are of him. It's strange to say this, but I think he might actually be the lone wolf type.

"He's hiding something for sure, but it's not like a secret agent hiding, unlike you, and besides, from what you've heard, do you really think that someone from that group would be like him?" Kun asked as he leaned against the door of the back of the shop.

Shark looked to be in thought for a while, and he had to admit he didn't think so.

"You're right. In fact, he didn't even know about Demons that day. But if he's not with us, or with them, then who is this guy? Someone who fights like that and can take out a Titan on his own can't just be a normal high school student, right?"

"Maybe?" Kun shrugged and pressed his hand against the handle, only to find the door locked. "I mean, maybe he's just a natural, or someone good at fighting and practised for all this stuff, or he's just crazy.

"For anyone to have survived in this world, we all need to be a little crazy, right?"

Shoving the door as hard as he could, the latch broke, and the door swung wide open. Stepping into the room, Kun expected to see more clothes or stock of clothes. But upon pressing the light switch, his eyes lit up as he saw everything on the wall.

"Hey Shark, I think you better get in here." Kun suddenly called out as a smile formed on his face. The scene in front of him was the last he would think of coming across when going through a cloth shop.

"Why would I care about useless clothes?" Shark grumbled but decided to follow him anyway because he knew otherwise Kun would never leave the shop.

Stepping into the room, Shark also stopped by the door as he was amazed at everything in front of him.

"This...has to be illegal." He mumbled as he stared at the wall filled with weapons. They were all put out on display. From spears, swords, and katana blades to everything was there, and these didn't look like replicas or fakes either.

Thank you, everyone, for supporting LUZ so far, and I Hope you can continue to support LUZ in the WSA journey by voting for the story! Please continue to use your Stones and Tickets!n0𝗏𝗲𝗅𝑈𝐬𝗯.𝑪0𝔪

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Although Chinatown didn't have huge skyscrapers like the rest of the city, there were still apartments located within Chinatown itself. Oftentimes it would be directly above the shop, and most of the time, owners would live there, making it easier for their work and lifestyle.

In fact, some people had turned their homes into shops and just doubled them up as a place to sleep. It was just the way of living for those who thrived here and based on a certain Reborn zombie girl's action, it didn't look like she had suggested Chinatown just because she liked the style of clothing they had.

Along with Fingers, Pink had practically walked past most of the shops after giving a few seconds of glances. They didn't even give them a proper look to see if people were hiding or anything like that. At the pace Pink was walking out, it was clear she knew where she wanted to go. Fingers did notice this but he didn't say anything because he had a faint doubt about why they had come here in the first place.

Eventually, she had come to a stop and upon lifting her head, she stared at the sign above the shop. It had a large meat bun sign with the words "Fresh Baozi" written underneath It.

"Are you hungry?" Fingers asked, not really knowing why she had decided to stop outside of this shop out of all of them. In all the previous shops, she would instantly enter and come out, but here she was staring at the sign.

Instead of giving a reply, Pink directly rushed right towards the shop, which was actually a small restaurant. She then started to lift all of the plant pots in the corner of the restaurant. It wasn't a big shop and had a few seating areas, but eventually, she found a small key.

Using that Key, she went to the back counter and rushed upstairs. That was when it finally hit Fingers. This wasn't just any shop, this was her home, her real home before the Zombie apocalypse changed everything. This explained why she had been acting strange, and also confirmed his earlier doubts.

Just in case there was any trouble, Fingers rushed up the stairs as well but stood by the door. After all, this was quite a private matter, and he didn't wish to interfere too much.

"Mom!" Pink cried aloud while looking left, right and throughout the second floor. "Dad…Jasmine!"

There was no response, but Pink continued to look for them, searching their bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen, but she was unable to find them. It was clear that they weren't there, but when going into the bathroom, that was when she spotted something else.

"Huh..No…no…they have to be okay." Pink started to sob. The scene in front of her had shocked her.

Hearing this, Fingers ran into the room. It was easy to find Pink due to the noise she was making, and when he saw the scene in front of her, he pressed his hand onto her shoulder in consolation.

"You can't give up yet." Fingers said, "This is just blood. We don't know what happened, so don't jump to conclusions."

The room had streaks of blood inside, though there were no corpses, and when looking around the room, there were a lot of blood streaks on the walls as well. It wasn't an overly large amount, but clearly, there had been some type of struggle.

After around fifteen minutes, Pink had managed to regain her composure enough to leave the place. She had taken a contact diary that her parents kept. It had the names of those that possibly they would have gone to. Then she also took a family photo of all four of them.

In the photo was she herself, her sister, who was older than her by a few years, and her parents, all smiling at a local funfair.

With no leads and still in Chinatown, Pink decided it was time to get serious about her task, and it seemed like they were in luck. Just as Pink was about to exit the shop, Fingers pushed her back behind the door.

"Hey, watch where your hands are going, I know your names, Fingers, but that doesn't mean you can put your fingers wherever you want!" Pink complained.

Quickly, Fingers put a single finger to his mouth, indicating her to shush, as he pointed towards one of the cross sections of the street. Since Chinatown wasn't just a single row of streets with several shops, it had different sections and alleyways that could be explored as well.

"Man, this kid is tough, he looked like an easy one, but he really fought with all he had, didn't he." They heard a hoarse voice.

Both Pink and Fingers leaned forward, hiding their head mostly behind the exit of the shop, and around twenty metres away, walking across, they could see several people. Without a doubt, this group wasn't Reborns because even from the house, the two could smell that they were humans.

At first glance, there were two people in front with weapons, mostly crowbars or pipes. Behind them were two men, dragging a person across the road, and finally, there was a man at the very back, wearing a black suit, with a tattoo of a snake going up his neck.

"That's Cobra," Pink whispered.

"Who? Is he some type of celebrity or something?" Fingers asked.

"He's a well-known person in Chinatown because he's basically a gangster. He's the landlord that owns most of the land in this place, and he uses it to abuse the shopkeepers. There are a lot of Asian businesses here that thrive in this particular area.

"Taking advantage of immigration exploitation, Cobra charges more and more each year, and whenever he visits places, he expects the hosts to give him something for free otherwise, they might lose their shops."

"So he's a thug." Fingers said. "I guess we don't need to feel too bad about getting these guys' brains then, after all. Let's head back and tell Shark."

Pink wasn't so quick to move, though, she was watching what was happening, the person they were dragging looked young, and he was badly hurt. This was something she had seen happen once or twice in Chinatown, with these people before, those that tried to cross with them.n0𝗏𝗲𝗅𝑈𝐬𝗯.𝑪0𝔪

It was strange for Pink to see the same thing that was happening now despite the current situation. She was sure if anything like this was to happen, those with wealth and power currently it would mean nothing in a world like so.

"Shouldn't we follow them?" Pink asked. "I mean, we don't even know where they're heading yet. If we brought Shark back here, we would only know a general direction. At the same time, it looks like that other person they have hostage will die if we don't step in to help."

Fingers chuckled hearing this.

"Die? Are you really worried about that? Here we are willing to kill people, so we get to live, and we are in a world where people are dying left, right and centre, and now you're worried about a random kid's death? I know you feel bad at the moment, but you have to look reality in the face. We are Zombies. We are the ones that need to kill humans to live. We are not the Heros, so we don't need to start doing heroic stuff."

After hearing how Fingers put everything out like so, she understood that he was right. Perhaps it was because of her emotions after returning home, but she had to get a hold of herself. But just as she turned around to head back to where they had come from, she heard the others say one more thing.

"Come on, let's hurry and deal with this guy, that way, we can get back to that fine woman as quickly as possible!" A man chuckled.

Immediately, images of Pink's older sister appeared in her mind, and before Fingers could react, she was already racing ahead as she went towards Cobra and his gang.

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It was hard for Cody to get a sense of where he was even and what was happening around him. He had been beaten up so badly, that his vision was blurry, both of his eyes were swollen, and his whole body was aching. His condition was so severe that if the two guys dragging him across the street were to let go, he wasn't sure if he could even move a finger, much less stand up from the ground.

'What are these guys even planning to do with me? Why didn't they just kill me back there.' This was the biggest worry that Cody had in his head, and he just couldn't understand what the Cobra gang was attempting to do.

Earlier, when seeing their nefarious actions, Cody couldn't help himself but try to give him a chance for Kelly to escape. He himself was quite skilled, and he was aware of his strengths. In fact, from a young age, he was able to move faster than others making it difficult even for bigger kids at his school to mess with him.

It turned out that his ugliness and quickness were also an advantage in the current situation. Yet he still lost against this group, and it was all because of a person, in particular, the one who Cody had heard them call Cobra, the leader of the gang. The gap between him and the latter was so much that he could barely hold his ground against him.

"Pay attention, you two. Clear the area, and don't make too any noise." Cobra ordered.

Although the streets were relatively quiet, they weren't completely clear or void of zombies, and as the scent of the group wafted into their noses, those that were close by had proceeded to stop dragging their feet.

Around four zombies had caught the group's attention and began running toward them at different intervals. However, as soon as one got close, the men at the front swung their heavy weapons, hitting them cleanly on the head.

A crack was heard, and with a single hit, they were able to kill the zombie as it collapsed on the ground with a thud. Unfortunately, the man on the right wasn't so fortunate. Three Zombies had come his way, and just like the other guy, he swung his crowbar, hitting the zombie right in the head, killing it in a single blow.n0𝒱𝓮𝐿𝑈𝚜𝑩.𝗰0𝓜

As another of the Zombies went toward him, he swung his weapon again, giving out a wide swing. It had hit cleanly on the head, but the endpoint that curled ended up getting wedged into the head. The third zombie would be on him at any second, and there was nothing he could do.

The zombie's arms reached out, and its mouth opened wide to gobble him up when suddenly, a blade was stuck right into the Zombies mouth, killing it in a single hit. Now staring at the back of a man's neck, all one could see was the man with a tattoo of a snake running up his neck.

"I told you to be careful. I can't have more of you guys dying on me because of your stupid brains." Cobra shouted as he pulled the large knife out. It was black in colour and around 8 inches long.

It was a strange knife, to say the least, but it was due to it being custom-made. Once again though, the others had seen Cobra come right from the back, straight to the front to save them. This was part of the reason why they continued to follow him. Their leader was very powerful and swift.

Eventually, exiting the main area of Chinatown, a little behind all the shops, they had reached what looked like a large metallic warehouse. It was a shared space where shipments and packages would come in for all the shops from all over. However, Cobra had turned it into something else completely.

There was a large chain covering the front of the door, to stop anyone from trespassing, and of course only Cobra had the key. He soon unlocked it to allow the chains to fall to the floor. Entering inside the place, there looked to be a pair of crates and equipment that were pushed to the side, and also a few shipping crates at the back that had been tied up as well.

At the same time, Pink and Fingers were now on the outside of the warehouse. Standing just by the door, they were peeking in. It was a large warehouse that was quite deep, so the distance from the door and where the group were was great enough for them to be able to run if they did get caught.

Throwing a rope up to one of the metal beams, one of the men tied it around Cody's body. They soon tied up his arms and legs but left his mouth free .

Pulling the rope up and cutting it at the right point, now Cody was left hanging in the air.

"I can't believe it." Cobra said. "You caused all of this fuss over just one girl. Do you know even in the real world, women are attacked everyday? And now the whole world has changed and only the one who is strongest will rule.

"And those that are strongest, that provide protection and comfort for those around them, should be rewarded. The people below them should be lucky they are even alive in this world. So why can't I get a bit of pussy, for me risking my life to protect them, that's fair, right?

"But I understand your actions as well. A teenager like you, is probably quite the horny dog. You probably thought, hey, if I protect this woman, and show her how much of a white knight I am, then maybe she'll suck me off? Don't worry, we're all the same, so I understand and I like that you were brave enough to try to fight us, which is why I'm giving you a chance."

While Cobra was talking, two men had gone to gather bolt cutters, and then they ran up to the containers that were at the back of the room and chained up, and proceeded to cut them. Quickly they returned, and as soon as the container doors opened, zombies started to come out, crawling from the place.

There were hundreds of Zombies, around fifty or so bunched up in the two containers, however they were incredibly slow, some dragging themselves across the floor. This was because they had been severely injured.

Their legs, spine, arms and more were broken, to make them practically useless.

"This is your fighting chance, survive this if you can." Cobra said with a smile, but when turning around, he could see another female standing in front of him, in front of the entrance of the warehouse.

"You..You…" Pink was struggling to find the words. "What did you do to Jasmine?"

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Usually, the zombies one would come across would have some of their body parts missing, or maybe a few broken bones here and there, but they would still be able to function. It was the norm since, for one, Zombies couldn't feel pain, and second, the way they had died, either being chased down by others or fighting to the death for their lives before being bitten.

However, the Zombies coming out of the crate were different. Their arms were moving inward, bones were sticking out from their bodies, and many even had some of their limbs completely missing. In particular, there was one, a female zombie with short black hair.

She had her mouth open wide and was dragging herself across the floor. Using her hands and nails to dig into the ground, she pulled herself to move. It was the only way she could move because it looked like someone had ripped off her legs from the knee down.

There were bandages wrapped around the ends, soaked in blood. For Pink, this Zombie stood out more than any other.

"What did you do to my sister? What did you do to Jasmine!" Pink shouted while pointing toward the Zombie on the ground.

"Jasmine?" Cobra said with his finger on his chin. Even with the fact that two people now stood in his way, blocking the exit, he was unafraid and unfazed by the situation. Not to mention the zombies were moving incredibly slow from the container, and it would take around 5 minutes before they reached Cody.

On top of that, they would consume him before they moved on to the others.

"Ah, I remember, Jasmine, it was that girl, wasn't it? The poor thing." Cobra shook his head.

"You see, she was one of our first in the new world and was quite the feisty one," Cobra replied, grabbing his crotch, and the others laughed. "The only thing was, she kept thinking that she could try to escape, so in the end, we had no choice but to make some adjustments to her body. It wasn't our fault though, you see, for some reason, she didn't seem to survive the procedure and ended up turning into that. So we put her along with the rest of them."

Pink had her head lowered, and her fists were shaking, but tears weren't falling out from her face. No matter how hard she wanted to cry, it was as if her body just wouldn't let her. As for Fingers, he was taken aback and even took a step back.

'These people, I didn't even know these types of people existed. How could they do such things...just because the world has changed? It's not even been a week, and they're already acting like this?!' Every cell in Fingers' body was telling him to get out of the place.

What Fingers didn't know was that it was very easy for Cobra and his gang to do things like this because they had already been doing this before the zombies started to rise. People, in their eyes, were just products that could be sold to others in different ways.

Whether that was body parts, internal organs, or services they could provide, the gang members had long lost the emotional connection they had with their fellow humans, and now that their world was like this, any little bit of humanity they might have had before had completely disappeared.

"I'll kill you and do the same to you as you did to my sister!" Pink shouted at the top of her lungs.

It was then that one of the men next to Cobra pointed towards Pink's legs. Due to the situation, they hadn't noticed, but Pink's legs were covered in bite marks.

"Now, this is interesting, very interesting." Cobra licked his lips again. He was carefully observing the actions of the weird couple in front of him.

Pink was done with talking, and she couldn't take the sight of the man in front of her anymore, and she instantly ran forward, straight toward the Cobra gang.

"I'll kill you and then take my sister out of here!"

The two men with weapons from before stood in her way. They were ready, and when Pink was close enough to the first one, one of them swung the bar at her head. Moving to the side, Pink avoided the hit, and the crowbar crashed against the ground.n0𝐕𝐞𝗅𝔲𝑠𝒷.𝑐0𝓜

With a strong high kick right to the man's face, she made him fall over backwards, falling straight to the ground, and it didn't look like he was going to get up any time soon as an imprint and indent on his nose could be seen.

'It was a good kick, it looks like she's trained in fighting of some sort, and she has quite flexible hips as well, but what is with that power?' Cobra thought. 'A woman that size shouldn't be able to make a big guy like that fall over so easily, and it looks like he's knocked out cold, can't even get up. Ugh, do I have to handle everything now? What a bunch of useless tools.'

After seeing the first kick, the remaining three weren't going to take the opponent lightly. The small woman dressed in Pink was no longer a small threat. And upon seeing an opening, one of the men threw out a punch.

Trying to match it, Pink went for a kick. Her kick hit him right at the elbow, and his arm was whacked away. But before Pink could get her foot down, another one had run into her, and rugby tackled her, slamming her onto the ground and pinning her down with his knees.

"We fight every day. You think we can't deal with a little bitch like you?!" the man hollered.

Seeing this, Fingers realised that he would have to now get involved but wondered if he could. In the end, he made his decision and ran away.

"I'll get help!" Pink heard a fading voice.

Seeing this made Cobra and the other laugh out loud.

"Some friend you have there, it looks like you're all on your own now. Maybe if there were two of you and just as skilled as yourself, then I would have had to fight a bit more seriously." Cobra smirked.

Pink gritted her teeth while glaring at Cobra.

"Screw you!" Pink cursed and twisted her wrists as much as possible in order to get her nails into the right place to dig them right into the man's thigh.

Before the man could react, she had dug them in deep, causing him to scream and move his leg slightly. Instantly, Pink got her chance and was able to get up, but instead of going for a kick, or a punch, she opened her mouth wide and bit down hard on the man's neck.

'I don't care what happens to you guys. You can all go and eat each other for all I care!'

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Seeing the bite marks on Pink's legs, Cobra thought many things. First, he thought maybe this woman was already infected and had chosen to come to them even though she knew she would eventually turn. However, the bite marks were too many and based on what he had seen in the recent days, he had come to make a few deductions of his own.

A light scratch at times wouldn't turn someone into a Zombie, but it wasn't always the case and would actually depend on the victim's ability to resist the turning. However, a deep scratch would turn one into a zombie no matter how strong their will is. The time it would take was dependent on two things.

The person themselves, and how deep the wound itself was. However, a bite was what turned people the quickest, but even then, it would depend on where the bite was, the quicker or slower it would turn a person.

This was the same for the deep cut on one's body. The closer it was to the head, the quicker one would turn. This also made him conclude that whatever was infecting them, a virus or anything else, looked like it had to reach the brain for it to fully affect them.

To verify his theories, Cobra experimented with many members of his own and even on the people from Chinatown. Those who got bit or scratched, he cut off their limbs, hoping it would stop the infection, but it looked like it would still somehow reach the brain, and his experiments were quite unsuccessful in saving the people, but still verified his theory.

At the same time, with so many bite marks on one's legs, he believed that it was unlikely she had been bit recently, and what was more likely was the fact that she seemed immune and oblivious to them. This made Cobra's heart race at this point.

If they could capture her, how much would the scientists around the world pay them to use her? All he had to do was wait for the situation to worsen everywhere and then reveal his trump card. Pink was valuable in a world like this.n0𝒱𝓮𝐿𝑈𝚜𝑩.𝗰0𝓜

The only thing was, he was completely wrong, and never in his wildest dreams would he think that Pink, a person who could speak and move, was a Zombie herself. She latched onto the man's neck with her mouth, continuing to bite down as long as possible.

The veins on the man's neck started to bulge, and he could feel pressure in his head. A few seconds later, his eyes started to change, the skin on his outside began to turn paler, and at this moment, Pink had let go.

The man's entire body started to shake. The others stepped away, seeing the sudden turn of events. They had seen something like this happen before, but they couldn't believe it.

While everyone was in shock, Pink rolled on the floor and went past them, moving back towards the zombies that were creeping forward towards the hanging Cody.

She knew the zombies wouldn't attack her, so there was no problem, but there was someone she wanted to meet. Running forward, Pink fell to her knees as she could see her sister crawling with her arms.

"ARghhk!" Only gibberish came out of her sister's mouth and didn't make sense, but Pink still lifted up her body and embraced her with a hug.

"I'm sorry, Jasmine. I'm sorry I wasn't there." Pink clutched her tighter. "I'm sorry I was selfish and didn't help out with the family business. I'm sorry you had to take my place instead… I'm sorry I was such a bad sister!" She shouted. "Why…why didn't you turn out like me? Why couldn't you have become a Reborn like me!"

Meanwhile, the others had seen their ally stop shaking, his body stopped twitching, and slowly he got up from the floor and turned around. His mouth was left wide open hanging and loose, and he started to make noises and groans as he stared at his own companions.

"That bitch, she turned him, she f*cking turned Mike! How is that even possible?!" Shouted one of the men with a crowbar in his hands.

"Move." Cobra was still not worried about the situation.

Immediately, the men moved away from their friend Mike, and Cobra instantly appeared in front of Mike with his long black knife in his hand. Before the latter could react, he stabbed him right through the top of his skull with ease.

Then kicking his body, the knife came out from his skull, and Mike fell to the floor.

"No mistakes…otherwise, you're going to end up dead like him."

Seeing this all play out, Cody had somewhat come to a realisation, and his mind was clear, but his eyes were still swollen, so he wasn't at his best. Instead, he turned to possibly one person who could help them out in this room. He twisted his body, pivoting himself toward Pink.

The Cobra gang hadn't even bothered to tie up his mouth because they knew that if he did scream or shout, it would just attract more zombies toward him.

"Free me!" Cody asked. "Break me free, and I'll help you. I don't know what you are, and I don't care. You hate that guy, right? Well, I f*cking do too. So free me, and we can both kill these arseholes together."

His voice was hoarse, but it reached Pink.

And hearing his words, Pink put her sister back down and turned around. It was then through the door that she could see Fingers had returned.

'He came back. Did he get help as he said?' Pink thought.

"I'm sorry, Pink, I think we're screwed." Fingers said as he backed up, and there were three more men that had come in behind Fingers. None of them she recognised, and they were clearly human with machetes in their hands.

"Haha, so you managed to gather the whole gang for me? Excellent." Cobra suddenly laughed, "Now we don't have to chase after you."

Hearing this, Pink decided to take a gamble. She instantly used her sharp nails and strength to hit the rope from above. It had scratched a big chunk of it out, so she pulled the rest with her bare hands. As a Reborn, she had more strength than the average human, and it was working to her advantage.

After unknotting a few loops, Cody freed and jumped by Pink's side before anyone from the Cobra gang could react.

"What the f*ck! Do you think that little sh*t can help you?! hah!" Cobra snarled. "I'll kill all of you."

While Cobra was shouting, Cody muttered a few words to alert Pink.

"There's one thing you should know. That guy…we have to be careful...he's superhuman."

The second Cody finished his sentence, Cobra ran from where he was and was already across the room with his blade heading straight for Pink's neck.

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Although Cody had given a warning, it was hard to understand what he was talking about. What exactly did he mean when calling another person superhuman? However, it didn't take her long to find out, as she could see a knife being slashed toward her.

'How did he get here so fast? Wasn't he on the other side of the room? He covered around ten metres in an instant!' Pink was alarmed.

She suddenly felt a jerk on her hip as someone kicked her, and the blade had hit nothing but the air. Luckily, there was a teenage boy who knew what was coming, having fought against Cobra before, so he kicked Pink to save her from an incoming attack.

"You are annoying." Cobra flipped the blade, so now it was in his hand backwards and was going to strike Cody.

While on the ground, Pink saw what was going to happen, so she quickly got up and went to kick Cobra on the back of the leg, causing one of his legs to give in and bend slightly. Seeing this as an opportunity, Cody threw out a fist, but Cobra easily blocked it with his forearm.

There wasn't much strength in Cody's attack since he still hadn't recovered, and at the same time, he was a teenager whose body had yet to fully develop. This disadvantage was what propelled Cody to use weapons.

He was skilful, fast and agile, but the first time around, when they fought, he never expected someone to have a super speed like him.

Still, Pink was already up and ready to attack again. Throwing her own hand out with her sharp nails, ready to dig them into Cobra's temple. Hearing the grunts, Cobra quickly sped up and ran straight back away to where the group was, making Pink's attack hit nothing but the air.

"You monster." Cobra snarled, "I can't even fight against you fairly. If you hit me even once, I'm done for."

This was true, and Pink knew it as well, which was why she was trying to use her zombie self to her advantage.

While this fight was ongoing, Fingers was fighting for his own life as well.

He was avoiding the deadly machetes. It was a large bladed weapon, and it was hard to defend against it. In the first place, out of everyone in the Reborn, Fingers wasn't a fighter. He had learnt a few things from Shark, but even Jelly, who had been left behind, was a better option for fighting compared to him.

Still, his Zombie self had a slight advantage over humans, like feeling no pain and the extra increase in strength. Another thing was, if he got wounded, it wouldn't really be fatal unless it was a blow to the head. Because of this, he was able to avoid all the strikes from the others and quickly ran to where Pink and Cody were.

Cobra could see now that the three that were on the same side were now standing together.

"I'll deal with the troublesome one. You guys get rid of the extras." Cobra ordered and set his eyes on Pink.

There were six people in the Cobra gang, and five of them had brandished their weapons as they walked toward Cody and Fingers. Their odds didn't look good at all.

"I think I have a plan." Fingers gulped while whispering to Cody, "The zombies, they're right behind us. Let's run into them."

"What!" Cody shouted.

"I mean all of us, you don't understand, the zombies won't attack Pink or me, but at the same time, the others will be reluctant to jump in. We can use them as a type of shield. They might go after you, but Pink and I can protect you."

It sounded like a crazy idea, but Cody didn't know what else to do.

And before he could even decide, he noticed that Fingers was already on the move, and Pink glanced back and forth between the two of them. In the end, she grabbed Cody's shirt, and they were now going with the flow.

Fingers pushed some of the Zombies out of the way as they got in deeper and deeper. The zombies started to turn as they got a certain smell, and soon, the three of them were standing in the middle of the hoard.

Pink started to kick some of the Zombies away while Fingers was pushing them. They didn't need to kill them but just keep them from getting Cody. Honestly, his heart was racing as he stood in the middle of this all. He could see some hands breaking through the two of them and reaching out, but they were quickly hit away by the other two.

The only good thing was that these zombies were already injured and beyond hurt, so it was easy for the two of them to push them back.

"Boss, what do we do now?" One of the men asked.

"It's simple. We get them and kill every single one of these zombies!" Cobra growled. He was the first one to use his blade and stick it right into the skull of one of the zombies.

The gang members came out strong and swung their crowbars and machetes at the heads of the zombies one by one.

"Make sure you kill them all, don't let them get behind us. Otherwise, you risk yourself getting turned!" Cobra warned.

The three of them at the other end gulped. They had never expected this gang to risk their lives for this. This wasn't part of Fingers' plan. He thought there was just too much risk for a human to dive into a horde of zombies even if they were weakened just to kill some people.

In his head, the rational thing a normal human would do was to run away, but everyone was different, and these people, especially Cobra, didn't view Zombies as such a scary thing. They had put all of these guys in the container for their own entertainment in the first place.

"Now what we do, this is only going to buy us about three minutes at this rate," Cody explained.

"Buy time." Fingers replied. "Maybe if we just buy enough time, the others will come to help us…and..and they should get tired from fighting the zombies. This is still the best plan, we just have to stick with it."

"Just be ready to fight, human," Pink said as she kicked one of the Zombies so hard in the stomach that she sent them toward their attackers. It hadn't died but soon turned to one of the nearby gang members, only to get stabbed right on the top of the head.

"Oh, what's this one?" Cobra said out loud.

Looking at Cobra, one could see he was standing in front of a zombie and was looking down at the ground. There was a single one that was coming toward him, trying her best as she pulled on the floor.

"If I remember correctly, isn't this your dear sister? Well, this is great. Now I get to kill her twice." Cobra laughed as he lifted the blade in his hand.

"I can't watch this!" Pink said as she went to leave the circle, but Fingers quickly grabbed onto her hand.

"Pink, you sister, she's not like us... she's already dead. Our priority is to survive." He pleaded.

Shaking Fingers off, Pink didn't care, but when she turned back around, it was too late. Cobra had stabbed his black dagger right into Jasmine's head. She was no longer moving, it was clear the zombie was dead, but even so, he lifted the blade out of her head and stabbed her again in the head.

"Haha, this might be more fun than when she was alive!" Cobra continued to laugh as he did the same action over and over, just digging his blade into the dead zombie's head.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Pink screamed, and not being to take it anymore, she ran through the Zombie horde, knocking over some of them in the process while heading straight for Cobra.

"I guess it's time for a change of plans!" Fingers muttered, knowing that he wouldn't be able to hold them all off on his own. He ran out as well, and Cody followed closely. They were out of the pit of zombies but now were back to where they had started and were here a lot sooner than Fingers had expected.

Seeing Pink continue to run toward Cobra, he grabbed his black blade and threw it straight toward her. In an instant, it had gone right through into her stomach, and blood poured out, but it didn't slow her down for a second.

"You really are a monster!" Cobra smiled as he stood up with the bloodied knife in his hand

The others were now standing between Cobra and Pink and were ready to give the final blow to Pink.n0𝒱𝔢𝒍𝓤𝒮𝐁.𝐜0𝗆

"Stop!" A voice shouted from the back.

The instant everyone inside heard this voice, they halted, and when turning around, they saw two men standing there. Both of them had similar scars over their body, like Fingers and Pink, and in their hands and on their back were several weapons.

"There are…more of you?" Cobra said as he looked at both Shark and Kun.

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The Cobra gang had taken out most of the zombies from the crate. There were a few still walking around, but the gang effortlessly finished them in single strikes.

They had also done so in an intimidating way so their new guests would know who they had messed with.

"This is really interesting. You guys are the first zombies that I have found who have some intelligence. This is going to be a huge payday!!" After finishing the last of the zombie, Cobra stared at Shark and Kun and licked his lips again.

"Payday?" Shark replied as he held a spear in his hand. He wasn't yet comfortable in using long weapons or these types of weapons, but in the weapon room Kun had found, there were too many choices that he went with the most logical one.

A spear gave him a versatility advantage, and he wouldn't have to get close to those he would attack and could stay quite a distance away.

"Do you really think that money still matters in our world? The old world order is gone, and if you try to take us, then I will make you pay in other ways." Shark replied, hitting the bottom of his spear on the ground.

One of the men holding a machete covered in blood and a piece of human flesh chuckled at this.

"Screw you!" the man said as he charged at the former. "I hate dogs who are all bark but no bite."

Seeing the person come in, Kun took a step back. He had a heavy backpack on him, filled with weapons inside, and as for the one he had picked for himself, it was a ball and chain. The chain had a heavy spiked ball at the end, which could do severe damage to enemies when swung.

Still, with the bag full of other weapons, whose even handles could be seen sticking out the top, he decided to let Shark deal with this. Stabbing the tip of the spear into the ground, Shark went to use his hands instead.

He watched the machete carefully as it was swung down, moving to the side. Shark then quickly grabbed the wrist of the attacker and twisted it, forcing the man to let go of the machete. He then twisted the man's entire arm and turned him around. The next second he used his knee to put pressure on him and kicked him to the ground, and the man was now on his knees.

'He…did that on purpose.' Cobra noticed.

Shark had not inflicted any wounds on the man. He hadn't used a weapon and yet quickly took out a street fighter. It was clear that this wasn't an average person beyond being a zombie, and Shark had done all of this on purpose.

"Leave my people," Shark said.

Just when he finished those words though, Cobra instantly appeared right in front of him and picked up the spear Shark had stabbed into the ground.

"Thanks for the new weapon," Cobra smirked.

Then taking it out of the ground, he swung it wide to hit Shark. Unfortunately, it was too close to use the sharp pointed end, and instead, the wooden handle hit Shark on the side.

Using his armpit, Shark had grabbed onto the spear and slammed his other hand on the handle, breaking it in an instant. Seeing this, Cobra removed a black blade from his trousers and slashed it across right at Shark, taking advantage of the distraction.

However, Shark blocked the attack with his forearm, although he received quite a deep cut. Finally, Shark threw out a fist, but it hit nothing as Cobra had already retreated to his earlier position.

'What is this…how is this person so fast? It's almost inhuman...no, it is inhuman, I'm sure of it. Does this person have some type of special power?' Shark wondered. 'Fighting against this gang could be dangerous for us. It's better if we just leave and find another group. There are plenty out there, and we can still survive a couple of days more with a single brain. This is just too risky.'

At the same time, Cobra was thinking along the same lines. After seeing Shark fight, he knew it was not worth the risk to try to win this battle without getting hit by these guys.

"Alright, I'll hear you out," Cobra said after making up his mind, "I'm assuming you want your two zombie friends, right? Well, let's say you can have one of them."

Hearing this, Shark held out his hand, and immediately Kun knew what to do, as he placed a dagger into it from his backpack.

"Both, or we fight." Shark replied and looked Cobra right in the eyes.

In the end, Cobra let out a big sigh.

"Alright, fine, you can have both, but we get to keep the human boy. You see, he disrespected us, and we won't let him go even if he's a part of your zombie group."

By now, Pink had pulled the blade which Fingers had thrown at her stomach to stop her. She looked back at the human who had helped her earlier. This human had saved her life. It didn't feel right to just leave him here.

But before Pink could even speak up, Shark had already made up his mind.

"Deal."

Hearing this, Pink was unsure if she could say anything to Shark, and she knew that in his head, this was the best deal to make, and he would not change his mind. After all, to him, the Reborn took higher priority than humans.

Nodding his head, it looked like Cobra had agreed to the deal, and slowly, both Pink and Fingers walked across the warehouse. They were cautious as they walked past the gang members, but the gang stayed true to their word and didn't try anything funny.

When Pink finally got over to Shark, she thought she might as well try something.n0𝒱ℯ𝓵𝑢𝗌𝒷.𝕔0𝐦

"Shark, is there really nothing we can do? That kid saved my life."

Shark shook his head.

"If we fight, there is a good chance that more than one of us will die. If I was on my own, maybe, but with his speed, there is a high chance of all of you dying and me being the only one left alive. That is not exactly a good trade if you ask me."

Just as Pink thought, Shark would have his reasons for doing these things. As she turned around, Cody saw the disheartened look on her face, but for some reason, he wasn't upset.

At least he had managed to save someone.

When leaving the warehouse, the Reborn group wanted to get away from Chinatown as much as possible, but to their surprise, a person was walking toward them. In fact, it was Nnt just one but two.

"Zain? What are you doing here? How did you know where we were?" Kun asked.

"I didn't," Zain replied. "I've just been going around everywhere."

Now that Zain was relatively close to the warehouse, with a whiff of his nose, he could smell a human.

"Hey, check what we found. Take any you like," Kun said as he opened his back, revealing a bunch of weapons. Immediately, Zain went to pick one by the handle. It was a short sword, something the knights of the mediaeval era used to use.

"Pink, Fingers, you should pick one as well. If none of these looks good, we can head back to the shop where we found them to get more." Kun said.

Holding the sword in his hand, Zain slashed it in the air a few times and came to like it, but he was far more concerned about something else.

"I smell humans from that area, so why are you guys walking away?" Zain went straight to the point. From the look on all of their faces, it seemed like something that they didn't want to talk about.

"It's a gang," Shark replied. "It's best if we don't get involved with them and move on."

With that said, Shark started to move away, but he soon stopped as he noticed that Zain wasn't following them.

"Zain...are you coming?" Kun asked as he put the backpack on.

Images of Kelly strapped to the chair flashed through Zain's mind, but then they changed to images of another woman, beaten as well, making him tightly grip his sword.

"Skittle, follow them," Zain ordered as he went off to walk. "I won't let these people live."

Walking right up to the door of the warehouse, Zain pulled out one of the knives he had tucked into his belt and threw it, instantly hitting one of the gang members right in the head and causing him to fall to his death.

The gang was alarmed and stunned. They instantly turned around, only to see a teen with a hoodie at the entrance.

"Who the f*ck are you!" Cobra shouted. He had just dealt with a zombie group, and now someone else had disturbed them. And this guy even dared to kill one of his men? Cobra was incensed.

Backed into a corner, pressed up against the wall, Cody could only move his eyes, and when he looked at the face of the person at the entrance, he couldn't help but wonder if he was fantasising about things.

"Zain…?"

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n0𝗏𝔢𝓵𝗎𝔰𝑏.𝓒0𝓂

The warehouse was located up a gentle slope, so the others were unable to see what was happening right now, but they could hear the commotion inside it. It was clear that Zain had started a fight right now.

"Should we go inside and help him?" Pink asked.

"My answer remains the same," Shark shook his head. "Right now, it is too risky to fight against that superhuman. Look at the wound that he inflicted on your stomach. If we were to go in, there is a high chance that at least one of us would die."

There were multiple reasons why Pink wanted to go inside. Of course, a lot of it was driven by anger and thurst for revenge, wanting to get back at the one who had killed her sister and also to help out the one that had saved her life, but she wasn't sure she could do much on her own. Hence she needed Shark's help.

Nothing the clenched fist Shark knew he needed to say more to convince her.

"Look, why do you think he even told his friend to stay behind with us rather than take him along? His friend is strong, yet he didn't take him with him." Shark explained.

"I understand what you're saying, I really do, but then what if just the two went in there," Kun suggested. "Won't that give Zain a better chance at surviving?"

There was silence from Shark at the moment, as if he was debating it himself.

"Why did Zain go in there?" Shark asked. "Most likely because there were humans, but even after telling him that it was dangerous and we had decided not to go inside, he had decided to go anyway.

"I'll be honest, we are a group, and a group needs order. Zain is a loose cannon. In some situations, that can be good and work out as long as we can channel that canon in some way. Either way, we can't all get dragged down with him, and he needs to learn the consequences of his actions. We will wait here for now."

The group was now feeling. Even Pink was biting her fingernails or not because she desperately wanted to go inside. She had seen how skilful Cobra was, but if Shark felt like he couldn't defeat him, could Zain really do this on his own?

Meanwhile, Kun was looking at Shark in a different light.

'Are you testing him?' He wondered.

——

Inside the warehouse, Zain instantly dealt with the first human by throwing out the small knife. His advantages were his increased strength, and he happened to be quite a good aim with throwing knives. This was something that he would practice in his dorm, albeit with pens.

Observing the person in front of him, Cobra had assumed he was a human since he didn't quite look like the zombie group he had just fought against.

'This person just came and attacked us straight away…there was no hesitation in the killing. That's not normal. He's like us, which means he's dangerous.' He thought.

Just then, one of the men with a machete ran forward, and Zain held onto his newly gained sword. He didn't really know how to use it, although he had practised swinging sticks a few times, a sword's weight and balance were different.

However, his supernatural strength allowed him to make up for a few things. Seeing the machete come his way, Zain swung the sword and hit the machete so hard that part of the sword got stuck in the machete itself.

The gang member's grip loosened as he had to let go. His entire arm felt numb from the attack. After pulling the machete off from his sword, Zain swung it down, chopping off the man's arm, causing him to cry in pain.

"You guys were the ones that hurt her, aren't you?" Zain asked.

The man was screaming now that his arm was missing, screaming so loud that there was a good chance it would attract other zombies, And because of this, Zain had no choice but to finish him off as he swung the sword cleanly diagonally, instantly chopping off the man's head.

There was next to no hesitation as Zain looked at the other gang members.

"I'll ask again, were you the ones that hurt her?"

The gangsters were a little more frightened for Zain by now than they were of the Reborn group when they came in. There was a certain look in his eye that screamed madness. They turned to each other and also turned to the one that could help them out in this situation.

"Woman?" Cobra asked with a slight smile while also taking another large black dagger from his back. He now held one in each hand. "There have been a lot of women that we have met during our time, I'm afraid I do-"

"Hairdressers." Zain cut him off. "The women at the hairdressers, she said there was a group…and a man that had a cobra tattoo around his neck." He added while pointing his sword.

Hearing this, Cody started to gain a little understanding. He knew straight away that he was talking about Kelly.

'Did Zain…did he come all of this way because of her? But they hardly know each other, why is he so mad right now?'

"Ah, that woman," Cobra replied. "We haven't done anything to her yet, but we definitely plan to."

Cody saw that Cobra was moving his feet slightly.

"Zain!" Cody shouted. "Be careful! He has super speed!"

Knowing that his gang would be able to do nothing in this fight to help, Cobra was still confident he could win because, for some reason, in this new world, when it all started, his body had gone through a change. It was a gift from the heavens that he told him he was meant to be special in this world.

Running from his spot, Cobra had reached Zain and thrust one of the daggers right towards his head, but Zain had lifted his hand, and the dagger went right through, but it had stopped right there as Zain had grabbed Cobra's hand.

The dagger went into the palm of Zain, and it was through to the other side. Blood oozed out, but Zain didn't show an ounce of pain.

"Thank you, Cody, but I already knew."

[New quest has been received]

[A true superhuman has been discovered]

[Quest: Survive or defeat the superhuman]

[Reward: unknown]

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The system message had popped up the moment Zain stepped into the warehouse. It was why he knew that someone in the room had to be special, and he just had a feeling that it was the man at the very back of the room.

It was a little strange since a prompt like this hadn't appeared when he was around Buke or around Clark. Both of them also showed traits of superhuman capabilities, which meant one of two things. The two of them were still growing stronger, and the system had yet to recognise them as superhuman.

Or, in a case like this, it never saw them as a threat while the system had shown it now. Cody's little shout had also given Zain the knowledge he needed. Thinking about it, he wondered what he would do in the other situation.

If it was him, then he would use his speed, the element of surprise and everything he could to finish off his opponent in one hit. So he knew Cobra's next target would be his head, which was why Zain was ready.

Zain blocked the knife attack once again with his left hand while holding the sword in his right.

"You should have never gotten this close to me," Zain said as he held onto Cobra's hand.

Cobra tried to yank his arm away, but it wasn't budging at all.

'His strength…this person, he's not normal as well. I made…I made a mistake!'

It was a desperate situation, and for the first time in a long time, Cobra was panicking. With his other hand free and a dagger in it, he went to attack Zain. He was faster, and Zain couldn't hit him with the sword. The only thing he could do was lift his forearm, so it got in the way.

When the dagger cut through Zain's arm, it didn't make a deep cut and only gave a light wound.

'His skin, why is it like leather?' Cobra cursed inwardly.

"Come on! Get this guy off me!" He shouted and called for his gang.

A clang was heard, and Zain dropped his sword to the ground. Then he used his other hand to grab Cobra's shoulder and pulled him in. It was too close for Cobra to attack Zain's head.

"I hate people like you the most," Zain said as he opened his mouth and bit right into the shoulder and neck of Cobra.

One of his arms was stuck, the dagger still through Zain's hand, while the other, he had been grabbed by the shoulder, barely able to move. Cobra moved his elbow, using the dagger as best he could, but it couldn't even pierce his skin.

The endurance that Zain had gained made it so a weak attack would hardly work. The only reason why the first attack had somewhat succeeded was that rather than a slashing motion, it was a stabbing one, while at the same time, the extra speed had given a lot of force to the attack.

In the end, Cobra found himself losing strength in his body. While his skin colour started to change, Zain received a system message.

[You have successfully defeated a super human]

[Quest reward: 1000 Exp]

[First-time reward: 5000 exp]

[You have successfully turned a human into a part of your horde]

[Reward: 10 exp]

[2/15 Horde]

[Quest has been updated]

[Form your horde]

[Horde: 2/10]

[Hidden Quest accomplished: Turn a Superhuman]

[Reward: 100 exp]

[Note: Superhumans are more resistant to the special virus strain]

[Chances of being turned vary from person to person]

One after another, the system prompts appeared in front of Zain. The truth was, Zain just wished to inflict as much pain on this person as possible, and he couldn't think of a better way than turning him into a Zombie himself.

But from the looks of it, it was able to do a number of things. By the time he let go of Cobra, the other gang members were now extremely worried.

"Cobra…Cobra was turned… he's a zombie now."

Cobra was looking toward them, and he still had both daggers loosely held in his hand. At the same time, Cody couldn't believe what he was seeing.

'Zain…you were one of them. You're with those guys from earlier, aren't you? Now it makes sense about what we saw in that video. No wonder you were able to get out of that place.'

Opening the system, Zain brought up the horde tab and noticed that along with Skittle, there was Cobra as well on the list.

Skittle was level 2, while Cobra was level 1. However, there was something even more surprising than that, and it was the stats.

[Name: Cobra]

[Race: Super Undead]

[Strength: 0]

[Agility: 5]

[Intelligence: 2]

[Vitality: 0]

Unlike Skittle, who had no such stats when he was at Level 1, the superhuman already had stats. It seemed to be linked to how strong they were before they were turned as well, as there were already a few points in agility.

'Intelligence two, I mean, that guy didn't seem like the smartest person, but let's see how this goes.'

n0𝒱ℯ𝓵𝑢𝗌𝒷.𝕔0𝐦

With the newest member of his horde, Zain pointed to the gang members.

"Attack."

Immediately, the Zombie Cobra ran from where he was toward the man who had a crowbar. The man swung towards Cobra's head in panic, but the Zombie Cobra ducked and used the blade to stab him right in the stomach and next right up through the chin.

'He can…use weapons, and it looks like he is as skilful as he was before. Is this because of intelligence stats? It must have something to do with it.'

The only thing was, Zain didn't really get any exp for killing humans, only for turning them. Either way, this was better. Since he wasn't using his hands or teeth, it meant that he wasn't turning them either.

Although creating a horde was good, at this point and time, Zain still felt like it was a bad idea, and besides, he needed something else, their brains.

After a minute of screaming or so, everything calmed down in the warehouse. The noise had stopped, and Cobra was standing in the middle of a blood pool, surrounded by the corpses of his men.

'This whole trip has gone better than I thought.'

"Zain…" Cody finally asked, getting up from the floor. "Who are you?"

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There was no one left in the room, or at least no one left alive in the room, other than Zombie Cobra, Zain and Cody in the very back. For a good while, Cody just stared at Zain and thought back to everything he had seen, putting it all together.

"Kelly," Zain said. "She's alive, tied up in the hairdressers in Chinatown near the entrance. When you get out of here, go save her."

Cody shook his head as he was snapped out of his daze.

"Thank you…" Cody replied. "Thank you for saving Kelly and me as well, but what do you mean, Zain? Aren't you coming with me? The two of us can get her together."

Hearing this response from Cody surprised Zain. It was clear the former had seen what he had done, and the fact that Cobra was a zombie standing there next to him made it clear as day, yet he wanted him to go along with him.

The unexpected response had made Zain go silent.

"Is it because of what you are?" Cody asked. "Did this happen to you because we left you at the department store…or were you-" He stopped there, unsure if his next words would be considered rude or not.

"Cody…right. I remember you from the department store. I came here as a favour because you helped me back then. I don't know why I'm like this, I just didn't get turned for some reason.

"Anyway, my debt has been paid back. So just stay inside here, and then, around fifteen minutes after I leave, you go to Kelly." Zain said as he went to one of the dead bodies lying motionless on the floor and then bent down on his knees to take a look.

"Wait," Cody called out. "You saved Kelly and me. I'm sure she won't care what you are. I mean, you are more human than them. You can speak and think, just like us. Honestly, if the situation wasn't like it was before, I would have followed you, and I believe Kelly would have come for sure."

Zain smiled back at the teenager. He always liked something about him from the beginning, but maybe because he was still a teenager, he had yet to understand the situation fully.

Pulling out a knife from his belt, Zain cut the top part of the skull, blood gushing out, and started pulling at it with his bare fingers, cracking the top of it open. It was so gruesome that Cody had no choice but to look away.

"Cody, you, me and the people out there are very different. This is how I have to live now. It's too dangerous to travel with me. Maybe one day, this could be you on the ground, and even if I can control my own actions, you saw the people before, right? I can't control theirs."

After that, Zain went to the rest of the dead bodies on the ground of the Cobra gang members. He also found a bag in the warehouse that one of the men seemed to have used to bring the rope to tie up Cody.

Zain carefully placed each brain in the bag, and while his back was turned away from Cody, he began to eat down on one. Since he had done all the work, he thought the others couldn't complain, but he wasn't going to tell them anyway. He needed his body at as close to 100 percent body functionality to stay as strong as possible.

Level 5

[6,318/10,005 exp]

Strength: 1

Agility: 0

Intelligence: 1

Endurance: 2

'Even after all that Exp bonuses I got, I still couldn't level up. Levelling up will get much harder unless I start grinding out Quests and mutated zombies. Still, I got a lot out of this trip. Cobra was a big bonus.' Zain glanced at the latter and set the command to follow as he was ready to leave.

"Zain!" Cody called out. "If it doesn't work out with your current group you are with, then you will always be welcome with me. You saved my life."n0𝓋𝓮𝓁𝔲𝒮𝗯.𝑐0𝓶

Zain didn't turn around and continued to walk out of the warehouse while thinking that if he hadn't turned into a zombie, the two of them would have made quite the team together in this world.

After heading down the slope, Zain and the others were surprised to see each other. It looked like the group had waited for him to see the outcome, but they were even more stunned about what was following behind Zain, holding two daggers in his hands.

"That's…. that's that Cobra guy!" Pink said, still filled with anger, but after carefully observing Cobra, her anger started fading away as she noticed certain zombie-like features on him and a huge bite mark on his neck.

'This is…what is this? Has he now gotten control over Cobra as well? Just like his friend Skittle?' Shark thought. 'That Cobra was no easy opponent, but he managed to defeat him and now controls him as well. How is this possible? I should contact the base about this.'

"This one, you can call my pet," Zain said, pointing his thumb back towards Cobra. "He follows me now and here; take this."

Zain took off the backpack and threw it towards Fingers, who managed to catch it and could smell something coming from the bag straight away. Once he unzipped it, everyone took a peek and saw that it was exactly what they were looking for.

"You got Brains! Does that mean you managed to kill them? There are so many in here!" Kun exclaimed in excitement.

"What about the boy?" Pink asked. "There was a boy in there. What happened to him."

"He...was already dead when I got in there," Zain replied as he continued to walk forward and went up to Shark. "The Brains are my gift. I hope I have shown my worth in this group."

'This guy...I just hope he really is on our side.' Shark thought.

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Even though it had yet to be nightfall, the group decided to head back now that they had completed their main objective: to find more brains.

They had enough to last them for at least three weeks, and the brains needed to be stored properly so they could last that long for everyone.

What the others couldn't help but keep looking at though, was the new Zombie that followed Zain, Cobra. Skittle and Cobra followed closely behind Zain, and Pink was still quite infuriated. Whenever she saw Cobra's face, she had this urge to just stab him.

Yet, at the same time, she was quite satisfied with his state after what he had done to her sister and was enjoying every moment of him being a mindless undead.

"So, any person you have turned to just happens to start following you like this?" Kun asked since Zain couldn't avoid giving a better explanation. Still, he avoided telling them anything about the System or that he wasn't a typical Reborn Zombie.

"Yeah, they listen to what I say. I thought the first one might have been a fluke, or I thought others would be like me as well, but I guess not." Zain replied.

"Wait, does that mean you were also the one that turned your friend? What happened between you guys?" Fingers asked.

Immediately, the others felt sweat coming down their face, and Zain just stared at Fingers, not answering the question. In the end, Kun kicked Fingers.

"What the hell are you asking that question for? Do you really have a death wish or something?" Kun asked.

"It seems like there are differences even amongst us, Reborns." Shark stated. "This world has changed a lot more than we originally thought. For instance, that Cobra. He is the first Superhuman I have ever seen."

Hearing this, Zain was quite surprised. He knew that Shark had to be getting his information from somewhere either currently or in the past before all of this happened, but Zain had met a few superhumans before, which was why it hadn't come as a surprise to him.

'Maybe whoever he's working for doesn't know everything.' Zain thought.

Eventually, they made it back to the club. After doing the secret knock code, they were let in by Jelly on the other side. He looked to be doing well, and the place seemed just as good as how they left it earlier today.

Due to the tense situation, everyone felt like they needed to sit or lie down.

"Everyone did well today. We will rest and maybe have a break tomorrow while deciding what to do next."

The others seemed happy about this because there was a lot on their mind. The only thing was, there wasn't much for them to do, so all they could do was think.

Fingers gathered the crystals they had obtained and placed them back in the room. Kun was looking for an area to display the new weapons they got. In the meantime, he thought he might even train with a few of them, so he and Jelly were moving tables to make an open place where they could train better.

Then there was Pink, who had decided to just sit at the bar, with her fingers running through her head. Zain was keeping an eye on Shark, but it looked like the latter was keeping an eye on him as well.

Which was why he had decided to head toward Pink. It seemed like she knew something about Cody, and although Zain wanted to forget about them, he was worried and wondered how they were doing.

"Go away," Pink said. "If you're going to bring that Cobra guy here, then please just go away."

Zain shook his head and ordered Cobra to walk up to the wall on the other side of the room. Then, when the latter reached it, he ordered him to stay, and now Cobra's zombie self was just standing on the spot while staring at a wall. It was strange how obedient he was.

"You look troubled, and I know it's not my place to ask and probably not the best person to talk to, but I was just wondering what happened before I arrived at the warehouse. What did that Cobra guy do?" Zain asked.

Filled with anger and sadness, it wasn't hard for Pink to speak and get everything off her chest. After hearing about what happened, including when entering her apartment, Zain's clenched fists trembled with anger.

"I was right. These people are the worst!" Zain expressed, nearly breaking the top of the bar counter.

Pink noticed how filled with rage Zain was. It was strange after listening to a story to be...this angry. It made sense for her because of what had happened to her sister, but Zain was mainly a bystander in all this. Was he an extremely empathic person?

n0𝒱𝑬𝐋𝑢𝓈𝗯.𝗰0𝑚

'I remember when he entered the warehouse, it was almost as if he had a goal. But, like Shark said, why did Zain go into that warehouse? It wasn't just because he wanted the brains. Did something happen?' Pink wondered.

Although she was curious, she was too afraid to ask in case something similar to what happened to Fingers would also end up happening to her. In the end, Zain got up and left, leaving Skittle behind to keep Pink company.

She seemed to not care where he was going, and neither did the others, as they were busy with their own things. However, Zain was heading to the last place he had seen Shark and passing by the office, he could hear the latter's voice as if he was talking to someone.

"What do you mean this wasn't part of your predictions?" He heard Shark's frustration-filled voice, "If you knew about it, then you should have informed us immediately. Anyway, have you looked into what I asked for…."

'Is he on a telephone call…no, the telephones don't work. So it must be that radio system he has in the office.'

"I see," Shark replied. "If he doesn't match anyone, I will continue to proceed cautiously. Maybe we can use him to help us."

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It was hard for Zain to figure out the full conversation just by listening through the door since he could hear Shark but not the other side, but there was one thing that was certain. Shark was working with others, and Zain was pretty sure that he was gathering members of the Reborn for another reason.

'Based on his fighting skills and his coordination, he really seems to be part of the military or at least the government. Different factions might be involved in all of this, each trying to do their own thing.'

In the end, it looked like the conversation was ending, and Zain had to make a swift exit out of the place, heading back to the bar area. Just so it didn't look like he was just waiting around, Zain had decided to head over to Kun.

Out of everyone there, Kun seemed to know the most about Shark. Not only that though, but he was also setting out all of the weapons that he had gathered from the shop and had cleared out an area to create a fighting area.

Right now, Kun was just widely swinging two random curved swords with red tassels on the end. At the same time, he was making strange noises as he swung each of them, like he was in some type of kung fu movie.

"Have you found a weapon you liked yet?" Zain asked.

Kun placed the swords down and picked up a single-handed axe.

"Not really, but I mean, there were so many weapons in the place. I think I might go back and bring some more. What about you, you seem to like that sword, do you know how to use that as well?

"Did they teach you how to use swords like they did guns in university?" Kun asked sarcastically.

Zain carefully pulled it out from his belt. He had yet to create or make a proper holder for it. Ideally, he would have liked one on his back. Maybe if they headed back to the shop, there would be the type of thing he was looking for, but it was now nighttime, so there was no leaving the place.

"I've practised swinging a stick before, but it's not really the same thing," Zain replied, but then a certain idea popped into his head. "I wonder."

Looking at Cobra, Zain had given him the order to attack. The next second, Cobra ran from the wall he was looking at and started heading straight across the room. Not just at anyone, it was toward Zain.

The two black daggers were in his hands, and he immediately swung one out to attack, aiming for his throat. Lifting the sword up in time, the two weapons clashed, but Zain was clearly stronger, able to hold the weapon firmly.

Straight after, Zain swung his sword in a vertical fashion, but Cobra leapt back and quickly charged in again, but before he could do any damage to Zain, he had made an order telling him to stop, which he did instantly.

'Now that's really interesting. Unlike Skittle, Cobra seems to also avoid attacks and not just mindlessly attack whatever I tell it to. This has to be due to the intelligence, and why he can use weapons as well.

'If I level up Skittle, then maybe he can do the same, and maybe he might be able to speak one day.'

"Whoa, what was that? Did Cobra get his memories back there for a second?" Kun asked.

"No, I ordered him to attack me," Zain replied. "It's good training. Do you want to have a go?"

Immediately Kun started to shake his head.

"No thanks. I mean, when I saw him the first time, he was a problem, but now he's a zombie. He won't even feel any pain if the two of us fight."

It was true; honestly, Zain wasn't even sure if he could use him as a training partner. Cobra was simply too fast. Looking at his speed, if Cobra had the element of surprise, if Zain's system didn't tell him he had super powers, or Cody didn't shout out, then it would have been a difficult fight for Zain to win.

It was a number of different factors that allowed him to win that fight.

While the two were conversing, Shark was seen crossing the side of the stage and heading into a different room. A door was heard being shut behind him.

"Where is he going? I don't think there was anything in those rooms?" Zain asked.

"There are rehearsal rooms for bands that used to come and play on stage. There is nothing in them, which is why Shark didn't bother showing them to you. However, Shark trains every day with his body, fighting and all sorts in there for an hour.

"After that, he invites us in one on one for some training and to improve our fighting skills. Now that I've cleared the tables though, maybe we will fight out here, or he'll teach us a lesson on weapons." Kun explained. "You might want to prepare yourself because Shark is strong."

"Good idea." Zain said, maybe I'll go rest in one of those rooms myself." Zain said as he walked away and looked at the main floor. Everyone was accounted for apart from Shark, which meant the main office was now open.

Heading inside, the large radio device could be seen. Some headphones were out on the table like they had recently been used. Going to the seat, Zain looked around to see if there were any notes written down.

He was opening draws, but there was nothing apart from one draw that was locked.

'Although I could just pull and break this open, that would make it obvious that I was in here. At the same time, it has to be locked for a reason.'

For a second, Zain wondered if he should try to use the radio transmission device. Honestly, he had no clue what the dials or buttons did. It was too old for him to understand, and without just pressing everything he wouldn't know how to get it started or put it back the way he remembered it.

At the same time, even if he did contact someone, what would he say, what would he do, and how would Shark act? The two of them were already suspicious of each other, and there was no need for the two of them to be fighting each other.

Just in case there was anything that had been missed, Zain had another look around the desk and decided to look around the office, pulling the draws out to the side, and that's when he discovered the crystals that had been placed inside the tray.

There was a tag saying Grade 1, and right next to it, another one that said grade 2, going all the way up to grade 5. There were only crystals in the grade 1 and 2 box and none in the others.

The grade 1 crystal were quite thin in size but still about as large as one's finger, whereas the grade 2 were similar in length but were about as thick as a golf ball.

'I wonder if the grade is just the size of the crystal or if they are linked to the different Zombies as well. If I was to guess, Grade 2 crystals have to be from the stage 2 zombies...wait, but does that mean there are all the way up to stage 5 Zombies, even now.'

Thinking about it, Zain was thinking about how dangerous the Stage 2 zombies were and with a name like stage 2, it was obvious there would be higher stages. Which meant he had to level up.

In the grade 1 tray, there were around 20 small crystals, and in the grade 2 tray, there were 2 larger crystals.

'Why are they even collecting these if they aren't going to be using them? Is whoever is working asking for them, but then why would they need them as well, or is it the answer to the zombie apocalypse that has started.' Zain thought.

In the end, he decided to pick one of the crystals up.

[System has detected a mutated crystal]n0𝓋𝗲𝑳𝓊𝓈𝑩.𝓒0𝗆

[Would you like to absorb the crystal?]

[Reward: 10 exp]

Now Zain's theory has been confirmed, why he wasn't getting crystals when killing the mutated Zombies. Placing the crystal back down, Zain thought 10 exp wasn't worth getting in trouble over.

Even if he did absorb them all, 200 exp wouldn't level him up to the next stage. Picking up the grade 2 crystal, Zain wanted to see what this would say.

[System has detected a stage 2 crystal ]

[Would you like to absorb the crystal?]

[Reward: 1000 exp]

'Now, with this amount, I am a little more tempted.' Zain said with a smile.

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After touching the Stage 2 Crystal, many thoughts flashed through Zain's mind. The first one was the fact that it would bring him closer to reaching the next level. However, after absorbing the crystal, it was only a matter of time until the others would find out, but he was quite concerned about what would happen then.

'Shark is the strongest of the group, but if he tried to kick me out or fight me because of this, can he do anything? I now have Skittle and Cobra, and Cobra is a huge asset for me during a fight.

'On top of that, I will have my own strength and will be closer to level 6, making it even harder for Shark to fight against me.'

With that thought in his head, there was no one he had to worry about here. Worst case, he would be kicked out of the group, but that would allow him to travel and find out more things on his own anyway.

The one thing Zain wanted to learn about before he left was about Shark. Who was he working for, and how much exactly did they know?

Picking up the crystal again, Zain held it in his hand and was ready, but he began to have second thoughts for a while.

'No, I need to absorb this. I need to increase my level and grow stronger. Judging by the categories, there is a chance that we could run into a Stage Three Zombie in the future. With the way the group is currently, there is no way for them to survive unless they get stronger parallelly with me.'

[Would you like to absorb the crystal?]

[You will gain 1000 Exp points]

[Yes] [No]

After clicking yes, the crystal lit up slightly with a bluish tint. Zain felt a tingling sensation run through his body, and a few seconds later, the crystal disappeared.

[7,318/10,500 EXP]

[Would you like to absorb the crystal?]

[You will gain 1000 Exp points]

[Yes] [No]

[8,318/10,500 EXP]n0𝒱𝑬𝐋𝑢𝓈𝗯.𝗰0𝑚

'This is great. I just got loads of exp without having to do anything. It's a shame the exp requirement is getting quite high. If I could have used this on Skittle or Cobra, they probably would have levelled up straight away.'

The moment he thought of this, it made him wonder why he couldn't. So he decided to test something out. Then, trusting that the others wouldn't attack them anymore, Skittle and Cobra were both outside the room.

If Zain needed to make a quick getaway, it was easier for them to spot two zombies following him everywhere.

Now wanting to test something, he decided to order them inside, letting them into the room.

'Since Skittle is already a level 2, let's try this on Cobra first.'

Grabbing the stage one, smaller crystal, Zain took one of the daggers from Cobra's hand that seemed to have a tight grip on them.

There was no command to let go, so Zain had to use his strength to pull his fingers open. Then, after he placed the crystal in his hand, he closed his fist.

'Huh, I was expecting some type of system prompt?'

[Horde member Cobra has gained ten exp]

When Zain opened Cobra's palm, the crystal was gone. It had disappeared just like when he had used the crystal himself.

When looking back at the tray, there were now 19 small crystals still inside the thing. Although they wouldn't be enough for him to level up, looking at the other two, there was a good chance it could level them up.

'I'm going to get caught for taking the other crystals anyway, so I might as well as use them all up.' Zain thought.

Since Cobra was currently Level 1, it was just common sense that it would be easier to level him up first. Although he cared more about Skittle and would have liked to grow him first, in the end, Exp did nothing unless one levelled up.

Zain then went on to use nine more crystals and did the same thing over and over again until the system gave another notification to him.

[Super Undead Cobra is now level 2]

[1 stat point can now be allocated]

After acquiring Cobra, Zain had thought about what to do with the stat point once the former levels up in the future, and now, there was no hesitation in his mind.

[Stat point has been used on Agility]

[Agility 5 6]

There was a picture in Zina's head. He wanted to build an army of those that specialised in different things, and because Corba was already fast, he was going to make him even faster. To the point where no one was able to hit him.

Since there were still more crystals to go, Zain started to put the rest into Skittle this time, who had gained some Exp already after levelling up. He wasn't exactly sure how close he was to the next level up.

For some reason, the system didn't show the exp of those in the horde, only their level.

p Getting Skittle to use the crystals was a little harder, as he wouldn't hold onto anything. So Zain had to place the crystal in his hand and shut it for him, but the process was still the same.

Four more crystals had been used up, and there were only six left. It was hard to say if Skittle was going to level up or not. Just when he had put the crystal in his hand though, he suddenly heard the sound of the door knob turn, and the door was already opened before Zain could react.

"Zain!" Kun said as he stared at the crystal in Skittles hand and back at Zain, wondering what the latter was doing. He could even see the tray pulled out and how many little crystals there were left in it. Immediately, Kun shut the door behind him. "What are you doing?" he then asked.

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Although Zain did expect to get caught with the crystals, at least not so soon. He expected others to notice this when they perhaps went on another outing and needed to place the crystals inside again.

On top of that, he had prepared himself to be caught by Shark, not Kun. Out of everyone here, Zain liked Kun the best. The latter was the first Reborn he had met, so the last member of the group he would want to deal with would be him. This was why he was genuinely taken aback when Kun called him out.

"You can't just take those crystals! And Why are you handing them to Skittle? Oh man, if Shark finds out about this, he's gonna rip your head off. I don't even know why, but he really cares about those things!" Kun was speaking incredibly fast and was taking deep breaths. It was hard for him to speak, and Zain could tell the situation was tough for him as well.

"Please just put the crystals back, Zain. I know you like doing crazy sh*t, but now is not the time for this. We can easily resolve this, and I'll just pretend I never saw it." Kun pleaded.

The fact that Zain wasn't saying anything and was looking at Kun like he was hesitating about how to answer was worrying the former. Kun now wished that his curious mind hadn't gotten the better of him.

When he saw Skittle walking this way, he decided to follow. Seeing Skittle enter the office did raise suspicions, but it wasn't like any area in the club was off limits. However, wherever Skittle went, he knew that was where Zain would be as well.

Still looking Kun directly in the eye, Zain moved his hands, clinging to Skittles' fingers, and the next second, the system message appeared saying the Crystal had been absorbed.

"What are you doing? Are you even listening to me!" Kun shouted.

"I'm sorry," Zain replied. "The crystals, I can't just put them back."

"What do you mean? Please, Zain, I'm begging you. Can you do it for me, just this one time? I don't want to see you get kicked out of this place. Not after you helped us out so much already." Kun pleaded again.

Letting out a sigh, Zain opened the palm of Skittles' hand, only for Kun to find it empty.

But Kun was sure he had seen the Crystal placed in Skittles' hand, so how could it suddenly disappear?

"Is this some type of magic trick?" Kun asked.

"It's not magic," Zain replied. "I came in here, wondering why Shark insists on us collecting the Crystals. I mean, it doesn't make sense if they do nothing, but what if they really do nothing?n0𝒱ℯ𝑙𝓤𝕊𝔅.𝓬0𝓶

"You told me yourself, if a Zombie eats one of these crystals, they will mutate and get stronger. So there has to be a reason for that, right? So what if we can use them somehow? These crystals, we can use to get stronger." Zain revealed his theory.

This was the best way out of the current situation, to bring Kun over to their side. In a world they were currently in, it wasn't money that people cared about, rather, it was the strength to survive the cruel world that he needed.

Getting stronger would be too tempting, and if Kun were on his side, who seemed to be popular with nearly everyone in the Reborn group, including Shark himself, then it would be a big bonus.

"I'm not lying. You can try it for yourself." Zain took one of the Crystals out of the box and walked over to Kun. "Let's try, and you can say it was me. You can tell Shark that I absorbed the Crystal, but don't you think it's unfair?

"Shark kept these crystals for himself because he knew it was making him stronger. Everyone in the Reborn was collecting them, and no one but only he was benefiting from them."

Kun knew much more than Zain did. He was closer to Shark. It was clear that Shark also had no clue what these crystals could do, but what Zain said made sense, and if that was the case, why didn't the others tell Shark?

Were they just using their group?

Kun closed his eyes and held out his hand without saying a word. Zain placed the Crystal in the palm and closed it. He wasn't sure how this would work because the system had done the job for him when it came to Cobra.

So instead, he thought back to the feeling when he had absorbed the Crystal into his own body.

"When holding the Crystal, you should be able to sense or feel some heat in your palm. That is Crystal's energy. What you need to do is draw it out inside you.

"Focus on the palm of your hand, then focus more on the part of the skin where the Crystal is touching, the top and bottom of it. Now feel the heat, the energy on the surface of your skin flowing into you. Imagine that it's moving the Crystal into yourself."

Having already absorbed the two Stage 2 crystals, it was much easier for Zain to describe the sensation he had felt, and he could see that it was starting to light up slightly through the cracks and sides of Kun's hand.

Finally, Kun opened his eyes and opened his hand, and the Crystal disappeared from his palm.

p "It actually worked. I felt the Crystal get absorbed into my body and even felt some change. How? How did you manage to figure something like that out."

The feeling Kun had experienced was impossible to describe, but he could tell a change was happening in his body, and he wanted to do it again. However, just as Kun went to move forward, someone else stepped into the room.

"Now, what is going on here?" Shark frowned.

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When Kun had entered, Zain honestly didn't know how the latter would react. He seemed to be on the fence a lot when certain situations arose and wanted Zain to stay quite a great deal. This was why Zain hadn't acted aggressively from the beginning.

However, Shark was a completely different story. He was a person who liked to take charge and do things his way. When taking the crystals, Zain imagined many scenarios, and this was one of them, meaning he needed to act fast.

Shark's eyes had caught on to the missing crystal and started to widen. He opened his mouth, looking ready to say something, but Zian was one step ahead.

'Cobra, Attack!' Zain thought.n0𝒱ℯ𝑙𝓤𝕊𝔅.𝓬0𝓶

The room wasn't a particularly large one, and immediately Cobra went from one side, and this time, he didn't only give the order to Cobra as Skittle was moving from the other side as well.

Shark carried small blades on him, and taking them out, he was ready to defend himself, but Cobra was unexpectedly too fast and had already made a cut on his shoulder and threw him towards Skittle, who went to punch him on the other side. However, Cobra reacted fast enough against the latter and grabbed Skittles' punch by the wrist.

'This superhuman, is it even faster than before...but how?' Shark was stunned at Cobra's increase in strength.

However, he soon regained his composure and was ready to begin the counterattack, and a small room like the one they were in was perfect for him to do something against Cobra.

'I'll just need to get rid of the easy one first!' Shark thought as he ignored Cobra going for an attack on Skittle.

"What did I say about trying to hurt my friends?" Zain shouted and kicked Shark directly in the stomach, sending him through the door, which broke off its hinge instantly upon impact.

"Sh*t, Sh*t, Sh*t, what is going on!" Kun shouted. "Why did you suddenly just attack him like that?"

"Shark is strong, and I needed to get the upper hand," Zain replied, pulling out his sword and walking forward.

"What? Wait! Don't kill Shark. He's not a bad guy! I'm sure we can talk about this, don't attack. Let me talk to him!" Kun pleased, pulling on Zain's sleeve.

"I'm just trying to survive. I don't know how he would have reacted to seeing us do that. I can't put myself in a disadvantageous situation anymore. We need to know who he's working for." Zain shook his head.

He turned his head, only to find Shark was no longer there. Zain frowned and quickly ran out of the room, he climbed up onto the backstage and pulled the curtain away while his two zombies followed him. Here he saw Shark in the centre of the seating area, which had mostly been cleared to be made as a sparring area by Kun earlier that day.

However, Shark wasn't alone. Fingers, Pink, and Jelly, were all next to him.

"Zain has decided to betray us, which isn't really a surprise for me," Shark said and revealed the reason behind the commotion to the others. "He has stolen the crystals we have been collecting and has just attacked me. So now we can see his true colours, I knew he was working for the other side."

"Other side?" Zain frowned. "Do the people next to you even know why you are collecting Crystals or who you talk to daily on your radio device? If anyone is hiding something, then it's clearly you.

"Those crystals, why have you been collecting them, and why didn't you tell anyone, what they could do, how they could make us stronger?" Zain asked.

The others around Shark were confused, and their silence was making him seem guiltier.

"I have done everything I can to protect everyone. I have shared all the information I have with everyone. Because of me, everyone has survived this long. I have no clue what crystal does, and you shouldn't care either!" Shark shouted.

"Because of me, we have survived. When I say jump, you are meant to ask how high! That is how we will survive this world."

Hearing this speech, Zain smiled once again.

"I'm sorry, I guess I'm just the type of person who would rather ask why we are jumping."

Since it didn't look like Shark would answer, Zain ordered Combra to move and go on the attack again. Instantly, the undead ran across the stage and leapt onto the floor, and the moment his feet touched the ground, he charged forward.

Reacting much faster this time, Shark lifted a large round shield off the ground using his foot and caught it mid-air, stopping the Cobra's blades just in time. Then shoving it forward, he caused Cobra to stumble and go off balance.

Seeing the opening, Shark moved the shield to the side and was ready to thrust with his dagger until he saw a large sword coming down and hitting his blade straight on, nearly knocking it out of Shark's hand.

Immediately, he leapt back and retreated.

'To fight against Zain alone on my own is tough enough, but to fight against the Superhuman at the same time is going to be nearly impossible to win.'

"Everyone, we have to get rid of him. I won't be able to beat him on my own," Shark shouted and ordered the others.

Looking at their faces, it seemed like they were all unsure about acting either. This enraged Shark, and he instantly let out his frustration.

"I was with you all from the beginning. I helped you multiple times. But, if you stay and stick with Zain, then he will have you all killed. Don't you understand? He only cares about himself, and soon he will do something that will get you all killed."

After the passionate shout from their leader, Fingers was the first one to act.S. Still remembering what Zian had done to him. He picked up a long sword that needed two hands to wield and took a fighting stance.

And seeing him pick up the weapons, Pink and Jelly also made up their minds and were ready to act as well.

"He was our first friend. You are a new friend." Jelly said. It was one of the first times Zain heard him speak, and now he knew why they didn't bring Jelly out with them.

"Cobra, you deal with Shark, and I'll deal with the others," Zain ordered.

Immediately, Cobra started to go in. Zain was confident in his abilities, especially since the former could also dodge attacks. This meant he also had a survival instinct, not just fighting unless ordered otherwise.

Now seeing that Fingers was the first one coming toward him, Zain was ready to act as well.

Before reaching, Fingers had swung the large sword wide and from the side. To avoid it, Zian ducked under the weapon rolling underneath. And raised his head, only to see a kick from Pink coming his way.

However, he easily grabbed it mid-air.

"You picked the wrong side." Zain lifted the hilt of his weapon and slammed it down on Pink's shin. It snapped immediately with bones sticking out the other end, and Zain let go of her.

Just then, he heard Fingers running at him and swinging the sword. Zain turned around and saw the sword, but he knew he would be too slow to react or block it with his own weapon, so he lifted his forearm instead.

The sword pierced through his skin but stopped when it reached the bone. Blood was dripping down his forearm, and Zain thanked the advantage of not sensing pain.

"How...even a normal swing of a sword would have chopped your arm off. We have super strength as well!" Fingers' mouth was chittering as he said these words.

'I wasn't sure if my endurance would hold out, but it looks like my skin and bones have also hardened.' Ignoring Fingers' rambling, Zain thought while holding the side of the sword with his hands and managed to overpower the former by pulling the sword out.

The next second, Fingers saw something else. The wound on Zain's forearm was beginning to heal right in front of his eyes!

"This...we chose to fight against a monster!" fingers replied.

By now, Jelly was behind Zian and had grabbed him with both hands. With his strength, Zain tried to pull out, but it wasn't easy.

'I can't overpower this guy...is he different from the others? Or is it just his natural strength that got multiplied? I guess just one point isn't enough.' Zain thought.

At that point, since his arms were in a tight grip and he could not use the sword, Zain dropped it. The whole time, Zain had a trump card, and he just didn't want to use it until now.

Using all his strength, he could move his hands slightly and pull something out from his belt. Pointing it towards Jelly's right foot, he pulled the trigger.

-Bang!

A hole appeared in Jelly's foot, and blood and mass splashed everywhere. Although Jelly didn't feel pain, the loud bang caused him to loosen his grip slightly, and it was enough distraction for Zain to get out. Then, without hesitation, he pulled out the second pistol and clicked the safety switch.

"Alright, since you want to get rid of me that badly. It's time to start getting rid of you all." Zain said while pointing one gun at Pink and the other at Fingers.

"Wait!" Kun shouted just then, "I'll tell you everything! I know the answers you are looking for because me and Shark...are working together. So please put the guns down! I'll talk."

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n0𝒱ℯ𝑙𝓤𝕊𝔅.𝓬0𝓶

The tension in Zain's arm had left him a little dilemma when he heard Kun shout because, for him, it was an unexpected curveball.

Usually, Zain would say he was a good judge of character. This whole time he was going after Shark to find out the truth when he had Kun by his side.

'If I knew Kun was involved with all that stuff, I would have targeted him instead and never put myself in this type of position.' Zain inwardly frowned. It can't be ignored that Kun had fooled him into believing that he was as ignorant as him about Shark and his secrets.

But he didn't feel like he was cheated. This was a dog-eat-dog world now, and Zain accepted that he fell for Kun's amicable nature. But nothing matters against absolute power, and in the current scenario, Zain knew the grip he held over their neck.

Hence, he continued to hold the two guns in his hand and pointed them at Pink and Fingers. He had also moved to a position that allowed him to target Jelly if needed. At the same time, he ordered Cobra to stop the attack and come to his side.

"I'm going to order Skittle to come by my side!" Zain shouted. "Nobody is to stop him, or I will shoot. Because I'm telling you this right now, I care about his life much more than a bunch of strangers I only met a couple of days ago who are now trying to beat me down. Trust me, I can take a good enough shot." Zain claimed.

It was harder than people thought to shoot a gun accurately if they had never fired one before. Shark thought for a split second he would try to attack regardless; as long as they didn't get hit in the head, it would be fine, but when he made eye contact with Kun, he just shook his head.

Kun had seen Zain use his guns well, and since Jelly's foot was still bleeding, it was clear he wasn't afraid to use it. When Skittle was eventually by his side, Zain ordered both his zombies to stay next to him.

"Alright, speak! Tell everyone who you guys really are, why you are collecting the crystals and why you are hiding everything from us?" Zain asked.

It was a tough situation for the group because the others clearly had no idea that Kun was also working with Shark. Everyone had their suspicions about Shark, and they wanted to know why they had survived the Zombie attack.

"Both Shark and I… are special agents that work for a private company…and it has contracts related to the Military," Kun started to explain, "I'm happy to tell you the truth, but I'm afraid it won't change anything.

"The truth is, the Zombies, the undead, this same type of scenario has happened before, many times. When it came to it, our group of people would be sent in to deal with the aftermath."

"Wait, what!" Pink exclaimed with shock, and she was starting to be filled with anger. "What do you mean… it has happened before? So are you saying this is the same thing that was just part of a large experiment!"

From Kun's words, it was starting to sound like this whole thing could have been stopped, and having recently lost her whole family due to this experiment, Pink was furious.

"Not quite, I think they were trying to stop this from happening, but honestly, being lowly agents, we weren't told much. On top of that, for a long time now, both Shark and I have been with what was called the Reborn Corp."

Listening to the story so far, Zain thought something like this might have been the case. Skittle had been doing research about the zombie attacks popping up in different places. If they were Reborn now, then it would make sense that there were some still out there.

"Some of our missions were tougher than others, and a lot of men were lost to these missions. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, Shark and I were bit, and we turned into what we are right now.

"The private organisation kept what happened to us a secret from the military. I don't quite know why, but I'm guessing they wanted to be the ones to find out what made us different from the rest.

"Shark and I don't quite understand what happened after that. On the day of the apocalypse, the day the meteor strikes before any of that happened, we were released by…a young scientist woman. She was the one looking after us for a while ever since we were turned.

"She told us to come here. At this club, where we met Jelly, but Jelly doesn't seem to know anything, and the radio was already here."

Zain was hoping to find out why they were different. Maybe they had been injected with a type of vaccine, or they found out a way to multiply what happened in their bodies into others, but that didn't seem to be the case.

However, what was interesting was the female scientist Kun spoke of before he continued with the rest of the story Zain had to ask. When Kun mentioned her, it reminded him of a certain woman he had bumped into a few days ago.

"This female scientist. Was she about this height, a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair and…slender legs?" Zain asked.

There were a lot of people with this description that would fit the bill, but in this type of situation, without them having explained any details, what were the chances that Zain would be able to guess her height and hair colour?

Both Kun and Shark's eyes widened when they heard his words.

"How…how do you know her?" Shark asked.

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Hearing Shark's question, it looked like Zain was now at least getting somewhere. He always had a theory that the crystal around his neck might be the thing that saved him when he was attacked by the zombie for the first time. Moreover, it looked similar to the crystals that the zombies had in their bodies.

This theory of the person he crashed into being the same person they knew was like an arrow shot in the dark, but from their reaction, it looked like it had hit a target.

,m "I met her once while I was heading back to my dorm after buying a game. But that was out of pure coincidence," Zain answered.

Shark raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure if Zian was telling the truth because the latter's response was quite unexpected. However, they were sure that he was like them. Either Zain worked for a private organisation that dealt with similar affairs and knew of the situation or was just part of the military.

'Is he sticking to his student story? I mean, buying games sounds like something kids his age would do. And if he is really an agent, he is a good one and has done his homework." Shark thought.

"Did anyone else bump into a girl of the same description?" Zain asked.

"I mean, I meet people that look like that every day, it's hard to say, but I've never met a scientist," Pink replied.

"It's the same for me." Fingers replied.

"Me doesn't know," Jelly added as well, but Zain wasn't holding out much hope after the other two spoke.

Moving his gun slightly, Zain motioned Kun to carry on his story. After taking a deep breath, he started again with a gulp.

"Most of the club looked normal, how anyone would have imagined it, but the office was set up before we came here. The Radio station and the labelling of all the trays. We asked Jelly if he saw anyone, but you know what he's like."

Even now, Jelly had drooping eyes, and his mouth was wide open, saliva was just trickling from it onto his shirt. He certainly wasn't like the other Reborn but was better than Skittle and Cobra in terms of being more human.

"I assume that the scientist is still contacting you then and has given you a job?" Zain asked.

"Not quite. It's true that someone else contacted us through the Radio. After confirming a few details, it seems like they work for the same private organisation...called the Reborn group, which is where we got our name from."

"They told us things that we didn't know about during our trial, about the Evolved zombies, about the demons that were coming at night, and what we needed to do to survive. They are the reason why we knew about the Brains as well as other things."

"None of this we knew beforehand, but they stated that as long as we help them, they will continue to support us as well, which is why we've been collecting crystals. For now, they have just asked us to continue doing this, and they will soon send help to us."

"I wasn't lying to you, Zain, when I told you we didn't know what the Crystals could do, that is something that only you found out, and we never asked why they needed the crystals either. We're stuck in this situation, and they are the only ones that we can rely on."

"Is it our turn now?" Shark asked. "We told you everything we know, so why don't we ask you? Why are crystals important? Why did you steal them from us, and who are you really working for?"

Zain smiled after hearing this question as he repeated himself once more.n0𝒱ℯ𝑙𝓤𝕊𝔅.𝓬0𝓶

"I already told you who I am. I'm a university student. That's all I am. The crystals, I figured out that we could absorb them to make ourselves stronger and make it so we can survive. In fact, I even showed Kun how to do it.

I don't care about the crystals, you can give them to others or use them to make yourself stronger, but doesn't it make you think? Why was your organisation hoarding them rather than telling you their use? I'm sure they already knew what they could do. Besides, I'm not done with my questions."

"Why were you gathering us? Why were you gathering the Reborn and not telling us all the truth about who you were?" Zain asked.

There was silence in the room. Pink and Fingers wanted to know the answer to this as well.

"Because...they were our orders. To gather those like us, bring them to a safe place, teach them how to fight while being careful of the other side, like you." Shark replied.

Like an excellent agent, Shark was someone who just did as he was told, and it seemed like it was more out of fear than anything else. If they didn't listen to that organisation, then they would be abandoned, and he was uncertain what would happen to them.

At the same time, since they were contractors for the military, there were sure to be others involved who knew the truth, not just this small organisation. Which was the other side that Shark talked about.

Not wanting to correct the latter that he was a student again, Zain decided to do something else since Shark would never believe him anyway.

"Let's head to the office." Zain requested. "We can get in contact with them and see if they'll speak to me."

"We can't do that!" Shark said.

Instantly, Zain moved the gun and pointed it right at Shark's head.

"Since you love following orders so much, I'll use your language so you can understand a bit better. That wasn't a request; it was an order."

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In the first place, Zain wasn't sure if he would ever be able to talk to this blonde woman. He was pretty sure that she perhaps wouldn't even remember him because their meeting was more of a short encounter, but there were two things that he could mention that might catch her attention if he were to meet her again.

Firstly, the pendant around his neck. She must have dropped it by mistake and realised later that it was missing, and the second was the System. More than anything, Zain thought, perhaps this person had the answer to his Zombie system and maybe to all of the Zombies around them today.

While Zain was musing over his thoughts, Shark dropped his shield, removed the weapons on his body to show he was no longer a threat, and kept his hands raised as Zain pointed the gun at him.

"Alright, if you really think talking to them will make any of a difference, then let's go," Shark replied, walking over to the stage where Kun was standing still. Following behind was Zain, as he ensured his two guards followed him.

The others didn't even attempt to move, although Zain no longer had his guns pointed at them. They just knew if they tried anything, it would only worsen the situation. Not to mention they weren't even sure if they could take on Skittle and Cobra in the first place.

"I just want to warn you," Shark said as he walked up front. "They might not even speak to you if you ask them to. There's no reason for them too."

"You let me worry about that. I have my ways." Zain replied.

Eventually, he told Kun to enter the room first. Then after that, Shark and Zain followed him. Finally, both Skittle and Cobra entered as well, and Zain told Kun to sit by the door.

"Kun, I want to thank you for telling me the truth, but if we're going to live in this world, we can't just follow blind orders," Zain explained. "Think, how many times would you have lost your life already if you didn't run into me? Unfortunately, the people on the radio don't care about you, and I'm only telling you this because I like you."

Kun didn't reply. Mainly because he didn't really know what to say.

'Zain…I know you're not coming from a bad place, but what you're doing now is a little crazy.' Kun thought.

While pointing his gun but staying a safe distance away so Shark couldn't do anything, Zain nudged it at the latter, ordering him to do his thing.

The latter walked in front of the radio, moved some of the dials around, and some static noise began to pop out. Then, picking up the small radio speaker, Shark paused before he said anything.

"This is Agent 12. I have a code 4, I repeat, code 4!" Shark shouted, and immediately after that, he threw out his other hand, hitting the radio. The punch sent the radio flying across the room, and it crashed into the wall, breaking into pieces.

Immediately, Zain moved the gun down away from Shark's head and pointed it at his legs.

"Zain, no!" Kun shouted, charging forward, but when Cobra and Skittle had entered the room, they were set on protect mode. Skittle was the first to act, pushing Kun away. It was a powerful push that made him fall through the door since the previous scuffle had already broken it earlier.

The next second, Kun heard a loud bang. In the next moment, he saw Shark fall to the floor while clutching his knee. He wasn't hurt, but it had caused the latter's leg to have a strange reaction.

"The next one goes in your head," Zain said, with his finger on the trigger. "Why did you do that, and what is code four? And don't you dare try to feed any bull crap."

Zain was a bit disappointed in himself. He was a bit foolish in the situation and didn't think Shark would act like so. Now the only lead he had was gone like that.

"Code 4 is what they instructed us to say if circumstances put us in a situation like this one if someone took us hostage." Shark replied, "They instructed us to break the radio as well if this was to occur."

Clicking his tongue, Zain felt like this banter wouldn't get anywhere. Because, for one, he had no clue if Shark was telling the truth, and if he was, he didn't know how the other side would act.

Somehow they were able to make Shark so loyal without telling him anything.

'Shark probably doesn't know where the Reborn base of operations is, and he probably may not even know what Code 4 actually means. Will a group of people come here and take out everyone here, or is it something else?'

In the end, Zain had made up his mind. He went over to the trays and grabbed the rest of the crystals, placing them into one of his pockets.

"Follow me," Zain replied as he walked to the kitchen at a quick speed.

First, he opened up the fridge and ordered the two zombies to begin eating and unzipping the flesh, Zain then did the same and started eating to restore his energy. And then, he opened up the smaller fridge next to it. All of the brains were stored inside it.

Taking one of them, Zain began to eat that as well. His body capacity had hardly gone down, but that didn't matter. He was going to restore his body back to full.

"What are you trying to do?" Shark asked in an aggressive tone, his leg still bleeding from the bullet wound. "Are you trying to kill us, leaving us to die?"

The group had yet to eat the brains they had gotten because Shark had mandated them to eat them on the seventh day to get the maximum time and for them to last longer.

"I got all of these for us in the first place. You wanted me to leave so I can do what I want with them, and besides, I'm just eating my fill." Zain replied.

Grabbing another of the brains and holding it in his hand, Zain continued to walk while telling Shark to follow him the whole time. Shark's legs were working, but he would need to eat food to start the healing process since the others weren't like Zain.

When coming out, the others saw Shark limping slightly. The loud bang had made them fear the worst, but they were relieved to see that the former was alive. Going to the weapons floor, Zain picked up his sword and also the empty backpack.

Putting the brain inside and the sword right through the bag so it would get stuck in place and come through the bottom, Zain carried them both on his back.

"You have all been living under a lie, and I don't know what will happen to you guys after this. In fact, I doubt that even Shark knows. If you want to follow a person blindly that doesn't know what he is doing, then be my guest.

"I'm not asking any of you to follow me. I'm not a leader in this world, I'm a survivor, and right now, I have decided that the best chance of me surviving is leaving this place, so I want you all to think long and hard about that."

After saying those words, Zain left out from the front door without waiting for any response, and it closed behind him. The Reborn group was left speechless. Everything that had transpired was a massive shock to them all.

Eventually, Pink decided to speak.

"Kun…what should we do?" Pink asked.

Hearing this was the first time Shark had begun to self-reflect on himself as he held his head down. The whole time they had asked him for advice, they asked him what the next course of action they needed to do.

The fact that Pink had done this meant he had already lost the entire group's trust.

——

n0𝒱𝑒𝐿𝑢𝗌𝑩.𝕔0𝚖

After exiting the Club, Zain wondered what to do now. He walked a bit away from the club, but it was now dark out. Although Shark had perhaps done a lot of things he wouldn't have, it was worth it joining the group in the end, especially for the information they had.

After running across from the club, he found a few rundown apartments around two stories tall. After a moment, Zani headed inside, thinking it would be a good place for the night.

'I doubt they would think I would be staying across the road, but waiting here is also a good move because I can see what they are doing.' Zain thought.

Setting up his room and laying it out in a certain way, Zain glanced at Cobra and Skittle.

'I guess it's just us again on this journey…'

When thinking about this, it did make him think about two others, Cody and Kelly.

"I wonder, how are they doing?" Zain thought as he realised his body was getting weaker and slowly starting to drift off. He shook his head for once, but it didn't help much.

And since zombies don't sleep, Zain could only imagine he was going to that place once again.

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The night hadn't fully set and there was still daylight outside. Cody was resting as he leaned his back against the metal wall and looked at the beam of sunlight shining through the hole in the metal roof. He could feel the slight heat on his leg, but slowly it was getting cooler.

'The sun is about to go down, I should really get a move on.' Cody thought. The swelling on his face had decreased a little, making it easier for him to see, and resting on the ground had allowed him to regain his energy for whatever threats he could encounter next.

When he tried lifting himself up with both hands on his knees, he noticed his legs were still wobbly.

'If I run into anyone or anything dangerous, I'm not sure if I can even do something about it…but that is if there is still something that I have to worry about.'

Looking around him, Cody glanced at all the dead bodies on the floor, most of them were Zombies, other than members of the Cobra gang with the side of their skulls smashed.

There were many things that Cody had seen in the last week, things that he could never delete from his memory. Honestly, he thought he had seen the worst until he had witnessed Zain smash those skulls.

Just thinking about it had made him a bit queasy in the stomach, but he quickly diminished the memory from his head. Right now, getting sick wasn't an option.

'I can't think of him like that…because of him, because of them and that little group, he saved me. Why should I care what he is…in fact, he is a lot better than these people near on the ground. No matter what he is.'

Walking out of the warehouse, Cody picked up a couple of machetes from the floor that Cobra's men had used. He continued to walk out of the place carefully trying not to attract anyone through the noise.

Chinatown was mostly quiet already, one thing Cobra's gang did well was getting rid of most of the zombies and storing them in the container. They were quite lucky that they didn't run into anything like what Cody and others had done in the supermarket.

While navigating through the streets, somewhere inside Cody's mind, he was hoping that he would run into Zain.

'Why didn't he stay...is it because of the others that are with him? Or is it about self control?'

Eventually, Cody had reached the area he had been looking for, the hairdresser shop that Zain had instructed him to go to. Heading inside, he noticed there were small traces of blood inside the shop. After a few moments, he deduced they were not from a large physical wound but just droplets here and there.

Then finally, going towards the back door, Cody pushed it open, and there he could see her.

Muffled sounds came from the chair, and tears streamed down her eyes. Kelly couldn't help herself as she continued to cry over and over again.

"You need to be a bit quiet, or we might get caught," Cody whispered and tried to calm her down. Using the machete, he released Kelly from her bounds. And when she was no longer on the chair and could now talk again, the first thing she did was pull Cody towards her and bring his head right into her chest.

"Thank you…thank you so much for saving me…and I'm so glad that you're alive...I really thought something happened to you." Kelly said as she wound her body and continued to pull Cody's head deeper into her chest.

Cody didn't complain. But in the end, he had to tap her body to inform her that he couldn't breathe.

"What happened to the Cobra gang? Are they still alive? Are they coming back? We should start getting out of here as soon as possible!" panic started to settle into her voice.

"It's okay, we are okay," Cody replied. "But it's getting dark outside, so I think we should stay here for the night. Let's head upstairs."

Above the hairdressers, there was a one-bedroom apartment. A living room with a sofa and a small double bed. As they closed the lights and turned the curtains, all they could do now was to wait for the sun to set, and Cody started explaining what happened. Luckily, there were some food cans that they could still eat in the cupboards as well.

"Honestly, the Cobra Gang had me tied up and they were going to feed me to the Zombies, but in the end, Zain was the one who came and saved me," Cody explained.

"Zain came to you as well! I guess he really did go and help you, and that's how you knew where I was?" Kelly replied.

Cody went on to tell the story of what had occurred, although there was a big detail that he had decided to miss out on, however, he didn't touch on the fact that Zain was a Zombie.

He felt like there would be a lot of people that wouldn't be able to accept this fact. Even he could only because he had been saved by Zain. It was similar to if he was saved by a tiger. Just because he had been saved by one, didn't mean that people would stop being afraid of tigers.

"I guess Zain is really strong...but did you see Skittle as well? That friend of his, he was here as well, and he was definitely—"

"I don't know. Skittle was there but was just following him all the time, maybe his friend remembers a bit still from being attacked and just follows Zain around." Cody replied. "Still, getting out of the supermarket, and saving both of us, that's twice now because of him we are alive.

"I asked Zain to join us, but I don't know where he is now...which is why I think we should go looking for him."

Kelly didn't respond straight away, she had a nervous look on her face and was even biting her nail. After a long silence, she replied.

"I'm not so sure about that…I was a teacher at his university, and because of that I know his past, I don't think it's a good idea if we travel with him."

n0𝓥ℯ𝒍𝔲𝗌𝗯.𝗰0𝐌

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Ever since Zain turned into a zombie, he came to know quite a number of facts about zombies, and one such interesting discovery was that the zombies didn't need sleep. However, they could somewhat make their mind go into a daze instead of switching off as if one was daydreaming. By doing this, the energy consumption compared to being awake would decrease quite a lot and they would be able to conserve it.

However, although zombies didn't sleep, once in a while, Zain would feel a familiar sensation he had felt a few times as if he was suddenly being possessed by something and would then begin to fall asleep. The last time this had happened he was surrounded by the reborn group.n0𝑣𝖊𝓵𝔲𝗌𝚋.𝚌0𝔪

This time it was happening at night and he was alone. Just before he had completely gone into the daze, through the system he had given the order to Cobra and Skittle to protect, hoping it would be enough for anyone that came their way.

'It's happening again, am I going to that place… I have to prepare myself for what could come, and I might meet the faceless man again.' Zain collected his thoughts.

It was a guess, but after a few moments in darkness, Zain found himself awake once again. Looking around, it was hard to tell where he was because it was dark, but he could move around.

When moving though, he realized his body didn't move as it usually would have, and putting his palm against his chest he sensed a heartbeat.

'I'm in my childhood body again,' Zain thought. 'I wonder what age I am? Maybe about 11 or something? And how come whenever I come to this place, I'm younger than I am? I guess, in this daydream or vision, I'm human as well since I can feel my heartbeat.'

Eventually, Zain's eyes started to adjust to the darkness and he could see slightly in front of him, but it was still incredibly difficult to see a far distance ahead. Everything looked fuzzy, and even his own hands looked more like just an outline.

When moving to the side, Zain eventually felt the surface of the wall, it was hard and slightly wet.

'Is this…a cave?' Zain thought.

Looking for a while, there was only one way to go, and he began to move towards it with caution. The faceless man would most likely appear around the corner.

'This whole situation is weird. Are these memories? The ones that I have locked away… I mean, I can somewhat remember my childhood, but I don't remember any of this. This has to be more of a dream.' Zain thought.

Eventually, the cave started to open up and there seemed to be more light in the cave. There were small glowing blue rocks spread out around the place lighting it up. It really did look quite beautiful, but Zain wasn't in the mood to appreciate the scenery.

The open area was relatively large, around the size of a football field. At the same time, there looked to be countless numbers of tunnels to choose from in terms of exiting, and it was impossible to tell which one would allow Zain to exit out of this place.

However, with a closer look, Zain had eventually spotted a large table. Walking over to it, he thought there might be a note or something informing him why he was here.

'Why would there even be a table in a cave in the first place?' Zain thought.

When reaching the table, Zain was surprised by what he saw, because laid out on it were a bunch of different weapons. It looked similar to what Kun had set up back at the club. There were axes, swords, spears, and even a crossbow had been placed in here.

On top of that, there were a number of weapons that he had never seen before. Unfortunately, there was no note explaining what was going on, or what he needed to do.

'If my instincts are right, as soon as I go through one of those tunnels, there is going to be something I face, and the weapons here are for me to use to defeat whatever it is I'm going to fight against… but I'm in my childhood body.' Zain thought.

Now Zain somewhat wished for the faceless man, as the fear of the unknown was settling in, but remembering that horrifying no face, he shook it off and realized maybe he was in a better situation as he shook his head, and decided to go ahead for the short sword.

It was the same weapon that he had taken from Kun, although this one was smaller to suit his size. It was a bit heavy, but Zain thought that was most likely due to his Zombie strength helping him in the real world rather than in this world.

After picking up the sword, Zain was ready to go through one of the many tunnels, but that was when he started to hear a slight low-level growling noise.

Immediately, Zain got a little away from the table to give him more room to manoeuvre. Hearing the sound, he was wondering where the noise was coming from, but that's when he realized it wasn't just coming from one of the rooms, it was coming from several of them.

A few seconds later, and a number of zombies could be seen running out of the tunnels heading straight toward Zain. They had nothing in their hands and weren't super fast as such, but they were running just like a mutated one would on the outside.

Before the zombies reached Zain though, a ding was heard in his head, and a notification screen had appeared.

'What, that's the system noise, this is the system… it still works here, what is it doing?'

[Quest: Defeat the Zombie horde using the weapon of your choice.]

[Reward: Sword Mastery Level 1]

[Failure: A penalty will be applied.]

'What kind of dream is this? Is this real?'

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This was the first time that he had seen the system prompt appear in front of him while being in his younger self. He had always thought of these visions as similar to dreams. In the first place, he couldn't have travelled back to his childhood, so this had to be a dream.

'Wait, I never tried to check the system before because I thought this was a dream, but does that mean it isn't? This has really confused me.' Zain wondered, but he didn't have much time before the first zombie pounced at him.

Zain jumped to the side, avoiding its range. Then with all his strength, taking a swing from above, he tried to chop the zombie's arms off. As the cut went down, it easily went through the skin but suddenly stopped when it hit the bone.

'Crap, this body is small, and the sword feels heavy. I can't cut through.'

In most situations, one would try to pull out the sword by lifting it, but knowing that his strength was weak and he needed to act fast, he instead held onto the sword's handle and dragged it across, elongating the cut.

And although the zombie was alive and kicking and still going after him, he felt he stood some chance against it. That's when he heard the sound of another from his side. And now, in total, there seemed to be five zombies.

'I'm not strong enough to slice off their limbs, so I won't be strong enough to cut off their heads either. So the first thing I need to do is slow them down.'

The zombies Zain was facing were not slow ones, but he still could out manoeuvre them, as they seemed to be slightly slower at turning. Whenever they got close, they would almost leap at him trying to grab him and take a bite.

It wasn't like being in a fight, where they would try to punch or kick you. Rather, these were similar to hungry bloodthirsty monsters. When another one got close, Zain moved to the side, then moving behind them, he bent slightly and slashed at the back of their foot.

'If I strike the Achilles heel, it should make it harder for them to move. I just need to buy time.'

Using the zombie's slowed body as an advantage, Zain could run around them all in circles repeating this process. He would wait for them to try to grab him and dodge quickly to get behind one of them.

The zombies were so stupid that they would crash into each other, and while this was happening, Zain would attempt to attack the back of their foot or slash the tendons in their legs.

Not all slashes were perfect, and the Zombies wouldn't fall to the ground after just one attack. However, after repeating this for a while, nearly all of them eventually were crawling on the floor.

'I'm out of breath, sweating and tired. This all feels real as well. I am definitely not dreaming, then where am I?'

Now that the zombies were crawling on the floor, it was easier for him to finish them. First, he pulled one of them away from the other by pulling its leg and then, lifting the sword, he stabbed it right through their skull, putting all his body weight behind it.

It still wasn't an easy task, and the gruesome act for the first time had made him queasy. However, he had somewhat gotten used to this because it was something he had done a few times before, not to mention he had done a lot worse.

After killing the first one, Zain had to take a break. He was dealing with the shock of what he was doing.

'I have to do this. If I don't, then they will just kill me. And look at them. They aren't human. They are monsters.'n0𝑽𝐄𝐥𝑢𝓈𝑏.𝓬0𝓂

Zain continued to stab them through the head one by one, with the thought of them being monsters but something crossed his mind. Maybe in here, he was a human, but out there, he was just like them?

Perhaps, this was what they thought when they saw him as well, that he was a monster. While thinking of this before killing the last one, Zain waited for his stamina, energy and breath to calm down.

'Since no more Zombies are coming out, I'm guessing this last one is the end. However, I should try to figure out this place before killing it.

Clutching his sword tightly, Zain looked down at the tunnels, which were completely pitch black, unlike the room they were in currently, so there was nothing he could see.

He was tempted to go down one of them, but there was an immense fear in his mind. Everything was like a game with the system, and to be honest, what he was experiencing right now was more game-like than anything.

This was the fighting area, and more so than likely, if he were to leave it, it would mean death, or it was just impossible to leave until he completed the task. In the end, he didn't want to risk anything, so he changed his mind and decided to head back to the zombie.

'There's another thought in my head that after I kill you, I'm going to be in for more trouble.' Zain wondered as he pushed the sword down, and the system notifications rang in his head.

[Congratulations! Quest complete]

[You have unlocked Passive Skill: Sword Mastery Level 1]

[You can level up the passive sword mastery skill with more experience one gets with the sword]

[Sword mastery Level 1]

[1/100]

Instantly, Zain felt a strange feeling on the back of his head. It felt like someone had hit him, but after a few seconds, it disappeared as if nothing had happened.

'What was that pain…but since I got the sword mastery, does that mean I can use the sword skills better now?'

Zain thought as he swung the sword. When he did, the sword felt more natural to swing, and the movement was slightly less awkward and easier. Honestly, he didn't know how to distinguish this either, but his sword fight capabilities were far from perfect.

'I can…level this up as well from repeated use.

[You have completed Round 1]

[Would you like to proceed to round 2?]

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n0𝓥ℯ𝒍𝔲𝗌𝗯.𝗰0𝐌

Seeing the system message pop up, it turned out to be what Zain thought before killing the last zombie. What he was going through right now was indeed similar to the games he had played. And often, these games would have a survival mode, where one would have to face increasingly stronger waves of enemies after each round or a time period.

In this case, it was a type of horde.

'I still don't know if what I learn here will be transferable to outside, but why else would it put me through all the trouble? The last time I had a vision with that faceless man, I learned to shoot a gun and could do so in the real world as well, even though I had never fired one before. So I am betting it's the same thing here.

'Usually, in these games, the higher the round one survives, the better the reward they get as well. And since I didn't struggle too much with the last one, I should at least be able to handle Round 2, right? Especially now that I have some sword mastery.'

The pros outnumbered the cons. Zain also believed that if he continued to use the sword against the new waves, his sword mastery would also increase. In the end, his gamer addict side kicked in, and he could not refuse the challenge.

[Round 2 has been accepted]

[The next round will start in 30 seconds]

[Quest: defeat all the enemies that come your way]

[Reward: All weapon trees unlocked]

[Failure: A penalty will be applied]

'As I thought, the penalty will be applicable in this round as well. But since failure means death anyway, I wonder what the penalty would even be?' Zain thought as he tightly held the sword with both hands.

Round 2 would certainly be harder than the previous one, yet, he couldn't help but anticipate just what would come out of those tunnels. When the thirty-second timer ended, he began to hear several growls just like last time, and then storming out of the holes were the same type of zombies as before.

'8..9..10. So it's double the amount, but they don't seem any faster or stronger, so I can use the same tactic as before.'

Since they had all come out simultaneously, Zain decided to head confidently toward one. At the last moment, he sidestepped and cut the hand that went toward him. Then when he was behind, with a single strike, he cut both of the back of the heel of the zombie in one strike.

Before, it would take him a few times, and he could only do them one at a time, but this time the zombie instantly fell to its knees as it tried to get up, and the rest of the Zombies stumbled over the first one.

[1.4/100 Sword mastery]

'This sword mastery, it goes up the more I use it, and it feels like I know how to use it now.'

Seeing how one of the Zombies had tripped over, Zain usually wouldn't have done this, but he went with the flow and thrust the sword right through the Zombies' head while quickly pulling it out again. It was as if he knew the right amount of force and pull needed to move the sword out of position, and his grip felt stronger around the handle as well.

'I…I can definitely do this!'

Constantly running in circles, Zain used the side of the sword to cut another zombie's arms and then struck at the back of one's leg to make it fall. He quickly kicked another zombie, causing it to fall, and as it fell to the ground, his sword was ready to pierce its head from below.

With fewer zombies, Zain could test and practice his sword skills a bit more. He was getting more confident, and rather than just outright killing them, he would strike certain parts of their body, attacking without facing any counterattack. The only thing that seemed to be affecting him a lot was his stamina, and finally, there were only the last two zombies left.

'This is amazing. If I had my zombie strength and my energy in a Zombie's body, then even if a whole horde came at us like last time, I could take them on all at once.'

As he thought about this, the image of Skittle appeared in his head, and he tightened his grip over the sword handle.

'If I could do this before if I had prepared like this before, or the system had given me these visions, then maybe I could have succeeded in saving Skittle.'

Thinking about this, out of anger, Zain went to slash at the zombie's neck, and the sword got stuck. He pulled out the sword and quickly thrust it forward, killing the first one. Then, after charging in, and jumping off the ground, he stabbed the sword right through the last one's head.

As the zombie fell to the ground, he found himself huffing and panting but soon heard the sound signifying that he had completed the Quest again.

[Congratulations! Quest completed]

[Reward: You have received all weapons' mastery]

[You may now level up and unlock mastery of any weapon]

[Would you like to proceed to Round 3?]

Before deciding whether or not to go to Round three, Zain wanted to clarify what the system was talking about and decided to bring up his own stats. Surprisingly, it worked.

He could see his name and stats as he did outside, stating that he was an Undead. But it was clear he was far weaker in this place than outside. When looking at the skills, he could see that Sword mastery was there, and every weapon he had seen at the table had greyed out, with the stat point being 0 on them.

[Handgun mastery: level 2]

[1/100 EP]

'Oh…so I guess I already had some skills in the gun after what happened last time. So yeah, this makes sense.

[Sword mastery: level 1]

[64.5/100]

'My sword mastery is close to levelling up, although dealing with ten was tough…I should be able to do round three as well.'

[Round 3 will start in 30 seconds]

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[Round 3 will begin in 30 seconds]

[New Quest received: Finish the round]

[Reward: A return Key will be given]

[Failure: A penalty will be applied]n0𝚟𝖊𝑳𝓊𝗌𝒷.𝐜0𝑀

The rewards for being in this place so far were beyond great. Zain could feel the improvement in his sword skills, but he was in the body of his 11-year-old self. Hopefully, after completing the third round, Zain's sword skills would then reach level 2. Possibly allowing him to go even further through the rounds and get even more rewards.

For a second, Zain glanced at the table behind him.

'Now that I have unlocked the Weapon's Skill tree, I can use any of the weapons on that table and improve myself with them. Still, I think the best thing to do would be to focus on improving one weapon's proficiency for now. Especially considering I currently have a sword on me in the real world.'

There was another thing that crossed Zain's mind, and it was the quest reward this time. Although the other rewards weren't so clear, this was the most confusing of the lot.

'What can I do with a Key? But the word Return? Is it a key that will let me return to my real body?'

Regardless, the reward was just a by-product of what he really wanted in the first place anyway. To upgrade his sword mastery.

"What's it going to be this time? 20 zombies? 25?" While musing to himself, Zain found something strange as 30 seconds had already passed. The usual growls and groans that echoed through the tunnels into the large cave hadn't come.

Instead, he only heard a groan.

'It can't be…' Zain thought.

Stepping out from the tunnel, it was what Zain feared.

"ARGHLLLEK!" The creature opened its mouth wide, and like a flower, several large teeth could be seen in its mouth before it closed up again. The zombie's body was covered in boils that looked to be pulsating and ready to pop.

'This is the Stage 2 Zombie, the Spitter. I beat it before, but I'm now in a weaker body…can I do it again?' There was hesitation in Zain's mind, but he had to act soon because the Spitter was already running towards Zain.

All the boils on its body lit up, and in the next moment, it spat out the red liquid towards him. Quickly, Zain rolled out of the way. The landing was a bit rough as he scraped his knee on the hard floor. However, he managed to avoid the spit.

'Sh*t, that hurt. I'm not in my own zombie body either.' Zain gritted his teeth as he stood up and tried to ignore the pain, and went straight toward the zombie. Having been in the zombie body for a while, he had gotten used to not feeling pain and would thus take some risks while fighting against other zombies, but this put him at a disadvantage here because there was no instant self-healing or painless state in the human body.

Swinging his sword, he went for its side, but the Spitter lifted its arm and easily blocked the incoming attack. And, in doing so, the sword clashed against it and clanked as if it had hit a rock, and the recoil pushed back Zain's arms.

'This is just like before with the hardened skin!'

Before Zain could fully regain his composure, the Spitter opened its mouth and leapt towards Zain, who had no choice but to move at the last second again and try slashing his sword towards the back of its head. This time it was a successful hit, and the sword had gone in a bit easier but had done next to nothing to seriously hurt it.

'Its head seems to still be the weakest part of its body, but I hit the bottom of the neck. Maybe if I give a proper hit on its temple instead, it will get injured.'

When the Spitter turned around, it shot out the red liquid from its mouth again and spat it in a line across rather than straight towards Zain. The only way to avoid it was to head in closer, and that's what Zain did.

He thrust his sword for a stab and hit one of the large boils on its body, which popped then and there, releasing part of the liquid on Zain. The Spitter screamed, but this chance gave enough time for Zain to get away.

'The liquid, I got some of the liquid on me…does that mean?'

Looking left and right, Zain was expecting more zombies to come toward him, but in the end, there were none.

'Wait a second, the main danger of the Spitter is how it uses its boils on dead zombies and how it attracts all of the zombies in the area. If this is like a game, then right now, the only enemy I have to face is the Spitter, so I don't have to worry about the red liquid.

'The Spitter must act in a certain way to defeat its enemy, but in a place like this, it's actually severely weakened.'

Thinking of this, Zain knew what he was to do next. He continued to lure the Spitter, allowing it to attack him, although he easily avoided the attacks repeatedly. At times, a hand nearly came to his face, but even if he couldn't pierce the Spitter's skin, he could still knock it away with his sword.

That's when the boils on its body started to light up and glow again. However, this time Zain stood right before the Spitter's attack. The red goo went all over Zain, and simultaneously, he thrust his sword forward. Twisting his arm, he gave it a little spin and felt it dig deep into the Spitter's head.

The sword got stuck, and he knew it wouldn't be enough, so jumping up, he kicked the sword's hilt with both his legs, pushing the sword in as deep as it would go while falling to the ground and landing on the floor.

"Ahh, that hurt!" Zain said as he got off the floor and saw that the Spitter had also collapsed.

'I did it...I killed the Spitter in this body.' Zain smiled.

Thinking back to when the red goo had hit Skittle, it had done nothing to the latter. There was no pain whatsoever, so it made sense to do the same here. With no zombies, there were no worries, apart from his strength.

No amount of sword skill was going to help him take down something he couldn't pierce. But, in the end, he managed to succeed.

[Congratulations, you have completed the quest]

[Sword mastery is now at level 2]

[You have received the item 'Return Key']

[The Return Key is a one-time use item that can be used at any time to return to the Melee Weapons Horde Challenge]

'Oh, so the Return Key was to return to this place. That's a really good reward. But, I wonder, will I start from round one again if I return? That way, I could use another weapon and improve with that as well.'

[Would you like to proceed to round four?]

[Yes] [No]

So far, every round came with a great reward, but there was also always a mention of a penalty. As to what that penalty was, it was hard to say, and it made him wonder if he should go through to the next round.

He had barely managed to pass the third round. If his plan hadn't worked out, then he would have lost the fight. However, there was the fact that he now had level 2 sword mastery.

'Usually, in games, one would still try to see how far they could get to anyway, and it looks like I won't be able to enter this place again unless I get a key. I don't even know if the rewards will be the same when I get here the next time.

'This cave, the opportunity is too good to pass up. I just have to take that risk.

[Round 4 will begin in 30 seconds]

[Reward: Instant Level up of any weapon skill]

[Failure: Penalty will be applied]

Seeing the possible reward brought a smile to Zain's face, and he thought it was the right choice to make

'What am I going to face next? A simple horde, or a horde with Stage 2 Zombies, or maybe even a Titan?'

The timer soon ended, and once again, Zain could only hear growls and noises coming from one tunnel direction. Again, he would rely on his sword for whatever was to come out.

The next second, running straight out, was a creature Zain had never seen before, but it did look familiar.

'This is…the Stage 2 on Shark's board.'

Before Zain knew it, the creature swung its arm, which looked like a curved blade itself. The stage two zombie's skin was green, and its eyes were larger than a human's, around two times the size.

Zain blocked the attack using his new sword skill, but his whole hand shook from the impact and went numb.

'This thing is fast and stro-'

Before Zain could finish his thought, the new Stage 2 Zombie's hand had already pierced right through his stomach and blood began to pour out. The next moment, the creature used its other arm to slice Zain's head off, and the latter's whole vision slowly went black.

[You have failed the quest]

[Penalty will now be applied.]

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n0𝑣𝖊𝓵𝔲𝗌𝚋.𝚌0𝔪

Everything had happened so fast that Zain could not even try out his newly levelled-up Sword Mastery skill, and by now, he was starting to realise his mistake of how heavily he had underestimated the enemy. After taking out the Spitter, he believed he was ready for whatever was to come next and had become quite complacent.

He had forgotten that due to the situation they were in, the Spitter was severely weakened in terms of its full capabilities, which was why, when Zain had to face a Stage 2 that could use its real strength in every way, he was hopeless.

'That stage 2...it was fast, its body was hard and strong. I don't know what was worse, the Titan or this.'

Thinking back to what the Stage 2 Zombie looked like, he recalled it had a normal human figure and was the same size as a human, unlike the Titan. However, both of the new Stage 2 Zombies were bladed in a strange thick white colour.

Thinking back to what Shark had said, Zain recalled that the latter had referred to the parts of the body as bones. The back, the chest and the rest of its body had these sharp white bits sticking out from it that indeed did look like bones.

The fact that Zain was unable to cut through them meant that the bones were most likely a bit harder than regular bones. According to Shark, this was the most dangerous type of evolved Zombie.

'I guess, Bonezom is an appropriate name for it?' Zain wondered. He was naming it based on its characteristics and thus came up with a direct and simple name.

[The Stage 2 type Zombie has been assigned the name 'Bonezom']

With this, Zain had crossed paths with all of the Stage 2 type Zombies: the Spitter, the Bonezom, and the Titan. The only thing was, he just hoped he wouldn't see a Bonezom in real life, at least not yet in any way.

At the moment, Zain had a lot of time to think about what went wrong or possibly how he would have defeated the Bonezom if he was to face it again in the future because right now, he was experiencing the penalty applied to him for failing the quest.

[Your real body will be inactive for four hours]

This was the message that Zain had seen as soon as the quest had come to an end. Out of all the possible penalties, he never thought that something that happened in his vision would affect his real-world body.

Now though, it was making him think that maybe all of the visions he was having, everything that was going on, was to do with the System in one way or another. He was also lucky that they were currently in hiding, and he had both Cobra and Skittle to protect him.

It made him wonder if he didn't have them, or in the future, if something like this happened, how much trouble he could possibly end up in?

'The time of the penalty as well, is it four hours because I reached Round Four? Or is the penalty the same regardless? If I was to guess, it is most likely related to the different rounds. I got pretty good items as a reward, so in a way, it's given that I will most likely receive a bigger penalty for failing as well.'

In the end, with the current child-like body, Zain was unable to think of a single way to defeat that Stage Two Zombie. If only there was a way to enter the place again but with his real body.

[The penalty has come to an end, you are now returning to your real body]

In almost an instant, Zain could feel a difference, and his body was no longer alive. In all honesty, it was a feeling that he didn't know that he had missed.

To feel things fully with a sense of touch, to feel one's heart beating and to work as it should, was an experience one could only treasure after losing it. Slowly, when opening his eyes, he found himself in the same room, and Cobra, along with Skittle, were still around him, keeping watch.

When staring out of the window and looking up at the sky, Zain noticed its grey tone. The sun was only starting to rise and had yet to fully light up the streets.

In a couple of hours, he would be able to safely move out of the room.

'If Shark was right about that Stage 2 Zombie, then he probably is right about those Demons as well. It's best not to take any chances for now and stay back.'

Getting a bit more comfortable but still lying on the couch, Zain decided to open up his System to check out his new stats and also observe if there has been a new change.

'It's all there, the Sword mastery, the Gun mastery and all of the other weapons. Everything that I got in that place has come here as well, but how is that possible?'

There was no point for Zain to fully understand his position. He didn't even understand how a gaming system along with him and how still being alive as a zombie was possible.

'The Return Key is here as well. So can I really return to that place when I want?' Zain thought. 'For now, it's best if I don't use it, but when I do, I should use it during a time where I know my real body remains safe. I got lucky today.

'And besides, if I want to take full advantage of that place, then it would be best to wait until I was stronger to enter it again or improve my sword skills and more outside of the area. Next time I get back in there, I will definitely get past Round Four.'

For the first time in a while, Zain felt anticipation and excitement over something. Since turning into a zombie, his emotions seemed to be slightly dulled, he was unable to feel things, but now, it was as if his old self was taking over, wanting to surpass the challenge of prevailing as long as possible.

He stood up and raised the sword, and then Zain also finally. He wouldn't be able to leave until the sun went up anyway, so he tried swinging his sword about.

A vertical slash, a horizontal one, and a thrust forward. They were all basic moves, but everything felt several times easier than before.

'I'm faster than I was in the cave since I have the added stats here as well. I did the right thing by levelling up my sword skills.'

Continuing his practice session, Zain started to swing the sword while combining strikes and imagining multiple enemies in front of him. He needed to also use his mind to find the best out of situations with his new-found skills.

After getting the hang of it for a while, Zain wanted to test something else and checked on his System again.

[Sword Mastery: Level 2]

[6.32/100]

'My sword mastery went up after all that training? It's still not as fast as using it in a real fight, but it still went up…wait, isn't there something I could do then?'

Standing in the centre of the room, Zain prepared himself and looked directly at Cobra.

'Attack.'

Cobra came charging in with his two daggers and went for a slash from above. Swinging his sword up, Zain deflected the incoming dagger and also hit the second one with his sword path before it could reach him.

It was then that Zain went for a vertical slash, but Cobra had jumped back in time, avoiding the attack, and instantly went for another and kept on asking for the Crates.

'I should be careful. I don't want to hurt Cobra. Right now, he's my ace. Even with my improved sword skills, Cobra is giving me a tough challenge.'

Due to the small size of the room, all Zain had to do was defend, and, as he continued to use his sword skills against Cobra, he noticed that the stats were now slowly going up bit by bit.

Eventually, the messages Zain raised on his phone to alert him about energy going down, Cobra's hunger alerts, and the sun rising had caused them to stop.

[12.7/100]

'It's still not going up fast enough, but that might be the fact that it's now at Level 2. Either way, this is a good way to upgrade my skills. If possible, maybe I should start upgrading other weapons like the dagger and stuff as well.

'The sun is out, so I should focus on getting some food before returning to this place as well.'

The current plan was to stay in the apartment opposite the club in which the Reborn group were. Zain was sure that whoever was behind the scenes and giving orders to Shark would come back eventually, but he needed to get some food and perhaps even go and explore to find meteorites during the day.

When looking out the window, Zain's eyes opened wide as he saw something he hadn't noticed before.

'The door….why is the door to the club open?'

Constantly, the door was swinging from the wind slamming shut, open and closed, open and closed as if there wasn't a single person inside who had noticed.

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The atmosphere in the club had taken a worse turn after Zain left the group. It had only been about thirty minutes since he walked out of the door, but everyone was sitting apart and hadn't said a word to each other since.

It was the same with Shark, who was just picking up the weapons laid out and trying them one by one. In the end, though, Shark was the one who had broken the silence.

"I can see that no one will be up for training, but I must continue training to protect all of us. If you need time to think, or have any concerns, feel free to talk to me in the training room."

After picking up a pair of curved swords and a couple of daggers, Shark walked to the other room and began his night training on his own like he usually would have done.

After waiting 10 to 15 minutes, they knew Shark wouldn't come out, so Pink decided to go to someone else who was on his own, sitting at a table and staring at the stage.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Pink asked. There was some hesitation in her voice.

"Please." Kun gestured towards one of the seats. He didn't have much reaction to Pink's arrival. Rather, it was as if he was trying to distract himself from everything. There was a large bottle of whisky in front of him, and Kun was slowly taking sips.

However, he barely felt the taste of strong alcohol, but neither its taste nor the effect he wanted it to have was the same as it used to be in the past. Still, it was hard to get rid of old habits in a situation like this.

"I know you might be in an uncomfortable position Kun, but honestly, right now, we trust you more than Shark." Pink started.

Kun wondered why that was because he and Shark were both lying to them and were part of the same organisation. Maybe it was his face, his mannerisms, or the fact that this whole situation seemed to be affecting Kun quite a bit, while on the other hand, Shark was more like an emotionless robot and was quite indifferent about everything.

"Just remember," Kun replied. "I'm not a good guy either. I lied to you all as well."

"You're right, but Zain trusted you for some reason, and so do we. Even though we haven't known each other long, there are some things that you just can't hide.

"Anyway, Fingers and I have decided on something. Although we initially were scared of Zain, now we think we need him. So I believe we should chase after Zain and ask him to come back and stay with us."

Zain was a crazy guy. Everyone knew that, and Kun was most surprised that Fingers also wanted this, especially after Zain almost killed him in the previous scuffle.

It just went to show how skilful they saw Zain asor how afraid they were of Shark. Sometimes, having two different dynamics and opinions in a group was good. And in this case, it would be Zain and Shark — making the former a really important figure for them.

Otherwise, if there's only one leader, they would have to follow whatever they were told to say or told without a choice. At first, they were fine with that because they trusted in Shark, but that trust was crushed when they came to know Shark was hiding something from them, and now they couldn't blindly follow him anymore, but without him, how would the group even survive?

After taking a long sip, Kun slammed the glass on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Some of the drink had poured out from the wound on his cheek.

"Honestly, I was thinking the same thing. "

"Don't be a fool." A voice suddenly called out, and when turning to the side, they saw Shark stepping out of the room. They didn't know when he came and couldn't help but wonder how much he had heard them.

"Shark, I know you can be stubborn sometimes, but do you truly believe we don't need him? He was the one that managed to get us the brains after all. Maybe this group needs that bit of craziness." Kun replied.

It looked like Shark was a bit upset that even Kun was now against him.

"I'm not talking about that, you idiot." Shark's words, however, scrubbed that assumption.

"I'm saying you can't go out now. Zain left about half an hour ago, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be to find him in this city. I am sure we both are fully aware of this fact.

"The best thing to do would be to leave right now, but you shouldn't do that. It's very risky and almost nighttime."

Shark didn't have to say anything else because it had been drilled in their heads to avoid the demons by not going out at night.

"Do you still believe them?" Kun replied. "I mean, how do we even know anything they informed us before is the truth? What if there is another reason why they don't want us out at night?"

Shark didn't reply immediately because, for a brief second, there was some hesitation in his mind. The story of him having seen a demon before had been made up. It was a way to get the others to go along with the request without asking too many questions.

"I mean, they didn't tell us about the Crystals either. So Zain did have a point." Kun continued.

Before Shark could reply, Kun walked to the office room and brought back the remaining crystals. He then placed one in his hand and closed his eyes.

Following what he had done before, as the crystal's energy disappeared and went into him, he could feel a new energy and his body became stronger.

"Look, Zain was right. We can absorb these crystals, and they seem to make us stronger. So why would those people not tell us something like this? Of course, I am talking about the people who we work for. I believe the reason behind it is quite clear. They want to use us. Also, with how they have so much information, they might likely be why we are in this mess in the first place, and that's why they are trying so hard to fix it!"

This was something Shark certainly couldn't argue because he was having similar thoughts as well.

In the end, seeing Shark remain silent, Kun went ahead and started to absorb the crystals one by one. And with each crystal that he absorbed, he felt himself get stronger each time, and eventually, all of the Crystals disappeared by the time he was done.

'If there really is something out there, then I need the best chance I can get.'

Kun went over to the weapons and picked up a chain and ball first, then he placed the shield around his back, among a few other things.

The first thing he felt was that the items were slightly lighter than before. Soon, he was ready and was already heading toward the exit.n0𝓋ℯ𝔩𝒰𝚜𝒃.𝒞0𝑚

"The rest of you stay here. There is no need for all of us to go out if we're looking for just one person. If I don't find Zain, I will be back during the day, and we can look again then." Kun replied.

"Wait." Shark suddenly called out. "Just be careful out there."

"Don't worry about that." Kun smiled. "You know I'm the best at this sneaking stuff. I'll be okay. Just take it easy on the rest of these guys. They're a bit scared of you at the moment."

Shark sighed upon hearing those words. Unfortunately, he didn't really have a solution to that problem, and only time could mend their distrust and fear.

Kun had reached the door by now, and when he opened it and looked up, the pitch black sky stared back at him. Once he was out, Jelly shut the door and went to stand by its side like he always had done.

"Good luck, Kun," Pink muttered. She was worried if anything went wrong tonight and wished nothing but luck for Kun.

The group began to wait for their friend to return and began to get nervous as time passed. At night time, it was most likely even harder for Kun to find someone, and they worried that something might have happened to him.

In a situation as such, one most likely thinks of the worst outcome and their reaction and thought process was quite natural.

Soon, more than three hours had passed, and Kun had yet to return. With no contact on the radio, since Shark had no way of reporting this.

All of them were in the main room waiting, none of them talking to each other, until --

KNOCK *KNOCK *KNOCK*

There was a clear distinctive knock on the door.

"That must be Kun! Does that mean he came back?" Pink said, jumping up from her seat, overwhelmed.

Knock *Knock *Knock.

There were three knocks again, this time faster, which sounded quite urgent.

"Is there anyone inside!" A voice shouted. "Please let me in…please!"

It wasn't a voice any of them recognised.

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Originally, Zain never planned to go back into the club unless he saw others enter. Possibly the ones that were giving orders to Shark and Kun. However, due to certain circumstances, Zain was unable to keep a close eye on the club, and now after waking up, it was clear that something had happened.

In the end, now that the sun had fully risen, Zain had decided to head back there. He looked outside of the building and the area around it slowly to see if there was anything he could spot.

Any signs of the others leaving or anything strange occurring, and that's when he realized he found nothing.

'This is really strange, there is absolutely nothing within five hundred meters from the club.' Zain thought. 'Not a single dead body on the ground or a zombie just treading its feet along. Was it the military that arrived here and cleaned it up, or was it the other group?'

Regardless of who it was to clean up a place this well, it had to be the work of several people. Walking slowly, Zain could hear the door constantly banging, again and again as the wind continued to slam it shut.

p Holding his hand out, he stopped the door from making the noise, took a deep breath and took a step inside. Zain didn't know what he was expecting. Entering, Zain closed the door behind him softly.

While in the place he needed to use his senses to hear what was going on.

'Cobra, stay by the door for now, if you are attacked protect your life.' Zain ordered.

Looking from left to right of the room, it was completely different from when he was last here. So much had changed in a single day. All of the tables looked to be destroyed, chairs had been flung all over the place, glass bottles shattered everywhere.

'Is this because of me? Did those people that Shark was working for come and decide to ruin the entire place, but why? I was sure that they needed him for more. They wouldn't have gotten rid of him so easily, not someone who was that loyal.'

Walking around, Zain had decided that it was best to order Skittle to wait by the door as well. Because after a few steps, cracking noises were heard and it was Skittle stepping on the glass on the floor behind him.

It looked like the command 'follow' for Skittle, literally meant follow, so he wasn't careful with his footsteps like Zain.

'I have to treat it like, whatever was here, could still be here.' Zain thought.

Inspecting the room, he walked around with pictures of a fight playing out in his head. He tried to imagine how chairs could be chucked around in such a way. Straight down the middle it looked almost like someone was chucked right up and into the stage, cracking the bottom part of it, and causing all the chairs and seats in the middle to move away.

Yet, there were also a few chairs on stage as well, as if someone was throwing them at whoever they were fighting.

'It's not military, at least I don't think it Is.' Zain thought. 'There are no bullet holes, signs of guns being used, and there are no empty shells anywhere. Sure they could have cleaned the place up, but it would be impossible and there is no reason for them to do it with all the holes in the place.'

Eventually, Zain went behind the bar area, which looked to have some of the most damage done to it. Part of it looked to be ripped in half, and there was blood all over on the ground. Taking a turn around the corner, Zain stopped and looked at the floor for a while.

He just stood there staring at the body for a good five minutes before he decided to walk forward, and kneel down at their side.

"Several large piercing wounds all over his body. He was bleeding all over… I imagine since he was such a big guy that it was hard for them to kill." Zain said. "I'm sorry the two of us didn't really talk much during my stay here."

"You didn't seem like a bad guy… and it's possible that I was the one that caused this for you. If we had talked, maybe you could have told me your final wishes and I would have tried to accomplish them for you."

After inspecting the body for a while, Zain stood up knowing there was nothing he could do, nor anything he could figure out, apart from the fact that Jelly was dead. From what he knew, Jelly was the door guard of the Reborn.

There was once where Zain had felt his strength and it was real, looking at his body as well, even for Zain he felt like it would have been a long and winded battle.

When looking at Jelly, for the first time since turning, he felt a little down, a feeling in his chest where there was meant to be no feeling. He was unsure why. Especially when there was no real connection to Jelly.

'If this has happend to Jelly, then I need to expect the worst for the others as well.'

Pulling out his sword, Zain was now on high alert. Looking at the wounds, and on such a large person, there was another thought in his head. This could have been the work of a stage 2 bone zombie, or something similar to that.

While walking to the other side of the room, where another bar was present. Zain could see the scattered weapons all over the place as well. He imagined the group being quite pleased when they had found these, thinking that their days for survival would last a bit longer, only to result in this.

In the end, Zain didn't have to walk all the way to the other side of the bar, because turning his head, looking a little past the stage, there was another body that was slumped up against the wall.

Walking over, Zain looked at the wall itself behind the stage. There were several large fist sized holes in it, and blood scattered all over where the holes were. As for the slumped over body, there was an axe in thier hand but no blood on it at all.

"Whoever he fought against, didn't even get a scratch on them." Zain said as he lifted the head slighty confiming that it was Fingers.

There were wounds on his body similar to that of the wall. Which made Zain think, was he pinned up against it?

'Judging by the sliding of the blood as well. Would all of the wounds have been done at the same time? And from a distance?' Right now there was some strange imagery going on in Zain's mind thinking of what it could possibly be.

He could imagine some military force with a spike gun of sorts, that shot out and stabbed through one's body with four different points. However, it seemed cruel but did make sense for an organization to make more silent and effective weapons against Zombies.

With Fingers and Jelly dead, it meant that Zain was expecting to see more, he thought he would see Pink, Kun and lastly Shark as well. It was hard for him to imagine Shark getting killed though.

Heading behind the stage, more destruction could be seen, Stage boxes completely destroyed, parts of the back wall being destroyed and crumbling to the ground. Stepping forward, Zain turned as he went to look in the office and that's where he could see it.

Down underneath some of the destroyed wall rubble, there were a pair of legs that looked to have been badly cut, but they were detached, separate from the waist down from something.

Then walking forward and into the office, lying on the ground there was the other half of the body in a pool of blood. Looking at his mouth and seeing the side along with the visible teeth it was confirmed that this was Shark.

'Out of all the people I thought you would have probably been the one to have made it out of here.' Zain thought.

Still, the whole thing was confusing and the fact that Shark had been dealt with and in this fashion as well, made Zain think only more it was nothing to do with the people that Shark was in contact with.

Just like all the other bodies, Zain went to inspect Shark's to see if he could see anything different. Other than the missing bottom half, like the others there were several large marks all over. To get a good look though Zain needed to turn him over and that's what he did.

When flipping him from his front to his back, Zain could see something, it looked like words written in blood.

"D..e..m..demon…"

n0𝓋𝑬𝓁𝐔𝗌𝒷.𝒞0𝗆

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