Mikael reappeared in what seemed to be an abandoned city. The silence was absolute, and there were no humans or zombies in sight. The buildings around him were old and decrepit, with nature reg its ground; cracks ran along the walls, and vines covered almost every surface, giving the whole pce a desote feel.
Looking around, he thought, ‘It looks like the start of a horror movie. Silent ay until zombies suddenly spring up from nowhere and swarm me.’
He tinued sing his surroundings carefully. ‘Nothing? I thought I’d jinxed myself by thinking that, but it seems I’m in the clear.’
At that instant, he sensed a danger approag his torso. He swiftly dodged, though he made it look as if he’d been struck by the projectile, sending him flying. Feigning injury, he fell to the ground.
Five hundred meters away, a team of five men dressed in military gear observed him.
“Got it,” said one man, putting away his sniper rifle.
Another, peering through binocurs at Mikael’s ‘body,’ remarked, “Hey, James, I think you just hit a human, not a zombie.”
James groaned. “Again? What’s with these idiots not wearing the green clothes they’re supposed to? It’s to help us tell them apart from zombies.”
The other man shrugged. “Who knows? Probably some desperate surviv to sge for food outside the Bastion.”
James grabbed another pair of binocurs to firm if Mikael was truly a human. After a few seds, he muttered in fusion, “Uh, Victor, I ’t find the body.”
Victor shot him an incredulous look. “Open your eyes—it’s right there.”
James, sounding nervous, replied, “No, I’m serious—the body’s gone.”
Victor, ready to vent to the other men about James’ behavior, fell silent as his gaze locked onto the horrifying se before him. Their eeam y decapitated, and the man James had supposedly killed was standing over the bodies, a bloody sword in hand.
Though shocked, Victor’s military instincts kicked in. He drew his gun and aimed at the figure above his fallen rades. “DON’T MOVE, OR I’LL EMPTY MY MAGAZIO YOU!”
James, startled by Victor’s yell, turo look, but in that brief moment, Mikael moved with blinding speed. Victor barely had time to react before his hand, still clutg the gun, was severed.
“AHHHHH!” Victor screamed, clutg his bleeding stump.
Terrified, James quickly dropped his on and pleaded, “Wait! Don’t hurt me—I surrender.”
Mikael was about to kill them both but paused, sidering the value of interrogating them for information about this world.
Grabbing the wounded Viikael dragged him over to James and said, “I have some questions for you. If you lie or refuse to answer, you’ll beg for death. Uood?”
James quickly nodded. “Yes, I uand.”
Mikael began, “First, do you have any ropes?”
James hesitated but, too scared to lie, replied, “There are some in Pedro’s bag.” He poio one of the dead bodies nearby.
Leaving Victor at James's feet, Mikael opened Pedro’s backpad retrieved the ropes before he approached them. Victor, clutg his bleeding stump, asked, “What are you going to do?”
Mikael replied, “I’m going to tie you up before questioning you separately. If you lie, I’ll know, and you’ll regret it.”
James remained silent, terrified. He was just a regur man who joihe military for the retively better living ditions pared to the dire life of a survivor. Victor, a seasoned soldier, spoke up more calmly, “If we answer your questions, will you let us go?”
Mikael gave a cold smirk. “It’s simple: answer my questions and it’ll be painless. Refuse, and I promise you a very unpleasant end.”
Victhed, seemingly accepting his fate, while James began to panio, please don’t kill me! I be useful!” he pleaded.
Mikael shot him a disdainful gnce before smming his head to the ground. Raising James’s now bloodied face, Mikael coldly remarked, “I’ve already told you everything you o know.” He then bound Victor’s feet and single arm, and did the same with James.
Mikael led Victor about teers away from James, positioning him with his back turned so they couldn’t unicate.
“Where is the bastion?” he asked.
“Twenty kilometers south,” Victor replied.
“What’s the process to acquire a physical enhancers…?” Mikael tinued, asking a range of questions that helped him uand the structure of this world. Victor answered without resistance, allowing Mikael to avoid res to torture. He had do once before, and he khat the sed time would be easier…
He theuro James, asking the same questions and receiving roughly simir answers, only differing slightly in phrasing. Once he had all the information he needed, Mikael kept his promise and killed them swiftly and painlessly.
[Normal Human killed 100 xp received X5]
From his interrogation, Mikael learned much about the world. He discovered the social hierarchy within the bastions: at the bottom were the survivors, ordinary people w grueling hours for meager food rations and living in atrocious living ditions. Above them were the soldiers, regur humans equipped with firearms that are tasked with the prote of the bastion and mainting order.
Finally, at the top are the nobles, humans enhanced by the physical enhancers, vastly strohan regur people. They live in luxury with a nearly unlimited access to food and also have access to any women that they want.
Aside from this bleak social structure, Mikael also learhat the physical enhancers were called serums, and access to them required a fortune. Curren this world was measured in food, as traditional paper money had lost all value in the apocalypse. It became clear to Mikael that acquiring these serums without res to theft would be nearly impossible.
Looking up at the sky, Mikael estimated it was around noon. ‘I’ll wait until nightfall to infiltrate the bastion,’ he thought.
He began running in the opposite dire of the bastion, searg for a zombie. Since up teams regurly patrol the area surrounding the bastion, he figured he’d o go farther out to find any ied.
After c about 20 kilometers, he finally spotted a zombie in the middle of the cracked road. It looked almost like an ordinary man, except for its extremely pale skin and pronounced blue veins. Surprisingly, it didn’t resemble a typical zombie—no rotting flesh or deposiures—but it was unmistakably ied.
He approached the zombie and swiftly cut its legs.
Crash
“Grrrr,” the zombie groaned, colpsing to the ground, thrashing uselessly without its legs.
‘Alright, time to test my idea, but better firm first.’ “System, if I deactivate the Immunity System befetting ied by the Z21 virus and theivate it, will I be cured?”
[Yes. Ohe Immunity System is active, it will protect you from all pathogens and work to cure any current iions.]
‘Great, now to get myself ied by a “zombie virus.” Definitely not the most pleasant experience, but for 3K LP, it’s worth the disfort. Besides, the quest reward covers the cost of the Immunity System and then give me a 2K bonus.’
After finishing his thoughts, he g the writhing zombie on the ground. He grabbed its arm, lowered his physical defenses, deactivated the Immunity System, took a deep breath, and pierced his arm with the zombie’s sharp nail.
A few drops of blood dripped from his wound, but at first, he felt no different. After a few seds, though, a fever crept over him, making him feel nauseous. He killed the zombie and quickly entered an abandoned house to wait out his “zombification” safely.
“Arghh…”
‘I feel awful. I just o hold on until the quest is pleted so I reactivate the Immunity System.’
He stayed in one spot, enduring the fever for a few minutes. Gradually, an aggressive restlessook over; everything around him began to irritate him—even the unfortable floor beh him sparked an urge to destroy. Yet, he held himself together, fighting the mounting rage.
The strain grew, but Mikael forced himself to stay calm, and finally, a notification appeared:
[Quest: Ied pleted.Reward: 3K LP]
As soon as he saw this, he immediately reactivated both his physical defenses and the Immunity System. Instantly, he felt better, and within moments, he was ba top form. Mikael rubbed his temples, thinking, ‘That was tougher than I expected, but the reward was worth it. 3K LP for somes minutes of disfort—not bad.’
‘Still, I was minutes away from reactivating the Immunity System early. No amount of LP is worth truly being a zombie.’
He stretched and thought ‘I’ve got a few hours to kill until nightfall. Hunting wouldn’t be too effit without a clear location with eo kil, so maybe some body refi is the best option.’
With his p, he re-ehe house and climbed to the sed floor, choosing a windowless room. He barricaded the door to focus on his body refiraining without having to worry of being ambushed while he his training.
He removed his clothes and sat cross-legged on the floor, breathing in rhythm with the instrus in his body refi manual. Then he begaing the mantra.
‘I am refining my body.’
‘I am my body, and my body is me.’
‘I train my body for myself and only for myself.’
‘I choose to brave the pain to bee stronger.’
‘My goal is a qualitative upgrade.’
‘I choose level 5 of body refining.’
This time, by choosing Level 5 instead of Level 4, the pain intensified dramatically. It no longer felt like tiny cuts; now, it was as if his bones were enduring tinuous micro-fractures, with each passing sed bringing fresh waves of agony.
Crack
The faint sound of bones breaking echoed chillingly, but Mikael was too absorbed in enduring the pain to notice. He ched his teeth and balled his fists so tightly that his nails drew blood.
The pain was excruciating, yet he persevered, letting out only the occasional groan. Even with his iron will, he could only st five minutes before colpsing onto his back, gasping for air.
“Haah... haah... haah…”
He y there, spent, for about ten minutes before f himself bato the painful training. He tihis way for hours, taking only brief ten-minute breaks between each session.
By midnight, he had mao endure 16 minutes of Level 5 body refi before needing to rest.
[Body Refi Qualitative Stats Value: 1.03 → 1.08]
Mikael calcuted the training time against the progress he made and cluded that each level of body refi is twice as effective as the previous one.
While Level 5 was effective, the intense pain forced him to take frequent breaks, making it ultimately no more effit than training at Level 4.
A surprising thing happened when he was only an hour away from finishing his body refi: the orc core he’d been using—the same one as always—crumbled to dust.
‘Looks like I’ve finally reached its durability limit. Holy, though, it sted lohan I expected. I must’ve trained with it for, what, 20 hours? Pretty durable!’
After he fihinking about the orc core he looked at himself, Mikael sighed. ‘Now I’m in desperate need of a shower... but I kind of fot that this post-apocalyptic world obviously doesn’t have funal showers.’
‘A ing spell would’ve been incredibly useful, but I still haven’t learned magiothing I do about it—I’ll just have to take a dip in the ke…’
Searg the house, he found some old clothes to wear. He wouldn’t be going outside naked, after all. Soon, he was running in the dire of a ke he’d passed earlier.
After a brief jog, he arrived by the ke. A small beach preceded it, giving a tranquil vibe to the surroundings. The stillness of the water atuated this calm but deadly atmosphere. In the darkness of the night, the ke’s waters were ominous, giving the impression of a lurking monster waiting to grab anyone foolish enough to swim.
Mikael took a moment to appreciate the beauty of nature, then shed his clothes and stepped into the water.
The cold would’ve deterred an average person, but his reinforced body barely registered the temperature, unless he specifically chose to.
He washed himself, then floated oer, gazing up at the clear sky. With no city pollution after five years without humans, the stars shone brilliantly. He could even make out some steltions.
While he was enjoying this moment of rexation, a shadow slowly emerged from the ke's depths, approag him without a sound.
Unaware of the threat, Mikael floated peacefully. When the shadow was only 10 meters away, he suddenly felt a sense of urusting his instincts, he didn’t linger like a character in a horror movie.
With a powerful kick, Mikael propelled himself a meter above the water. As he soared, he caught a glimpse of the gigantic shadow only a few meters away. Although he couldn’t see it clearly, what he did see sent chills down his spine and sparked an urgeo get the hell out of the water.
Spsh!
The sed he touched the water, he swam at a fear-fueled speed, reag the shore in an instant. The moment his feet hit the ground, he sprinted away from the ke.
Within a sed, he was 50 meters from the water. Now ‘safe,’ he turo assess the threat. Ier, a massive, green-scaled body surfaced—a crocodile-like creature over 15 meters long and several meters wide.
“Nope,” he muttered, then took off running again. Fighting a giant crocodile, especially naked, unarmed, ahe water, didn’t appeal to him in the slightest.
After a few minutes, he reached the same house where he had done his body refiraining. He entered and started putting on his clothes, thinkiedly, ‘Seriously, what are the ces the ke I decide to bathe in has a dinosaur-sized crocodile? Safe to say, I’m steering clear of kes for a while…’
