Tasha croaked like a bullfrog—a bastardized sound like someone who was belching and clearing their throat at the same time—and just like that, Logan’s stomach sank. Did he go to all this work, almost give himself Karma deprivation, and end up fixing Tasha’s surface problems but not what made Tasha Tasha?

  “Tasha…?” he said again, clenching his hand into a fist and peering down into the pit. Zombie Jack hadn’t noticed Tasha’s changed state, and he was still doing his best to claw his way out of the hole.

  Tasha blinked again, her eyes pale and icy blue. They looked like blue eyes covered in white tissue paper. Logan hadn’t known her long, but even he remembered that her eyes hadn’t looked like that before he’d left. Since her fungi hair had shrivelled and dissolved into black sludge, she no longer had any hair, just small tufts of purple on a bald scalp. Her brown skin looked pale, way too pale, and her lips were chapped as if she’d just walked out of a desert.

  Little by little, Logan hardened his resolve, convinced that whatever he’d tried had failed, and that he’d have to put her down after all. It felt like glass shards were eating into his stomach, hitting him where it hurt the most.

  He’d wanted to save her.

  He’d needed to save her.

  Tasha blinked again, dazed, and then peered down at her fingers, staring at the nailbeds which were devoid of nails. Dropping her hands, she gazed around the dirt pit surrounding her, then got sight of Zombie Jack and promptly scooted back and tripped over her own feet.

  Logan swallowed, that glass shard feeling transforming as he crept closer to the edge of the pit, looking from her to Jack. That wasn’t the actions of an unfeeling, bloodthirsty zombie.

  When Logan shifted, he caused the dirt on the edge of the pit to fall, scattering over the ground and onto Tasha’s arm. Gasping, she peered up at him, her mouth gaping, showing an intact human tongue covered in black sludge.

  “L-logan,” she croaked, licking her lips and making an expression of distaste. “W-what the hell is going on?”

  ***

  Logan sat on the bare ground in a lotus position and stared at Jack and Tasha, who were both sitting haphazardly on the ground.

  Once he’d hauled Tasha out of the pit, Logan had repeated the same process on Jack, forcing the infection out by commanding it with an uncompromising mental voice. He’d fed [Liche Devourer] by sucking more Karma from the green bean plant, which he’d realized had an unintentional positive side effect. To stop the green beans from replicating, you had to harvest them in a special way. Each green bean pod had a concentration of Karma like a knotted rope. But that was the extent of the plant’s Karma.

  Logan had needed so much Karma that he’d sucked the knots dry, which meant that when he went to clear the infected plant, he could do it without having to worry that he’d make the replicating problem worse.

  As for Tasha and Jack, Logan didn’t know what to think. Although Logan had put Jack through the same process, he looked even more off than Tasha, with fingernails that were half an inch, sharp and tinged with blue. Unlike Tasha, whose gold threaded skin had reverted to normal, Jack’s hadn’t completely dissolved. Instead, it looked like he had thousands of thin red scars as if someone had run his whole body through a cheese grater.

  When Logan scanned them with [Idiot’s Inspect], they looked normal:

  [Tasha Frederick: Level 29. A human being.]

  [Highest Stat: Constitution. Characteristics: A healer. Hidden name: Tonks.]

  [Jack Donson: Level 24. A human being.]

  [Highest Stat: Perception. Characteristics: Loyal to those in his sphere, indifferent to those outside of it. Hidden name: Jack.]

  According to the skill, Tasha had prioritized her constitution attribute, which made sense after her encounter with the minions at the resort. Because the System classified her as a healer and she had a higher constitution, did that mean she could fight off the effects better than Jack? But regardless of the physical leftovers of their infection, they seemed normal.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” asked Logan. Before he let them mill with the others, he needed to make sure that he could trust them and that they wouldn’t revert back to their infected state.

  Tasha was looking at her missing fingernails and the green bean plants around them, her expression first dazed and then filled with horror as she ran a hand over her bare scalp.

  “We were outside,” said Jack, his voice rasping. He kept darting his gaze from Logan’s face to the ground, swallowing heavily, his expression pinched. Then he turned to Tasha, hesitant. “We were outside?” he asked her as if in confirmation.

  Tasha’s eyes were damp. More than anything, her missing hair seemed to have thrown her.

  Logan’s eyes softened. Although he couldn’t relate, since he’d already managed to burn off patches of his hair in the perception trial, he knew that to a woman who had died her hair purple, paying special attention to her hairstyle, suddenly waking up to find a bald head would be beyond disconcerting.

  He wasn’t looking forward to the first time she looked into a mirror, since it wasn’t just her hair that made her look off. Although the longer she sat on the ground, the more her higher constitution attribute seemed to help, there was still something distinctly off. The raw nailbeds had healed and there was the first hint of normal nails. However, her eyes were still icy blue and covered in a white film, her lips chapped and her face pale.

  At least there was one thing he could do. With a mental rummage, Logan searched through the contents of his spatial collar. He’d cleared out Lara’s house. She had to have at least a few different hats lying around.

  With a blink, Logan willed out a pink baseball hat and a white sunhat, the ends frilly and like something out of a Katherine Hepburn film.

  Logan winced. Not to say that Lara had good taste.

  “Here,” he said, pushing the hats towards Tasha.

  She blinked at them, her eyebrows furrowed, then looked from the hats to Logan. “How did those suddenly appear? You’re walking around with hats now?” she asked as she grabbed the baseball hat.

  When he’d obtained access to the Tree Fridge and his cat spatial collar, Logan had made the decision to lie and pretend that he’d received a skill that let him store his grandfather’s shed. By now, he knew that it made no sense to keep the existence of the spatial collars to himself. At least to Tasha and Jack. After all, what was the worry? They were both so low leveled that even if in the unlikely possibility that they became untrustworthy, there was no way they were any threat to him.

  Besides, if empire building and becoming a ‘lord’ was on the horizon, he would need the help of people like Tasha and Jack to manage it. If they didn’t know what resources he had at his disposal, it would be like expecting an employee to perform without all the facts.

  Logan reached behind his neck and twisted the collar so that he could unfasten it underneath his chin. He’d either had it underneath his shirt or underneath his armour, so this was the first time he’d taken it off since he’d bought it from the Tree Fridge.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  For all its power, on strictly appearance’s sake, it looked ridiculous. A true human sized cat collar including dangling tags. Either the true System had a warped sense of humour, or it was the product of his glitchy AI minion. Logan suspected the latter. From his cat collar to his Pink Sock, all those ridiculous items had to be the product of a warped, twisted AI mind.

  That brought to mind the question of whether he’d find the same items inside of his Tree Fridge. Or yet again, what Matt managed to clear out first. He knew that Matt had bought his other Pink Sock, but surely, he hadn’t had enough Karma to afford the rest.

  Tasha finished adjusting the ballcap and then peered at the collar with a furrow in her brow. “You’re suddenly in the possession of a cat, Logan?”

  “Use [Identify] on it.”

  Both Tasha and Jack got that faraway look before their eyes widened.

  “Does that do what I think it can?” asked Jack.

  Logan nodded and then fastened the collar around his neck. Every second he’d held it loose in his fist had caused a prickling sensation of unease. He’d come to rely on it, and the thought of losing it put a dagger through his heart. Imagine walking around with only the clothes on his back! He’d be at a severe disadvantage.

  Jack looked down at his long fingernails with an expression that was hard to define. A blankness as if he didn’t know what to think. “That would have come in handy at the resort,” he said, but his voice was distracted, and his gaze remained fixed on his nails and the thin scars on his arms.

  Jack and Tasha still hadn’t explained how they’d ended up as zombies. “Talking about the resort, I’m assuming that’s what happened to you? The green bean plant is infected by fungi. I stepped on a few pods close to the shore and it released a plume similar to what we saw there.”

  Tasha frowned. “I remember Matt was acting odd. He was ducking out of the cabin at weird times and doing things on his own. Either that or he was glued to that Integration Wiki until we lost internet. He’d disappeared for an entire day until Sammy told us that something was wrong with the greenhouse. The little jerk had sabotaged the plant. It was so bad that we were scared that it would overtake the cabin. Jack and I were trying to find him when something happened. I don’t know what… it’s a blank after I approached the shore.”

  Jack looked up and tucked his hands underneath his armpits as if he wanted to hide them. Or never see them again. “It wasn’t spores.”

  Tasha gave him a puzzled look. “It wasn’t?”

  “I think the beans were already infected. Remember that last meal we had in the cabin? Madge had made that gross tasting sauce and found breadcrumbs in the cupboard. Remember her green bean casserole? Right before we left to look for Matt?”

  “But… we all ate it. Everyone.”

  “Everyone except for Matt.”

  Tasha shot to her feet, clutching her baseball cap, her face frantic. “Where are the others, Logan? Sam and Sammy; Madge and Henry?”

  Logan ran a hand through his hair and hunched his shoulders. “I’m pretty sure that Matt killed them. And he wasn’t just doing that, he was luring in other people and feeding them these green beans, and then setting up elaborate kill traps.”

  Logan got to his feet and blew out a breath. At least he knew that people didn’t transform into zombies in seconds like he’d seen in the movies. Matt had set up a trap at the front entrance for a reason. If the people who arrived ate infected green beans and that triggered an immediate transformation, there would be no need for traps.

  “That little…” Tasha gnashed her teeth. “I don’t remember anything after we went looking for Matt. It’s a void. Nothing but…” She hesitated. “It’s only flashes. Flashes of dirt, of flowers, of this need… a craving.” Tasha ran a hand over her bottom lip, her milky blue eyes flaring. “Hunger. Hunger like you could never imagine.”

  Logan’s mouth was dry. He felt a chill, as if the 100-degree heat around him had turned into a cold wind. Give him a problem or a threat, and he’d go at it full throttle. But he’d never encountered a problem like this. He was tapped out. He’d already used [Life Fabricator] to help Tasha and Jack, but that didn’t mean that it would fix trauma or the mental aftereffects of a frigging zombie infection.

  “This… hunger,” he said, swallowing. “Do you still feel it now?”

  A wariness came over Tasha, her eyes narrowing. “I know what we turned into, Logan. Frankly, if I had been in your place, I would have put us down. The fact that you didn’t… I can only speak for myself, but whatever you did to bring us back means that I’ll be in your debt for the rest of my life. That means you’re owed the truth.”

  “Tasha,” Jack interjected.

  “What? We’re going to lie?” she said, frowning. “He deserves to know.”

  Fuck, if she felt normal, she wouldn’t be phrasing it this way.

  As if emphasizing the FUBAR situation, Tasha’s eyes flickered like a reptile, going from clear blue back to a milky film. “I’m still hungry, Logan. I’m ravenous.”

  Aww, fuck.

  Jack snorted. “Before, I felt hunger with no rationality. I wanted to tear, rend, and eat everything in my path. Either that or infect it. But now, I’m still hungry, but that uncontrollable feeling is gone. I’m not going to tear into a person because of a few stomach pangs.”

  Shit. “I’m bringing my family here. Lara and the kids, others. Dozens. I promised them safety. I can’t…”

  Jack crossed his arms, his expression mulish. “I can control it. To think that you can’t trust me or trust Tasha around Lara and your children… Logan, your nieces played with my kids. I would rather chew off my own arm than hurt them.”

  “Jack,” whispered Tasha, taking a step back. “Look at his level.”

  Jack shot her a puzzled frown and then stared at Logan, getting that faraway look everyone did as they studied a System message.

  His mouth slackened. “How is that possible, man? Just how long were we buried in the pit? Oh no, oh crap, are we close to the purge? Did almost a year pass?”

  Logan rubbed the back of his neck, his ears flushing red. “It’s been a little over a week and a half. We’re nowhere close to the purge.”

  Tasha and Jack stared at him with blank faces.

  “A week?” Tasha spluttered. “But you must be E grade! How did you…” Suddenly, her expression took on a hint of wariness. “On the news, they were trying to keep track of the high-level users. Mostly so that everyone else could avoid them. Logan, the only ones even close to your level had murdered others. They called them XP harvesters.” Her voice became hard. “Did you kill people?”

  For fuck’s sake, how did this turn from a discussion about how they’d become ravenous zombies into a question about his morality? The short answer was that, yes, Logan could technically be termed an XP harvester. In the strictest sense, the System had forced him to kill over 50 people in Pied’s Kingdom! But had he set out to become a murderer just to advance his level? Hell no. Logan had done what he had because circumstances had been against him. It was a kill-or-kill be world, and he’d put down the threat.

  But staring into their wary eyes, Logan felt an uncomfortable sensation slosh through his stomach. If he told them that he’d killed over 50 people, was there any possibility of them understanding?

  “I’ve had to kill people,” said Logan, firm. “But not because I wanted to, or because of some sick XP harvester reason. It was either them or me.”

  Hunching his shoulders, Logan gave them a smile that he was sure came across as a grimace. “Everything that happened to me since I left… those murderers that we discovered next door were the least of our problems. This world, Tasha, it’s not for the faint of heart. The System is dead set on making everyone into killers, and it’ll put whatever it can in front of you to make your life difficult. I did what I had to so that I could survive, so I could advance and save Lara and my nieces. Save you and Jack. Obtaining the skills I needed to do that wasn’t just handed to me. So technically, yes, I’m a killer. But I’d never be a threat to you and Jack or anyone innocent.”

  Jack snorted. “Unless you were replaced by a man with a different personality in the last week, whatever you did to survive was needed. Frankly, whether you’re level 50 or level 1000, I’m just glad that you’re on our side.”

  Tasha peered from Jack to Logan, her eyes thoughtful.

  “But holy crap, man!” exclaimed Jack, touching his bare scalp with a wince. “Couldn’t you have fixed my hair while you were at it?”

  ***

  Now that Logan had reverted Tasha and Jack to the land of the living, he had just one more problem to take care of before he brought Lara and the others to the cabin.

  The green beans.

  Whether the zombie infection had come from fungi spores or from eating infected beans, the problem was still the same. There was a threat here that he needed to eliminate before he deemed the place safe and kid proof.

  Logan made sure that Tasha and Jack had retreated to the end of Jack’s dock before he made his way back to the edge of the property, returning to where he’d first seen the edge of the plant. Powering his way through, it took less than a minute to arrive at the neighbour’s gate. But unlike last time, the plant didn’t stop there.

  Whenever Matt or Logan had triggered the replicating effect, the plant had exploded. This time, the mass of the spreading thing had knocked over the gate and spread into the neighbour’s property, trailing up to the porch steps and even going beyond that until it burst onto the beach.

  Fuck, this thing could cause serious problems if it kept multiplying. Unchecked, it could keep spreading until it reached the forest. Hell, even spread to Hope’s End and beyond!

  After he’d deployed [Liche Devourer] he was convinced that he’d stopped the replicating effect in its tracks by leaching Karma from the knotted ends. But regardless of whether he’d fixed that problem, the plant was still a threat.

  That dark, fungi sickness had spread. And not just in one spot. Deploying [Life Fabricator], he could sense the sickness concentrating around one end of the plant. If he hadn’t been wary, he might have been fooled, thinking that the infection was isolated. But no, there was another spot fifty feet away, festering.

  There was only one way to fix this problem.

  And that was by roasting it to death.

  If the System hadn’t given him [Lodestone Creationist], he might not have discovered this. But now, he knew that he could use [Life Fabricator] to craft fire and keep it flaring bright. If he could use fire to craft a lodestone, couldn’t he also use it to fry the hell out of some green beans?