“This one,” Daniel said, nodding.

Ivey knocked and Dave made sure he was out of line of sight.

Naturally enough, there was no answer. “We have killed all the zombies on this floor,” Ivey called out.

Priscilla shared an image. She was looking down from the roof, and there was a man and woman in the room. Both were over sixty and did not have a combat class, which was why they had come here first.

“We are building a community,” Ivey continued, knocking again.

Through the mouse’s eyes, he saw them look at each other.

“And we know you are in there. We are going to open the door now.”

The man jumped up and grabbed a laptop and prepared to use it as a weapon.

“There is no need for violence,” Daniel called out as a touch of his hand undid the abnormal growth that had sealed the door shut. The old guy could not hurt him, but Daniel was worried he would strain his own muscles trying.

He pulled on the door and it swung open.

“Can we come in?” Ivey asked, talking softer now that she knew they could hear her.

“We will come out.”

Ivey did introductions, and Daniel paid attention just long enough to find out that they had classes of historian and cook respectively, and then he lost interest. Those selections were not helpful.

“There is one last thing,” Ivey told them. “I want to introduce you to my friend, Dave. He is human, but the Alpha event mutated him, so he looks like a zombie.”

Concern ran over the old people’s face. “Dave.”

The zombie stepped out of the empty room, wisely choosing not to say anything, and while Dave had kept the club, he held it in a non-threatening matter behind him. His entire posture was non-threatening. Janice, holding a spear, looked out from behind her dad.

“And that is Janice, Dave’s daughter.” That relaxed the couple.

They swept through the remaining rooms. He only bothered to remember two names. He was sure that Tamara would tease him about it later, but for now his mind was flying over what he had achieved and what they needed to do.

There was Beau who had a mean face. There was something about him that made the hairs on Daniel’s neck stand-up. The fact his class was dark wizard only added to that impression. A weird guy, physically he was a bodybuilder but had chosen an evil magic class, and that combination made Daniel wary. The package was unnatural. The second was Carly, who was a teenager, travelling with her mum and dad. She was the druid.

They headed back up to their primary set of rooms. The useless old couple, Beau, Carly, Carly’s parents, the mum with an orderly class, a sort of magical and physical-based nurse, and the dad was a warrior. Then the last two, who were Singaporeans in Melbourne for a conference, had taken useless classes as well. At least they spoke fluent English.

Three fighters out of eight. It could be worse; Daniel knew they might have got zero, but it was still disheartening. Was this just part of how the system worked or were people stupid enough to choose a non-combat class when they were being dumped in the middle of an apocalypse?

When their group reached their base, Trudy’s two kids swarmed him.

“Oh, I promised to do some hunting with them,” Daniel told Trudy apologetically.

“It will be good to get them doing something,” Trudy admitted. She looked close to pulling out her hair. “Make sure you keep them safe.”

“Dave, you with me?”

“Raraf.”

“Ivey?”

“We will be fine,” she assured him with only a slight sideways glance at Beau.

Animal Sense blinked out.

There were two easy sources of experience on their two floors. The first was electricity centipedes that were in the roof spaces, but Daniel was confident that he could flush them out. Then on the floor below there was a nest of daddy longlegs. There were about ten of them, and Priscilla strongly supported them being eliminated.

She did not seem to like spiders.

“Don’t get too close or you will get zapped,” Daniel warned them. The door was missing, and he used his Animal Sense ability to examine where the bugs were above them. There were probably fifty of them up there spread out over quite a wide area. Roots moved into position and effortlessly popped out a panel. Six bugs fell.

Zach tried to charge him, and Daniel activated speed to intercept. Such a small burst was effortless since Priscilla had upgraded him. Physically, he strolled normally, but he closed the gap versus the pumping eight-year-old legs and caught him before he got close enough to be electrocuted.

“Let the girls kill a couple first,” he told the boy. “We need to watch the lightning.”

“But . . .”

“Their zaps are nasty.”

The two girls moved forward, with Janice leading. That did not surprise him at all. He remembered how painful removing these had been initially for him, but then he had been shoeless, and his club had lower reach. The girls with their long spears should be fine. Zach with his sword would struggle, but Daniel was pretty confident he could tease out the electricity blasts and then release the kid.

Janice stabbed with abandon. There was a spark from one bug and she made a small squeal and shook her hand, but the shock must have been minor because she went back to stabbing straight away. Gabby made faces but went to work. Both girls avoided the one that glowed blue.

“See, you need to avoid the charged ones.”

The glowing blue one sparked, but its blast of power was channelled via the TV. Satisfied, Daniel let Zach go. Zach alternated between grimaces of disgust and little whoops of delight in equal measure. The battle continued smoothly, with Daniel able to control the drop of the bugs from the roof, only ever giving them four or five to attack at any one time.

“More, more.”

This was the fifth room they had visited and the population of the lightning centipedes had been wiped out. Hua Chua and the cook wandered by and processed the carcasses, then they left. The cores went into his suitcase, and he made a mental note to check with Ivey to see if he could use them. The zombies were just mutated humans, so incorporating them was logical, but he was not so sure whether the same process would work for the bugs. However, if it did, it would be fun to launch lightning and, given that the additive power of cores, consuming the ninety plus they had saved might give him enough power to fry a pack of zombies.

Half of him wanted to eat a few as a test case, but he resisted the impulse. Consult Ivey first—there was no rush.

“More.”

“No more,” he told Zach instinctively, ruffling the kid’s hair. “We have killed all the bugs.” The boy’s face fell. “However, there is one more target. They are harder,” he told the kids. “Mutated daddy long legs downstairs.”

“Aren’t they the most poisonous spiders in the world?”

Daniel laughed at that question. “They might be now, but pre-event they definitely were not. I saw a Mythbusters episode where they proved the venom was harmless to people.”

“No way.”

“Yes, way,” he told Zach.

“But Dad used to always say . . .” Zach’s face fell at the reminder of his dad.

“At least you learnt by ten—I did not find out till I was twenty.”

“I am not ten, I am eight,” Zach said, beaming at the idea that Daniel had thought he was ten. Daniel watched him dash ahead, waving his sword around, smiling; he had known how old the kid was but had wanted to distract him.

Mission successful.

“We are going downstairs,” he told the kids. “I go first and you step where I step.”

They made their way to the floor below, and he was stunned by how effective the cleaning had been. Then again, he should not be that surprised. From what he had overheard, the entire building had been in a mana storm. That had two consequences: the first was that they all got free levels or skills and the second was that monsters were far stronger. The zombies, the electric centipedes, and of course Priscilla, but as far as cleaning went, fourteen levels was a lot for that profession. It was sort of the equivalent of her getting legendary amounts of experience, as in normal circumstances he doubted it was easy to develop. Or he could be completely wrong and the class progressed by use as opposed to killing. However, Ivey seemed to think killing was the only way to progress classes. Everyone had to be a warrior to progress.

“Hey, Dave, remind me to talk to Ivey about whether Hua Chua’s cleaning abilities can be used offensively.”

“Raraf.”

Pretty soon, they arrived outside the dedicated janitor’s closet that contained the spiders. It was a large room as far as closets went that served as the primary cleaning product point for floors on every side.

“Kids.” They all looked at him expectantly. “Priscilla really dislikes spiders, so I don’t have a good understanding of their abilities.”

“RAAA RAb RUFOA RoSA.”

Daniel looked at Dave in disbelief. “I have no idea what you just said. Even Janice has no idea,” he told the man, looking at his daughter’s confused expression. “However, I am not blind. I have used Animal Senses on them. There are ten of them, versus everything else. They are fragile and are about the size of a small dog. No poison, no special attacks, just a web ability.”

“I am first.” Zach yelled excitedly.

“RO!”

“No!”

Zach was running at the door.

“RO,” Dave repeated.

Then Zach was pulling the door open. Daniel realised he was way out of position. He triggered his speed and started moving. Dave, in slow motion now, was trying to save the kids. In moments, he was past the slower man and reached the doorway just as Zach pulled it open. One hand on Zach’s tiny arm, and then he released speed, forcing the door shut while pulling the small boy backwards in case something was counterattacking from the doorway.

Zach jerked in surprise.

“No.”

“RO.”

Dave, running, thumped into him. Pre-event, he would have gone flying but with his extra strength and agility he was able to stop himself from falling or running into Zach. He bit back the instinctive curse at Dave’s clumsiness. This one was on him, as from Dave’s perspective he would have almost teleported in front of him.

With the door firmly shut behind him and the spiders contained, Daniel knelt down in front of Zach. “You can’t just charge in like that.”

“Raraf.”

Daniel shot an annoyed look at Dave. The man might have thought that he was helping, but in his zombie’s body, everything came out a little too loud and aggressive.

“The spiders are dangerous.”

Zac was tearing up already, but Daniel could not relent yet. He needed to get the point across.

“If you don’t listen”—a sob escaped from Zach—“I won’t let you come hunting.”

Dave’s hand was insistently pulling back. “What?” he asked the man, looking up, and the zombie shook his head.

Zach wrenched his arm free and turned to run.

Janice intercepted him, using her spear as a sort of impromptu barrier.

Dave patted him on the back, comforting as he watched Zach get more and more hysterical as Janice stopped him from running. They knew not to split up, but in his upset, Zach had forgotten that rule.

“RUAC.”

“Still no idea.”

The zombie shrugged.

“But Ro means no?”

The hairy creature nodded and then sat down and patted the ground next to him. “I thought we were going to kill the spiders.”

“RUAC.” Another nod toward the crying boy.

The waterworks were not slowing. Daniel settled into the offered spot. “I did nothing wrong.”

“Raraf.”

“It was dangerous, and I had to make sure he understood he stuffed up.”

There was a suspicious silence. He looked at Dave and the zombie was busily looking elsewhere.

“You think I want too far.”

“Raraf.”

“I hardly said anything.” Daniel lapsed into silence, trying to figure out about what he had said that had set the boy off. The kid was being unreasonable, but then again, he was just a kid.

“You think I went too hard?”

Dave was watching at him. “Raraf.”

“I said . . .” Daniel trailed off once more into silence, realising the pointlessness of the conversation. Unless he resorted to yes or no questions, he was getting nothing, and it was not like he could pick up on facial clues, given that Dave’s new face did not work that way.

“I don’t understand kids.”

“Raraf.”

Was that Dave agreeing that Daniel did not understand kids or the zombie agreeing that kids were not understandable? After a moment’s thought, he let it go, as he was pretty sure Dave was going for the former.