Myke took a last look and left the treehouse.

Akira already had made a map of the city based on all the data in his memories. Myke was amazed at how detailed the map was. It looked like a modern navigation system and had information about places he just had heard about or visited a long time ago.

Myke made a route to the big hardware store in the shopping district with two stops to smaller stores.

“Ok Liana, let’s go.”

“Yes, freaking yes!” Her eyes sparkled.

It was almost sunset, but Liana also didn’t seem to care. As a vampire, she probably could also see in the dark.

“Hey Liana, you are a vampire?”

She looked at him and said slowly. “Yes, I am.”

“I thought vampires will burn in the sunlight, but you seem to enjoy it?”

“I’m a true bloody vampire.” She smiled, but his confused look made her continue. “I was born as a vampire and not made to one. We, true vampires, are immune to the negative effects made vampires have.”

“Oh, so you are also immune to silver then?”

She smiled mockingly. “Yes, I am, you seem to know plenty about vampires? Didn’t you just wake up from a long beauty sleep?”

Myke looked pretty serious. “This is another riddle I am concern about. Too many things from your world are very similar to some fantasy stories from before.”

There were too many similarities for all of it to be mere coincidence. The elves also knew about the Fusion before it happened. Maybe it is a good idea to visit them first.

“What’s up Myke, you are so damn quiet?”

They were already out of the forest and on the way to the first hardware store.

“Sorry, just thought about the current situation and what to do next.”

“Oh, that’s easy. After we get the loot, we will go to the Postgard. We can sell the loot there and you can register in the guild as an adventurer.”

“Is Postgard nearby? I never heard of it.”

“Oh, yes, it is a two-day walk from here. It was founded by the adventurer’s guild. It is the last stop for the adventurers before coming here in the bloody ruins to search for loot. It grew pretty much though and now it is more of a town than a village.”

“I see, it makes sense to go there first.”

Myke wanted to leave here as soon as possible and going to the small nearby town was a perfect opportunity to get a better understanding of this world.

The streets were empty, the zombies were nowhere to be seen. With the detection skill, Myke was relaxed and they reached the first hardware store in no time.

Liana kept talking excited the whole time explaining how a group of survivors founded the engineering guild and started repairing and maintaining artifacts and producing gas to power them. Now they were one of the biggest guilds with branches in Europe and Northfolk.

Finally, they reached the building of the first hardware store but one glance at it was enough to know that the trip was in vain. A direct hit had reduced the whole block to rubble.

Without much hesitation, they continued to the next hardware store.

Liana was about to start talking about the artifacts again, but Myke interrupted her with a serious voice.

“Hey, Liana, do you need to drink blood to survive?”

Liana smiled. “No, technically I don’t need blood as food. But the blood is much more than bloody food for us. Besides the delicious taste, it also helps us heal damn fast and replenish the mana.”

Myke kept silent and after a while, Liana continued. “You know, I’m not a damn monster. I never drank someone’s blood without consent. I admit, some stupid vampires behave like freaking monsters and stain the image of us all, but I’m not one of them. I even fought the bastards before the Fusion.”

She looked depressed. It seems that this was a painful topic for her.

“It must’ve been hard for you. I didn’t want to poke a wound.”

They continued walking in silence and soon reached the second hardware store. The building was almost intact, but the hardware store was trashed a long time ago.

Everything was turned into rubble on the floor. Dead bodies were scattered around. It seems that a long time ago an adventurer’s party was attacked by the zombies here.

“Don’t worry, the next place has a much better chance to be still intact. It is underground with limited access.” Myke tried to comfort Liana seeing her depressed face.

“Ok!” she smiled, and they continued to the next hardware store.

The destruction of the city was immense. The more Myke observed the destroyed buildings the more amazed from the elves he was. They have used some very powerful magic. Looking at the destruction it was very hard for him to judge the development state of the world.

On one side Liana walked around with a sword on her back, but on the other side, there was magic in this world that was comparable to the modern weapons.

The existence of magic made a comparison to the earth’s history impossible.

After short, they reached their destination. This was a big shopping center with a hardware store in the basement.

The building was severely damaged, but there was hope for the basement.

Myke entered the building and Liana followed. The ceiling was broken and the stairs to the basement were blocked. He looked at the elevator door. The metal door looked intact but closed.

“We have to go through the elevator shaft.”

“What is an elevator?” Liana asked.

“Behind this metal door is a small room that can move up and down and transport people between the floors. Now it doesn’t work anymore, but we could use the shaft to get down to the hardware store.”

Liana nodded. “How will we open it?”

Myke didn’t want to stay here more than necessary. He activated Iron Fist in both of his hands and punched in the middle where the two metal doors connected.

He felt his fist sinking between the two doors making a hole. He did the same with his left fist and then pushed the doors with all the strength to the sides.

With a metal cracking sound, the doors opened. The elevator cabin wasn’t here, but there was an iron ladder attached to the inner wall.

Myke shook the ladder with his hand. “Stable enough, let’s go.” And he disappeared in the shaft.

While climbing the ladder down he heard Liana following from above.

A moment later she jumped and flew past him to the floor. Once down she stood up and screamed from excitement.

“Freaking amazing! A loot chamber! You are the best!”

Myke rushed down and got beside her.

The store looked almost untouched. Some shelves were on the floor but all in all, it was in good condition.

“The chainsaws are on the back.” He said this and went to the back.

Liana was like a little kid in the candy shop. She jumped around touched everything and exclaimed in astonishment.

“Wow, so many artifacts! We are going to be bloody rich!”

At the back of the store, Myke looked at the chainsaws. Most of them were electric, but there were also two gas-powered.

Myke took them down from the shelf.

“Hey, Liana, come here. Look what I found!”

She rushed to him excited.

“Are those gas-powered chainsaws? I can’t believe it! We found the damn things! We really found them!” She looked like a puppy ready to be treated some tasty food, all smiles, and with glittering big eyes. Only the wagging tail was missing.

“Unfortunately, we can’t take much stuff with us. Let’s take these two and get out of here.”

Liana nodded and rapidly tied with some rope one of the chainsaws to her back just like the sword she was carrying around.

Myke followed her example and tied the other one to his back.

He thought about all the zombie movies he saw and felt like a character from a B-rated horror movie.

“We got what we came for. Let’s leave this place.”

“Yes, let’s go to Postgard, these will sell for a damn good price!” – Liana looked eager to go back to Postgard as soon as possible.

“Ok, let’s head back to the ladder.”

At this moment a red dot appeared on the radar. Shortly after that one more followed.

Soon the radar was full of red dots.

They were surrounded.

He looked at Liana. “There are zombies at around a hundred meters from us and closing.”

Liana frowned. “Damn zombies! from which direction are they coming?”

“From everywhere, we are surrounded. We have to fight our way out.” An evil grin appeared on Myke’s face. Finally, he will have the chance to test the firebolt spell in real combat.

“Understood” Saying this Liana unsheathed her sword and rushed to the ladder.