‘Hmm. I’m surrounded by zombies.’

‘Zombies, eat humans.’

‘Getting eaten, will probably hurt.’

‘It’ll hurt then I’ll die.’

‘Well, Shit.’

Surrounded by zombies, obstructed from behind.

‘Who’s idea was this again? Ah! Yes, I got Miyagied. Well, there’s only one thing I can do.’

Roon knew this was a test. Despite what the ‘Crazy Son of a Bitch’ had done, he knew that the other party harbored no ill intent. As for the reason of his certainty, we’ll learn about it on a later date.

‘Then there’s only one thing I can do.’

He raised his hands, tilted his head, and went limp. He started walking like a zombie.

‘It’s working. Get me an Oscar. It’s working. Booyah.’

“I think they lack the class to appreciate your art. But they were moved that’s for sure.”

The flock of mass murdering cannibals eventually got conscious of the alien presence, and despite not being very aggressive about it, slowly started moving towards Roon.

“I think your cheap imitation pissed them off.”

“Fuck you.”

“Jokes apart, I have a hypothesis. I think that they are only capable of reacting to heat signatures or motion. So, my suggestion is, don’t make any sudden movements.”

“Fuck, are you treating them like snakes. Snakes don’t bite off a chunk of your flesh. They poison you or swallow you whole, but they don’t rip you to pieces.”

“I also think that they react to vibrations in air.”

As if conforming to Augusts theory, the zombies started pacing towards Roon. And as any sensible man would have reacted in this situation, Roon started climbing up the trailer. And as if part of a performance, the zombies started sprinting towards him.

“If you try to climb here, then they’ll bite you in the back. Here, take these.”

August threw a pair of metal rods right at his face, and in the process of catching those, Roon had to let go of his attempts at climbing. Now, as any insane man would have done it, he turned to face hell. Of only 5 zombies, the others were still a distance away and not minding the commotion made by him.

‘Okay, only 5. I can do it.’

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t get hit. And hit when you can.”

“Sounds almost easy.”

“It is.”

“Only if I was Wolverine. Fuck it.”

As the zombies rushed towards Roon, his blood went cold. A group of people rushing towards someone with hostile intent, is enough to scare them silly. Let alone people with flesh and blood stuck on their teeth, with 2 of them being so hot, he could’ve lost his virginity to one of them.

And the fear building up inside him, acted as a catalyst to unlock Roons potential. The fear of pain, the fear of death, the fear of leaving his parents alone and worried, the fear of dying a “VIRGIN”.

“Aaargh.”

The zombies grunted.

“Nooooo. FUCK YOU MEGAN FOX, YOU ARE DEAD, BUT I WISH I WAS BORN IN 21st CENTURY, THEN I WOULD HAVE FUCKED YOU. AHHHHHHHHHHH.”

To the monster’s grunting, he responded with his own messed up, stalker like roar.

This weird and creepy shout attracted the attention the rest of the group, they too climbed up the trailer, and were alarmed. What they saw left the whole group worried, except for August and the middle-aged man, with whom Roon had altercations previously.

He was snickering, gloating at Roon’s immediate peril. But what he saw next, left him baffled.

As the 5 zombies rushed towards Roon, he slowly started losing consciousness, due to the sheer amount of stress and fear he was going through. But it was this fear, that in turn allowed him to sustain himself. His head cleared of all thoughts, apart from Augusts last instruction. “Don’t get hit. Hit when I can.”

‘Okay. Don’t get hit, hit when I can. Don’t die a virgin.’

As the first zombie neared, his conscious blurred, and he started acting on instinct. His senses sharpened to the extreme, and he could perceive the zombies every movement. From the twitching of its fingers, to the movement of his calf muscles and even the saliva dropping of its mouth.

Roon, knew where the attack was coming from, and where it would be going. So, using his hyper senses, he could grasp the weakest point of this zombie, behind its neck, the area connecting the spinal cord and the head, there the ‘qi’ was very thin.

He dodged the income attack in a crude manner, as he lacked any sort of martial arts training, but he succeeded in getting behind it, and with a heavy movement, hit the monsters weak spot.

The zombie immediately crumbled, and the qi from its body was dispersed in the environment, some of which permeated Roon. Roon felt his physique improving, albeit a little, but it was improving.

Then he turned to face the remaining zombies, who had now unwittingly surrounded him. The 4 of them, were coming at him from all sides.

To this, he responded by taking a posture he found appropriate, and waited like a jaguar, ready to pounce at the slightest of opportunity.

“Bring it on.”

He whispered, but this whisper contained his resolve of not dying a virgin.

The first zombie made her move, her dress was down, and the previously perfect white peaks were jiggling, but the image of her blood-filled mouth, destroyed any lewd notion that Roon could have possibly fostered.

He closed his eyes, and yet he could perceive every movement of the zombies more clearly. He felt that the different zombies, had different places where the white mist was thin, and now something even more amazing was happening in his brain. With his eyes closed, he could visualize the blurred image of zombies in 3d. He could perceive them from all directions, and he could see ‘Red Spots’ on those figures. So, he gained a landscape perspective of his location, and he instinctively knew, that the red spots were weak spots of these zombies. And if he managed to land a hit on one of them, it’ll cause considerable damage.

So, like a practiced kung fu master, he swung the rods around a few times, and then the zombies fell.

His moves were rough, untrained, and lacked finesse. But to the others it seemed like he was Bruce Lee.

“I won’t die a VIRGIN. AAAAAAHHHH.”

With his victory and the sense of satisfaction achieved, he could help but shout his weird mantra.

The middle-aged man was sweating bullets. He felt as if Roon was toying with him. He didn’t know that the superhuman skill he’d shown was recently acquired. But his expression again changed to that of elation, for he saw that the rest of the horde was marching towards Roon, to which their leader, William, reacted by jumping down, his muscles bulging unnaturally.

“Go, someone take him go.”

Roon was frozen stiff in his place. He could see the zombies coming, but despite how much he urged his body to move, it refused. All his muscles were convulsing, and there was a sharp pain in his head.

He was pulled back by August, who with the help of others got him on top of the trailer.

Form there they saw the carnage William was causing. With every kill, the amount of qi in his body was improving, and with the increased amount of qi, his skill ‘Muscle Boost’ improved as well. Which in turn allowed him to punch zombies like gunny bags.

He managed to knock down a dozen or so zombies before he retreated. He couldn’t kill any of them because of the zombies’ tenacious physique. These, were tougher than the ones he was hunting before, he was unable to one punch k.o. them. So, he looked at the flopped kid, vigilant.

These monsters obviously gave higher amounts of qi, thus after killing 5 of them he must have accumulated a lot. And his display of fighting ability, he certainly had a skill that he’d hidden.

“So, you had a skill?”

William asked in a heavy tone.

Seeing the situation develop like this, left Roon with a wry smile. He certainly didn’t get the so-called skill. If anything, then it’d be like a sixth sense that’s developed in martial arts movies. Also, he’d already lied about not having any powers. So, this development was not very good for him.

“You acquired the skill when we were hunting in the morning, right? Something related to martial arts maybe?”

This question was posed by August, and Roon being the smart chap he was, immediately understood his intentions.

“Yes, I got it in the morning. It was a passive skill, called “Fight Sense”, I didn’t tell you people because the atmosphere was very tense. You know, being chased by zombies and all.”

“Okay, but then why did you jump in middle of the zombies?”

To this question Roon felt short of an answer. Should he rat out his spirit guide? Didn’t they form a pact, just 20 minutes ago? Well, he did throw him down to die.

“I pushed him. I wanted to see his capabilities.”

To his dilemma, August brought an end.

“Okay, but you need to understand August. I know you are the smart type character who thinks the best interest of the team, but we are comrades. You should, at the very least inform the team of your actions.”

“Understood.”

“So anyone have any ideas?”

“I think we should return to the bus.”

Said a woman. She was the one who’d saved Roon from the beating. She was wheat colored, tanned, brown hair, hazel eyes and an overall fit stature. She was wearing a white shirt and pants, indicative of her job as a corporate employee.

“And why do you think we should do that Jada?”

“Why? Why you ask? Don’t you see that except you and this kid who is suddenly going kapow on the zombies, none of us can survive if we are obsessed with the tower. Don’t you see, the zombies have improved. We’ll die at this rate.”

“But, if the zombies are improving, then aren’t we bound to die if we don’t level up.

Also, we haven’t got a single piece of food or water, or anything for god’s sake.”

Her complain was addressed by the middle-aged man.

“Yes, Jerry is right. And Jada, for your observation, of Roon and William being the only strong members, I commend you. Now, I have a simple battle plan, it should also fix the lack balance in the group.”

Dr. August, had a certain intrinsic authority in his speech, that others usually agreed to. And till now, since the start of this “Apocalypse”, he was calmest of the group, and his plans made a lot of sense.

So this time, his battle plan was simple. Firstly, he informed every one of the number of zombies, telling them that he counted approximately 70 zombies, half of which had followed them here. So, despite the zombies improving and increased speed and ferocity, they still lacked the ability to maneuver in between the heap of cars on the skyway. Therefore, all they had to do, was use Roon as a bait, get William to knock down the zombies, then the weaker members would earn free xp from them.

Using this method, they reached their previous location, in front of the tower gate. The clearing was still filled with zombies. Although their numbers were reduced by half, three dozen zombies were still enough to gobble up this group.

At this point, August brought Roon away from the group.

“Yo! What are you doing? Wasn’t our sensei student deal supposed to be all secret and ninja, or special agent type? Everyone will know like this?”

“What? You’re delusional. Three things, 1) Not your sensei, 2) You sound like a cheating wife, 3) The only secret you need to keep is your ability to sense qi, your other abilities can be showed off on your whim. Also, I’ll need you to bait all these zombies while set up a barricade here.”

“Why me? Why don’t you ask He-Man there?”

“We’ll need his skill to arrange the cars in a closed formation. It is impossible to enter the tower without sufficient time. Here keep this bag, it has enough water to last you for a day. You need to buy us at least two hours.”

“How do I know you won’t abandon me and the other passengers and go in the tower by yourselves.”

“We are clueless about the situation in the tower, so we would want to go in at our full strength. As for the passengers, they may be useful in the future. So, I won’t abandon them unless necessary.”

“Fine. Tell me what you are hiding? You know something about this situation that we don’t?”

“A lot. But now isn’t the right time. I’ll tell you everything in due time. Now, go. Return when the sun is just above the horizon.”

“Fine.”

Roon knew that August was harboring many secrets. But he also knew, that prying may earn him false information. So, he put aside that thought and focused on the task at hand.

The task of leading the zombie horde by the chin may sound daunting, but it would bring no harm if he was on the move and went through the skyway traffic. Also, this may turn out to be a blessing if he managed to kill a few of them.

The white mist, or qi, or xp, as everyone was calling it, seemed almost magical to Roon. He knew, that there was no such thing as magic, only unexplained phenomenon, but the increase in physique proportional to the qi or xp accumulated was nothing short of magic to him.

After killing those 5 zombies, Roon was already feeling like a new man. He felt better in every aspect. Even Williams skill when utilized by him, would force the surrounding qi into his muscles and then when the skills ends, a little of his personal qi would be leaked alongside, which would replenish with time.

This to Roon, felt like a billion possibilities. So, he would try to kill few on this trip, if possible.

Then Roon, started making noise to attract the attention of all the zombies, while others hid behind various vehicles. He banged the two rods against each other and waved his hands in exaggerated manner which attracted all the zombies. Then he started running.

As Roon kept running, the 30 or so zombies followed him from all around. As he was running, he picked up four sharpened rods August had made for him. God knows how he did it, but he managed to make double sided pikes out of the four rods. With them, two tied to the bag, two in hand, he left.

As Roon was leading the zombies through the maze of metal boxes (meaning cars), he encountered many zombies suddenly pouncing on him from the most unexpected of places. But because of his new-found ability of being able to perceive everything in 360 degrees, he could calmly react and counter the sudden attacks. This new ability of his was quite useful, it combined all 5 of his senses and some other 6th sense to give him a spherical perception of everything in a 5-meter radius.

‘I’m just too op. I’m like awesome. Just need some zombie to drop a skill like that of goldilocks and I’d be unstoppable.’

“Woohah.”

He couldn’t control his excitement. This was the case with this new energy. It provided possibilities, made one feel intoxicated. But complacency brings disaster.

Roon, now moved at a jogging pace. He would sometimes go through a gap, in which zombies were bound to stuck, and earn an easy kill. With this process, he’d whittled their numbers to 27. Although, killing 8 one at a time was nothing to be proud of, as he’d already killed 5 in one shot. But that was when he was in battle mode, that state with red spots on zombies, which was now eluding him. No, matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t find the weak spots of these monsters again. The ones he’d killed were all done by hitting the head.

Eventually he arrived at the trailer they’d flipped to barricade the zombies, the other side of which was void of them. He got on the other side, lied down and let his body lose. This constant session of sprint had taken its toll, despite his body being improved by qi.

He drank some water, and then went to stand on the edge of the sky way. From here he could see the ocean, a few hills and the greenery near the beach. Watching this serene panorama would’ve made his heart peaceful, were it not for the reality of the situation. It still seemed like a dream, a nightmare. Just yesterday, he was a youth attending tuitions, and today he was pleased at the thought of killing something. Just this thought was enough to make him puke, which he did, he dropped everything from his empty stomach on the streets of the first level. But as he hadn’t eaten much since morning, he was only barfing water. He stopped himself. He had to stay hydrated, so he stopped himself. He suppressed these introspecting thoughts and focused on the task at hand.

He decided to stay here for nearly an hour or two, then return when the sun would near the horizon. So he sat down, and breathed. He copied August’s meditating form but to no avail. But he tried nevertheless. He understood the importance of qi, and he would leave no stone unturned for using it.

Roon was broken out from his shoddy meditative trance by a muffled banging sound. He looked around and found that the sound was coming from a distance. It didn’t sound like the movement of a zombie, as the sounds were coming in a pattern of Dum Dum Dum, like something was banging on toughened glass.

Following that sound, Roon arrived at a car. It was a Suzuki 2V09, Z edition. But that was not what caught his attention, it was the inside that surprised him. Inside the car he saw a man in the driver’s seat, and two kids, a boy and a girl both unconscious, in the back seat. The man was knocking on the window frantically. Roon could see that the man’s hands had turned blue, that’s why he was knocking with his elbow.

When the man saw Roon, he started shouting like crazy. Through the soundproofing system of these generation 20 cars, and by reading the man’s lips, he could make out a

“Open the door. We’re stuck.”

Roon didn’t take much time to figure out what’d happened. The console system of the car got fried with others, and these were the next generation cars which didn’t provide an option to open the door manually. It provided the luxury and protection for the upperclassmen. It was said that even sniper bullets couldn’t pierce their glass, and they had computer operated doors which could only be opened by the biometrics of the owner, both from inside and from outside.

Who would’ve guessed that the ultimate vehicle designed to ensure security of the user could turn into the cause of their doom. Who could’ve guessed that machines with separate power sources could be shut down together. But it happened, and here they were, suffocating to their ends.

That would’ve been the case, had Roon not come. One of the courses Roon was taking tuition for, was Engineering. So he had an elementary understanding of mechanics and electronics. He figured out a way to open the door.

The thing about electronic doors was, they didn’t open towards outside, they slid back in the gap to open. That was exactly what made it difficult for the man to get out. Because no amount of kicking could open the door. For this, Roon held a Rod with both hands, and using his newly acquired sense, located the lock of the door and pierced it. Of course, he didn’t succeed in his first attempt. Just because he could see it, didn’t mean he could hit it. But, after 4 attempts and loos of a pike, he succeeded in opening the door.

As soon as the door opened, the man took huge gasps, and wheezed a few words.

“K… s”

“What?”

“Kids….. Et a k..s. (Get the kids) “

“Oh, oh yes. Kids. Wait.”

Roon quickly got the kids out of the car, and placed his hands near their hearts.

“They’re alive.”

The kids were unconscious, but alive.

“Thanks,”

The man lied down, gasping. He had escaped a perilous fate.

Roon offered him one of the water bottles, which he gulped down without any qualms. The other bottle Roon hid. He had to save some for himself as well.

“Thank you. You shall be heavily rewarded for this service.”

“I don’t think your reward would be worth much.”

Listening to Roon, as if lightning struck him, the man crumbled, broke into tears. He wailed like his soul had left him, and he wept till he could no more. He wheezed again, the started sobbing.

“Hey, you alright?”

“She turned.”

“What happened?”

The man narrated his story to Roon.

His name is Takeo. He was the Head of IT department, for West Orient, basically a high-level government employee. He was on a vacation, and taking his wife and kids to the museum. On the way, their car stopped functioning, just like others. The wife was feeling irritated, therefore she got out of the car. When he spotted the black monolith in the air, he felt a bad omen and tried to get to his wife.

But then, the air suddenly clutched him, and he couldn’t move. And when he got to move, the door of the car wouldn’t open. He checked and found that the car wasn’t functioning anymore. It’s light, vents, console, everything was down.

So his wife decided to get help, but to no avail. Then it started raining due to those unnatural clouds. And his wife was offered shelter in another lady’s car. She sat there till the short rain ended, and decided to give him and the kids company. But then, she fainted. People crowded around her to help, but more joined the ranks of fainted ones. His wife was the first to wake up. He was delighted, the kids were delighted. Yet she wouldn’t respond to their joyful calls. She stood there, like a statue, and when the old lady from before touched her, she bit her. The children had to witness the horror of their mother turning a monster, and he watched helplessly, as his wife was human no more.

“They wept all day, till they fell asleep. They haven’t woken since.”

“I’m sorry for you, Takeo. But there isn’t much you can do. I suggest we go back to the group and if we can get in the tower, we should be able to sustain ourselves till help arrives. You used to work there, right?”

“Yes. The administrative tower is a good place to fortify. And if we can get to the second level, we can even acquire arms.”

“There are arms in the tower?”

“Not many. But if we get to the second level of the city, then we can use the lv 2 skyways to get to a military research facility nearby. It should have adequate arms for few weeks, months even.”

Takeo, said all this with a blank expression. He was still in a daze, trying to deny what had happened. In hopes that it was all a nightmare, that she didn’t leave him forever, that he’ll wake up to her smile the next morning. That, it would all go away. But he also knew, and understood, that all of this may be real, she’s gone, and that void she left in his heart, will always hurt. Maybe, if he could just leave it all behind, and let it go. Maybe, the pain will go away if he’s no more. He, was contemplating suicide.

“Hey, think about the kids.”

This one sentence from Roon, woke him from his stupor. Yes, he couldn’t leave the kids. They were the proof of their love. Proof of her love. He will not leave them alone.

“Yes. The kids.”

He looked over the kids, and his eyes watered. But he held those tears back. He couldn’t be weak. He couldn’t falter.

Roon looked at this strong man with a sense of respect. Not many could maintain a stable mental state after a similar experience.

“We should go now.”

Takeo got some mountaineering cable from his car, and a duffle bag containing first aid. As he tied the girl to his back, and carried the duffle bag in one hand, and the boy in other, Roon offered to carry the boy, to which he reluctantly agreed.

As they were leaving, Takeo gave one last look towards the direction of his car, one last moment for her memory. But he’d resolved to live, for the kids.

They soon arrived at the trailer, it was becoming a sort of checkpoint now, and with Roons help got on top of the trailer, where Roon put down the boy.

“What are you doing?”

“Put her down.”

“Why?”

“We’ll face zombies from here on. Do you want to risk the kids?”

“No. Then what do you suggest we do?”

“We’ll have to figure out a way to kill all 27…… of them? Not, 27 of them. Wait here, would you.”

Without waiting for a reply, Roon jumped off the trailer. The cause of his alarm was the reduced number of zombies he was seeing. Maybe August and company were done with barricading and had come to his aid. But the reason of his alarm was something else.

When he’d gone to the other side, he had counted 27 zombies. And now, all the zombies had gathered in a single place. But their numbers had reduced to 18, and were still dwindling, the reason for which made his skin crawl.

The zombies, were literally devouring each other, and the qi on them was increasing. Though not exponentially, it still was increasing. And by now Roon understood one thing, qi equals strength, so the concept of stronger fearless horde of man eating monsters, was bad. Very bad.

“Shit.”

But be it providence of the universe, or gift of his enhanced vision, Roon was able to observe the buffet from far enough, without engaging the monstrosities and return to the trailer safely.

“What happened?”

Takeo was tending to his kids when Roon returned. He didn’t show it on his face, but he was inwardly relieved that this apparent angel did not abandon them.

In this extreme situation Roon did not give in to his primal urge to throw a tantrum or display exaggerated aggression. He did, what he did best. He breathed, and then he breathed more. After which, he told everything he’d observed till now, and all his conjectures to Takeo. Of course, he excluded the ability to perceive qi due to Augusts repeated warnings.

“So, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t experienced them first hand, so I cannot say it for sure. But you said their numbers are dwindling, but their strength is improving.”

“Well, they aren’t getting stronger per say, but they do become more swift, and more aggressive.”

“Hmm. Well, certainly this situation is not good for us. Getting through 25 pandas is easier than bypassing a single rabid dog.”

“You have weird imagination, but yes the analogy is accurate.”

“So what can we do? Do you know of the year 2081, Dravidian problem solving algorithm used in object oriented programming?”

“Yes, I do. Something about keeping the desired result as constant, and fine tuning variables to achieve it.”

“Well, not exactly but I think you get the gist of its elementary structure.”

“What of it?”

“I suggest we use that approach for this problem.”

“Fine. What do we fix as the constant?”

“You tell me.”

“Okay. We need to make sure that the kids can cross without a confrontation with the zombies. Second priority should be the extermination of these evolving monsters before it’s too late. Third, earn as much xp as possible because these ones looked juicy.”

“I’m sorry? What was the last one?”

Roon blabbered on without much thought, and now he was in the same situation as morning, with him playing the role of that middle aged neet, Jerry, and Takeo in his position. This man who’d lost his wife, would certainly explode if someone called this apocalypse a game.

Some part of him, truly did consider this a game, and that made him sick of himself. Death of so many could not be a game. But with all the power ups, and monster hunting type scenario, it was difficult not to think of it as a game.

Roon put off these unnecessary thoughts, and concentrated on the problem at hand. Whatever happened, he could not abandon these children. It was just his nature. To people, he could be cold when necessary, even woman. He didn’t believe in all that gentleman sham. But for children, he had a soft spot. The incident from the bus weighed heavily on his mind. It had nothing to do with him, who was knocked out at that time, it was out of his hands. But he felt it none the less.

So when he could do something about the situation, he certainly wouldn’t allow another hatchet in his conscience.

While Roon was contemplating his plans, Takeo, gave him a brilliant idea.

“How about we use the rope to trip them, and the pick them one by one.”

“Takeo, you are not a genius. I am, hahahaha.”

To Roons sudden outburst, Takeo could only respond with a perplexed expression.

The sun was still raining blaze when Roon decided to engage the zombies. He, couldn’t wait till dusk. Although he could wait for the zombies to finish themselves, as he saw only 13 now, with the rate of 5 dead per hour, this should be a cake walk after a period of 2 hours. But that one zombie going through a shocking metamorphosis, compelled him to act.

A single zombie lay on the ground, its body twitching, muscles bulging in strange manner, and immobile. One would have assumed, that with the recent behavior of these cannibals, they should have cleaned him up by now. But, they didn’t. On the contrary, they even delayed their meals to observe this brother of theirs.

Seeing all this, and the churning qi around this prostrate zombie, Roon had an ominous premonition. If this was like a game, then this zombie was probably going to turn into a boss monster. He hastened his movements, and enacted his plan.

“Hey, fuck face. When was the last time y’all brushed your teeth? My, shit that I had to do in an abandoned car today, smelled better that your mouth.”

And sure enough, his provocation and banging of the metal rods worked. The zombies chased him like rabid dogs. Also, his conjecture had been true. The zombies did get faster, and more aggressive. Though they couldn’t match is speed, they could run at the speed of an average human. Moreover, Roons body had improved a lot due to qi, that was the reason he could maintain his speed, otherwise he would’ve exhausted himself.

But the problem now was, that the zombies were not hindered by the previous simple obstacles that seemed so daunting for them before. They were now jumping over cars to hunt Roon. This had him terrified.

So he increased his pace as he again moved in the direction of the trailer. Takeo was standing worried on the trailer. As Roon saw him he smirked, then he ran and picked up his insurance from a car, and then he jumped over the skyway railing. The zombies followed him unperturbed, as they too jumped of the railing and down to the 1st level, becoming splatters of blood and gore.

Takeo watched the movie like scene unfold, with a wry smile. This boy, was crazy.

Roon looked at the zombies fall to their dooms. And made an expression when the sounds of their hitting the floor reached him.

He was hanging on a rope, suspended from the skyway. His plan included, First, assessing the abilities of the zombies and whether the simple obstructions were enough to impede their movements, Second, if they could cross easy obstacles, then use this mountaineering cable tied to a car, and trick them into jumping of the third level, which worked. The zombies lacked even the tiniest instinct for survival. Thus, this plan worked.

But watching the zombies plummet, Roon had another thought in his heart,

‘*Sigh*, What a waste of xp.’

He immediately reprimanded himself for having such thoughts, but his real feelings still the same. He could’ve used that boost he’d get from killing these things. That right there was a lot of concentrated qi, going down the drain. But, he also doubted his chances of killing them all without getting bit.

“Hey, pull me up.”

He called for Takeo.

“I can’t.”

Came the reply.

“Why?”

“Because two of them stayed behind. And they are now trying to get on the trailer.”

“Well, fuck. Kill them.”

“How?”

Not responding to Takeo’s last question, Roon started a frantic effort to climb up the rope. Which proved to be surprisingly quick. Maybe the qi was more that he gave it credit for.

What Roon didn’t know, was that this was a common phenomenon happening with many people in this city. The qi, energy or whatever one may call it was recently introduced to the system of humans, and their body was still in the process of adapting to it. Also, in doing this, the human body was modifying itself at a rapid pace with the help of qi. This led to the sudden accelerated growth in physical attributes, which would eventually stunt when the human body finally harmonized with qi.

So, what Roon was experiencing right now was due to the qi he was accumulating by killing zombies, and also, because his body still had a long way to go before it harmonized with qi. Thus, in a way, his enhanced sensory abilities could also be attributed to this. He was worried, and was carefully analyzing everything when he was first introduced to qi, or this new energy. So, his body modified itself observe things more carefully. As for the skill William found, we’ll take about it in the future.

So, with his enhanced muscles, that he currently thought were magic, Roon made an easy task of the rope climbing. When he was finally on the skyway, he saw that Takeo was no longer on the trailer, and one of the zombies was hanging on its edge, trying to pull itself up, and the other was jumping to get hold of the edge. It looked comic, to some extent, with the one jumping being a woman’s zombie.

Before he could take any action, he saw Takeo climb back on the trailer and kicked the nearly successful zombie on the head. It was a soccer kick, the zombie was unable to get for some time after that, and the other one was still jumping.

Seeing Takeo return, brought smile on Roons face. He had been sure, that given Takeo and his kids’ circumstances he would retreat away from this area, before the zombies could cross the trailer.

But he returned. Although leaving Roon alone to deal with two of them wouldn’t have caused much problems for him, but it was a matter of principle, was what Roon thought.

He quickly took care of the jumping zombie, and then turned to the zombie that Takeo had knocked.

‘It seems that a strong enough blow to the head can even knock them out. But they won’t die unless the blow is too strong, or their brain is penetrated. But there are other ways to kill it as well.’

The way to kill a zombie, was to sever the brains connection with rest of the body, which could be done through damaging spine or few other areas that he’d seen in the hyper battle mode this morning. This zombie was not dead, that much he could see from the qi gathered around its body. But it was taking time to recover from the blunt force trauma to its head. At this opportunity Roon tried to do an experiment.

“Hey Takeo, come here.”

“Why?”

“Just come here.”

“Fine.”

Takeo started getting down on the other side to get the kids, which made a vein pop on Roons head.

“Just leave the kids for sec and come here. We’ll get them later.”

To Roons shouting, Takeo turned a deaf ear. Roon didn’t understand the anxiousness in his heart, how worried the father was for his kids. He couldn’t let them leave his sight for even a second. If something happened to them while he was inattentive, he didn’t know what he would do then.

Seeing that Taeko, was going to take his own sweet time, Roon decided to hasten his experiment, as the zombie was already showing signs of activity, it would soon wake up.

So, in line with his hypothesis, Roon kept his hand, at the zombie’s heart, where he found the qi to be densest. Then he stabbed it in the neck and killed it.

This time, as he’d kill the zombie slowly, and not it the heat of the battle, made him want to throw up again. The sound of metal against flesh, was nauseating. But Roon did not throw up. He had a feeling that this would be the norm in the days to come, and he must get used to it.

But the gloom from these thoughts was over taken by the success of his experiment. The qi that dispersed in air upon a zombie’s death, followed the path to his body through his hand and was absorbed. Though 50% of it was still dispersed, being released from his body, he managed to retain 50% qi of a zombie who was eating other zombies. This was nearly the same as he’d gotten after killing 5 of them together in the morning.

He wondered, if he had been touching each zombie at the time of kill. How strong would he be now?

But again, he berated himself. His teenager mind was still considering these precarious circumstances as a game.

‘I’d be dead, if I’d been touching each of them.’

He chuckled lightly, and gestured Takeo to stay here. All the zombies, the route to the tower had been cleared, except for one. The one that was metamorphosing. He wouldn’t risk the children, so he thought of using the same method of tricking it to jump to its doom, if required.

Roon laughed at his drastic change. Just in the morning, he was cursing August for endangering his life, and now he was risking himself for others. Was this how Heroes were born?

Nah, he probably wouldn’t have done it if the kids weren’t involved. Just the thought of little kids getting slaughtered was enough to give rise to a strange, uncomfortable feeling in him. That feeling was worse than death. Also, his father had thought him since childhood, ‘Good and Evil are an illusion, only a matter of perspective. But when someone can willingly let a kid be hurt, that is moment one loses their humanity.’

It was only one of his father’s many teachings, but this one had made an impression on him.

‘This has nothing to do with the loads of xp and the potential skill I may get for killing the boss.’

Maybe this sudden transformation to a brave hero could also be attributed to his gamer side, which was constantly appealing to him. Or maybe, the hormones in his adolescent body, combined with the effects of qi, were giving rise to temporary moment of adrenaline driven courage.

On reaching the place of zombies feast, he saw that the zombie was still down, and still convulsing. Only, it seemed a bit bulkier, and blood was leaking from its pores, part of which had already clotted and formed a scaly, blood colored layer on its skin. But it was still convulsing like half an hour ago, and wasn’t showing signs of waking up soon.

Roon delighted with this discovery, repeated what he did with the previous zombie. He put a hand on its back, and drove the rod through a soft spot in its neck, piercing the brains connection with the spine.

When he was expecting the warm flow of qi in his body, he suddenly felt a jolt, and found himself crashing in a car. His ears started ringing, and everything blacked out for a second or two. He was in a daze, in stupor trying to figure out what had happened.

His head was hurt, and some of the blood was flowing in his left eye. His body was wracked in pain, that he registered a bit late. And through the fleeting moments of clarity, he saw a brown hulk, trumping like an elephant as it made his way to him.

It was the zombie. Somehow its body got even more buffed and it was making its way toward him, uncaring of the pike lodged in its neck. As he neared him, it waned and crashed right in front of him.

Apparently, zombies had no drive for self-preservation. Its only aim, was to feed. That too, this one failed at.

But Roon wasn’t faring much better either. He too was straddling between conscious and un-conscious. As he saw the white mist about to disperse he managed to touch the body in time with great effort.

Large amounts of qi passed through Roon. While 75% of it dispersed, he still got more than what he’d got from all the zombies combined. So, in short, the qi stuck to his body, at least doubled.

But the qi that he acquired didn’t have the miraculous effect he was hoping for. His wounds didn’t recover as he was hoping to.

Yet at the same time, as if the universe was in a playful move, a white yellow colored, orb of light floated from the zombies body. It floated there, peacefully, but Roon could feel with his perception, that it was slowly dissipating. Again, with great difficulty, Roon managed to extend a hand to the object of his desire since morning. Then, white light covered his body.

‘Roonmon, evolve. That was a bad pun. I feel like hiding my face from myself.’

But soon after, the information of the skill left him stumped.

‘Am I in a XianXian novel or something?’

The skill read,

‘Cell Regeneration Boost.’

‘So basically a healing ability. Hmm. Is someone toying with me? But I like it.’

“SKILL. MY OWN SKILL. CALL ME OOOOOP.”

He tried shouting these words, but wasn’t able to complete them.

Then he focused on the information that was flowing in his head. The usage and methods of ‘Cell Regeneration Boost’ were imprinted in his brain like he’d known them from the time of his birth. He understood the cause and effect involving the qi and skill, but the principle behind the phenomenon was absent from the data, leaving him perplexed.

But, he thought, this was no time to worry about that, he applied the method of making qi like water to fill his wounds, then turning it into threads to seal them.

Yet the result was, his qi like water was qi like crumpled paper, and his qi in form of threads was qi in form of moderately crumpled paper. After all, qi was a new concept to Roon. The fact that he could move qi, despite the usage of a skill, should be applauded. It was only now, that Roon understood the difficulty of Augusts actions back in the bus.

But as he was using the qi heal his wounds, his eyelids got heavy and he drifted into comfortable sleep.

“Hey, are you alright. *Slap*, hey wake up.”

Roon opened his eyes with great difficulty, and before he could fully open them, he had to close them again, as he got slapped.

He immideately caught Takeo’s hand, and then massaged his numb cheeks. He was probably slapped many times.

He then opened his eyes two look around, and saw two more pair of little eyes staring at him.

“Hello”

He said to the kids, who were now awake.

“Hi.”

The girl timidly responded, while the boy only waved his hand then hid behind Takeo’s leg.

Roon then turned to Takeo.

“Water.”

He demanded. He then checked his surroundings, the sun was already halfway through the horizon with a deep orange color. He finished his bottle, and asked for more water, to which Takeo smiled wryly and looked at the kids.

Roon understood, and didn’t bother with it. They got up and started moving in the direction of the tower. This time a bit more relaxed because Roon was sure that their path to return should be void of zombies. To which Takeo only nodded but didn’t allow himself to get lose, as he maintained vigilance for any zombies.

Roon’s theory was soon proven wrong, as they met 2 stragglers on their way back, but these were not as ferocious as the ones they were facing before.

Soon, they reached the area where the entrance to the tower was located, and where they’d made a shoulder height barricade by arranging flipped cars.

‘Shit. His skill is more Over Powered than mine.’

He jumped over the barricade and then Takeo passed him the kids, and then came across himself.

Roon saw August and company standing near the glass tunnel gate, and they were talking to someone. Roon also observed that they had brought all the passengers from the bus, while he was gone.

When he neared the group, William asked,

“Where’s the hoarde? Did you lose them all?”

“The zombies aren’t coming, it’s a long story. Where’s August?”

“He’s there. I see you brought company”

William pointed at the counter for passing through the gate, August was fidgeting there with the circuit wires he’d managed to pull out somewhere from the counter, and opposing to him behind the glass door, inside the tower, was standing a man in black suit.

“I found them.”

Roon gave a lose introduction of Takeo and his kids, and their meeting. Some girls went to meet the kids, as they were really cute. Also, the girls took extra glances of Takeo, as he looked slick, and his cold detached eyes had a certain appeal to them. What’d they have felt, if they knew they were appreciating a feature he’d earned after being widowed.

Roon had nothing to do with social dealings as he went straight to August.

“Any success?”

“Yes.”

“Can we get in?”

“Yes.”

“Ready to tell me everything?”

“No.”

With August’s this reply Roon’s face scrunched.

‘Fuck, let me just beat up this son of bitch. *Sigh*, no, don’t beat up Mr. Miyagi. Cmon Danielle Kun, you can do it. Don’t get violent with him.’

In the moment of Roon’s introspection, August signaled something two the man in black, to which he nodded and disappeared in the tower.

Then August finally looked at Roon, made eye contact with him, and asked

“So, which skill did you get?”

“It’s been a long day Mr. Miyagi. A long, long day.