With the increased strength obtained from the continuous consumption of soul gems, the weight from his weapons and pack weren’t slowing him down in the slightest anymore and the added bulk – even when his bag was at full capacity – barely bothered him.

It hardly mattered whether Danny dropped down his backpack or not before a fight nowadays, given that he could still fight agilely and effectively even when it was strapped to his back, so it would probably be wise to be on the lookout for a bigger and bulkier storage item in addition to the weapon alternatives he had already been searching for, even if just to better accommodate his increased appetite.

After all, one week’s worth of rations didn’t amount to much. There was just too short of a time gap in between having a topped-up stockpile and being out of supplies.

Regarding the weapons department, Danny had been looking for guns and other ranged options but he didn’t have much luck so far. During his previous week of scavenging and ever since he left his rented house, Danny didn’t cross paths with a single firearm.

The crossbows that Janice had left him had served him well until now, but every now and then Danny wasn’t able to recover the bolts he used. That or the projectiles simply broke, meaning that his ammo for the two copies of the weapon will end up running out soon enough and also before any of the crossbows have a chance to start malfunctioning from wear and tear, which will unfortunately rend the weapons useless even while still in good condition.

There were still quite some ways until he reached that point, since Danny still had over eighty bolts with him. This meant that Danny would be able to keep using his crossbows for a little bit over a month if he kept spending the bolts roughly at the same rate.

However, if he could find a replacement option for his ranged combat sooner rather than later then all the better. Hopefully this place would be the one that would provide a solution to some of Danny’s concerns.

Danny traversed the last stretch of the way to the house not expecting any surprises. It had been quiet the whole way from the fenced wooden gate of the property until the porch of the house.

From Danny’s experience, the complete silence meant that the place had been abandoned or there were undead trapped inside the house. He was already quite comfortable dealing with both scenarios.

The place was exactly what you would expect a farm house to look like. It was a two-storied building painted in white with red clay roof tiles to ward of the rain. Its walls were built with wooden boards and it also had a front porch slightly elevated from the ground by just a couple of stair steps leading to the main doorway which had a beige welcome mat placed just in front of it.

After a quick scan of the house, Danny jumped over the couple of steps and onto the porch before heading directly to the main door.

All the windows on the first floor were closed and protected from the inside by wooden panels, meaning that Danny was completely in the dark on what to expect from the interior of the house.

Also, even if Danny wanted to break the windows to enter the place, he would still have to go through the wooden panels, which would be a time consuming and noisy endeavor. Instead, Danny decided to just get in through the main door, which hopefully would prove to be an easier and more straightforward option.

Not willing to just rush in just yet, and without a better alternative to investigate the place, Danny put his ear next to the door to see if he could hear any movement from the inside that would denounce any occupants of the place. Dead or otherwise.

After a few seconds of unfruitful listening, Danny knocked a couple times on the wooden door and yelled just loud enough to make sure someone on the other side would have heard him, but not enough to attract attention from far and wide.

“Hello there! Is anyone home?!”

Hearing no response to his call or any groans and shambling steps from the other side of the door that would reveal the presence of zombies within the house, Danny took a deep breath and tried the doorknob.

*Click*

“Lucky.” Danny thought.

After turning the doorknob and hearing the clicking sound, Danny realized that the door was not locked.

“Maybe they left in a rush…” Danny ventured a guess as to why the door was left unlocked, but soon refocused on the matter at hand. The reason behind it was irrelevant for Danny. What mattered was if the house still had something useful for him to loot in it.

Danny then cautiously cracked the door open just a sliver and took a look inside. Although the windows were closed and barred with wooden panels, there was enough space in between the cracks to let the light from the outside shine through and dimly illuminate the interior of the place.

Dust particles floated in the air as Danny inspected the room for any signs of a potential threat. Everything seemed to be in order. There were no overturned furniture pieces nor blood splatters around the place, which probably meant that there were no undead here.

Failing to notice anything that would call for a more cautious approach, Danny fully opened the door and made his way inside.

However, he had barely taken a couple of steps into the room when he heard another clicking sound. However, the clicking sound definitely did not make Danny feel lucky this time around.

That was undoubtedly the sound of a gun getting ready to fire. Danny immediately stopped in his tracks while his heart begun to race. His mind drew blanks as it failed to process the rapid shift in gears his body was going through.

The complete freezing of Danny’s programming only lasted for a second though. Very quickly his brain rewired itself and the confusion gave way to seriousness, as the potential danger Danny was in sunk in.

However, Danny didn’t even have a chance to turn his head left – where the sound had originated from – to see whether his suspicions were correct before he heard a voice.

“Drop the hammer. Hands up.” A woman ordered him in a commanding tone.

The voice confirmed it. Danny had not heard it wrong, there was indeed a gun ready to fire at him. Or to be more precise, someone was getting ready to fire at him.

“Just my luck.” Danny thought while feeling frustrated. What was with him and getting pointed at with guns? Barely a week had passed since Carl had a barrel lined up with his face, and he was already being held at gunpoint again.

It reminded one of those old kid’s TV shows where there was always a plaque saying “XX days without accidents” that never truly managed to get a high-count number. The silliness of keeping count of the number of days while never managing to go higher than ten was something that always brought a smile to Danny’s face.

It seemed that he had become the joke now. Time to reset the counter.

“We are now officially zero days free from almost getting shot.” Danny though humorously while trying to distract himself from his predicament and calm his nerves.

“Come on, do you real-”

“I said drop the hammer! I won’t ask again.”

Danny attempted to diffuse the situation, but before he could even start to justify himself and show he meant no harm, the woman cut him short and left him no recourse but to comply with her demands.

He threw his trusty and bloodied weapon to the carpet that lined the floor and slowly rose his hands to demonstrate his compliance, hoping to pacify his aggressor. Getting shot was a great way to ruin his day.

No matter how much stronger, faster and tougher the crystals had made him, Danny wasn’t bulletproof. Not yet, at least.

Whether his recuperation and regeneration speed had been affected by the soul gems or not, and whether he could survive being blasted in the back with a bullet, Danny did not know and he had no intention to find out now.

“Close the door behind you and lock it. Then turn around. Slowly.” The voice commanded again.

Danny had no room to refuse, so he did as ordered. As he turned the key to the main door and locked the entrance, Danny realized he had walked straight into a trap. The woman had purposefully let the main door opened to encourage Danny to enter the house from that direction.

After doing so, she chose a corner to sit still and wait, knowing it to be a blind spot for anyone entering the place through the main door. Like a spider waiting for its prey, she just had to keep calm and let Danny walk into her carefully laid trap, which he did in the end.

The woman had probably somehow spotted him at the distance as he approached the house. Otherwise, she would not have the time to plan this and set it up without Danny noticing it.

Of course, there was always the possibility that this wasn’t her first rodeo as well, and she had been preying on unaware travelers for a while now to deprive them of their possessions, but Danny hoped that wasn’t the case, since that would mean this will end very poorly for him in that scenario.

Danny turned around slowly after locking the door and came face to face with his detainer for the first time. The sight caught Danny by surprise and made him almost forget his captive status.

The girl he saw looked to be around his age – something around the early twenties – and was the spitting image of the cowgirl cliché.

The young woman had shoulder-length blonde hair and was wearing a pair of dark-blue jeans fastened by a leather belt, red and white checkered shirt, and a pair of brown leather boots.

She was just missing the cowgirl hat to complete the ensemble, but Danny could forgive her for that since they were inside the house right now, and hats were more appropriate to wear outdoors. He would bet his bottom dollar that she had one lying around the house for one such occasion.

As if she could read Danny’s rude thoughts, the girl narrowed her eyes before raising the gun’s line of sight to point straight towards Danny’s face.

“Now, don’t go about thinking of doing something stupid just because I am a girl. I am perfectly capable of putting a hole in that pretty face of yours, even if I don’t like the idea.” She spoke with a slight country accent which Danny hadn’t noticed until now.

Danny realized that the woman had mistaken his astonishment at her outfit choice for a surprise that his captor was in fact a young girl. He wouldn’t be correcting her misunderstanding though.

“I had been practicing my shooting quite a lot these days with all those dead walking about and I don’t particularly want to add you as my training target if I don’t have to, okay?” The girl said in a calm but firm tone, trying to assure Danny that they didn’t have to fight each other, while at the same time showing that she wouldn’t hesitate to put a hole in him if she deemed it necessary.

“First things first. My name is Lara, nice to meet you. What’s your name?” She introduced herself with a smile.