The Many Faced Man

After I got up in the morning I found Tirone, Aira, and Kyle. Kyle was finally up on his feet again. Tirone and Aira had put together a rough breakfast and they were all eating heartily.

"We have a breakfast made out for you too." Aira said with a smile.

I sat down with them and we talked as we ate.

"I'm going to be heading out after we finish clearing the building... I originally starting clearing the place thinking I could kill zombies and save people, but there were a lot less survivors here than I imagined there would be."

Kyle shook his head, "There were originally a lot more of us, but now, we are all that's left. Perhaps, if we had been more organized.. It might have been different, but we weren't."

Aira spoke up, "Yeah, it doesn't make too much sense to try and maintain this huge apartment building with just three people. Plus, this place has a huge hole in it now, though who knows what manner of monster did that, and there is probably a lot of other damage too. There is no telling if or how long this place will remain standing."

'I probably shouldn't bring up that I'm the one who made that big hole.. well, something like that giant Troll could have easily done the same. I'll leave it to their imagination.'

Tirone nodded, "I agree, this place is too big, we should find a place where the 'four' of us can defend and stay relatively safe as well."

I shook my head.

"I'm sorry, I don't intend to stay with you all. I'm gonna be headed my own way. Do you remember when I left you yesterday?"

They nodded, "Of course, didnt want to say anything at the time, but what was that about?"

"I went to see what became of the last people I teamed up with."

"...well, did you find them?"

"Yeah, the two of them were 'alive' when I got there. Though, one was essentially dead. There were zombie bites all over her, she couldn't even talk, so I just put her down."

They just looked down at their food in a solemn mood, "Sorry about that. Your other friend survived though? Should we meet him later then?"

I shook my head.

'Well, there is no real need to hide that part.'

"No. I used to look a lot better than this, believe it or not. They got caught up when the zombie Horde was moving downwards, I went out to try and rescue them. He pushed me into a group of zombies while I was distracted fighting for them, to further help aid their escape.

I suspect they got cornered in the lower floors and he did the same to the girl we were with to buy time and close himself off inside the room I found her in. I found her mostly-dead outside the room he cooped up in.

Rather embarrassing getting caught off guard like that. Though, suppose Eva felt even more idiotic if she consciously followed a person who just killed an ally, just to end up the same way."

I stopped a moment to drink some of my luke-warm coffee.

"After I met up with him again, I used my spells to take three limbs, then threw him over to a group of zombies."

At first they seemed to be thrown off by the direction I took that, but when their minds caught up the array of expressions in response to my little short story were pretty amusing. Disbelief, pity, a hint of fear, anger, a mix of those emotions seemed to flash on their faces. And then, a hint of doubt.

I almost laughed, these guys have so many facial expressions, it is like all their thoughts show up on their faces.

I thought it was good to tell them this, make them feel they should put a bit of distance. I didn't particularly want to team up with anyone. Especially after what had happened last time.

To lie about something this serious can come back to bite you in the a.s.s anyways, even if you weren't in the wrong it will look as though you were if others find out.

Telling them this will make them uncomfortable around me, which is precisely what I want right now.

If it isn't tied to survival, then there is no reason to lie. Telling the truth here serves as a deterrent by making them fear me, but could also plant doubts or uncertainty about my integrity as they may innately think I might not be telling the whole truth, even if they would like to believe otherwise.

Either way, it is reasonably explained and I have proof I was wronged, so they have no reason to attack me for it. Besides, they have a debt of gratitude towards me, so they should be inclined to believe me. Well, it was the truth after all.

We talked a bit more, albeit with a more somber mood, and then moved on.

We spent the morning clearing out the rest of the building. After clearing it out, I bade them farewell and left.

Ultimately, they seemed to have decided to stay, as they started to blockade off the Apartment so no more zombies would get inside as I was leaving. Whether they had decided to go back on the decision to stay there or not, it was none of my business anymore.

Maneuvering through town was rather easy for me, as I could see the zombies rather well even around corners I just had to wipe out small groups and move slowly. I made it back to my zombie-proofed and electric safehouse within the hour and slumped myself on the comfy bed.

"Ah~ How nice it is to have a home, with power~"

I laid in the bed for a while until I fell asleep, when I got up again it was almost night fall. I got up and began to shuffle about.

'There is really nothing left to do in this world but fight and kill. I can't search the internet for my light novels or manga. All of my normal things to do in my down time are gone.. sigh~'

I overcame my lazy tendencies and got up. I could easily deal with zombies even in the dark, so it made no difference to me the time of day.

After sleeping my Death Qi had completely recovered, so I went out to kill zombies and scavenge.

...

I had found another Crater nearby in the city, most all of the zombies stay away from the crash sites which makes them easier to find. I took away all of the Meteor Dust that I could and brought it back to make stockpiles in my house.

After covering myself in Meteor Dust, hunting zombies was really too easy.

I ended up repeating that for a few days. Kill zombies. Collect supplies. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Although Killen Town was considered a town, the population was a bit over 30,000 people. (According to the sign I saw) So, considering virtually everyone was dead and turned into a zombie here.. there were plenty of zombies to go around.

...

I found twelve survivors over the span of the first week, and I ended up giving them some of my spare food to recover and brought them over to Kyle's group. Best to keep those with a debt to me in one place, right?

Still, my house was quickly filled chock full of non-perishables, seeds, all kinds of weapons. All I did everyday was scavenge and save people after all. I even managed to break open a few weapon cases and get a number of guns.

Whenever I visited Kyle's group, I gave them some of the supplies I found in exchange for some 'new currency' I needed for cultivation. They offered to just give some of them to me because of my help before, but I declined politely.

Looking about, I found a few more groups cooped up around Town, eight in total. After the first week wandering about, I was pretty sure that was all the people remaining. Everyone else had likely either been caught by zombies, joined up with one of these eight groups, or skipped town entirely.

After all, I had already scavenged all the more obvious spots around town at that point. There was not much of anywhere I hadn't been to in town.

There were also a couple of wandering Hordes though too.

Most of the groups simply hid in their fortified bases and prayed the Horde ignored them whenever they passed by. They don't dare to go outside the bases for long periods of time, lest they accidentally call too much attention and get themselves swarmed. I could move around with a lot more freedom than any of the groups could.

I spent some of my time just observing the groups. Spying became one of my hobbies since there is no longer any TV. People-watching can be fun~

The spying really helped me to get at least some surface understanding of what groups were peaceful and which weren't though.

Three of the eight groups had a number of thug-like fellows dominating the groups. If any of these thugs were leading the others, I couldn't really tell just from watching.

Another three of the groups, two on the smaller side, had obvious de-facto leaders who seemed to decide everything. You could see them pointing and shouting orders, really obvious. Kyle's group was rolled up into this category.

The last two were a lot more organized. These groups seemed to have large numbers and at least a few people who seemed experienced in fighting, survival, well.. everything.

With their scouting abilities, they were different from the other groups and were entirely willing to go out and kill their way through a group of zombies to nab supplies from the other buildings around them. A few of them seemed to be some sort of warrior type class since I had seen them plowing through zombies with axes.

They were handling things a lot better than the other groups. They even had people on high points scouting. Grizzly actually spotted me and waved at me at one point, and I waved back at him. Then he took out his gun and waved it in the air with a big smile, so I took that as 'please don't spy on us anymore' and/or 'if you try something, I'll f.u.c.k you up'.

Hm.. well, either way, I had gotten enough information to know they seem nice enough anyways.

After checking out all the groups I decided only four of the groups were worth the risk to approach them.

The three 'gangster' groups and then one of the larger groups, who's head had a cult-leader vibe. I don't feel like it is worth-while to mess with them so long as they don't mess with me. I don't feel like letting them know I'm around just yet.

I talked to the different groups and we worked out a trade agreement, exchange for 'new currency'.

By the end of my second week in Killen Town I had acc.u.mulated 360 Death Qi coins. Considering they drop 1 in 4 kills for regular zombies, that is the same as having killed about 1440 regular zombies with the system.

Considering I actually killed a bit over 5000 zombies personally over the last two weeks, it was a bit low though. A fourth of them were even Hulking Zombies, I made sure target them specifically so they didn't threaten any of the groups growth.

They were supposedly a 1 in 2 drop though. So, I'm not sure if the trade could be considered as even, but still, it felt fair and I didn't feel any loss on my end.

It was unreasonable to carry around more than 20 coins on me at a time, so I just used up the coins as fast as I could when I got them by grinding zombies and refilling my Death Qi repeatedly.

This helped purify my Death Qi reserves rapidly, after burning through 340 coins I felt my Qi reserves were half-way there. After using around 500-600 coins I felt my Death Qi system should be fully purified.

After killing so many zombies, and the other groups continually doing the same thing, the zombie population in town thinned out to next to nothing.

Whatever remnant zombies there were had mostly scattered to the wind, but just as one threat went away, another threat set in.

Abnormally large Bugs, Rodents, and other wildlife began to appear during the second week. Though, in town most of them were just Bugs and Mice. The Bugs mainly minded their own business and fed on zombies though, whereas the Mice had become more vicious but were fewer and spread out, so they were easier to deal with.

The whole town became relatively safe, and so the groups were freely able to move around. So, there was little to no profit left to be made.

The only issue now was, whether these groups were going to fight it out for dominance over this small town or if they would leave in search of greener pastures.

With my wellspring of coins dried up, all that remained in this town was a fight for dominance waiting to erupt. A fight which held absolutely no value to myself, I might add.

I told the four groups I traded with everything I knew about the other groups.

They all talked with one another, and after some discussion they said they would band together and head off to the nearby Jacobie City to gather more people, continue the fight, and get more food.

Two days later, they were gone.

When they ran off all that remained in Town were the cult-like group and the Gang like groups. With most all the 'innocents' gone, I started eyeing the remaining groups.

Raiding and stealing coins from Gangs and Cultists shouldn't be considered a bad thing right? Being judge jury and executioner.. well, it is probably wrong. It seems likely to me that people like them would end up being what kills those good natured people out there even more so than the monsters.

Though, that is really arbitrary, maybe they wouldn't do that. In that case, I'm the evil person who is acting judge jury and executioner without any instigation... I need an excuse to get the coins I need to purify my Death Qi before I leave though.

I think raiding the three gang-run groups would not be a huge issue to deal with considering my gun stock pile. But, I was not quite sure what to do about this cult-like group...

...would it be wrong to just kill someone for looking like a cult leader from a distance? I really don't feel like it is worth the time and effort to infiltrate a probable cult just to ascertain if they are good or not though.

As I watched the cult from a distance a small group associated with one of the 'gangs' rolled up to the cultist group and seemed to yell something as they waved their guns.

The cult leader out back seemed to get word from an underling and gave out orders, after which his followers grabbed weapons and went out to face the 'gangsters' while he sat down with a brooding expression on his face.

Soon after gunfire goes every which way as the two groups started to kill each other and the cult leader just stayed in his safe spot.

Hah, "Guess that decides it."

I readied my rifle and adjusted the scope to take the shot.