The Many Faced Man

Day 2 of the apocalypse (TMFM 1-3)

I woke up to the rising sun.

The night had been surprisingly quiet for a zombie apocalypse.

I took out some water to quench that morning thirst and grabbed some canned peaches for breakfast, then after I gathered up my things...

I got up and ready and headed out.

There should definitely be some survivors somewhere in a larger place like Killer town. It is not a city, which are widely reknowned to be the worst places to be in Zombie Apocalypses, but it is not too small either.

Anyways, I've come up with a good strategy for taking out these hard-headed zombies.

Taking advantage of the 1 meter 'threat zone', the area in which the effect of the Asteroud dust becomes ineffective.

Run in, hit them once, run out.

Pretty straight-forward. But effective.

Even if I fail to kill in one hit, I still weaken their skull and stagger them a bit for the next shot.

I feel it should work wonders in helping me whittle down the zombie population here.

In the zombie apocalypse, every zombie killed is a public service. The less zombies, the less of a threat to the living!

So, even if it's just on the way, I've gotta kill zombies.

It's a matter of principle.

Of course, I'm only referring to those isolated ones, I'm not crazy enough to try and fight a group of them all at once.. Again.

Oh! Hey! There are more wrecked cars and trucks and stuff now. I must be getting close to town! And what is that?!?

I see a roughly 9 foot tall skinny blue giant with enormous curled tusks, carrying a giant a.s.s axe one handed, in leather-clothing that looks like it was skinned from a mammoth or two, walking across the street.

Really nonchalant-like.

He stops and stares at me for a few seconds, my heart seems to be thrumming in my ears as he does.

Then he looks away and just keeps walking off into the woods.

Ho... So not only do we have zombie apocalypse but trolls too? Did every kind of crazy thing fall down with those asteroids?

Did the difficulty get raised again from Hardcore to Impossible?

Actually, maybe it's not so bad.

Those guys will likely get killed if you riddle them with a few bullets just like a person would. You don't have to be a pinpoint shot to deal with them.

They would certainly be fast and strong, you can tell that much from looking at their stride and looking at the axe he was carrying. But certainly it would not be as tenacious as a zombie, and certainly less numerous... Yeah...

Except, you know, in most stories bullets and other weapons like that would be useless against trolls like them... because they heal fast...

Humanity really is screwed I guess.

Getting over the fact that trolls walk the earth, before I realized it I was in the outskirts of Killen Town.

Lots of houses and buildings here before the asteroids rained down now laid in rubble.

However, most of the inner portions of the town were still perfectly intact.

There were a lot of zombies around here too, though it's still not quite a horde. The zombies were still rather distributed about the place.

In passing, I heard screaming coming from down a nearby alleyway.

A good number of zombies also heard it apparently because they started moving toward it rather quickly.

I leave my cart behind and quickly run over to the opening of the alley, taking a concerned look to see if I can help.

A man, still screaming, tears rolling down down his face, is being eaten alive by a large group of zombies.

Looking around, I cannot see if there was anyone else with him. But generally, if one person in a group were in such trouble, other members of a group would similarly be around and in trouble.

I yelled out just in case, "Anyone still alive that needs help?"

The man cries, whimpers, and seems to die as the zombies continue to eat him.

I don't hear anyone else reply, so I leave it be.

He obviously can't answer anymore.. And no one else seems to be nearby who heard or was with him either.

Perhaps he was alone or his group had died off before him.

Though I felt bad for the guy, I was not about to run into those zombies to try and save someone who is already dead.

It was something I really had wanted to see, but I suppose that is the way the world will be at times now. Unless we can suppress all our enemies, countless people would be bound to such a fate.

Damn, I really hate zombies.

I'm just going to spend the day killing them then, I've decided.

First off, I go into a small gas-station.

There are two zombies inside. One is trapped under a fallen shelf, and another just leaning against the wall next to the bathroom.

The first one I go for is the one under the shelf.

I hit it square in the forehead and somehow the blunt edge sunk in nicely.

Ending it in one hit.

I recover my club, then position the club to have its straight edge towards the zombie, I run out towards the wall beside the zombie and swing out the straight edge.

The wall very nicely helps my club smash up it's head.

I'm satisfied with the results, but I still feel the need to kill more.

I can't get over having seen these things killing people in such ways.

I won't be able to live happily without making a habit smashing zombies!.

I go into the restaurant next door, there are five of them, a light smile creeps onto my face as I walk up and smash a zombie in the face with my club.

I managed to get the swing and momentum just right that it went flying back out of my threat range.

Ah, that impact actually kinda hurt my arms though, swinging hard results in equally hard recoil. The stress from hitting hard objects with a hard is rather jarring.

I ignore it, and press forward, quickly finishing it off.

The second one was just sitting in a booth so I just took a side swing toward it.

Didn't quite get the job done in one this time, and it actually jumped out and nipped at me.

I jumped back and scrambled away out of the threat zone. Then I tried another side swing, it nipped, and repeat... for some reason, that one was a lot better at dodging than the others were.

My side swings were probably lacking in strength by a good bit too.

Eventually, the thing ended up laying on the ground after I managed to knock it down. Finally I managed killing it with a down-ward swing.

The last three, I finished off each in about 2-3 swings.

I probably need to work out more or get better at using this club... Or both.

It almost seemed like a few of those ones actually were a bit stronger than others, did they work out more before they died?

I think I'm getting used to the blood and guts thing.

I found some still good cold meat in the restaurants fridge and a gas grill, cooked that up and ate some hamburgers not far from the bodies. It is not like there were many places left without bodies now, so there is no point in trying to avoid it.

My cooking skills, as usual, on point.

After eating my lunch it was already around noon.

I rested for half hour, then went out and killed twenty or so more zombies, and decided that was enough for the day.

I felt like it was a lot, and my arms were already feeling sore.

I got up and set out on foot deeper into the city a few hours later despite the soreness.

A short while after, I finally happened upon what looked like a survivor base.

I had not seen living people in awhile, so I was sort of excited. (Excluding that other guy, he was basically dead already)

There was an apartment in front of me, with what appeared to be a big court yard.

The courtyard was surrounded by a wall about 4 meters high.

A guy could be seen in the security booth at the entrance, the normal gate you are supposed to go through has been completely blocked off.

The guy in the security booth has his gun pointed at me.

I wave at him and make all sorts of hand signals trying to see if I can approach him.

He makes a weird face and waves me over. He is roughly the same height as me ~6 feet. He is a very grizzly man, and big in a very muscly sort of way, unlike me.

He's got a beard too that makes grizzly feel like the perfect description of him too.

He questions me with a gruff voice. (As expected)

"What business do you have here, fella?"

"Hey! I was sorta out in the country when the asteroids struck.

Everyone else around me died instantly from the impacts. Traveled here hoping to find other survivors, and your the first I've found!"

I tried my best to smile and seem friendly as spoke, trying to give a good impression.

He gave me a funny look in return.

"...and am I supposed to take that as you wanting to join us?

I'm not sure we can take that risk anymore. Simply too many people with bad intentions around.

Sorry."

I unintentionally let out a laugh.

"It's fine!"

"It's not hard for me to survive on my own at all out here. The zombies are the ones who avoid me, not the other way around."

He laughs heartily, as expected of a bear-like person.

He probably thinks I am joking.

"You must have quite some confidence to speak like that.

How high is your level then? Ah, never mind, I guess that is s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e information. I'd imagine you have a pretty good class though then."

Quite a few things out of place in what he just said where I'm concerned, but I just act like I know what I'm talking about.

"I'm only a bit lucky.", I respond.

Then feeling a bit reluctant to just cut all ties and walk off, I spoke again.

"Although you guys aren't letting in new people would it bother you guys if I dropped by occasionally to chat and trade if you want?"

He frowns a bit.

"What's your name?", he asks.

"Bond, James Bond." I reply

His eyes are very skeptical of my claim...

I wave my hands, "Okay, joking, first name Dugant, last name Alvar. You?"

"Eisen Adams, nice to meet you bud."

This time it's my turn to give him a skeptical look. So he's Grizzly Adams...

I agreed with Grizzly that any excess goodies I got that might be useful for them, if I'm in the area, I'll drop by to trade and chat with them.

This way, although I'm still a loner, I'll be able to have occasional interactions with real people.

But levels and classes, huh? That was a thing??

Maybe I should've just asked but I felt like it would've been a bit awkward to at that point... It totally fits with the appearance of a troll though.

There are probably other monsters too, unseen as of yet.

I wonder if they level up too? That implies the resistance of magic too though.

Magic.. I want. I hope that's a thing. I really do.

How on earth are you supposed to level up though? I've never even seen a notice yet so I must still be level 1.

Let's see... "status!" I call out.

Nothing happens.

I try again, this time clearly visualizing that I want to see some sort of status board, "STATUS!"...

Still nothing happens.

Obviously, you have to level at least once to be able to view your status in the first place. That sort of a setting.

Do you have to kill a ton of zombies, or do zombies not count for some reason?

I feel like I've killed plenty of zombies, so for just getting to level 1 it should have been enough right?

But then again, maybe I actually just kinda suck?

I did only kill about 30-40 zombies anyways. Since its on hard mode it takes a lot of kills to level?...

Or maybe it is more like, people who have guns are the only ones able to kill that many to level up.

I really should have asked, it'd be awkward to go back and ask now though. I'll just keep on killing zombies, eventually I ought to level up.

I really would have worked out more and practiced martial arts seriously, if I knew this was going to happen.

And thus, I walked the streets a bit, starting to look for a decent house to stay in for the night since the sun was starting to set.

I killed a few more zombies along the way, still no Lvl up at around the 50 kill mark, which I'm sure I've reached by now.

I found a house, cleared it up, and made it secure. Locking everything up in the house.

I went upstairs to a nice master bedroom, and hopped in bed. I wanted to try and get some sleep so I could wake up early but...

Why are zombies beating up my front door and making so much noise! There isn't really a large group congregating towards it or anything just two of them, so they won't likely break it down. But it's super annoying!

I leave the house and look around, until I finally find another asteroid's crash site. I drink the remainder of my open water jug and then start filling it up with ashes from the crash site. It took about an hour but I managed to fill it most of the way up with the easily discernable greenish-gray meteor dust.

I go back and find one of the nicer houses in the area, on the further reaches of town. I ended up picking this one out in-particular because it had an intact solar panel, it was on the side of the roof opposite the nearby impact site.

Electricity! My love! All it took was a flip of the breakers and I could get a bit of lighting. I made sure to cover any windows in the rooms I used the lighting though. Don't want to make people jealous and attract anyone.

I mixed the ashes with a bit of water and splashed it over the outer walls. Looking back over it I found the asteroid dust settled in and stuck on the walls rather nicely.

This house is officially zombie-proofed!

Helps a lot with the whole not getting eaten thing. It's almost kind of a cheat~

I start to fall sleep again, another peaceful night on the brink of the apocalypse.

Ah! Should I have shared the ashes thing with grizzly? Well, he did not want to share with me either I suppose..

Meh, let's think about it again tomorrow.