AW? Chapter 03 (Patreon)

I went downstairs and killed the three zombies in the lobby. God, it would suck if I was having a psychotic break and just killed three random people. It was surprisingly easy. Video games might not prepare you for killing as much as people think but hunting animals for sport, stripping the meat from a deer, and butchering it yourself really made me less squeamish than a normal person. I flipped over the man at the front desk looking for a source on him before asking.

“System. Where is the source at?” The moment I got my question out the system answered. “Inside the chest cavity on the opposite side of the heart.” I could only answer. “Most people won’t want to dig around in the chest cavities of zombies to gain power. Is there any way you can put the source on the outside of the zombie so we can just pry it off with a knife?”

The system thought about it for a moment before I heard another ding and a blue message popped up in front of me.

Suggestion accepted!

New Helper title gained!

500 ZKP added to your bank.

Title added to stats tab.

Neat. That’s good to know. I’ll have to look out for suggestions to make. I watched as the sources exited their bodies instead becoming like studded pieces of jewelry in the center chest of the zombie. I grabbed my hunting knife and pried it free from the corpse. It said consume right? “I got to eat it to get stronger?” “Yes.” Without much hesitation, I popped it into my mouth and felt it melt. My body was suffused with new energy as I felt a sudden rush of power flood through me.

I clicked on stats again.

Title: Helper- 10% discount on store purchases.

Strength: 1.1

Agility: 1.1

Endurance: 1.1

Intellect: 1.1

Charisma: 1.25

So a ten percent increase in my stats. I wasn’t aware that I was gaining ten times the amount as other people because of my system. I looted the corpses and ate the two other sources. Knowing what they did I only checked my stats to confirm they had been raised to 1.3 before heading back up to the rooms with the master key for the hotel.

Going room by room I killed zombies. Couple on vacation. An elderly couple with one being a corpse the woman easily killed. A man by himself like me. A family of four bringing up my first child I would have to kill. As I smashed in the parent's heads I asked. “System, any chance I can save the kids or not have to kill them?” The system took the longest it ever had to respond to me as I retreated out of the room.

“Negative. Humans must kill to become stronger. Killing children is an easy resource to those with the ruthlessness to collect.” I gulped as I tried to steel myself to kill them… I couldn’t though. I still had too much of my humanity as I led them in a circle before pushing them over and locking the door again. They were slightly faster than the shuffling zombies. Definitely not running, maybe the best descriptor was power-walking zombies.

It also meant I couldn’t collect the two sources from the parents unless I wanted to lead them around in a circle again. I was up to 1.7 times my normal strength. I could feel it too. The energy was definitely changing my body. I was almost strong enough to kick in the reinforced doors now instead of just opening them. That would defeat the purpose though.

I kept going. A big four-person room filled with all female zombies. Another couple. My bat broke on the man's skull turning to splinters and only knocking him down. I pulled out my hunting knife and stabbed him in the neck but it wasn’t a clean kill. I wasn’t bitten, out of curiosity, I asked. “System. If I’m bitten will I become a zombie?” “No.” I could only think ‘well alright then.’ as I looked for a weapon to use.

The knife was a sure kill but it didn’t have the range to make zombie killing easy like the bat did. The noise was enough to pull the survivor's neighbor from the room beside this one. I wiped my blood off my hands before I breathed heavily and asked. “Hey. You got a weapon I can get that would work for killing zombies?” The man slammed his door shut and I heard it click over locking itself.

Well, I was covered in blood but that guy was going to need to come out and eat eventually. If he turtles up and tries to wait out the apocalypse he isn’t going to have much say in who he teams up with in the future. If humans had sources I had no doubt people would systematically kill each other the moment they found out. It would take less than a week for bands of roving gangs to take over.

I breathed out as I thought of the best weapon to get from a hotel. The only thing that came to mind was the knives in the kitchen, someone brought a weapon with them, or maybe the tools in the boiler room in the basement. The knives were a sure thing but if I could get a hammer or god bless a sledge I would be set for weeks. 

I worked my way down to the basement. Killing another two in the hallway leading down and three in the restrooms I received my first injury. What should have been a permanent loss of eye instead was only temporary blindness from having my eye gouged by a finger. I was 2.5 times more durable now than when I woke up. 2.8 after I consumed their sources and felt my eye slightly recover.

Making my way downstairs I stopped trying to use the knife and just full-on kicked the old janitor in the chest collapsing his lungs. I guess I shattered his source because he died the moment that happened but it meant I couldn’t eat it to get stronger as it turned to dust. I looked around the room the man was in before it dropped down into the actual basement and saw many tools on the wall.

One, that most likely served no purpose but the man still had, was a four-foot-long monkey wrench. I looked for other tools and found a few that would work better than a knife for killing zombies before I finally used my storage for the first time. Instinctively I knew I could view the space mentally and take out the items I wanted to while leaving the rest untouched.

Inside was now a shovel(in New York for what purpose?), mop, shears, four different-sized hammers, and a specialty tool I didn’t know what purpose it had. It was like a rake but had a metal end that stuck out for sliding underneath something and lifting up. I realized something, I should probably head to the kitchen and load up all the food before someone else also gets that idea.