Opening the door, Zain didn’t just confidently walk into the Hallway as he would any other day. Years of preparation and playing games had taught him to be cautious, and that he was.

First, he took out the mirror shard, and using the reflection, he scouted the hallway. He wanted to see if anyone was present, and he was in for a right surprise.

‘It’s worse than I expected. How long was I even out for all of this to happen.’

Seeing no one, he walked into the Hallway and took a right. At least there seemed to be no one alive. The walls looked partly destroyed, with scratches and cracks, made by what was hard to guess.

Then there was blood, not just a small amount, but plenty of it. It was smeared across the wall, on the floor, and on top of that, there were a couple of bodies slumped.

Parts of their body were missing as if someone had eaten them. Walking up to one of the bodies, Zain had a good look at it. It was a girl slumped up against the wall, who was around the same age as him.

There were several bite marks around her neck, and there seemed to be a large chunk of her head missing. Zain would have indeed assumed her dead if he hadn’t been through enough surprises already.

Just in case, Zain did two things. First, he stepped on her foot as hard as possible, right by her ankle. Doing this, he could tell that if he just applied the right amount of pressure, he would crush her bones._.

At the same time, if she were a zombie and reacted to this, Zain would have enough time to react, which was why the second thing he had, was his self-made stake, which he pointed directly at her head.

Seeing no reaction, he jabbed her a second time and could confirm she was indeed dead unless zombies were just good at acting, which he thought was unlikely. He swiftly did the same to the other bloodied bodies lying on the floor.

‘Based on the situation, these creatures aren’t like me. They can’t be sane if they’re doing something like this. It makes me wonder, who gets turned and who gets used as food in this situation.’

Before leaving, Zain thought of carrying some dead human flesh with him as a backup. For one, he wanted to see if his system would count it and see if he could complete the quest, but at the same time, there was one of his senses that seemed to be working just fine that happened to keep reminding him that this was reality and that was the sense of smell.

An unfamiliar heavy scent had spread throughout the hallway. It was pungent yet unique enough that Zain knew he had never smelled something like this. However, although he could remember that these would be unpleasant smells to him in the past, his body wasn’t reacting for some reason.

He wasn’t gagging, nor did his stomach feel queasy from the scenes he saw in front of him.

‘It has to be an effect of what I am now.’ Zain thought.

His body was still functioning well, there was no rush in these things, and it would be harder to explain why he was carrying such things if he did meet the others, which was where he was planning to go next.

‘I shared the room with Skittle, but Buke was on his own. There was not much blood in my room, so I doubt Skittle ever returned. Most likely, he stayed with Buke after class because he knew I would play games all day.’

Buke’s room was only on the floor below, so Zain decided to check it out before leaving the building, but he didn’t have much hope. For one, there seemed to be a lack of living or dead in the apartment block, as if the whole place had already been attacked.

At the same time, it depended on when the attack had occurred, maybe they were in the middle of class when this happened as well.

Several rooms had their doors hanging wide open while a few were shut closed, but the last thing Zain wanted to do now was get involved with a stranger, even if someone was on the other side of that door.

Buke’s floor was in a similar condition to the one above. A few dead bodies on the outside, blood and broken doors. As usual, Zain made sure to check those on who were dead and who were actually dead.

Getting comfortable was what caused the death of people in such a situation. Finally, he had reached Buke’s door, which was shut. Pressing his hand against the handle, he pulled down and tried to open it.

‘It’s locked…I don’t exactly want to say anything in case I alert anyone else in the building.’ Zain thought.

Instead, this was a chance for him to use something else. With the handle down and his shoulder against the door, Zain used his newfound strength to slightly push against the door, a smooth, fast action that broke the lock. It made a relatively loud sound, but it was only for a second.

Now, pushing the door open, Zain was hoping he wouldn’t come across a nightmare.

“Please….please….” He heard a mumbling voice.

Walking forward, Zain couldn’t believe it.

“Skittle!”

Skittle was standing at the very back of the room by the window, clutching a frying pan in his hand. His whole body was shaking. At the same time, he was looking at Zain, but it didn’t seem like he noticed him.

“It’s me, Skittle! I’m glad you’re okay.” Zain said as he walked forward.

It was then that Skittle hearing his name for the second time had snapped out of his weird daze and realised who it was in front of him.

“Zain…No, Wait!” Skittle shouted with his hand held out as if he was trying to stop something.

Just then, Zain felt a deep pressure around his chest, and blood had suddenly split onto the floor. That’s when he noticed a knife had pierced his chest, right through his heart.

“Buke! What did you do…he’s Zain!” Skittle panicked.

Hearing this, Buke quickly walked back and went by Skittle’s side, pushing him back a little as if he was trying to protect him while also getting a look at who he had just hit.

“I know you think that, but look…look at his skin! It’s pale like theirs, and his eyes are different, and from the bandages he has on him, they’re probably to cover up some type of bite mark.” Buke was speaking irationally, and Skittle didn’t know if it was just to cover up the accident he had committed or if he really thought this.

Placing his hand over the knife, Zain felt no pain. Of course, there was no pain, but Zain was in shock. He had been careful against all the zombies, even worried about how to deal with people in the situation outside, but what he didn’t expect was to immediately get stabbed by his best friend.

‘He came out from the toilet, and it’s quite a good plan, I have to admit. And seeing Skittle caused me to let my guard down.’

While trying to figure out the next move, he suddenly heard the newly familiar ‘ding’ in his head, and a prompt appeared in front of him.

[New Quest received]

[Form Your Horde!]

[Infected: 0/10]