I squinted my eyes hard as I tried to get a better look at the flipped over truck in the distance.
There were two heavily wounded Abnormals roaming aimlessly near the truck. They were probably the driver and conductor.
It was already dawn so I didn't get too close to the truck in case they noticed my presence by mistake.
'It should have went off the road at a fast speed, flipped over a few times before coming to a stop at that place.' I made a guess as I tried to imagine the scene of the accident in my mind.
I look right and left and made sure that there were no other vehicles in the near vicinity. Although the trees somewhat impended my view, they were rather sparse and I could easily get a full view of the situation after moving around for a bit.
'This seems like a good target.' I thought to myself and went back to the place where Rahul was preparing breakfast.
We had been both been walking the entire night and although we took regular breaks in between, we were still exhausted after six hours of walking.
Thus, Rahul set up a temporary camp and told me to scout any potential prey that we could attack while he prepared breakfast.
'If there's really an opportunity, then I'm sure Rahul won't miss it.' I thought and reported everything to him after getting back in the camp.
Although I called it a camp, it was nothing more than a small area hidden between rocks where two small hastily made tents and a fire could be seen.
Thankfully there weren't any large animals in the forest otherwise we wouldn't dare to make food out in the open like this.
The breakfast was served after a while, but it was nothing to be excited about since it was just some canned food with some vitamin supplements.
After we finished eating we rested for a few hours before we started moving toward our next target.
—————
"What are they doing?" I asked in confusion as I looked at the two heavy wounded Abnormals acting creepily.
Creepily in the sense that they were imitating human actions. Just that they were not doing a very good job of it.
One of them was cleaning the windshield of the truck. Nothing wrong with cleaning the windshield but it's just that, he was doing it with a stone instead of a cloth. It seemed like he didn't realized his mistake and continued doing that action repeatedly.
Judging with how the whole windshield had turned white after being scratched repeatedly with the stone, it seemed like he had been doing it for the past few hours.
The second one was sat with a slipper in one hand attached to his ear while making constant gurgling sounds.
It seemed like he was imitating the action of talking in a cell phone.
"Don't be surprised by their actions." Rahul said. "This is something very commonly seen in newly turned Abnormals."
"Why is that?" I asked. "Shouldn't they be searching for food instead of doing these meaningless actions."
"You're right. But the thing is that they're not very smart. At this point their intelligence cannot even be compared to that of a beast. So when they're not fighting, they resort to doing these subconscious actions that they used to do as humans."
"Since those subconscious actions are already deeply ingrained in their mind, they don't need to think about anything to perform these actions." He said.
"Does that mean that all the Abnormals start acting like this when they're not fighting." I asked.
"Yeah. Just about all the low tiers Abnormals act in such a way." He said "But that's none of our concern. Right now, what we need to know is how many more Abnormals are left inside the truck."
"These kinds of long distance trucks usually have enough space for up to 7 people so that they can drive and rest in shifts." He said "If there are 5 Abnormals in that truck, then we will have to resort to trickier methods."
"But don't worry about those two out there. They are already in the bag." He smiled.
"What? If we go and attack them right now, without knowing about the number of Abnormals in the truck then won't it be a bit dangerous?" I asked is concern.
"Don't worry. Have you forgotten what I just said." He smiled. "They're stupider than an animal. If you use a few tricks then it's not hard to fool them." He said and picked up a rock from the ground.
"Now watch this." He threw a rock near the two Abnormals. As soon as the rock hit the ground, they stopped what they're doing and went on to check the source of the sound.
"See easy Peasy Japanessey" After saying that he threw a few more rocks and lured the two Abnormals away from the truck.
"Now get your weapon ready. You'll kill one of them while I'll the other one. They're already heavily wounded so they should not pose much problem." He said and picked up the axe as we both sneaked up from behind the Abnormals.
This time, we didn't make any noise as we creeped up on them. They were still searching for the source of the sound and didn't notice anything wrong until the last moment. But by then, it was already too late.
I swung the large Axe with all my might but unlike when I had tried to the hit that woman, this time, I had far better perception and thus, didn't miss my strike.
CHUCK!!!
It's head flew up in the sky following which, his partner suffered the same fate under Rahul's axe.
I pocketed a red crystal after which we went on to check on the truck.
Using similar methods, we took out four more Abnormals and at the end of it all, I received three crystals. Two red and One green.
Once again, I exchanged all of them to Yellow ones and consumed them without any delay.
I checked my stats once again.
User name:- Ashok Singh Rana
Stats:-
Strength - 0.9
Agility - 0.9
Endurance - 1.0
Perception - 1.8 (1.5)
Mana - 0.0
Skills:-
None
Equipments:-
None
Wealth:-
None
After eating three more yellow crystals, I felt that my reaction speed had increased significantly. The things happening around me seemed to have become even slower and although it freaked me out a bit at first, I got used to it soon enough.
At the same time, I realized that my hearing and eyesight had also improved considerably.
At this point, if I had to fight a Abnormal one-on-one then I was confident that I had more than 80% chance of defeating it.
'This… is really amazing.' I thought to myself. 'Only eating a few crystals made me so much stronger. If I eat more of these then how strong could I get.' I gulped in anticipation.
Being powerful was an addicting thing. Once you get a taste of it, you'll want it more and more.
After eating these few crystals, I realized that although earlier I was only attacking them because Rahul asked me to do so, from now on, I would be fighting the Abnormals on my own initiation.
'I want to become strong.' A strong fired burned in my heart and made me feel restless.
It was not a very good feeling. But I liked it.
—————
After this incident, we walked for half a day more but didn't found any more of such easy opportunities.
Although we would spot groups of Abnormals from time to time, most of the time, they're in large numbers, or were too close to the highway, so we could only move on.
And although I wanted to get stronger as soon as possible, I knew my own limitations and followed to Rahul's advice to the word.
During the half a day that we walked, we didn't fought with any Abnormals but that didn't mean that I didn't gained any benefits.
After my recent upgrade, I realized that something had changed in me. At first, I had no idea what it was.
After some introspection, I realized that it was my mentality and outlook on things that had changed.
In the short time after the Apocalypse had started, I had started transforming from a normal college student to someone who was ready to kill for the sole purpose of becoming stronger.
During my introspection, I also realized that, so far, the only reason I've managed to survive was thanks to Rahul. If it had not been for him, I could have died countless time.
I also understood why he was forcing me to fight with the Abnormals again and again.
If I didn't become powerful on my own then I won't be able to survive on my own even if he supplied me with numerous crystals and increased my stats exponentially since I won't know how to fight them.
After my introspection, my whole mentality had changed. I became more alert. I understood that learning from Rahul was the best way to become stronger so I started to pay more attention to his actions.
I copied how walked, where he walked, when he walked and why he walked. It may sound trivial at first but after I started paying attention, I understood that there was a huge treasure trove of information hidden beneath those small actions.
I noticed that while walking, although he seemed to be at leisure, his steps were always firm and he was always prepared to face off against any kind of possible ambush. It was not something he was doing intentionally but something like a habit. Something that he did subconsciously.
He checked the surrounding carefully for any signs of danger after every few steps.
After I confirmed that every action of his was filled with information that I could learn from, I started paying even more attention to him.
I paid attention to how he rested, how he swung his weapon, how he set fire, how he set up the camp, how he slept and so on.
In fact, I stared at him so intensely that I might have creeped him out for a bit there.
'But screw his feelings. I'm learning here.'
After paying attention to him for half a day, I realized that everything he did had a particular pattern to it.
Like how he walked continuously for fifteen minutes before taking a rest for five minutes. How he left a faint marking on the trees after walking every 30 or so steps. How he drank water only when he was resting and so on.
I also noticed that when we were setting up camp, he would climb a tree and carefully check the surroundings for any possible dangers. He would specially keep an eye on the highway which was filled with Abnormals.
In short, although he might make it seem like he's not all that concerned about the Abnormals, in truth he's highly vigilant of them.
I realized that although he might have seemed very powerful when killing those Abnormals, in truth, he was only able to do so because of careful planning and essential preparations beforehand.
But then thinking about how his stats were almost equal to mine, I realized that it was indeed so.
I had thought of him as some super powerful existence which could hold the sky with one hand and protect me and Neha with the other, without facing any sort of problems. But only now did I realized that taking care of me while constantly worrying about Neha must have placed a heavy burden on him.
Indeed, so far, I have been nothing but a burden for him. All the instances where I helped him were events which he could have easily dealt with on his own, even if he was alone.
'In a sense, by killing those Abnormals, I took the Crystals that might have belonged to him.' I thought and felt a burning sensation in my heart.
'Now that I think about it, although I might be able to fight an Abnormal now, I'm not really all that useful right?'
'You don't be so hard on yourself.' Hearing Lily's voice all of sudden woke me up from my self-criticism mode.
'You might not be all that helpful in fight and might not know much about surviving in the apocalypse but that doesn't mean you're useless.'
I listened to her and fell in thoughts. 'Alright, I might not useless but I still took the crystals that might have belonged to him. Aren't I still a burden to the team?' I asked
'You might think of yourself as a burden and I'm sure that he's glad that you're with him during this tough time.' She said.
'Really?'
'Of course. If you were in his shoes and had to take care of little Neha then would you ever think of her as a burden.'
'Never.' I shook my head without even needing to think about it.
'It's the same for him.' She explained. 'You and Neha are both his spiritual support. Just your existence is already a huge boost for him.'
'But I don't just want to stay as a spiritual support for him. I want to become strong with him and help him in protecting Neha.'
'Then do something that'll make you stronger. Why are you being so negative about everything.' She said. 'Truthfully I was happy for you when you started to learn from him. But then you went off track and started thinking about useless things. Seriously. What's wrong with you.'
I was surprised when she mentioned that she's been observing me all this while. After coming our of my shock, I chucked and said. 'You're right. I understand.'
'It's good that you understand.'
'Lily.'
'What now?'
'Thank you.' I said with a smile
'Don't mention it. Idiot.' She said and went silent.
After being chided by Lily, my mood turned for the better. I smiled a bit as I looked at Rahul who was walking ahead of me.
I realized that although the world might have gone to hell, as long as I have family with me, living in it won't be that bad after all.
At the same time, I also understood that although the world was not filled with dangers, it was also filled with opportunities.
'I need to become stronger. Not just for myself. But so that I can share Rahul's burdens and protect Neha.'
We walked until evening till our legs were starting to hurt.
On the way, we found four individual Abnormals straying away from the highway and made short work of them.
I killed two of them while Rahul killed two as well.
I exchanged them with yellow crystals and ate them immediately but Rahul saved his crystals saying that he wanted to buy a sword.
I checked the interface and realized that the lowest quality sword was worth 30 white coins.
Lily had earlier told me that the Black watch was like a merchant. It only bought things at 80% of their original price.
For example. A crystal can be bought from the system at 10 white coins. But if I want to sell the crystal back to it, it'll only give me 8 black coins.
So, going with number, if Rahul wanted to buy the lowest quality sword, he would need to sell at least 4 crystals.
'Is that really a good deal?' I questioned in my heart. 'Wouldn't it be better to just use the crystals to increase our stats.'
'You're too narrow minded.' At that moment, I heard Lily's voice in my head.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
'You've not seen the sword sold by the Black watch. Nor have you sees your Elder brother's skill with a sword. So without even knowing anything, how could you judge it's value.' She rebuked me in an angry.
'Yeah you're right. I should not have judged the value of the sword so early without knowing anything about it.' I apologized.
'It's alright. After all…'
'Wait! What's that.' I suddenly said as my eyes fell on something white in the distance.
'That, looks like a resort of some kind.'
'No. That's not a resort.' I smiled and said. 'That's an opportunity.'