Sitting on the back of the truck my feet hanging out the door I look at the surrounding destroyed base. My leg is absolutely killing me and it's turned a nasty looking purple and black color. I'm covered in blood and gore from head to toe. The truck and everyone else is no different. We are finishing off crawlers roaming around. it has been about 8 hours since the start of the horde. We are all exhausted. a few more shots ring out.
[Congratulations on surviving the horde.]
Lists of rewards from zombie kills start ringing out. Resources, summon tokens, blueprint unlocks, special buildings, and a singular ability. Which is the only thing that cheers me up even a little.
[Predator ability received.]
I think about activating it. What happens next is my arm morphs into a massive set of jaws and starts scooping up bloody meat and gore making gross slopping crunch noises as it chews and swallows the zombie bodies.
"Gross man." I sigh looking at it.
It just keeps scooping up blood and dirt and rotten flesh without a care.
I call the girls back and have them get some rest in the truck the front seats are the only clean blood free place left.
I look at my summon tokens with fear. I'll handle those later.
My arm continues to eat and grow before splitting off into another messed up arm mouth who also starts eating. I feel some movement on my leg and look down to see my leg wriggling and weird tentacle worms moving in and out of it.
I don't like things under my skin that's absolutely horrifying.
'System what's going on'
[Massive viral mutation found body is mutating. Regeneration has been activated.]
'I guess that's a plus not much I can do about it even if it's not.' I sigh.
I feel a pair of arms snake around my neck and a head rest on my shoulder.
"Your sighing again did something happen?" comes alices voice next to my ear.
"My body is mutating again I don't know if this will be good or bad." I wave towards the wriggling broken leg.
"Well whatever happens I'm sure we can handle it." she says before turning and pressing her back against mine a few moments later I can hear soft sleep breathing.
Gir is konked out on top of the truck asleep aswell. I feel two more bodies press up against my back and side.
I look back to see Jill and Angela snuggle up close to me.
That's when I start thinking more about it. This must be absolutely terrifying and stressful for them on unbelievable levels.
Since we left the city we haven't seen a single living person for hundreds of miles. Where is their family their friends the people they know?
Noone stops to think or mourn everyone tries to just hold it in and stay strong.
It's a shitty way to live.
How long has it been since I've been stressed out? When was the last time I just slowed down? Far too long ago.
We can work on that later I suppose. I pull up the area management system and start going over everything. My area has expanding by quite a bit apparently the horde just gathered every zombie within a few miles and pulled them towards me.
Since it now counts as my domain I can remote deconstruct. I start tearing down trees and houses as fast as I can. I watch in the distance as the trees just start popping out of existence and my raw materials increase slowly.
There is no way I can hold a big area. I look at the 2 buildings I acquired from zombie kills in the raid they will surely help.
The first building is a recruitment building. Apparently I can recruit people. I have no idea how or what it costs but we will figure that out later.
The second is a store. What kind of store I'm not too sure. The first problem I have to deal with is all the dead bodies everywhere.
'System can I convert these zombie bodies into like rotted meat chunks cubes or something? Like a way to just get it out of my base?' I ask.
[Confirmed, adding infected meat blocks to materials list.]
I remote deconstruct and get hundreds of infected meat blocks and a single tier one highly infected meat block.
I'm pretty sure that is from the giant nemesis I killed. calling it out a nasty cube shape of raw smelly meat appears in front of me. it's kind of what I imagine would happen if you stuffed a bunch of people into a trash compactor and spit it out.
My creepy teeth arm or whatever they are now quickly get to snacking.
[Strength increase gained from eating irregular meat.]
I feel my body get a bit stronger and bulk up some I also watch as the jaw shaped hand pops out eyes and start looking around curiously. "Did it gain sentience?" I ask as it looks at me. it then looks like an excited puppy with a weird tongue rolling out of its mouth. "Yep and it's retarded." I make some more meat cubes appear and it happily chows down.
I start making repairs and upgrades on the buildings and the wall. I plop down the recruitment building and the store. Two new menus pop up.
one with a list of people I can apparently buy for credits I have no idea how I got.
[Zombie and nemesis kills give credits for the recruitment store.]
I look over the selection.
I see regular civilians for 1 credit.
specialists like vehicle and gun maintenance people for 25 credits.
Soldiers for 100 credits.
Elite soldiers for 1000 credits.
'What's the difference between elite and regular soldiers?' I ask.
[Basic soldiers come equipped like a standard s.t.a.r.s operative specialists come with their own unique skill sets and items. some may be worth it some may not.]
Well I can imagine I'd be pretty fucked if I got some boat captain or something.
I look at my credits. 23740.
Blowing all my credits on specialist sounds like the stupidest shit.
I purchase 150 regular soldiers. leaving me with 8740 points left.
I look over as a squad of 150 people quickly appear. I raise my hand to my mouth with a shush motion and they all salute and stand quietly.
I buy 5 specialists all while chanting. "Don't fuck me, Don't fuck me, don't fuck me."
The first one pops up. Helicopter next to him. Great I could use a flight vehicles.
Second one pops up this one is different as their is a building in the distance that pops up along with him. Communication and computer expert. Awesome I can handle that.
Next one pops up. Boat. Fuck.
Next one pops up he has a giant crate next to him. I look at him in confusion before he opens it and pulls out a large brick of gray clay. "Demolitions expert fucking fantastic." I've been missing more explosives in my life.
The last one also has a special but it's different. All sorts of obstacles and a small building pop up. I quickly look him over in the menu. Drill Sergeant able to train 25 regular civilians into soldiers each month.
3740 points left.
100 specialists bought for 2500.
10 vehicle repair men.
10 blacksmiths.
10 Gun smiths.
10 electricians.
10 construction workers.
10 management workers.
10 professional gardeners.
10 tech people.
20 carpenters.
I slowly shift the sleeping girls off of me and close the truck doors before beckoning the people to follow me into the distance.
I clap my hands. "okay I'm sure you all have been notified of the situation or at least have some knowledge of what's going down." I get some nods.
"Okay first off management people I want 5 of you to go around and take stock of what equipment we have on hand. the other 5 I want you to go around and write down items needed by each of the specialists who are identified by not wearing Kevlar or the boat uniform over there." The boat guy just shrugs.
"Specialists keep in mind we are on a tight fucking budget this is the apocalypse get the basics first what you really need to get going and we can work our way up." I get a nod of understanding from them.
"Soldiers after your weapons and ammo are accounted for I need men on the walls I've just had one hell of a shitty day if you can't tell by my blood drenched body. You see anything running that doesn't look human you fucking shoot it. I want all of this done before I even think about bringing in civilians to this hell hole we need a tight operation up and running." I bark out orders as people start to scurry around after their gear has been written down.
"Communications team I want coms up and running 5 minutes ago." I shout as they rush off to the communication building.
"I want this area so locked down a fart can't squeeze past." I shout out.