The first week of the apocalypse can be called the Golden Week. The zombies weren't rampant and were just about to increase their population.
Every day, Marco and Jessica would clear abandoned sari-sari stores. To make sure that they aren't causing trouble for other survivors, they checked whether there are people in nearby houses who could possibly own the stores. When they realize that the owner has run away or died, they started gathering everything that they need. They took all kinds of food and drinks with no discrimination. Junk foods, soft drinks, and all kinds of booze.
To make their scavenging run more fruitful, they always take a long way back home and searched for more houses in the area. They weren't the only survivors in the town and food were starting to dwindle. Most of the residential houses barely had zombies in them since zombies tend to roam and chase after sounds. Meaning, they were already chasing other people and out of the house.
Occasionally, they would enter a house occupied by other survivors and things would get heated up verbally. No one would die, but such situations always cause a headache for Marco.
The fourth day of the apocalypse...
Marco finally received a feature that he was excited about, the building feature.
With the building feature, he could make simple construction on the surrounding. He could make system-designed walls and manually designed traps. It was a great feature that would help keep the apartment building safe.
After the heavy looting that they did for two days, he gained several useful skills. At the same time, a lot of features were buffed and nerfed. The skill feature was suddenly reduced to becoming a passive percentage buff, removing every activatable effect. No more sudden activation of raw strength or speed to utilize in battles just increased percentage on the corresponding skill.
For example, once the melee weapon expertise filled its experience bar, it would automatically be upgraded and increase its natural effects such as; impact force, damage dealt, stun chance, and knockback chance.
Every newly generated skill had a starting value of one percent chance and can be increased by leveling the skill up. Leveling the skill was easy since you use them daily. The problem with the current setup was the increased grind and difficulty at higher levels.
Grinding skill levels was something that hardcore gamers love, but it would take time to grind skill levels and the apocalypse wouldn't wait for anyone. Still, having a few percent chance increase doesn't really do anything, an increase can still be considered an improvement.
Currently, Marco had Woodcutting Level 2, Gathering Level 3, Lockpicking Level 1, Tracking Level 1, Melee Weapon Expertise Level 2, Dig Level 1, Cardio Level 2, and Fabrication Level 2. These skills were generated naturally while he was clearing the surrounding area.
The apartment complex only had several houses nearby and mostly had empty lots. It was the perfect place to stay since they could easily escape the town if things started to go south.
He currently has enough food supplies for two-person to last an entire month. If they rationed the supplies, it could easily be stretched for a few more weeks than the expected date.
Marco gazed at the surrounding area. The abandoned plot of lands filled with grasses and twigs appeared enchanting to his eyes. The several large trees in the distance glittered in his eyes.
"Alright, let's do some work!"
Marco started stretching doing some warm-up exercises. Every time he moved, his body jiggled and bounced in the same direction.
The goal for today was to gather natural resources and quarantine the immediate vicinity. With the building feature, he plans to blockade all the streets leading to the apartment. In this way, he could easily block all threats coming from the town center.
To do that, he needs lots of wood as a material. He already experimented the day before and found out that wood was the best common material he could use right now. Stone barricades require cement and gravel, which are found on construction sites and hardware stores. Going metal barricade would be idiotic with the current stage of the world and harvesting large amounts of metal also require scavenging for specific places. Nevermind searching for them, just trying to make them requires better tools and a higher level of construction.
With things already planned out, Marco and Jessica moved out to work on the apartment's security.
Marco dashed toward the treeline and made sure that no zombies were nearby before he started hacking at the trees. Each time he swings, the stamina bar drops by ten percent. He would start to recover stamina after idling for five seconds at the cost of hunger and thirst, depending on how exhausted he was.
From previous experiences, he learned that running out of stamina was a dangerous thing. If he got ambushed by zombies when he has low stamina, he could die due to decreased reflexes and strength.
With this knowledge in mind, Marco created reminder zones for himself. He created three zones which are called the green zone, yellow zone, and red zone.
The green zone signified that he was in perfect condition. This zone requires full hunger and thirst which allows more room for stamina recovery. It implies that he could fight and gather resources for a longer amount of time.
The yellow zone meant that he was in average condition. This occurs once the hunger and thirst fall down to fifty percent. With reduced hunger and thirst, he would have to constantly watch over his stamina.
The red zone indicates that he was in terrible condition. Hunger and thirst fell down to critical levels. Walking around and doing actions would further drain stamina, which in turn would consume satiety.
As a gamer, Marco already tried eating to recover while in battle and while on the move. Unfortunately, the satiety feature undergoes a different process than regular RPGs.