The person recording the video seem to be scared to death as they whimpered and quickly hid behind a destroyed vehicle in the before the video stopped. Ryver just realised he had been really lucky the previous time he ventured outside. The monster hadn't attacked him probably because it was occupied or because it wasn't within the vicinity.
Ryver frowned. "Did you happen to get the name of the beast?"
"Yeah, information showed that it's called The Licker and apart from the degree of infection, no other information was revealed." Jacob explained.
Ryver was suddenly reminded of Richard. Was the corpse holding a grave grudge before it died. There would more than enough time to test his theory, but for now, it looks like there was nothing he could do but increase his overall power points until he reaches at least 15 to twenty units until he was able to face the Licker head on.
To grow stronger, he would need Evo points and lots of it. And to get Evo points, he would need to kill zombies, lots of them.
"Will you join us?" Jacob asked. He had scanned through Ryver's status and he was well aware that Ryver's PowerPoints had reached 6 units, the same as his own.
Ryver thought for a while and nodded. Zombies tend to head towards where humans are almost unconsciously, which meant he would be able to kill more zombies that way.
"How many people do you have in your group?"
"Come, let me introduce you." Jacob headed towards the far end of the floor. There was a door leading to an enclosed but spacious office. As soon as the door opened, several people sighed in relief seeing that Jacob was totally fine. They all had an improvised gas mask on their faces, protecting them from the toxic radiation in the air.
Ryver's brows furrowed as he saw the amounts of people within the office. They amounted to about twenty six survivors, with improvised gas masks. Jacob is leading a total group of twenty plus people consisting of the young workers and mostly middle-aged workers and their lives rest on his shoulder.
'Wouldn't it be easier to let them turn into zombies and kill them to rack up some points?' Ryver couldn't help but think as he frowned.
"This is Ryver, a survivor I chanced upon." Jacob introduced.
The group was too much in a panic to greet Ryver. Muffled sobs could be heard as reality was beginning to sink into some of them.
A middle aged man suddenly stepped out from the huddled group. His face wasn't looking too good as he said.
"If we keep accepting more people into the group, it's only a matter of time before we are discovered. Moreover, there's barely any room for more survivors! The group is barely able to keep silence as it is and at this rate, even the slightest sounds each of us makes would turn out to be no different to shouting!" Although the middle aged man tried his best to whisper his words, he couldn't contain the agitation he was feeling.
Jacob's face darkened. "I do not remember you making such suggestions when we decided to take you into the group."
Jacob ignored the man and turned towards Ryver and pointed at the middle aged man. "This is Jonathan."
Jacob then turned to the crowds of and pointed at four other people; two females and two males, they appeared quite young.
Each of them had weapons in their hands. Baseball bats, iron rod, fire axe, etc.
"This is Glinda, Daveen, Peter and Katniss. They all have reached 2 points in one or more attribute, we are a team and we take votes in deciding our next move."
The four people turned towards Ryver and nodded towards him as a sign of greeting. It was obvious they weer quite wary of him, something which Ryver didn't concern himself with. If he wanted to try something malicious, they wouldn't be able to stop him.
Ryver also nodded and didn't say any more. He stood at the corner of the office, close to door to observe them.
"The third floor have all been cleared, we still have more floors to clear before we reach the 40th floor. We head out in a single file like we did before. I will be at the forefront, Glinda and Davin, you stay with the group while Peter and Katniss will remain at the end of the group in case of any unexpected situation. Ryver, your stat is high, we can better protect the group if you're in front with me."
Ryver squinted his eyes at Jacob, staring at the handsome man who seen to have gained the role of leader amongst the survivors, giving out orders to the members and even gave him an order.
Ryver smiled and nodded. Seeing this, Jacob sighed as though a rock had been lifted off his chest.
"Remember, we move in a single file, there should be no pushing and in the presence of any zombie, please remain calm, we will take care of it. The more sound you make the more zombies you attract and we don't want that. Alright, let's move."
Ryver shook his head slightly and couldn't help but think that Jacob was too naive.
Jacob carefully opened the door and, this floor has been cleared of all zombies, and no other zombies wandered here.
Ryver walked with Jacob as they headed for the stairway. Jacob opened the door to reveal a slight crack which he peeked through.
"It's clear." He left the door ajar and started walking through the door, Jacob looked up checked the entire row of staircase. There was only a few zombies at the stairs, courtesy of Ryver
"Come on." He urged the crowd as he began walking upwards the stairs. The twenty some people had fear on their faces but they tried their best to keep silent, not to make too much noise.
Going down the stairs was eazy, but moving upward is a lot more difficult. They had only reached the 12th floor when the crowds started to get tired.
But when Jacob mention taking a break, the crowd were fearful about resting admist the corpses and organs littering the stairways. It wasn't something they would get users to easily no matter how strong minded they are. Moreover, the stench if blood and organs was way too strong in this part.
They reached the twentieth floor before some people started to collapse exhaustion.
"We should rest here for now." The others collapsed on the stairs, exhausted and drenched with their sweat.
Ryver wasn't feeling the slightest bit of exhaustion, he had been trained to walk on rougher terrain and to remain moving for several days with little food and water. So this little walk wasn't really affecting him.
After roughly twenty minutes, Jacob and the team resumed walking up the stairs. They were quite surprised that there was not even a single zombie in the stairs, which gave the team a little more freedom as they started to murmur amongst each other.
The murmuring was getting louder and louder but as Jacob was about to complain, the door leading to the 27th floor immediately released a loud banging sound.
Immediately, the entire crowd kept silent as they held their breathe in fear and terror, hoping the door wouldn't open and let the zombies come swarming in.
The banging sound they hoping to stop didn't stop, instead the intensity seem it be increasing as though other zombies were joining in the attack of the door.
"Go! Go! Go!" Jacob immediately whispered / shout.
They immediately started moving up the stairs as fast as they could go. As the reached the next floor, they also heard banging sounds from the metal door. It seems the sound created by the zombies from the floor below is attracting zombies towards the stairs from the other floors.