I moved across the main hall of the main school building and headed down to the second floor. The rustle from the second floor and the swarming undead were too much for the students to bear and they began panicking, especially when the undead began destroying the chairs, and shelves and opening up way slowly into the second floor.
"Get to the third floor and block the exit there," I spoke loudly.
Under any other circumstances, no one would have listened to me, but now, desperation clawing at the student's sanity, fear of the unknown, and terror of death made my words sound like those of a commanding general.
They obeyed it without a second thought and made sure to spread the word.
The second floor needs to be given up, otherwise, we'll all die here.
Cut the foot to save the body. That was the necessary and only way for us to survive here.
I then hurried to the closest air vent and jumped into it. There was no way for me to go down, guns blazing into a hoard of undead, I'm still not immune to the undeath curse. And don't want to risk being bitten due to a dumb amateurish mistake.
I was taught damn well, against the rats, that I wasn't the same as I used to be. Even with the potion, I'm far stronger than a normal human, but I'm still human. I can still succumb to the bite and will fall to the curse.
I slid through the vent and moved through it. I kept on moving as I heard the noise of the undead clamoring harder and stronger as they were making their way, slowly but dangerously through the stairs of the first level.
I climbed down the vent into the first floor and continued navigating my way, slowly sliding across the hard metallic surface of the vents.
Once I arrived at a place where I didn't hear the undead anymore, I decided to check if it was safe to come out.
Sadly, I know for a fact that the university communication room doesn't have a vent. The installation never bothered with air conditioning throughout every facility, and the communication room had its own air conditioner. So, I'll need to make my way there on foot, across the undead if I'm unlucky.
But I have to do this.
It's basically my own damn fault, I was too rash that I came here without informing John Dilbert. I could have taken a walkie-talkie, or a radio device to contact him, but now I'm paying for it.
I shook off the negative thoughts and continued moving through the vent until I arrived at what appeared to be an empty hall on the lower floor.
I slowly pushed the vent's door, making absolutely sure to keep it within my hands lest I snap it off its hinges and have it flying causing even more ruckus.
Slowly but surely, the vent bent and tore off. I desperately grasped it with the tip of my fingers as it was about to fly out of my hands, and thankfully no noticeable noise came out from my shenanigans.
I peeked from the vent into the corridor, only to have my nose assaulted with the rusty stench of hardening blood and innards.
A lot of students died in these halls.
Some didn't even have the luck to turn to undead, as many of the bodies strewn across the hall's floor were that of students missing their limbs, organs, and what all undead desperately seek. Brain Matter.
Their skulls were crushed and their brains were eaten up completely.
The reason why the undead need brains were pretty ambiguous the first time this shit happened. But the clusterfuck that happened later with the Brain Eater Serial Killer was enough to explain this shit.
All living creatures have what we call a brain. And it's the source and storage of Mana. It can store ungodly amounts of it without ever feeling pressured. The problem is, that the Undead aren't alive, and they can't supplement themselves with mana. The weaker ones at it, like Zombies. They're prone to decay and destruction with the passage of time alone. Unless a general class undead, like a Dullahan, a Death Knight or a Lich can command them, the undead will usually die out on their own.
And without a commander, the best source of getting mana to support their bodies is the brain. Animal brain isn't enough for them, because it has no mana, but a magical beast, or human preferably, is the best. Even if a magical beast brain is better for them since they're more attuned to mana, a Zombie hunting a magical beast is nothing short of suicide for them, as for humans, they're weak, slow, and can have their necks snap easily, thus they're the best prey.
You can't make a Zombie out of a brainless corpse, the best you can have is a skeleton soldier, something even a child with a hammer can break. However, Zombies are stupidly resilient and have absurdly high stamina. You can cut them, burn them, slice and dice them, but unless you rip their skulls off their heads, or pierce through their brains, they'll never stop coming at you.
And they easily reproduce, which was a huge pain to deal with back then.
After taking another peek at the corridor, and judging that no undead was nearby, I slid from within the hatch and got into the hallway, making sure to keep my trusty sword next to me.
The notification of contribution has been bugging me for a while now, but I decided to ignore them for now. There was no need for me to check up on them, and thankfully, since the first phase hasn't started yet, my Red Hunter Status isn't set up yet.
I've killed a few students, though they deserved it and more, the system isn't too nice about it. Killing someone who didn't deliver the first blow is basically PK, Hunter Killing.
That's also a whole fucking pain in the dick that's gonna follow up this stupid first phase. Being a Red Hunter is a huge pain. Your General Location gets permanently exposed, and the system itself will start putting bounties on your head if you start killing indiscriminately.
Making a Red Hunter one of the most hated existences in the world. People who kill for the sake of killing. Dosed up on a disgustingly powerful Buff from killing. The more they kill the stronger they become and the nastier they get. The system gives them a buff to encourage their homicidal tendencies, but at the same time, the rewards of killing such people are too good to pass up.
It just becomes a vicious cycle of killing, where no one benefits, and the whole damn planet ends up losing more and more chances of survival, heroes, and hunters that could have done something in the future, hunters that could have aided in abating dangerous and deadly situation, dead by the hands of a frenzied killer overdosed on a stupid buff.
I moved slowly across the hall, making sure to stay below window level lest a zombie spots me from the other classes.
I continued moving hunched up and making sure to move as slowly as possible and careful to look at the bodies I'm crossing over lest I end up grabbed by an undead that I didn't notice.
The system is awake but I'm still not allowed to use Scan and identify yet. We still need the system to be fully established and that will only happen when the majority of humans either get their needed contribution or enough time had passed. Or worst-case scenario, a boss monster shows up. I pray that won't happen any time soon, no one has any way on even how to deal and manage the current situation, a boss monster is straight-up stuff of nightmares if it appears so soon.
As I continued moving through the hall, I realized that I was getting closer and closer to the radio room, thankfully nothing awry had happened, so I'm patiently making my way.
I arrived at the teacher's lounge on the first floor, inside it should be the communication room. The door didn't seem to be locked, which was pretty damn strange in such situations. So I slowly pushed it over and made sure to check up on the area before proceeding any further.
Low noises from outside were suddenly cut off as soon as I closed the door behind me. Though for anyone else, this would have been a dumb thing to do. As they'll be closing their only way of escape, or at least take a few more seconds to open the door back. For me it wasn't the case, I could deal with anything here, but I can't risk having a whole undead mob waiting for me outside or coming after me if the door is open.
I moved through the room and realized that the teacher's lounge wasn't spared from the undead, it was already attacked and all the people here were dead.
I took a deep breath and almost regretted inhaling all the shit and gut smells.
I then continued moving, as slowly as I could, there was no reason for me to be hasty, getting the attention of a hidden undead or alerting one isn't the best way to survive.
Before I even went to the communication room, I made sure to lock all the other doors and checked behind desks, I don't want to be ambushed if I were to lose focus even for a second. With my back covered I headed to the main room.
I was soon in front of the university's Communication room, I peeked through the rollable curtain and almost cursed.
There was an undead there. A student, who had been trapped or probably caught off guard.
I brandished my sword and opened the door as fast as I could. The undead didn't even have full time to react before my sword pierced through its skull.
With the room cleared, I cracked my fingers, let's call for some help, shall we?