'It was close…' With a relieved sigh, he threw off his corpse.
'That woman…' Only now he thought about it.
She had resisted to the last.
Remembering how she stopped abruptly near his face, a long-forgotten feeling of dread came over him.
Doing the exact same procedure as in the warehouse. Gray wondered.
'The Titans have not appeared; The fog has intensified with a strange rain; Humans do not fully become zombies; A strange mechanized voice in my head that keeps telling me that I have killed a zombie…'
Putting the found zombie core in my pocket. I continued walking toward the sound of the chomping.
'So what's going on anyway? I don't remember something like this ever happening.'
Stopping a few feet away from where the sounds were coming from, he began to listen.
The sound of the slurping never stopped. Accompanied by squelches and strange rustles, it echoed off the nearby walls.
Slowly, he decided to sneak up behind him. But as soon as he stepped on an old floorboard, a growl was heard from the squelching sound.
"Rrr!"
As he stepped even closer, no sound came out of the bloody fog anymore.
"Rrav!"
A small silhouette popped out of the fog. Gray didn't hesitate long and kicked it to the side.
'A dog?'
The short, domestic dog whimpered slightly and flew sideways.
As soon as it came to its senses, it lunged toward Gray again.
This time he wasn't too harsh on her. He stabbed her once and decided she'd had enough.
Looking at the place where the dog had come from. Gray noticed a silhouette on the floor.
The gnawed part of the back of his head clearly stood out against the rest of his body.
The scars on his chest reeked of blood no less, though.
'Is that what the dog did to him?'
After poking around a bit, he never found the zombie core.
The zombie core was always in the back of his head.
For the same reason, all the other infected tried to get to the zombie core.
And most often they did so through the victim's brain.
The disgust caused by this phenomenon did not disappear from people, even after ten years of the apocalypse.
'They wanted to evolve…'
Suddenly remembering the weapon the cops were carrying, Gray began looking for it beside him.
'Where is it… They couldn't have taken it when everyone was running away?' Standing up, he began searching around the corpse.
But still unable to find anything, he headed toward the second policeman.
Carefully approaching the spot where the older cop had fired from, he found the man's body lying on the floor.
Kicking him several times and turning him over. Gray found no sign of handling.
Checking his pulse, he was pleasantly surprised. 'He's alive! The first naturally evolved…'
Looking around a bit, he found a pistol and a pair of handcuffs lying beneath him.
'Natural evolved, the potential for growth is much higher than that of…'
"Ah! Fuck!"
Just as he was about to go into thought, something clawed at his leg.
"Fucking dog!" He jammed the knife into the dog's head and grabbed for the bite mark.
[You Kill: Mutated Little Dog. Level 1!]
[You have reached Level 1!]
[Congratulations! Initiating Auxiliary System Awakening!]
***
A strange mechanical voice carried across the world.
[Stage 1: Beginning of the End!]
[The Auxiliary System has been awakened!]
[Survive and prove your worth!]
***
Meanwhile, in the warehouse.
'Ahhhh… what a petty creature!' Hurrying back to the storage room, Gray grabbed the first aid kit with him.
Inside.
The old man's pained screams didn't stop for a minute.
"Give it to him!" Walking over to the two girls, he tossed them the core and the first-aid kit.
While he himself sat on the sidelines and watched the condition of the bite.
To his surprise, there was no infection. Only bleeding marks and a small bruise.
After treating everything with alcohol, he bandaged his leg.
Sitting there, he watched as one of the girls carefully approached the guys, who had long since passed out from the intense pain.
Each of them had been bitten or scratched at least once.
Grey watched them intently as only one of them could not overcome the virus. He would finish them off on the spot.
So an hour of agonizing screams and groans flew by.
All Gray had to do was sit and wait.
There was nothing he could do to help him in this situation.
No one could help him… except himself.
As soon as the screaming stopped, there was silence in the room.
During that time, one of the boys died. Then Gray, without waiting for him to turn into a zombie, broke his neck.
He could have waited for the zombie core to form in him, though. Gray still wouldn't risk his life in that state.
His injured arm and wounded leg severely limited his options.
Now he needed to find a safe place and rest.
As he approached the artificial barricade, he looked at the seemingly breathless old man.
"How is he?"
"He's fine, but… he has no strength left at all."
"I see. What about you…?"
"Kayra."
"And the other one?"
He looked to the other side of the room. There, huddled in a corner, sat a girl with a frightened look.
She had not stopped trembling and was crying intermittently.
"That's Betty, she's a friend of mine, but she's not feeling well at the moment." Tiredly, she smiled at him.
"Gray. You don't seem too shocked."
"I don't know why… Maybe it's because I've seen so many horror movies."
She was still trying not to show her fear. But her body trembled treacherously, revealing her true state.
'Commendable. To be brave in a situation like that and still be able to make jokes.'
"Why didn't you run away when you had the chance? Staying here wasn't the best idea…"
The girl, slightly wincing, told him what had happened as they ran toward the exit of the warehouse.
The fat man and a couple of other people with them had blocked the only exit.
So when that thing caught up with them, they had to defend themselves desperately.
'Classic situation. Soon there will be more situations like this…'
Nodding understandingly, he looked at the man once more and smiled slightly. "All right, wake the big man up. We need to get out of here, the red mist is starting to creep in here as well."
Looking at the door, Gray frowned slightly. A dense fog with a bloody smell was coming in from the main door.
"It's not safe here anymore."
***
Half an hour later. By the back door.
"Young man, what did you give me? I feel just fine!" The gray-haired man was happily examining his body. The wounds on his stomach had already healed.
"Congratulations, from now on you are an evolved human!" Gray patted him on the shoulder.
"Evo… who?"
"Don't worry about it. Tell me better, what's your name?"
'This young man has no manners at all…'
With a little wrinkle on his face, the man did answer. "Werner. Werner Br…"
"That's enough. Your name is quite enough for me."
The man's eye twitched slightly. But Gray wasn't paying attention. He was gathering all the things he needed. "My name is Gray. I'll tell you right off the bat. From now on, you obey me!"
Gray dropped what he was doing and looked into the gray-haired man's eyes. "And if you dare betray me… you will suffer a fate worse than death. Believe me."
Saying this in a calm and cold voice, Gray radiated an invisible aura of power. It was something that could not be acquired the easy way.
Only the higher evolved had such an aura. An aura that, on a subconscious level, pressed against the very essence of man.
Just as the tiger looked at the rabbit, Grey looked at the two-foot-tall Werner.
'What a commanding aura!' Looking into the eyes of this seemingly rough and uncouth young man, goosebumps ran down the man's body.
Even though the guy was much shorter than himself, Werner still had a strange feeling of suffocation.
He had encountered this before. Their boss, who had returned from hell and occupied the top of the black world, had that look.
The same posture and the same disgusting manners. That man never counted for anyone. He did what he wanted without asking the opinions of others. Even the top of the government could not resist his overbearing nature.
'He's probably long dead by now.'
Though he had long since retreated from the dark business, his look, Werner, would never forget.
'But what would a boy like that have…'