Just from Sergei's appearance alone the officers could tell that he was well off. He didn't stink like others (especially the refugees in the camp), his clothes and shoes were of good quality and the healthy color of his face was a sign of eating regularly.
The officer looked at stranger's backpack with anticipation. He didn't care if the foreigner opened it or not - it was within his power to declare him a criminal and confiscate his belongings. But of course he couldn't do that… He couldn't do that regularly or else he would attract an unwanted attention. Just this week alone he already robbed two people…
"What's in my backpack? Why?" Sergei immediately understood the situation, but decided to play innocent. Here he was nobody. If the officer claimed that Sergei was bitten or that he was a criminal before the apocalypse, he could be executed on the spot. In his backpack he carried two cans of spam that he found while looting apartments, one kilo of potatoes and two bottles of spring water.
"It seems like everything's in order. You may enter after paying the fee." The officer and two of his fellow policemen smiled maliciously.
"Hm.." Sergei frowned unhappily.
"If you got a problem with that - you can leave!" The officer grunted angrily upon seeing the unhappy expression on the foreigner's face. But internally he was laughing at the poor guy. He's done this countless of times. Of course there were the ones who tried to protest, but those never lived for long.
"How much?" Sergei asked accepting defeat.
"This would be enough." The officer slyly moved two cans of spam towards himself.
Sergei frowned once again, but didn't say anything - those cans weren't worth the problems they could bring him, besides he could always get his revenge. He gathered his belongings and passed through the checkpoint into the protected area. After a hundred meters or so he finally entered the camp.
"Ha-ha! With this we can fuck Jessica two days in a row. My treat, ha-ha."
"You got him good, Boss!"
"Boss! You're the best! It's been a week since I got laid last time. I almost started thinking of fucking one of those filthy women from the tent encampment, it would've taken me a month to wash off all of that dirt and to get rid of the lice!" The three of them laughed and continued inspecting those who wished to enter the camp.
The officers were celebrating but the foreigner didn't hear them - he was moving towards the entrance of the Louvre.
"It seems that I overpraised their leader…" Sergei said while looking around.
The vast area in front of the Louvre was filled with tents and there were so many people, that all of them were crowded together. Even one-person tents were occupied by two to three people, a lot of them were exhausted from hunger, some were sick, some were lying on the ground - either dying or already dead… And the smell… It reeked worse than a food garbage dump…
(fr) "Sir, please! Do you have some food? Please! My child had nothing to eat for a week! Please, I will sell you my body even for a piece of some dry bread!" A young woman ran out of a nearby tent and grabbed Sergei's arm.
(eng) "I don't understand you," he said looking into her big pleading eyes.
(eng) "Please!" She begged him again, but this time repeated her words in English. Sergei gave the girl once-over - she wasn't much of a beauty but was overall well-built.
Actually, if he thought about it, he spent two years inside of a pod. At first he was suffering from full body pains, then trying to get used to the fact that he was in a zombie apocalypse. But, as time passed, the pain was gone and he was adapting nicely to the new reality and now upon seeing this woman offering him her body, his hormones started demanding immediate actions.
"Okay."
"Really?!" The girl rejoiced. There were dozens of women prettier than her in the Louvre, in fact all of the prettiest women lived in the main Louvre building, where they sold their bodies for food. Living conditions were much better there and the girls could even wash regularly…
All the useful people lived in the main Louvre building, while the less useful were left outside to starve. Only some of them were courageous enough to go outside into the city to search for food, but not all of them were lucky to return…
(fr) "Honey, go sit outside and cover your ears until I tell you otherwise, okay?" The young woman told her son with a bright smile on her face. He was the most precious thing in her life.
(fr) "Yes, mommy!"
A six years old boy was sitting in the tent, he didn't look good but still gave his mother the sincerest of smiles. The boy obediently left the tent and covered his ears with his little hands. It was a one-person tent with only a sleeping bag and some of their belongings inside, there wasn't enough space for even one person let alone two. She didn't smell good as it was a long time since she last showered (Sergei himself hadn't washed himself since he woke up) but that didn't particularly concern the hungry man. The camp itself stank so bad that he wouldn't have noticed even if the girl farted.
Even though she gave birth previously in her life she had a good figure and tight breasts. Though she was a bit too skinny it didn't really matter.
After putting on a condom (he'd found plenty of those while looting apartments, the French turned out to be quite the hoarders in that way) Sergei came at her like a wild animal. Two years of celibacy was no joke. Loud moans were almost deafening for the people in nearby tents, but they were already used to it. In the world that was about to end, sex was one of the few remaining pleasures. That's why moans could regularly be heard in different parts of the camp, sometimes even triggering the "chain reaction"…
There were no such things as social security, reasonable jobs or the abundance of services anymore. If you're hungry, you either work or risk your life. However working was for lucky and successful - people were ready to kill even for a sweeper's job… That's why most of the people were forced to risk their lives, but not everyone was courageous enough for that.
The Louvre was an example for this - people were starving to death, women were selling their bodies for scarps of food just to feed their children, while men were ready to steal from those who were weaker but more fortunate than them. It was no wonder - it's been months since the apocalypse. Many of those who ventured out to find some food never returned, or did, but only by some miracle. A lot of people witnessed such horrible things that they fainted even at the slightest sight of a zombie. The Europeans, spoiled by their good lives, ended up being unprepared for the world where they needed to fend for themselves.
About an hour (and four condoms) later, Sergei finally stopped. He wanted more but upon seeing the girl exhausted and struggling for breath, decided to take pity on her. Judging by her sunken cheeks she'd been starving for a few weeks. He slipped his hand into his backpack, summoned two huge boiled potatoes from his haven and gave them to her along with a bottle of spring water. He experienced famine in his childhood so he couldn't look without pain at those who were starving, but it didn't mean that he was going to give away the food for free.
(eng) "Is this for me?" The girl couldn't believe her eyes. She took a bite of a potato to check if it was real before she gave it to her son. Tears started rolling down her face - the potato that Sergei gave her was still warm and tasted incredibly delicious.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you…" she kept thanking him through tears, then quickly put on her robe and called for her son to come inside. It would've been stupid to eat in front of other people. The potatoes were huge, almost half of a kilo each, more than enough for the boy and his mom.
Meanwhile, Sergei reached the entrance to the Louvre building, but was stopped once again. They didn't let just anybody inside, but upon learning that Sergei had some food for trade he was allowed entrance without any checkouts or fees…
It was much cleaner inside, all of the rooms were refurbished but still it was cozier and more spacious than the tent encampment outside. Some parts of the building were converted into storage rooms, barracks, dining halls and etc.
Police officers were patrolling the hallways - it seemed like there were more guards inside than outside. A huge floor plan was hanging on the wall near the entrance. It was just a huge sheet, on which the floor plan was painted with a lot of descriptions, but it was all in French…
"Excuse me, Sir? Can you help me?" Sergei asked the most decent looking patrolling officer.
"A foreigner? I'm sorry, but I'm on a patrol right now… but I think I can spare some time…" Sergei knew the drill so he immediately handed the policeman a little gift, a can of spam that he summoned from his haven.
It would've taken him too long if he had to look for right people by himself, while the officer gave him quick but detailed explanation of how everything was established in the camp. It was obvious to Sergei that the officer wasn't happy with the current situation but could do nothing about it - he was just a small man and didn't want to end up outside with other unfortunate people…
According to him, first few floors were meant for soldiers and other useful people, other floors were taken by the higher-ups, government officials and other bigwigs. Living conditions were much better there, they had plenty of food and weren't obliged to work or risk their lives…
The first floor was split up into different areas, the brothel, the market, the barracks, the living quarters and etc. The second floor housed the storages for food supplies and weapons, the infirmary and other crucial facilities. Upper floors were turned into living quarters for higher-ups, not many people were allowed there thus not much was known - the rumors still flew around though and they weren't particularly good.
The first floor wasn't safe, even though the windows were all boarded up, it wouldn't do much during a zombie breakthrough. That's why everything of value was kept on upper floors. The officer also told him about the so called "system users".
Apparently, system users were people who hunted zombies with system weapons. The bat that ended up in Sergei's hands when he woke up in his pod, was given to him by the system. Similar bats were given to all the people, but they were quite heavy and made it harder to run from zombies so a lot of people threw them away while running for their lives. It seemed absurd to Sergei who grew up on the streets - to throw away a weapon while all the hell was breaking loose…
"If you want to learn more about system users you should talk to Captain Arno. He's on the second floor, area six. Or you can talk to Professor Curie, he used to research developing of a vaccine and study system users - but he didn't succeed, so now he's somewhere outside."
"What does Captain Arno do?"
"Captain is in charge of all of the camp's system users, he also plans all the attacks and sabotage operations against the undead."
"Sabotage operations?"
"Well, they lead the hordes of zombies away from the camp, destroy dangerous accumulations of the undead, that kind of stuff…" The officer mumbled. To be honest, he didn't really know what Arno did - he never left the camp and the brothel…
"Thank you for your help." After saying goodbye to the officer, Sergei's friendly smile morphed into a sickening grin. He got the detailed information about the camp so he could safely call this place a real cesspool. While people were dying from diseases, hunger and zombies' teeth, the elite lived lavishly, enjoying all the luxuries of life.
Their position was to wait - in the hope of the undead either dying from hunger or migrating somewhere else. Well there was also a slim chance of the army arriving to save everyone…
"This place is doomed," Sergei smiled, looking at the fat man surrounded by young beauties from both sides and with a squad of soldiers following behind him. From the fatty's face it was obvious that he imagined himself being the king of the world.
———————————————————
"Silencers, come buy my makeshift silencers, a silencer will save your life! There are only a few left! Three bullets each, you won't find cheaper!"
"Flour! Buy some flour…"
"Only two bullets? It's a real Rolex!"
The market turned out to be much more bustling than Sergei imagined. People tried to sell and buy things, craftsmen provided their services and scavengers tried to sell their loot.
"Hm, excuse me, mister. Are those system swords?" Sergei asked a harsh looking man with bandaged chest and a huge bruise on his cheek. He was selling three swords, two bats and some other items. Upon hearing a foreign speech the man opened his eyes and looked at his client.
"You can see for yourself," the salesman answered with a frown. The client's appearance disgusted him, however he soon noticed the bat hanging from his backpack.
A SIMPLE ONE-HANDED SWORD, LEVEL 2.
SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN A BEGINNER'S BAT, PERFECTLY SUITED FOR CHOPPING OFF THE HEADS OF COMMON ZOMBIES. CAREFUL, YOU CAN CUT YOURSELF! DO NOT POKE YOUR FAMILY OR FRIENDS WITH IT, IT'S DANGEROUS.
"How much?"
"Two hundred of 5,56mm bullets or twenty kilos of food." There were only two currencies in the camp - food and cartridges. One kilo of food was equal to ten 5,56mm bullets, 9mm bullets were cheaper - 15 units for one kilo of food.
"Deal!" The client exclaimed and started taking out the previously prepared bags of potatoes from his backpack - he knew he was being too obvious, especially because his backpack was much smaller than the amount of food that he took out of it… However he didn't plan on staying in this camp for long, plus he could disappear any second.
Saying that the salesman was surprised would be an understatement. No one really carried around twenty kilos of food, everyone usually just paid with bullets. The salesman weighed potatoes and gave Sergei six bullets as a change.
"Where did you get all these weapons?" Sergei inquired.
"From the eggs of reward," the salesman gave an honest answer. The yellow-pink dude has shown his ability to pay, so he immediately became a very good client! And he also didn't haggle!
"That's weird, I only ever got one of those…" Sergei got upset upon hearing the salesman's words.
"You've probably just became a system user? The coins and eggs dropped more frequently when the apocalypse just started. Nowadays - not so much…"
"What's this?" Sergei interrupted him mid speech upon noticing an interesting item on the counter.
A VACCINE BRACELET, LEVEL 1.
THIS BRACELET CONTAINS SYRINGES WITH LEVEL 1 VACCINE. IF YOU ARE BITTEN BY A ZOMBIE, THE BRACELET WILL AUTOMATICALLY INJECT YOU WITH A VACCINE. ONE VACCINE FOR ONE BITE. DOES NOT PROTECT FROM ZOMBIES WITH INFECTION OF LEVEL 2 AND ABOVE.
REMAINING DOSES: 1/4
"How much?" Sergei's heart started being faster. This bracelet could save his life!
"Two kilos." The salesman answered hesitatingly. He overcharged seeing that the client had some money - or food, to be more precise.
"Deal!" Sergei took out another bag of potatoes, but still ended up adding one bullet. Even though he realized that for something already used it was a little overpriced, he had yet to find someone else selling these vaccines. It was like an extra life! Even one slightest nibble and bam!… you're undead, but with a vaccine… more than one bite and you're still undead…
"It says "infection level 2 and above", can you explain it to me? I'm not really good at it yet." The salesman raised his eyebrow upon hearing that. All of the system users knew that stuff…
"Level 1 Zombie - Level 1 Infection. Level 2 Zombie - Level 2 Infection and so on…"
"Level 1?"
"After killing a zombie you receive a message from the system telling you which level it was and how much XP you got. 1 XP for a first level zombie, 2 for the second and above that… I've never encountered those above level 2. The same with mutated and evolved zombies."
"Hm, I get it. Mutated zombies must be the big one and the quick one, huh?" He stroke his beard remembering those bastards he suffered from…
"Yeah," the salesman nodded.
"And the evolved ones?"
"You don't wanna know, trust me. And if you encounter them you won't be able to tell anyone cause you'd be dead," the salesman smirked.
"…and the last question - where can I buy a gun?"
"Nowhere," the salesman laughed. "Guns are banned around here. The soldiers rent out their guns to those who are going outside, but they need to leave a deposit first. Take my advice - don't go outside without a gun. Even if you have a really high level and equipment, one bullet to the head and you're dead. And that happens a lot."
"Thanks for the advice."
Sergei walked around the market for quite a bit before heading to find a place for the night. It was getting dark, so he decided to wait until tomorrow to finish his business. The living quarters on the first floor were available for a rent, however a night in a two by three meters room costed one 5,56mm bullet. It used to be one huge spacious area which was later reconstructed into two floors of mini-apartments.
"Feels like I'm in a coffin…" Sergei was shocked by his "new" apartment. It was dark inside with a tiny window by the door being the only source of light. It could be closed if he so wished and there was a little lock on it.
The mini table in a corner was covered with traces of wax. It looked like the candles were not included in the rent… Sergei sent his trusty bat and the new sword onto his table in the haven. For some reason, anything that wasn't food could be transported into any part of haven, however if he wanted to take something out of the haven, he either needed to go there and get it himself or that something should be on the table. Only one potato that he purposefully took from the haven and an empty bottle of water were left in his backpack. The potato was the ugliest that he had, he had accidentally cut it with a shovel… twice…
After locking the door, Sergei headed to the brothel. He was still a little horny and it was boring doing nothing anyway, as he wasn't yet sleepy at all. The brothel looked like an expanded version of living quarters but it was clean and smelt a little better. A couple of mean looking guys were keeping an eye on things and to his surprise, no one paid much attention to his appearance.
"Not bad! Not bad at all!" The lusty man was pleasantly surprised by the sight of so many beauties in one place. If you can't fight or if you don't have any useful skills - you won't be able to survive a zombie apocalypse. These girls had an advantage of beauty over those who were starving in their tents outside and they were using it.
After looking around a bit, Sergei chose a curly, busty blonde with long legs. She looked 25 and was beautiful even without any makeup, she was also pretty slender, but that was probably from hunger.
An hour of her time costed one bullet. He took out two bullets from his pocket and passed them to the girl. She didn't show any reaction upon seeing two bullets as she immediately understood that she wouldn't be able to slack off.
The brothel rooms were covered with a sound insulation material from the inside thus looked a little weird but no one really cared, especially Sergei. The main jewel of the room was slowly undressing right in front of him.
The blonde was eager to demonstrate her skills. Regular customers meant steady income and sated life… There was a lot of competition in the brothel.
Sergei was impressed, but the girl wasn't able to get off easily… She was moaning nonstop for two hours, however Sergei's hunger wasn't sated yet, so he paid for another hour.
He left the girl completely wiped out. Even though she earned three bullets, the calories spent would hardly pay off!
An average man could hardly last more than ten minutes, those who didn't get laid in a long time could last half an hour and only a few could go for an hour or more - and usually they were system users. Hookers didn't like system users for their endless stamina, that's why there was a special brothel for them on the second floor. But Sergei wasn't aware of that…
The girls in the special brothel were system users as well. They would be given limbless zombies and forced to finish them off. Because those zombies were killed with someone else's help, the experience the girls received would be reduced, nevertheless the hookers would still level up once or twice and then put all of their stat points in stamina, so they could keep up with insatiable system using men.
When the tired man returned to his apartment he discovered that someone visited it in his absence…
"Ha, the potato disappeared," he laughed and left his room.
"Hey, officer! My apartment was robbed," he shouted to an officer who was patrolling that area.
"I didn't see anything." The officer threw a disdainful look in foreigner's way, before turning his back on him.
"That was expected," Sergei smirked. He knew something like this would happen, so he purposefully left a potato to test local officers. He obviously wasn't about to sleep in there, so he returned to his haven. The "Camera" app had an interesting feature, it could record everything happening out there at the entry point for twelve hours. He adjusted the camera angle, yawned and went to sleep.
Ding-ding-ding! The alarm went off on the phone that he found while looting apartments.
Sergei grudgingly woke up and turned off the alarm. He used to go to bed late and wake up early before, because he had so many things to do. But after the apocalypse and receiving this haven, for the first time in a long while, he could sleep for as long as he wanted.
He would usually sleep until 10 a.m, but this time he set his alarm on 8 o'clock; at 9 he either had to pay one bullet and extend his stay or vacate the rented room.
After washing and brushing his teeth for the first time in a while, Sergei fried some potatoes. A frying pan, a bottle of cooking oil and some salt were found by him while looting the apartments, so now he was able to enjoy a wider variety of dishes and not just boiled potatoes that he was consuming for the whole last week…
"Let's find out what happened during the night, shall we? Oh, new mail!"
"Subject: Report of Receipt.
The haven received the Samsung Washing Machine, the haven received…"
There were a few emails with reports: the haven received a lot of XP for bringing in electronics and household appliances that Sergei looted yesterday. As a result, the haven received the total score of 62 XP and two new levels.
"Subject: Level up.
Congratulations! Your haven reached level 3. You can now invite survivors into your haven. The haven's size expansion and new range of products are available in the "Store"."
"Subject: Level up.
Congratulations! Your haven reached level 4. The list of available products was updated, you also receive a bag of "Special Cabbage" seeds as a reward."
"Subject: Quest "New faces".
Invite at least two survivors into your haven. To invite a survivor you need to create your own set of rules (you are not limited in your imagination) and send it to the current email address FavoriteSystem@systemMail.sys with the label "The rules of my haven".
Reward: haven XP, money."
"Survivors, huh? Not bad!" Sergei laughed upon throwing a glance towards his field. Why work if you can get others to do it for you. He'd rather be the boss that everyone works for, than someone working for a boss!
—-////////—
A/N: Hello everyone 👋🏻 and thanks for giving this story a try!
As I mentioned in the summary, I'm not the author, just a fan of the story who wanted to share it with the rest of the world 😄 The series is complete and contains 13 books, which may be a lot but the story itself is so good that you won't even mind, at least I hope so because I didn't 😅
Also I would like to ask for your help - I'm not really familiar with all these "system" terminologies so any time you find the translation confusing or unsuitable please feel free to correct it in the comment section and I will change it later.
Thank you for your attention 💟