"Attack!"
The group rushed to attack zombies that were stuck between the furniture, the beastmen outflanked the undead and attacked from behind, killing those who were left behind and those stuck in the furniture. The archers participated as well, but they had to aim under very difficult circumstances so not to shoot their own beastly comrades, that were entangled with the undead.
"Watch out! Fire incoming!" The middle-aged soldier warned his friends and suddenly the fire poured out of his hand like out of a flamethrower. He launched his attack from half a meter away from his target and the attack itself lasted only two seconds, during which a zombie's head turned into a piece of coal.
"Not bad. What kind of skill is that?"
"It's fire, Boss."
"Yeah, I can see that, but what's it called?"
"It's called Fire… I spent five mana points to activate the attack. Not a very useful skill…" The man replied with a pant.
"Ha. That's what you think! I assume, your skill would work beautifully on mutants as well… Gautier, get back!" Gautier was about to land a hit on an unwary zombie, but didn't notice that he himself was about to be attacked from behind. Sergei was able to teleport the older brother just in time before an ugly scar took a permanent place on his neck.
"Thanking, Boss…" Gautier uttered in broken English: the last thing he saw before being teleported away was a zombie's gaping mouth, that was about to land a bite on his furry neck.
"Archers, you dickheads! Cover your comrades instead of grinding mindlessly! Gai, you asshat, your brother almost got eaten and you haven't even noticed!"
"Remember this - it doesn't matter how strong, cool or fast you are, if you're surrounded by at least five zombies - you're done for! No transformation, vaccine or weapon will save you. They will just crush you with their sheer numbers! But what's even more dangerous is carelessness! Zombies are tenacious creatures, you think you killed it, but it just went and came alive again when you already turned your back to it!"
After berating those who made mistakes, Sergei gathered rewards and the squad continued on its journey.
They had two more similar skirmishes during their two kilometers long journey, but those went without a hitch. They also found another SUV but it was on fire and beyond repair - which couldn't be said about the weapons of the dead soldiers that were scattered around the burning vehicle. That day the haven's arsenal got replenished with several assault riffles, handguns, knives and grenades.
"Boss, what you think they be doing here?" Gai asked.
"It looked like a reconnaissance with combat. There's probably a big military group somewhere in the area and they decided to visit their nation's capital for some reason. What do they want from here, I have zero idea, who knows how many secrets the French government has."
The squad continued for another ten minutes until they met the seemingly endless horde of the living dead.
(fr) "Oh god, there are so many of them…" One of the soldiers muttered.
"Solomon, the outskirts of the city are that way, right?" Sergei asked pointing at the horde.
"Yes…" mumbled the stunned man and then spoke again after a short pause. "Why would zombies block the city's exit routes?"
"We'll ask our new friend here the moment he wakes up. For now, let's get out of here until they noticed us." Even Sergei felt somewhat uneasy after witnessing such huge numbers of the living dead.
"Oh, a sports equipment store! Annette, do your job."
…They decided to take a different route back - they had an opportunity to loot some new interesting places while the horde was away. Annette mapped the numbers of zombies and their exact locations. It turned out that there were a hundred of them locked inside the building, so, the squad made a decision not to take any unnecessary risks and move on. They managed to find more easier targets and looted three stores and an apartment building. The last one housed the survivors - three families, with four system users among them. They asked to join Sergei's camp.
Fortunately for them, they met all the conditions and thus were accepted by Sergei. Those three families cleared their apartment building on their own and managed to survive for quite a long time, until the horde arrived in the area and they were forced to sit still, as quiet as possible which resulted in severe starvation. They also had some equipment and somewhere near 1500 coins, plus people who were familiar with the area would always come in handy.
Thanks to the newbies, the squad learned about two interesting spots. One of them was a large warehouse, the other - a pharmaceutical laboratory. The laboratory happened to be the closest to their location, so it was decided to start with it.
Sergei, just like most people, knew nothing about chemistry and pharmaceutics, which couldn't be said about Professor Curie.
"I never expected to see this building again," Professor mumbled, standing in front of the doors of the laboratory. It was a seven-story white-blue building, with its own parking lot and security. There was no security anymore, obviously, and no zombies.
"You've been here before?" Boss asked throwing a glance at the old professor.
"I used to work here," Curie answered after a long pause.
"Yeah? That's good news. What can we find to profit in this building?"
"Research equipment, rare medicines, chemical raw materials. It's of little use as of right now, but could come in handy in the future. There's also medical equipment and a small supply of medications."
"Were there many people there?"
"No, but I recommend to turn on the generator first. It will be too dangerous to be on the levels three to seven, I'm afraid - there's a high possibility of a chemical spill. As soon as the power comes back on, the system will clean the air on itself."
"Alright, lead the way then." Sergei glanced at Professor - he was really nervous while speaking about his old job.
"Yes."
It wasn't difficult to reach the basement, all doors contained a magnetic locking mechanism, so naturally, they all opened once the building had lost the power.
(fr) "You know, this building looks exactly like one from horror movies…" said one of the soldiers.
(fr) "Very creepy…" added another one.
But despite all the fear, the group safely reached the generator room. Old Louis put the fuel in and activated the system. One minute - and the power returned to the building!
Z-z-z-z-z - suddenly, a buzzing sound reached their ears.
"Don't worry, it's the ventilation system started working again!" Louis reassured them. "It just became a little dusty, but soon the noise will disappear completely."
"Well, I'm still worried, for some reason. Annette, report." The Boss smirked.
"Boss, I inspected the bigger part of the building and there are approximately about fifty zombies, but there's also some kind of anomaly on the fifth floor. It's an unidentifiable creature in a big glass capsule, and I think it's alive."
"Please don't tell me it is huge and dangerous…"
"No, Boss, it's small, about the size of a cat. But looks like a piece of gristly meat… Anne couldn't stop screaming when she saw it."
"Anne? What the hell is she doing there? Tell her lazy ass to get back to working in the fields!" Sergei growled and turned to the professor. "What's there on the fifth floor?"
"I don't know, that floor was restricted and I didn't have access to it. But I heard some rumors about weird experiments being conducted there…" Professor answered thoughtfully. He, as well, heard Annette's words, after all…
"You do realize that it's a typical horror movie plot, right? We go there, then some weird shit will make its entrance and eat us all." Boss looked at professor suspiciously.
"You're exaggerating. I don't believe that my colleagues were able to create something like that," Professor said and fixed his glasses, however Sergei could recognize the hints of hesitation in his voice… "No! They would never, they were too stupid for that."
"Alright, I'm sending you all back, blindfold our captive soldier and put him somewhere quiet." After giving out the orders, Sergei teleported everyone to the haven and went looking for a way to the first floor. But not before confiscating all the fuel tanks, which there were several tons of.
"Hey, prof, the door requires a key card." Boss climbed the stairs but a massive door blocked his way: the kind that would've been hard to even blow up with an explosive. Since the electricity was on, the doors started working as well…
"Use my card, I put it on the table." Sergei concentrated and saw a key card on the table, which a moment later appeared in his hands. When he put the card to the sensor near the door, it opened loudly with a weird beeping sound.
"Boss, there are three zombies on the first floor, they are located in the offices…" Annette listed three offices but Sergei couldn't care less. The ground floor was filled with offices - there was nothing of value there.
Which couldn't be said about the second floor. White floor, white walls and white ceiling, even doors were white. Some traces of dried blood could be seen here and there, along with some human remains, but everything was mostly white.
"Boss, there are nine zombies on this floor, three of them are limping and one is barely crawling," Annette informed him once again about the whereabouts of all the zombies, so it didn't take him long to clear the floor.
The second floor was devoted to medical research and drug testing, so there was a lot of medical equipment that Sergei carefully teleported to his haven. He also found stocks of medical supplies, but most of it was expired. At the same time, there were literally mountains of different consumables, such as syringes, gloves, masks and so on.
"According to Professor, the third floor is the area devoted to the drug trials on animals. There's nothing interesting there so you can head to the forth floor right away," Annette spoke.
"Roger that."
The third floor was divided into four sections, there were a lot of doors and glass walls, most of which were semitransparent.
The whole level turned out to be quite dirty: the floor and walls were covered in something that looked like a mix of mud and fecal matter. Some glass walls were covered with cracks, which made Sergei feel very uneasy.
(rus) "Come on, Sergei, don't be a pussy, what else can be here? More zombies? You have butchered two hundreds of them already, or maybe even three, so what is there to fear?" Sergei proceeded cautiously and tried to reassure himself that everything was fine and that the foreboding feeling was just his imagination.
Bang!
"Arrrrghhh!"
"Motherfucker!" Sergei shouted and jumped away from the wall.
Suddenly a zombie crushed into the glass from the other side and it was so hideous, that Sergei was sure that its ugly face would be a reoccurring thing in his nightmares from now on. The only living person in the building almost suffered from a heart attack from the sheer surprise.
"Fuuuuuuhhh…" Sergei took a few deep breaths and looked at the fugly creature.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing, Annette? It looks like there's some mold growing on its face, it also looks like a ghoul which is even more alarming… I already regret coming here!" After calming down, Boss continued his journey. He decided to leave the moldy zombie alone - it was securely locked inside the lab.
"Boss, there's something weird ahead…" He heard Annette's anxious voice, which intensified his paranoia even further…
Turning a corner, Sergei witnessed a curious thing, a monkey was chewing a human leg. Furthermore, it wasn't just a regular monkey, but a very big one and there were claws on its fingers instead of human-like nails! Huge, sharp claws! Upon seeing an unexpected visitor, the monkey hissed and suddenly jumped, before disappearing in a ventilation opening on the ceiling…
"Oh, fuck you all! I'm outta here!" Realizing that he really shouldn't have come here, Sergei rushed to the stairs leading to the second floor.
"U-u-u-a-a-a!" A monkey cry rang through the silence and three of them dropped from the ceiling. Each was approximately one meter (three feet) tall, two of them were carrying knives, while the third, the biggest one, had long (ten centimeters or so) sharp claws on its fingers.
"I'm not in the mood right now, you know!" A gun appeared in Sergei's hand. The monkeys screeched in alarm and tried to scatter, but… The hallways were too narrow for such maneuvers. A shot, then the second one and third - one monkey dropped dead, another - wounded. The clawed one though, stuck to the ceiling like a spider and managed to maneuver, successfully avoiding the bullets.
The monkeys were coming at him, but Sergei didn't let them get any closer by constantly backing down and shooting, changing the guns when he ran out of bullets.
"I think this distance should be enough," Sergei said, he was ten meters away from the monkeys and the next second an assault rifle appeared in his hands.
A flurry of gunshots, another one - and the monkey dropped from the ceiling after receiving dozens of fatal injuries, but it was still twitching. The second one was heavily wounded as well. It screeched and crawled towards him leaving a bloody trail behind, trying to stab its attacker with the knife, but Sergei only smirked at that and cut its head off.
"What the fuck are you, really?" Sergei approached the last living monkey, which was barely breathing. It had long sharp fangs and smart eyes! "Meh, I don't really give a fuck, so just die."
A swing of a sword and Sergei stopped the monkey's (or maybe not the monkey's, Sergei wasn't a zoologist after all) suffering.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ACCUMULATED ENOUGH EXPERIENCE POINTS AND REACHED LEVEL 7. YOU RECEIVE TWO STAT POINTS.
"M? I still needed three more points to level up, if I'm not mistaken… Hm… Let's see, where are the system notifications?"
YOU KILLED A MUTATED MONKEY LEVEL 1 AND RECEIVE 2 EXPERIENCE POINTS.
YOU KILLED A MUTATED MONKEY LEVEL 2 AND RECEIVE 3 EXPERIENCE POINTS.
"Interesting, I thought I could gain XP only by killing zombies…"
After putting his stat points in dexterity and sending the bodies into the abyss, Boss approached the exit.
"Boss, get out of there! Run the other way!" Annette shouted anxiously. Boss didn't ask her why, he just bolted. The door behind him suddenly swung open: about twenty more monkeys came out and one of them was holding a key card in its hand!
"To the left!" The girl behind the laptop shouted.
"But there's an emergency exit to the second floor up ahead!" Boss argued.
"You can't go there, Boss. The enemies are there as well!"
"Bitch!" Sergei turned around and ran to the staircase to the fourth floor.
Bang - the door of the emergency exit fell down along with a piece of wall and some huge white mice ran out of that hole! They were the size of a big cat. The mice attacked the monkeys and they had an obvious quantitative advantage!
"What the actual fuck is going on? You told me that there were only zombies here!"
"I… I don't know, Boss! I didn't see them when I was searching the building…"
Upon reaching the door, Sergei put his key card to the panel, but it wouldn't read!
"Why the fuck is this so cliche?! It's like a regular fucking horror movie!"
"Squeak-squeak-squeak?"
"Go fuck yourselves!" He shouted at the crowd of mice that appeared behind him.
The card finally worked and the door opened. Sergei rushed inside and pushed the close button, however he wasn't quick enough and a couple of mice were able to follow him inside. Luckily, they turned out to be not agile enough and were killed off rather quickly. He was given two XP for each and one survivor's coin.
"Alright, what level is this and what kind of ungodly shit should I expect here?" The man asked after catching his breath and looking around.
"Professor says that it's mostly just chemical storage facilities. You need to find units C1 and A3 and take everything that's stored in those."
"What about zombies?"
"The mice killed them all off…"
"Fine, what about the mice?"
"They are all on the third floor fighting the monkeys."
"Good news, let those motherfuckers kill each other."
The forth level resembled the circle of hell. There used to be around ten zombies here, now though - only ten puddles of blood with the pieces of "assemble a zombie" jigsaw puzzle. Fingers, hands, intestines - everything was scattered around with bite marks all over them.
As it turned out, the level was indeed free of any zombies or mutants. Thus Sergei easily reached the storages and emptied them.
"What about the other units?"
"We don't need those. Professor says, that they all store hazardous materials, which are most probably spoiled by now," the girl replied, but spoke again a few moments later. "Boss! I checked unit C3 - the mice have eaten all the chemicals and turned it into their lair!"
"But it's empty now?"
"Yes, it is."
"Good. That means that the whole gang went to fight the monkeys. However, how am I supposed to get out of this building?"
"There's an emergency evacuation shaft on the seventh floor. It was designed in the event of a terrorist takeover."
"On the seventh floor? What about other floors? They were fine with them taken over by terrorists?"
"…Professor says, that the seventh floor is where they stored all the data and research findings. If the takeover ever took place it would've been because of the seventh floor."
"Sounds like I need to go through the whole building and meet all the dangerous crap that lives here. Why am I even doing this…" with each word that came out of the girl's mouth, the man lost any will he had left to go any further, it would've been so much easier to burn the place down, and then go back the same way he came…
"Boss, Professor says, that with the equipment that you took and the data that is stored on the seventh level, he can try to cure your illness."
"You should've started with that!"
Upon reaching the fifth level, the boss froze in front of the door without moving an inch.
"My dear Annette, tell me please, what size is that unknown weird shit in the capsule that you saw earlier?"
"It's the size of an average dog now…" the girl answered hesitatingly.
"In other words, it grew bigger?" Boss asked raising his voice a little.
"Yes, it grew bigger."
"Then I'm heading straight to the sixth floor - tell me the way around that shit."
"Yes, Boss…"
To Sergei's surprise, he managed to reach the sixth floor without a problem - only three zombies tried to stop him and were decapitated.
"I feel cheated," Sergei said looking at the door leading to the sixth floor. "Alright. What do we got here?"
"The research department, you need the equipment from units D2 and D3. The enemies… I see eight zombies, all of them are fast ones."
"Roger that." Boss quickly made his way to the needed units and met three zombies on his way - but those had their backs turned to him and were gazing heavily at the walls. Sergei decided not to disturb them and just ran past.
"Here's another one, it's so weird." In unit D3, a zombie was standing completely still with its face turned to the wall. Deciding not to risk it, Sergei cut its neck with his sword. The body dropped to the ground, but the head… The head remained hanging in the air! Some yellow blood… or some other substance started leaking from the neck… then appeared a small tentacle, it span and wriggled confusedly, as if trying to figure out where the body had disappeared to.
"My ass is signaling me that I've finally found some adventures for it… Annette, darling, tell me, please, what the fuck is going on here?" Sergei asked trying not to raise his voice.
"I… There're some kind of tentacles inside the walls… They're in every wall! I was only able to see them once I switched to the mode that allows me to see through walls, oh my god! The whole building is filled with them!"
"…I told you! …! …!" The man said in between the curses.
After cursing everything and everyone to his heart's content, Sergei started collecting the equipment - he couldn't just take it, apparently it needed to be disconnected first. And he couldn't just unplug it! The professor monitored the process, so nothing was damaged, thankfully, but every minute spent in that building was getting on Sergei's nerves… And so he, on the other hand, was getting on the professor's and Annette's nerves…
After finishing with one unit, he quickly dealt with another and then headed to the seventh floor.
"What the fuck is that?" Sergei saw the three zombies that were earlier standing with their heads to the wall - they still had their backs to him, but their appearance changed drastically… They resembled a sphinx cat on steroids. Their muscles became so swollen that their clothes were torn apart, their hair fell off and the heads were covered in throbbing veins.
"I'm 100% sure that the second I turn my back to them they'll come alive and attack me. Yeah, I'm not playing that game," Sergei spoke out loud and cut the nearest body with the swing of his sword. The head remained in the air, then the tentacle came out of it and started screeching menacingly. Other zombies started twitching. Slash - and another body dropped to the ground.
"Damn, their muscles are awfully dense, I barely managed to cut through them. The monster like this will be impossible to kill with a level 2 sword…"
"Sh-sh-sh-shhh!" The third zombie detached from the wall and hissed, notably, it hissed with it's mouth closed…