"Zombies? What the hell?"
"I thought we had to fight each other!"
"We don't even have any weapons!"
Most of these professional criminals went crazy when they heard the zombies slowly getting closer to the market square where they were.
While some remained indifferent. Logan was one of them, but he could understand why these people were panicking so much.
He remembered the first time he logged in to play Devil's assassin. People were going crazy even though they knew it was only a game.
So far, this looks like an exact copy of the DA. I should start preparing for the second round instead of worrying about the first.
The first wave of zombies would last for thirty minutes. During which it wouldn't matter how many zombies they killed, their numbers wouldn't go down.
In other words, as soon as a player killed a zombie, the game would immediately spawn a new one to take its place and the zombies would remain until thirty minutes had passed, not a second earlier.
As for them not having any weapons... it was simply because they didn't need one. After all, it was a survival quest, not a quest to hunt the zombies.
In a way, the game wanted the players to survive by running around and as well... betraying each other if necessary. At least that's what regularly happened in the tutorial of Devil's Assassin.
Since they were criminals, it wouldn't surprise Logan if they began using the weak players as meat shields to protect themselves from the zombies.
That said, it didn't mean they couldn't kill the zombies, or they didn't have a way to do so. Logan knew that if Tartarus Online was based on Devil's Assassin, there'd be secret stashes all over the map with weapons, armor, and, most importantly, blueprints.
Being a creationist, possessing rare blueprints, was like possessing the key to success. But these blueprints rarely appeared apart from boss drops, which is why the creationist class wasn't super popular back in the day. It was really tough to get a blueprint to craft in the first place.
"Worrying about getting blueprints wouldn't do me any good," Logan snapped back into reality. "I have to find the caches to at least get a weapon."
Only Logan knew the tutorial's nickname of stat point farming grounds. Killing zombies should give the players free stat points that will be crucial for survival in the next round.
With that in his mind, Logan ran away from everyone else as soon as the barrier was down. Not only he had to find a cache, but also to prevent himself from becoming someone's meat shield.
I doubt any of them have picked Creationist or Healer class, because of their weak stat bonuses.
In other words, most, if not all, of them had offensive classes. Meanwhile, Logan could only depend on his agility, evasion, and intelligence to clear the tutorial.
"I can't die here... not before I find out why everyone betrayed me like that... no, let's change that." Anger shrouded Logan's face. "I will make them pay, regardless of what lame excuses they might have for doing something so brutal to me."
However, Logan wasn't aware that he was being watched by someone within the crowd. Someone who recognized him as their in-game appearance was a replica of how they looked in real life.
"Snake, let's follow him. I have a feeling he knows something we don't," the violet-haired lady remarked before rushing behind Logan.
She wasn't alone, though. The man called Snake rushed after her. He was a silent guy who rarely spoke a single word and had the lower part of his face covered with bloodied bandages. Apart from that, the scars on his somewhat muscular body told the story of his struggles in their own way.
"Who... he...?" Snake asked as he caught up to the girl.
"Ah, I don't remember his name, but I think he is supposed to be good at games or some shit." The girl replied before turning toward the crowd they had left behind, "If we are lucky, he might even agree to team up with us. Either way, running away is a far better option than crowding, as would only attract more zombies, lowering our chances of survival."
***
Once Logan began running, he didn't stop. He knew doing so would be equal to committing suicide.
Zombies might have been slow, but if he stopped to take a break, they would catch up to him and, without a weapon, they would kill him easily. However, it seemed like he wasn't the only one who had the idea of running away.
"What the hell? How did someone get ahead of me?" Logan was confused when he saw a bloodied corpse in front of him.
Huge chunks of the corpse were missing, leaving it in such a state that it was difficult to say whether the corpse was of a man or a woman. But Logan had something entirely different to worry about.
"P-Please, let me go!" He heard a man crying at some distance.
There were around six people in front of him at some distance, all of whom were ganging up on someone who was on his knees, groveling before them. But something was off... they were tying the man to a lamppost, just like the corpse Logan had seen a minute ago.
It was clear what those men were trying to do. To slow down the zombies, they were using the people as prey while the rest of them run away.
Logan was used to witnessing this level of gore in the game regularly. But knowing that they were essentially killing someone in real life was a bit... unnerving.
"Tch, why am I feeling sorry for a criminal? He must have killed dozens of people before, and now it's his turn. That's all there is to it," Logan mumbled and began looking for something. "Come on, the trash can have to be somewhere around- found it!"
The secret caches wouldn't be so secret if they didn't blend in with the environment so well. That's why they were hidden in plain sight of the players as things they wouldn't even consider touching while zombies were chasing them.
As soon as Logan lifted the lid of the can, he received a notification.
[Congratulations! You have earned a new title!]
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[Title Name]: Tutorial Explorer
[Title Rarity]: Rare
[Title Effect]:
>> The stats points you earn during the tutorial will be doubled.
>> The amount of gold received for slaying zombies will be doubled.
>> You will receive uncommon or higher tier loot for the duration of the tutorial.
(The system automatically equipped the title.)
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Logan ignored the notification, as he already knew he would get that as long as he was the first one to discover a cache. He was only interested in what he would find inside the cache.
'A cache would randomly spawn three to five items. If only I can get a weapon or a weapon blueprint, my life would be easier.'
[You have found Medical Kit (Low) x2]
'Okay, not bad. Next...'
[You have found Scrap Metal x1]
'...next.'
[You have found: Scrap Metal Gun (blueprint) x1]
[The cache has been emptied.]
"Damn it! Guns are useless in this round. Using them would do more harm than good. They won't deal a lot of damage and are awfully noisy." Logan got up to leave. "I'll have to look for another cache-"
"Look what do we have here boys," a man suddenly grabbed Logan by his nape and threw him in front of the rest of them. "I found a rat lurking around. You know what we do with rats, don't you?"
"We kill 'em!"