Chương 10: Zombie Missile

At the sprinter zombies' approaching mad rush, Green Ghost Fleet immediately went on hyper alert and ran for their vehicles. At that moment, Nyx noticed what was likely their vice captain entering a vehicle, alongside another girl. Likely one of his girlfriends. Meanwhile, the others, with better equipment and protective gear, entered their second-largest RV, with retractable mounted guns at the windows. Its body was upgraded to thick, level-two armour.

People crammed into this one the hardest, with only ten people unable to enter, who instead went to the third most armoured vehicle, an SUV. The regional chats were full of prayers for survival, with some cursing their shitty luck. Nyx was observing the sprinter for the first time. Its speed sent chills down his spine, and within seconds, it reached the station of the Green Ghost Fleet. The captain of the tank triad tried to turn its main cannon around.

But by the time it could change course and aim, a deep boom rang out as the zombie slammed into the tank itself, nearly flinging it over. As the dust settled somewhat, he found out the state of the zombie. Splinters—the sprinter zombie's body had shattered to bits from the collision. Blood now covered the tank's surface in dark crimson. Coming out of his stupor at such a result, he quickly activated Usurper. [Usurpation Successful] [Acquired 4 Gold, Speed Serum x1] He pulled up the explanation for the Serum.

It was one of the items he hadn't even heard of from the regional chats.

"Probably because those who got it were already dead," he said, looking over the tank where the zombie had crashed. Its outer armour had taken a decent dent. A normal car would've suffered far more damage from that, and coupled with the walker zombies swarming in once your vehicle was smashed, there were likely next to none who'd survived the attack. The blue screen materialized in front of Nyx.

[Speed Serum] Evaluation: a single injection allows the applicant to experience a drastic boost in twitch muscles, reflexes, and overall physical enhancement, enabling them to run at 60-70 km/h. It appeared as an injection inside his inventory. After taking a breath, he considered the purpose of these zombies. The system had given them vehicles to stay safe within, even though many vehicles hardly provided the necessary amount of defense to be safe.

Others, like the SUV and the RVs of the Green Ghost Fleet, had already gotten the necessary body upgrades to make them nearly impervious to normal zombie attacks.

"So the system released these anti-fortress missiles in the form of undead to counter that…" He sighed, not really grasping the reasoning behind these contradictory actions.

"Well, whatever. Time to go." He decided to set the thought aside for now and boarded his vehicle. He could see, from the side, the Green Ghost Fleet members climbing out of their cars, with the captain specifically getting out, supported by a black-haired girl. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, with brown hair and a well-built physique fit enough to have earned him a spot in the army. And from the state of his posture, Nyx was almost certain he'd sustained an injury to his legs.

He now seemed to be calling on those inside the SUV to buy him something—probably one of those healing medicines that had begun appearing on the marketplace. It could heal broken bones or deep wounds within an hour. And it was pretty expensive too, coming in at a whole two gold. The guy was basically keeping his own cash intact while using his authority to cover his expenses. Likely to consolidate his power further. With a twist of his racer's throttle, Nyx descended the slope he'd come from.

Once he'd made some distance from them, he switched on the headlights. He glanced up at the moon in the sky.

"Only two or three more hours remaining." Before coming down the mountain, he'd also noticed the fog thickening greatly. Even right in front of him, he had trouble seeing the path ahead. Still, he'd already decided earlier to head toward Stardew Mountain and park there. Having traveled the route a few times before, he had little trouble finding his way back. Along the way, he spent a few hundred bullets to earn himself some extra gold.

But after seeing the absurd number of zombies drawn in by each gunshot, he chose not to push his luck and quietly drove away instead.

"The last few hours before dawn seem to be peak time for zombie activity." After about an hour of travel, he finally made it back to Stardew Mountain, parking his vehicle inside a cave along the mountain's cliffs. He rechecked his inventory. Inventory: [Gold x51, Fuel x8, Leather x300, Iron Plates x130, Glass Panels x300, Mechanical Parts x100, Universal Bullets x9508] He nodded with satisfaction at the plentiful resources.

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"I've got a lot of gold now. Hmm, what should I do with it?" Having money sit idle was a bad idea—if his finance classes back on Earth had taught him anything, it was to always look for opportunities to put cash to work.

"It's not like I can start up some factory or something to produce goods to sell to others… or could I?" He opened the exchange and sifted through the listings. Prices for goods like mechanical parts, electrical parts, and engine cores were going for dirt cheap. Which made sense, since right now people needed iron plates and glass panels to upgrade their vehicles' interiors—parts going for steep prices. But mechanical parts? Worthless to people with no business advancing their vehicle yet.

The majority of survivors were still struggling just to upgrade their vehicle's body to an armoured one, let alone advance the whole thing to a different tier. A combo deal of parts—a hundred mechanical, electrical, and an engine core—was going for as low as 10 gold. And Nyx was certain he could haggle it down to as low as 8.

"Although I don't need a pulse core to advance the vehicle. I still need them to upgrade the engine to level three." He bought the whole pack, paying ten gold for it plus an additional pulse core. After chatting with the seller, he learned they were part of a group who'd been fortunate enough to stumble on some good black iron chests. Unfortunately, the chests hadn't contained much in the way of body-upgrading parts.

Hoping to eventually find one that did, they'd held off on buying iron plates or glass panels during the day when prices were cheap. After finishing his purchase, Nyx found several more interesting listings. Super Seeds, Ultra Fertilizer packs, and the like were going for dirt cheap too. And judging by their presence, he was certain of one thing: people would eventually have to turn to farming.

"Mainly because of the fixed food prices." Food prices, though they'd fluctuated a bit at first, were now locked firmly in place by the system. Even a set of bread loaves cost a whole gold, and soup went for nearly the same. Meanwhile, seeds for wheat, barley, and tomatoes were going for 1 gold per thousand. He also noticed some buyers stockpiling large amounts from the marketplace—likely to resell later at higher prices.

These were mostly chest-found items, not system-listed like food, so their prices were still subject to fluctuation. After much deliberation, Nyx bought a large amount of fertilizer instead of Super Seeds, along with some Aqua Pills, which could be mixed with a small amount of water and sprayed across fields to meet a crop's water needs. He invested 30 gold in this, buying up roughly 30 percent of the stock. The fertilizer packs alone weighed nearly half a ton.

Next, he bought some burgers and a single pizza, along with a few bottles of cola and water, for one full gold. Retracting his back seat—which usually folded flat for sleeping—he cleared some extra space and set the food down. At that moment, outside, the first rays of sun began piercing through the darkness and fog. The sound of gunfire in the distance grew quieter by the second as dawn arrived. Nyx finally let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and relaxed back into his seat.

Wetting his throat with a few sips of water, he unwrapped the burger, its scent drifting up and stirring a pleasant hunger in him. He bit in, juices gushing into his mouth. He hadn't gotten to eat much since arriving in this crazy place, so for the first time, he simply enjoyed the food without worry. Once finished, he tossed the trash outside the vehicle and finally lay back, closing his eyes, stretching his body, and tucking his hands behind his head.

After a while of steady breathing, he drifted off to sleep..... Nyx woke to find the sun back at the center of the sky, its rays streaming down with such intensity that he suspected even a single lit match could start a forest fire. Since he hadn't arrived with a toothbrush or toothpaste, he bought a set from the exchange. As it turned out, the system sold nearly all basic necessities at fixed prices.

After brushing his teeth and cleaning up with the remaining water from his twenty-liter bottle, he bought more food and water and got back to his midday breakfast. While eating, he opened the regional chats for some cheap entertainment—and nearly choked on his food at the pinned post at the top. Regional Chat [Everyone be careful of your surroundings while battling zombies. According to the many divination and such esoteric skill holders, we, meaning Green Ghost Fleet and Heavenly Fleet had found out that a certain individual is behind the halving of resources that recently had begun to occur at felling of zombies.] [It is advised that everyone keeps one person on the lookout for any vehicle coming in from behind to watch over your battle's. Because it's extremely likely that the culprit is using some sort of ocular, vision based skill to steal our rightful resources. Anyone that can give us information about his real-time location would receive a hefty sum from both Fleets. It would be contractually binding, so no need to fear scamming or getting ripped off.] [Shii, for real? So robbers are now out stealing from each other? Lol.] [That thief must have balls of titanium to steal from the top two fleets.] [Imao, they deserve it. I've heard them not moving a single finger out of their little hideouts the whole night, even though people have been screaming out help so desperately. Heartless bastereds.] [Speaking of heartlessness, have you noticed the huge amount of fertilizer purchase that occurred last night?] [Yeah, some loaded bastard had quietly scoped up a large portion of the supplies needed for farming. Damn it, now they've become stupidly expensive too, and even though they synergies super well with my farming skills, I don't have the money to buy them!] [I wouldn't call buying thirty percent of the supply right of the bat as being 'quiet'] [Speaking of which, I've heard some big shots also bought up large stocks of seeds and are now out cussing because of the sudden drop in price after the initial price hike.] [Serves them right, it only takes, like, four to produce crops from seed with the help of water, and fertilizers. And an hour more to get seeds out of them. Who too are super seeds. Why would any farmer buy seed packets?] Nyx closed the tab and rinsed his mouth after taking a few large gulps of water. He found himself craving cold water, but his vehicle wasn't some RV that could host a fridge. After cleaning up, he looked outside before boarding his vehicle again.

Turning it on with a twist of the throttle, the vehicle roared to life. He exited the cave and began climbing the mountain up its steep slope, toward the exact peak Syrin had mentioned. Along the way, his thoughts drifted back to the chats, and he could only heave a sigh.

"To be honest, it wasn't unexpected." People had been given a wide variety of skills, and since all skills were unique, that meant the range of them was enormous. It naturally followed that someone out there could pull off some supernatural trickery to sniff out the reason behind the sudden halving of resources. It was also why he'd targeted the big groups so extensively for theft. He could've gone after smaller ones instead, but that would've led to the same outcome eventually, once the information spread.

And now that it had been revealed, his future thefts were bound to grow riskier and harder by a huge margin. But he'd already made plans for that too—gathering more resources and upgrading his vehicle to tier three were the initial parts of it. As he drove on, the sun's rays bearing down hardest as noon fully arrived, Nyx finally spotted a bronze sheen coming off the peak of Stardew Mountain.