Zombie Apocalypse: Am I Counted As 10 People?!

William got up a few minutes later, resisting the pain. 

[Pain Resistance: Physical resistance to pain increases. +7%]

When he saw this notification, he laughed bitterly. 

He had difficulty breathing for a few minutes due to the blow to his chest. But a few minutes later, a sound came from his chest as if his bones had settled into place, and his breathing eased.

After that, there was nothing left except a slight pain.

"I need to allocate a few more points to SPEED and STRENGTH. I need to level up to earn points. I need to kill zombies to level up. But as I level up, the size of my exp bar also increases. It's getting harder and harder. If even someone like me, who gets a hundred times more rewards, is struggling this much, how does a normal person without an exp bonus level up? How many thousands of zombies do they have to kill? Damn... How can anyone survive like this?" 

William distracted his pain-numb mind with a few unanswerable questions.

He immediately set out to search the rooms; it was getting dark.

Despite the advantage of speed and stealth at night, he didn't want to encounter any surprises.

Besides, the zombies' skin color made them even harder to see at night.

There was no electricity in most areas, and the place he was in was no exception.

He found several radios with their batteries still charged next to the bodies of several dead police officers. There were also two small radio charging stations with two slots.

William immediately picked up one of the radios. The bodies were covered in dust, but the antennas were intact.

He saw some old but familiar markings on it: PWR, VOL, CH, PTT...

"My God... Thank you, Dad." He remembered the days when his father had forced him to go to scout camp for a few weeks even though he didn't want to. How he had cried then. 

Now, thanks to that camp, he remembered how to use the radio. First turn it on, select the channel, press and talk...

He turned the power button with trembling hands.

"Click, click…" Suddenly, a high-pitched crackling sound was heard, followed by a metallic hiss. William's eyes lit up; the radio was working. 

He turned the volume knob slightly; the hissing became clearer, but there was still no clear sound. He began changing frequencies by pressing the channel button. 

Channel 1, channel 2, channel 3…

Each one was filled with only static and silence. 

Until the sixth channel. On the sixth channel, he heard a very weak signal, so he leaned in closer. A crackle, followed by a distant voice… 

"All… survivors… here… communication… center…" 

"What is it saying?" William turned up the volume a bit, not caring if the zombies heard him. Then he pressed the PTT button.

"This is William, I'm at the police station! Can anyone hear me? I repeat, can anyone hear me?"

After a few seconds of anxious waiting, a response came. 

"Will-iam… This is the State Communication and Information Center, speaking is Sergeant Hugo. Are you alone?" 

William nodded with tears of joy. 

"This is William, yes, I'm alone. I came from the suburbs to the city, but I haven't seen a single living soul. Everywhere is full of zombies!" 

The next conversation had a devastating effect on William's morale, even terrifying him to the point of near death. 

"William… Get out of the city. Follow only the main roads. If possible, stay in the suburbs until help arrives. I repeat, get out of the city! I repeat, get out of the city! If you can hear this radio announcement, get out of New Telluride! I repeat, get out of New Telluride!" 

William didn't understand, but he realized that the man speaking on the radio knew something. 

It seemed that this city had met a terrible end, but what could have made Hugo so anxious? 

William picked up the radio and turned the volume down low.

He had recovered a little by now. He had no intention of staying at this police station.

"This is William. I'm getting moving. Where are you?"

William had said he was at the police station. There was only one police station in New Telluride, and Hugo had picked up on that clue. 

"70 miles north and 30 miles west. Just a straight road. Go around the city. I repeat, go around the city!" 

William nodded understandingly. He knew the road 70 miles north. He had taken a few short trips with his father, and even his school was 240 miles away, and normally, if it weren't for this disaster, he would have taken that road. 

"I'll need to find a vehicle." 

William realized he needed to map out a route. He needed an idea. He couldn't just blindly head north. 

"I need to get to a high place." 

William picked up the radio and spoke one last time as he carefully exited the building. "This is William. Is your location safe?"

After speaking, William waited a few seconds. Those few seconds felt like an eternity. 

Finally, Hugo's voice came through the radio with static. 

"…safe. I repeat, safe." 

William nodded and turned off the radio. Now he needed to get his tired legs moving. 

William stretched his tired legs and left the police station yard. Looking to his left, he saw few zombies and little movement; the left side led to the suburbs. The right side, however, was the city center, with tall buildings becoming more frequent.

That was the direction he had come from. There were few tall buildings in the direction he had come from, so he turned right and moved stealthily toward the city center.

His destination was a plaza where his uncle worked. He knew it might be crowded, but as far as he remembered, there should be a fire escape on the side facing him.

He could easily climb up this fire escape made of iron bars; he didn't need to go inside the building. 

After walking about five hundred meters and killing a few zombies, he came out in front of the plaza. 

It was longer than he had expected, and the fire escape was still intact.

In front of the plaza, in the part that William could see, there was a large park.

William didn't have many good memories of this park. Every time he came here with his mother, she would buy him ice cream, but William, being clumsy, would drop it on the ground. 

William, with a slight smile on his lips, moved forward from the shadows of the buildings, not getting too close to the zombie-filled park. 

The park was swarming with zombies; William counted more than a hundred.

More than half of them were children, and occasionally he could see a few zombie dogs.

The disgusting growling sounds the zombies made were becoming increasingly brain-numbing to his ears. 

William quickly reached the fire escape through the shadows and began climbing. 

Climbing, once a difficult task, was no longer tiring for him. 

With his new stats, he had long since left the professional athletes of the past behind.

In a few minutes, he reached the top of the 12-story plaza.

He saw a few zombies even here.

They were handsome zombies in suits. William quickly killed them and cleared the roof. 

After checking the door lock and making sure that no zombies would come to the roof, he began to examine his surroundings.

The zombie density in the area he had come from was not high, still acceptable, and most importantly, William could handle it. 

However, as he looked toward the city center, William understood why Hugo had wanted him to stay away from the city. 

A zombie flood, a full-blown zombie flood. 

William's mind went numb. Every hair on his body stood on end. 

William leaned forward on the roof of the building. He gripped the rusty railings with his sweaty hands. His heart had reignited the adrenaline left over from the previous fight, but now every beat carried the weight of what his eyes saw into his body. 

He looked toward the city center. 

The sun was beginning to set. The orange and purple hues of the sunset glowed on the glass surfaces of the skyscrapers. This glow could have created a scene that would normally inspire admiration—until he noticed the black spots moving among the glimmers.

The narrow streets between each building were filled with zombies. Even the rusted bodies of the street lamps couldn't hide the crowd. Zombies… tens of thousands of them… some moving erratically, others almost in rhythm. Their steps were slow, but their persistence was terrifying. Each one moved forward without veering from the path of the one in front, sometimes bumping into each other, those who fell getting back up, then being dragged along the same route again.

William had to squint his eyes.

Some areas were foggy. The strange vibration of dust and ley energy trapped between the buildings blurred his vision. But even behind that fog, there was no life anymore—only the dead were moving.

At one point, his eye caught a particularly dense street. Here, the zombies were so crowded that they couldn't move, just rubbing against each other. This was an important indicator for him: if there was a sound, if someone called them... this mass could open up like a wave, spread out, and swallow everything like a flood.

William swallowed involuntarily. His throat was dry.

"This… is an army…" he murmured to himself. The words stuck in his throat, for even compared to a real army, this scene was more dangerous. A real army moved with logic. It followed orders. It could stop. But this… these walking corpses had no limits. Nothing could stop them.

And yet... he felt a spark of excitement within him. Deep in his heart, at the very center of the icy fear, a tiny flame flickered: the desire to prove his existence.

He was still alive in this world. He could see this hell with his own eyes. He was reading a catastrophe with his own eyes. Perhaps for the first time, he was truly at the center of something important.

He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He scanned his surroundings again to make sure the zombies hadn't noticed him. The path he had cleared to get onto the roof was still safe.

But he knew very well now: spending another day here, in this city... was like dancing with death.

And in this dance, he had to move not only his feet but also his heart perfectly.

William wanted to get down and leave as soon as possible. He had already decided on his route.

He would return the way he came and continue on the highway that circled the city.

But then something caught his eye. Something he wished he hadn't seen.

Right in the center of the city, between the skyscrapers, was the city's signature central park.

At that moment, the edge of the central park was filled with thousands of zombie corpses. 

Unlike the ones he had seen on the streets, they were all dead. 

All these corpses were piled up like a mountain, and in the middle stood a huge zombie.

It was difficult to make out from this distance, but it was easily recognizable as it was ten times larger than an ordinary zombie. Of course, it was just its figure. Still, it was enough to strike fear into William.

He knew he couldn't fight it.

Even if there were a hundred more like him, he knew he still couldn't fight it.

William made a mental note of this. If he encountered a zombie like it, he would just have to run away.