Information and First Stage
Everyone was sleeping in the bus while Ryo drove through the road. They had left the more populated area and were moving in the direction of the countryside. As he drove, a System message appeared before him.
[Rewards for killing the first Mutant Zombie
All Stats +3]
'Mutated Zombie?' Ryo thought when he saw the rewards the system had given him. He was wondering if he could get any information on them when he realized something. 'I'm so stupid!'
Ryo had realized that he had been using
[Mutant Zombie: A secondary stage on the zombiefication process. It is a result of an accelerated process of adaptation, which is the cause for the twisted appearance of the zombie. They are weaker than an Evolved Zombie. They feel attracted to strong sources of the virus because they want to consume them, but fear those stronger than them.
Known variants:
-Shoveler]
'So that wasn't actually an Evolved Zombie, just a mutant... then what about the crystal I got?'
Ryo was wondering just how much information he had been missing because of his own stupidity. For someone with his Stats being above most -if not all-, he felt extremely stupid. He focused on "Evolved Zombie", testing if it would also work and, not to his surprise, it did.
[Evolved Zombie: These are zombies that consumed others of their kind, absorbing more of the virus and reaching a new stage in the process of evolution. These zombies are stronger, faster and smarter than the others, but still work on instinct alone. It takes anywhere from a month to a year for a zombie to evolve, but the longer it takes, the stronger the evolution attained. Evolutions are stronger than Mutations, but an evolved mutation would be superior in most cases. They feel attracted to strong sources of the virus because they want to consume them, but fear those stronger than them.
Variants known: -]
*sigh*
'To think there was so much I didn't know...' Ryo thought to himself. He just realized he wasn't prepared for what would come and that was why he had failed. 'Zombies feel attracted to the strong source of the virus... that means that me and the girls will always be targets'
Realizing such a thing, Ryo understood what he had to do. Hunt and grow stronger so they could protect themselves and scare away weaker pests. With those ideas in mind, he checked the Crystal he took from the Mutated Zombie and focused on it too.
[M-1 Crystalized Virus: The Crystalized virus from a Mutated Zombie. It is the least concentrated version of the virus and carries a mutated gene with it. Consumption may cause mutation, but the original genes will remain dominant.]
Upon reading that message, Ryo knew that he wouldn't be consuming that thing and neither would the girls. Who knew what the mutation could mean? There was one of them who could consume it, though. And without much risk, at that.
"Zeke, hey Zeke" Ryo whispered so as to not wake anyone up. He realized that if Zeke whimpered, they would wake up anyway. As such, he decided to wait until morning. "Come here guy, let's play for a bit bud"
Ryo hadn't had a pet in his entire life, and he didn't have a moment to play with Zeke because of the amount of work he did. Now that he was traveling with the dog, he thought it wouldn't be so bad to play with him for a bit.
*
The next morning came and, when everyone woke up, they found the bus stopped and Ryo asleep on the drivers seat, Zeke curled up on the floor beside him. Not wanting to wake Ryo up, the girls helped Shouko prepare breakfast.
Smelling the aroma of food on the bus, Ryo woke up groggily. He hadn't slept more than 4 hours and he felt like the accumulated stress was getting to him, so he got up from the drivers seat, walked back to the side and plopped there tiredly.
"Shizuka or Kitsu... *yawn* could you take over the driving?" he asked while stretching his body to wake up a bit. "By the way, I found something interesting"
Ryo told them how he found the Crystalied Virus and explained that he wanted to give it to Zeke to test if it was dangerous to consume. It was cruel, using the dog as an experiment subject, but it was also the smartest and safest thing to do. He did earn Shouko's ire, though it looked more adorable than anything else.
After breakfast, everyone came down from the bus. Yugo and Aki were surprised when the previous day the girls told them of their relationship with Ryo, bar Rika who still hadn't talked to him about it and Shouko who they said was far too innocent to think of anything like that -little did they know, Shouko was some sort of bro-con already-. But after a few hours of thinking about it, they realized it only made sense. After all, Ryo loved, protected and helped them. They had heard of Miku's, Saeko's and even Rei's circumstances, so it was logical that they would fall for him. The harem part was a bit hard to digest, but it also only made sense. The world had indeed gone to shit.
"So, why did we get down here? Yugo asked while looking at the infinite sea of green before them. They had already reached the outside of civilization, traveling to any safe looking place they found. He was answered by Shizuka, who was unnaturally serious. "To do a little experiment that Ryo wants to try"
Ryo had already taken the M-1 Crystalized Virus and showed it to Zeke, who was looking at the thing intently. Instinctually, Zeke knew that the thing was benefitial, but he had also been ordered to not consume anything without Ryo's permission. As such, he was patiently waiting.
"Ok boy, here you go" Ryo said, presenting the Crystal on his palm. "You can eat it"
Zeke quickly took the virus from his hand and, after a bit of chewing, he swallowed it. Immediately after, Zeke began shaking.
"What happened?! Is he alright?!" Aki asked, clearly worried about the dog. Yugo and her worked with animals so she knew that such a sudden thing couldn't be good. Alas, she was mistaken. Ryo's answer aleviated all and shocked the couple. "Yeah he's fine... he's evolving"
There was no whimpering, no complaining, but Ryo could see Zeke's body changing rapidly. It didn't look like something natural, but more like something you would see in a horror movie with fantasy touches. Zeke's body grew until it was around a meter tall. His floppy ears were gone, replaced by a smaller, pointier pair. The tail grew a bit longer, making him almost 3 meters long from tail to head.
It's snout grew a bit longer and the fangs in his mouth grew sharper. The claws on its feet morphed to look more mole-like in nature, and Zeke's feet also grew in size, with his muscles. Ryo hoped those would be retractile, since they could damage the bus. The fur also grew a bit but it didn't seem to fall anymore since, no matter how much Ryo passed his hand through it, no strand of it came out.
For half an hour they observed how Zeke changed from a big Husky-like dog into a giant albino wolf. It looked like something one would see in movies and Ryo was sure that, were there any Hobbits in the area, they would be able to comfortably ride on Zeke's back. A few minutes after he stopped shaking, Zeke moved swiftly and threw himself at Ryo.
"Ryo!" Saya yelled, a bit afraid and worried about what the now bigger Zeke would do to him, but her -and the other's- worries were calmed after a second. "Zeke... you're not a puppy anymore mate! Hahaha... come on get off me *phew*"
Ryo looked at the hyperactive, wolf-like evolvable dog. His eyes were now a shiny blue, brimming with energy. He used his
[Name: Zeke
Level: 4
Strength: 35
Agility: 41
Intelligence: 30
Dexterity: 28
Charisma: 30
Skills:
Ryo felt surprised when he saw Zeke jump straight to level 4, but then again, his stats weren't very balanced. Though it made sese. Ryo's stats were a cheat because of the System. He decided to check one last thing before they went back into the bus.
"Hey big boy, can you retract those claws?" Ryo asked Zeke, not completely sure if the dog would understand him. Zeke just barked and retracted his claws, showing that he could. Seeing how smart Zeke was, Ryo smiled and praised him. "That's a good boy!"
Minutes later, everyone was back in the bus. Hiratsuka was going to drive while Ryo rested for a few more hours while the rest chatted among themselves. Of course, he was sleeping in Shizuka's lap. In such manner, the group parted once again. This time, their destination was unknown.
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A bit of an info dump, but I hope this answered some questions you all might have about zombies. If you want me to answer any more specific questions though, either join the D*I*S*C*O*R*D or wait until they are explained in the story.
D*I*S*C*O*R*D LINK: https://discord.gg/KNvWQFcRJt (Also in a comment)