Chapter: The Forest of the Dead

After gathering the fallen trees and taking a brief rest, Jim began surveying his surroundings.

He started by walking around the mountain and found that it stretches 1,500 square meters in width and stands 150 meters tall.

His shelter stood 100 meters above the ground, and Jim began surveying the small forest surrounding the mountain.

The forest is filled with trees, their branches tangled and bark dry. Even a tiny spark can set it ablaze, filling the air with smoke and making survival tough.

After completing the survey of the surroundings, Jim decided to remove all the dead trees.

The forest stretches for several kilometers from the mountain where his shelter is situated.

While wandering through the forest, he noticed shapes shifting in the shadows of the trees.

At first, he thought it was others like him coming out of the shelters to collect supplies while the radiation levels were low.

After noticing the figure standing still in the shadow of the tree, he decided to investigate what it was.

As Jim stepped nearer, the figure suddenly lunged at him with aggressive force. 

Jim, caught off guard by the unexpected twist, quickly turned around and retraced his steps.

After running a few meters, he turned and saw that the figure that had lunged at him was back in its original position, standing still like a statue.

This time, as the figure turned to face him, Jim caught a clear view of its face and was instantly horrified—it looked like dried-up tree bark.

Jim named them three zombies because their faces and movements resembled the living dead, even though they stayed connected to the tree.

After observing closely, Jim realized that the zombies were dependent on the tree-like parasites; they couldn't venture beyond the reach of their roots, which explained why they kept coming back instead of straying farther.

The zombies' bodies were covered in small thorns, and a slender, root-like organ tethered them to the trees, seemingly drawing nutrients or similar from them.

This process caused the tree bark to dry out, ultimately leading to the trees' death.

Jim realized the zombies were probably the cause of the forest's decline and decided to count how many of them were nearby.

After three hours of effort, he estimated there were thousands in the forest, and Jim resolved to eliminate them as they were destroying his forest.

He snapped a sturdy branch, about a meter tall and as wide as a baseball bat, and approached the first zombie he had encountered that morning.

Jim repeatedly approached the zombie to test its range and confirmed it could only move up to 5 meters from the tree. During these attempts, the zombie attacked him, but his exoskeleton protected him from injury.

Jim began by marking a line at the 5-meter boundary and then started kiting the zombie.

As soon as he reached the five-meter mark, he swung the makeshift bat at the zombie's head, shattering both the log and the zombie's skull.

He noticed the zombie still struggling to move while the tree rapidly began to crumble.

Jim quickly realized that the zombie was draining the tree's life energy to heal itself. Acting decisively, he stepped on the pipe linking the tree and the zombie and tried different methods to sever the connection.

Seeing the zombie nearly recovered, Jim grabbed the cord and yanked it with both hands, snapping it in two and severing the connection.

The moment the cord snapped, the zombie went berserk, lunging straight at him, but Jim stayed calm, prepared for the attack.

Jim grabbed the broken log and struck the zombie with a powerful blow, completely shattering its head. Foul-smelling green fluid began oozing out of the zombie's lifeless body.

He felt his hand tremble, knowing it was his first kill in life, as he had never even killed a chicken with his own hands before.

Jim sat down to rest his throbbing hand and gather himself after the shock of killing the zombie.

After a few moments of gathering his courage, he finally approached the motionless zombie. As he inspected its head, he realized it didn't resemble a human brain at all but instead looked like a honeycomb. 

At the heart of the honeycomb structure rests a small green crystal.

Gathering his courage, he cracked the head open completely and pulled out the crystal. It was marble-sized, just like the ones he used to play with as a kid.

Even though he had no idea what it was for, Jim saw its worth, slipped it into his pocket, and started looking for a stronger log to use as a weapon.

After searching for a while, he found some sturdy logs, set them aside in a secure spot, and settled down to eat, feeling both hungry and parched.

After finishing a starch biscuit and a bottle of water, Jim quickly set off toward the next target.

After an hour of searching, the next target was finally found. The zombies were clustered in groups in certain areas, making it tough to hunt them without the right weapon.

Jim encountered a lone zombie and followed the same routine of luring it in and then striking it on the head with a hammer.

Then, as it healed, he would sever the cord connecting it to the tree, hammer the zombie until it was dead, retrieve the crystal from its head, and move on to find the next lone zombie to repeat the process.

He spent most of his day searching, and by evening, he had only managed to take down 10 zombies and collect 10 crystals from their heads.

After smashing the zombies' heads left him exhausted, he realized that without the exoskeleton's power, he stood no chance against them. The zombies were far too resilient to be taken down by human strength alone unless he had the right weapon.

Worn out, Jim trudged back to the mountain base and crawled into his shelter.

After blocking the cave entrance with the boulder, Jim returned to the shelter, removed the exoskeleton, switched it to standby mode, and started cleaning it with a cloth, carefully wiping off the stains and dirt.

After cleaning it, he carried it into the shelter and connected it to the charging cable at the table.

As the charging process started, the cabin lights flickered momentarily before steadying, causing Jim to exhale in relief, concerned that the power supply might fall short for the exoskeleton. Tomorrow.

Jim planned to hike up the mountain to check out the power source and see if he could find a way out of the forest from there.

Tomorrows tasks:

1) Investigate the power source atop the mountain.

2) Find a way out of this forest.