Zombie Mode — 3

Inside a large, dark forest, two small figures moved slowly, looking completely exhausted: their faces showed no emotion, their bodies were entirely soaked in blood without a single clean spot, and they looked as if they could collapse at any moment and never rise again.

It was Lin and Egro.

They had managed to escape the city sewers, but the cost was colossal. After leaving behind Nal and Zon, the zombies didn't stop coming — their numbers only grew. If the wave they fought before could be rated at a seven, the one after their escape was easily a nine!

They had to battle such an enormous horde — while exhausted and drained of energy — and still hurry so the zone wouldn't catch up to them!

All of this had completely broken them, yet they kept walking and killing until they finally emerged from the sewers into the great forest beyond the city.

But what frustrated them — was the night, which worsened their visibility.

Egro looked at the map and slowly said to Lin:

"The zone keeps shrinking… We need to hurry or we'll be left outside and turn into zombies."

Lin sighed heavily. He had no strength to respond. He just nodded and picked up his pace a bit.

Egro didn't lag behind and quickly followed Lin. Together, they made their way through the forest until they heard a system message they didn't want to hear:

[Attention! Attention! Attention!]

[Zombies have powered up once more. They are now enhanced to the extreme. All their physical attributes have reached superhuman levels, so be careful and avoid contact!]

[The zone is also shrinking. Anyone outside the zone may turn into a zombie!]

[Good luck surviving!]

Upon hearing the message from the system, Egro let out a heavy sigh. He quickly checked the updated map and said:

"Thankfully, we're inside the safe zone, so we can rest here for a while."

When Lin heard that, he collapsed to the ground and closed his eyes.

Egro let out a light chuckle and also lay down. He looked up at the starry sky and smirked.

"The third zombie evolution — that's the furthest I've ever gotten. I never had the strength for the next stages, always died over and over... But I hope today, I can at least reach the fourth stage and see the zombies there."

"We'll definitely do it..." Lin replied without opening his eyes, then went silent.

"I hope so..."

As they lay resting, a sudden male voice made them alert:

"Yeah… We barely made it out of that damn city. Luckily, half the zombies that were attacking it just disappeared..."

Then a female voice joined in:

"That was really tough… But thankfully, we escaped quickly and left behind those newbies who died protecting us."

"True. We hit a new record today. We made it to the third zombie evolution. That's definitely not something every Second League player can brag about, like me and you." The man said, then laughed.

"Exactly. Alright, let's rest here — the zone won't catch us," the woman said and sat on the ground, sighing.

"Agreed," the man also sat down and started touching the woman's legs.

"What are you doing?" The woman clearly didn't like it and gave the man a serious look.

"Nothing, nothing," he quickly pulled his hand back and sighed, "Why is "that" forbidden in Arsenal? I think the number of players would double if it was allowed! Ha-ha!"

"Stupid pervert. If you try that again, I'll report you," the woman scooted away from him and looked up at the stars, warning him.

"Alright, alright, chill," the man raised both hands and smiled.

Meanwhile, Lin and Egro had been quietly listening, having picked up on a few things. They looked at each other and began speaking softly:

"I take it that's the player in the red cloak?" Lin asked.

Egro nodded.

"Yeah. But we've never seen that girl before. Looks like she's working with him — tricking rookies to gain experience points and climb the League ranks."

"So what are we going to do with them?" he asked Lin.

Lin smiled slightly and said:

"We're going to use them."

"Use them? How?"

"As you can see, we're in bad shape. I don't think we can fight off zombies properly. So we'll use them to rest — even if a large horde arrives."

Egro frowned and asked:

"And how do we do that? Even if we pretend to be newbies, they'll just see us as tools to help them survive."

"Exactly. We'll just run away when a big group of zombies shows up. You're a Third League player, and I'm at the same level. Instead of fighting the zombies, we'll leave and let them deal with them."

"But will they even be able to handle a large zombie horde?" Egro asked.

"Probably not. But it doesn't matter. Zombies evolve every ten minutes, and we've already been lying here for five. Soon, zombies from the whole area will come and start killing everyone. Even if they can hold out for a minute — that's already enough." Lin explained quickly.

Egro nodded and smiled slightly.

"Well then, let's begin."

They pretended to be exhausted and powerless, and slowly emerged from another part of the hill, walking toward the two people. As soon as they came into view, they collapsed to the ground and bowed:

"Please, protect us!"

The man in the red cloak and the woman were startled by the two uninvited guests who seemed to appear out of nowhere. They quickly grabbed their weapons and pointed them at the pair, questioning:

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the man asked.

"W-we're two friends who somehow managed to survive the zombies!" Lin quickly explained.

"Y-yeah! We barely made it, but we're completely exhausted. Let's form an alliance and survive together!" Egro was impressed by Lin's acting and decided to support it.

The man and woman frowned, looked each other in the eyes, then stepped back from the two strangers to talk:

"Don't you think they're kinda suspicious?"

"Of course. But I don't care. This is another chance to use people for survival again!" the man's face lit up with excitement at the idea.

"Psycho," the woman turned to Lin and Egro and said:

"Yes. We can form a temporary alliance to survive in this apocalyptic world."

Lin immediately showed joy and thanked her:

"Thank you! Thank you! I'm glad there are still kind people left in this world!"

Once everything was settled, the man and woman began asking Lin and Egro lots of questions — how they survived, where they hid, whether they had allies, what their skills were, what weapons they used, and so on. Lin and Egro answered everything in detail, gaining more of their trust.

Soon after, all of them suddenly heard the growling of countless zombies!

Everyone sharply turned their heads in the same direction and saw an endless horde of zombies sprinting toward them at superhuman speed!

The man and woman were horrified by the sight and wanted to run, but remembered they had two people they could use to delay the zombies. They looked at Lin and Egro and smiled.

"We can't outrun that many zombies. I guess we'll have to fight them," the man said sadly to Lin and Egro.

The two looked worried but stood up and prepared to fight the zombies.

When the zombies got so close that even running at full speed wouldn't save you, the man and woman prepared to let Lin and Egro handle the defense while they fled. But when they turned to look at the two guys — they were gone!

"Where?!" the man roared and looked around — he spotted two small figures running far off in the distance!

"Bastards!" he ran after them, but due to the small distance between him and the zombies, the horde quickly reached him, forcing him to fight.

"Damn it! I told you they were weird!" the woman shouted at the man. But he only tried to flee and leave her behind — yet the zombies didn't let him escape.

After a few minutes, the thousands of zombies completely killed the man and the woman.