Seven Days to Die!

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Evan drew a breath and opened the Strength tree without stopping.

Two points went straight into the core attribute.

Strength.

One point went into the combat skill.

Skull Crusher.

[Status]

[Attribute: Strength]

[Rank 1/10: Weakling - Strength and headshot chance slightly increased.]

[Rank 2/10: Scrawny - Strength and headshot chance slightly increased.]

[Skull Crusher Lv. 1: Specializes in destroying enemies and structures with sledgehammers.]

[Rank: Bruiser]

Evan exhaled long and hard.

The moment the points locked in, power surged through him from the inside out. Heat rose in his chest, and for the first time since waking up in this nightmare, the future looked like something other than a wall of teeth.

"Good." Fire sparked in his eyes. "First day in another world, and I have to carve my way out through a mountain of corpses? Fine. Worth it."

He gripped the entrenching tool in both hands and swung the handle sideways.

The walker's head burst like a melon, spraying black blood across his face.

"First hit triggered the headshot chance," he muttered. "Those two points in Strength already paid off."

Seeing the effect only sharpened his focus.

He swept left, then right, knocking six walkers to the ground in a row.

[Experience Gained: +300]

One ordinary walker gave three hundred experience.

It had taken ten kills to reach Level 2, three thousand total. With the 1.02 multiplier, Level 3 should require 3,060 more experience.

At three hundred experience per walker, reaching Level 3 would take eleven kills after Level 2. This was the first.

He kept the math running in the back of his head as his eyes flicked to the entrenching tool. The thing was nearly ruined.

Then his gaze landed on the horse carcass in the distance.

The walkers had picked it almost clean, leaving a massive frame of bone.

An idea clicked into place.

Evan drove the broken edge of the entrenching tool into a walker's eye, followed with a side kick, and sent it toppling backward. Two more walkers went down with it.

He stepped onto a walker's chest, used it as a platform, and vaulted toward the horse carcass.

A few walkers were still licking at the bones.

Evan kicked one aside and tore a gap through the cluster.

He grabbed one of the horse's legs, raised his boot, and stomped down hard.

Crack.

At the same time, he barked, "Craft."

An unfamiliar force rushed through the bone, reshaping it, tempering it, turning raw remains into a weapon. Basic crafting. The system's foundation.

When the light faded, Evan held a massive bone hammer.

[Crafting Complete]

[Horse-Bone Sledgehammer: Quality 1]

[Durability: 300]

The rounded horse femur looked like the head of a crude warhammer. In Evan's hands, it looked heavy enough to make a living man think twice.

He looked at the walkers still stumbling toward him and grinned through the blood on his face.

"Using a shovel like a club was amateur hour. Now this is a hammer."

He swung the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer at the nearest walker.

Its head exploded.

The two beside it toppled with the force of the blow.

"One dead, two knocked down. That range. That damage. Damn, that's good."

The more he used it, the more right the weapon felt. It was as if the hammer had been made for smashing walkers.

But he could not stay here.

Evan grabbed the weapons bag Rick had left behind and glanced at the lower-left corner of his vision.

The capsule icon had begun counting down.

When that timer reached zero, the infection would finish its work.

[Infection Countdown]

[01:55:31]

[01:55:24]

[01:54:47]

The seconds bled away fast.

Luckily, he was already close to the alley.

He swept the hammer sideways, knocked another cluster of walkers off their feet, and turned toward the fire escape.

Once he was on the ladder, sweat pouring from his skin, he stopped long enough to look back.

"You really want a bite that badly? Try again in your next life."

A smile tugged at his mouth.

After letting all that rage out, he felt almost light.

Everything that had been choking him since the bite had burned away.

The real thing was brutal, but it was one hell of a rush.

More importantly, the Seven Days to Die system had given him hope in a world built to strip hope away.

"Problem is, where the hell am I supposed to find antibiotics?" Evan muttered as he climbed. "This isn't day one anymore. Anything valuable nearby has probably been picked clean."

Then he paused.

"Nearby..."

His eyes lit up.

There was one group nearby. If anyone had antibiotics, it would be them.

The problem was his current state.

He was only Level 2. Even with a bag full of guns, walking in alone might not get him medicine. More likely, he would lose the bag too.

"I can't go alone. I need at least one more person. Someone with guts. Someone who won't back down. Someone crazy enough to walk into this with me."

The answer came quickly.

Evan picked up speed, boots clanging up the fire escape as he ran toward the roof.

At the top, three walkers were packed near the metal door.

He kicked one down, swung the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer back over his shoulder, and brought it down.

"One blow to stun. One to crack the skull. No knife to bleed it out? Then hit it again."

Wet impacts followed, one after another.

The more he fought, the smoother his movements became.

Smashing walkers was not so different from butchering livestock.

He shoved the bodies aside and peered through the gap in the rooftop door.

Not far away, Merle Dixon stood there in his hard-edged biker gear, a hacksaw in his hand, his face wet with tears and spit as panic broke through his bravado.

'Never thought I'd see Merle Dixon make that face. If I had a phone, Daryl would never let him live it down.'

Evan almost laughed.

But if he waited much longer, Merle really would cut his own hand off.

So he raised his voice through the gap.

"Hey! Anybody alive out there?"

Merle's head snapped up.

He stared at the door like a man seeing daylight for the first time.

"Yeah! I'm here! Get me out!"

"Oh, fuck! I ain't dead. I ain't dead!"

He shouted at Evan, then threw his head back, half laughing and half choking on relief.

If Daryl ever saw him like this, it would haunt Merle for the rest of his life.

Evan smashed the lock with the bone hammer and stepped through with an amused look.

"You been crying?"

The tear tracks on Merle's face were still obvious. With Evan standing there, color rushed back into his cheeks.

"Screw you, kid. You'd cry too if you were in my spot."

Merle wiped at his face, then gave a rough, shameless laugh.

"Fair." Evan lifted the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer. "If I were cuffed to a pipe waiting for walkers to eat me, I wouldn't look much better."

He motioned for Merle to pull the cuffs tight.

Crack.

The hammer struck the cuff where it looped around the pipe.

The metal snapped under the blow.

Merle was free.

"We'll deal with the half still on your wrist later," Evan said, tossing the weapons bag into his arms. "For now, we leave."

He looked around.

Walkers were already drifting toward the noise.

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