An Unexpected Haul

New chapter is live.

Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

✦

Clang.

"Hm?"

The feedback through Evan's hands was completely different.

He understood immediately.

He scraped away broken plaster and found a thin sheet of metal behind it. The surface had dented under the blow, but unlike the earlier walls, it had not given way.

"Treasure room. Found you."

Evan's interest sharpened. For once, he dragged the sledgehammer back out and went around to Room 214's door.

He decided to use the proper entrance.

But the moment his hand touched the knob, a dense wave of hoarse growls erupted from every direction.

Evan sighed and moved his hand back to the Stone Sledgehammer.

Walkers began dropping from the ceiling spaces at both ends of the walkway.

"Should've known," he muttered. "Classic 7 Days to Die. Hide walkers in every corner of a building and call it design."

The first walker staggered to its feet in front of him.

Evan swung.

The hammer whipped up a gust of air, struck the walker, and snapped its head around one hundred and eighty degrees.

Without the support of bone, the rotting head wobbled on a final strip of flesh, then took the body down with it.

Evan stepped forward before it hit the floor. Without caring about the walkers closing behind him, he planted one boot on the collapsing corpse's chest and used it as a stepping point.

He leapt.

Gravity and strength came down together.

With a brittle crackle of bone, he drove the walker's head into its own chest.

He landed, set the hammer sideways, braced the handle against the headless body's chest, and shoved with explosive force before it could fall.

Then he drove forward.

Evan did not know how many walkers he knocked down. He only felt the resistance in his hands growing heavier and heavier.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he heaved the body forward and dumped the tangled walkers to the floor.

He glanced back at the ones still following and drew a deep breath, letting stamina recover as much as it could.

Then he charged at them.

The first skull burst.

The second burst too.

The third.

The fourth.

In that corridor, Evan looked built for close-quarters slaughter.

Anything that came at him broke.

The walkers, ugly and ravenous, had no way to resist him. Every swing seemed to catch the bonus headshot effect perfectly. One solid hit to the brow, and the skull gave way.

He carved through the second floor twice, killed the walkers in the hall, then doubled back to finish those still trying to get up.

What would have been a dead end for someone else became a bloody path under Evan's hammer.

At last, he stopped with the sledgehammer in both hands, chest rising fast.

Facing that many walkers at once was already close to his current limit.

Of course, that was while avoiding injury and trying to land efficient hits.

An ordinary small horde was no longer a real threat to him.

After recovering, Evan returned to Room 214, expectant, and turned the knob.

Click.

For an instant, there was resistance. Then it softened.

The latch withdrew. Metal pieces inside the lock clicked in a neat little chain.

To Evan's surprise, the door opened easily.

He pushed the white-painted door inward.

The first thing he saw took up almost two-thirds of the little room.

His eyes widened.

"This can spawn too?"

Evan stepped into the treasure room.

A while later, he walked back out.

Four coils of iron thorns had been wrapped around the head of his Stone Sledgehammer.

The hammer had already looked intimidating. Now barbed wire curled around the head and the neck of the weapon, making the whole thing look nasty enough to make anyone step back.

[Barbed Wire Mod]

[Weapon Mod - Clubs]

[Effect: 20% chance to inflict bleeding on the target. 40% chance to strike a weak point and trigger a powerful hit.]

[Description: Thank you for choosing one of the apocalypse's best-value murder tools - an ugly bundle of iron thorns. Don't dismiss it as construction scrap. This little mod turns every swing into a full-contact performance review.]

"If this hits flesh, damn."

Evan turned the hammer in his hands. The more he moved it, the better it felt.

Only barbed wire had been added. Nothing else had changed. Even so, the weapon carried a strange new balance.

It felt as if the next skull would break even cleaner.

Beyond that, his system inventory had gained some basic medical supplies, three boxes of chips, several ready-to-eat meals produced by the system that would not spoil while stored, and a pure black Stalker Hood, Lv. 1.

Counting everything, Evan's gaze finally settled on the large item occupying one entire inventory slot, unable to stack with anything else.

The rest was extra. This was the real prize.

Well, that and one more thing.

The moment Evan stepped out of the treasure room, two golden flashes appeared in front of him.

[Apocalypse Quest Complete. Experience Reward Acquired.]

[Level Up: Lv. 13 -> Lv. 15]

[Skill Points Acquired: 2]

[Remaining Skill Points: 3]

After killing all those walkers, his experience had already been close to Lv. 14. With the generous quest reward added on top, Evan jumped straight to Lv. 15.

The skill points were here.

Evan did not hesitate. He put two points into the Strength attribute he had been waiting on.

[Rank 8/10: Bodybuilder - Strength and headshot damage greatly increased.]

[What? Super strength? Are you the city's apocalypse legend?]

[Attribute: Strength Lv. 8/10]

Almost the same as last time, once the point allocation finished, a warm, swelling power filled Evan's body.

His build did not visibly change much. But when he gripped the Stone Sledgehammer again, it felt as easy as holding a thick wooden stick.

With Strength and headshot damage greatly increased, his power seemed to double again on top of the earlier boost.

He rolled his shoulders, flexed his arms, and quickly adapted to the new strength.

"As for the last skill point..."

Evan considered it.

The final two levels of Strength would each cost three skill points.

And Skull Crusher, which had followed his Strength growth all this time, could not reach Lv. 5 until Strength itself reached Lv. 10.

"This build eats skill points like crazy."

He sighed, but he was not really upset. Skill points he could see but not touch had become real strength in his hands.

That meant he had to look elsewhere.

[Big and Fast - You are not only strong. You are quick too.]

[Increases the attack speed of clubs and sledgehammers.]

The perk had only three levels, but with Evan's strength behind it, the effect would not be small.

He spent the final point on Big and Fast, Lv. 1.

[Rank 1/3: Strong Start]

[Your muscles are waking up and ready to move.]

[Sledgehammer swing speed increased by 10%.]

✦

✦

✦

Want to keep going?

You can read ahead on my Patreon, with early access, previews, and extra story updates 🔑

https://www.patreon.com/c/EliasVane