Luffy’s hollow pupils stared at the blue sky outside the window. The sky was a vibrant blue, the clouds pure white.
"Goodbye to the world that birthed and raised me," Luffy sighed inwardly. His body was already trembling. The virus had reached his chest, and its spread suddenly accelerated. A web of dark blue veins bulged on his neck, quickly creeping up to his face and brain.
Suddenly, his pupils began to change. Their original black faded to grayish-white until the pale color engulfed his entire eyes.
Agony. Luffy felt nothing but endless agony drowning him, leaving only a single thought in his mind: to end it all with death.
Driven by this thought, his body contorted violently. Eyes wide and pale, he opened his mouth and let out a guttural roar. His gums shifted in color, turning a horrifying blood-red where they met his teeth.
These were the signs of impending zombification.
Just as Luffy could no longer bear the excruciating pain and his mind was on the verge of collapse, a warm current washed over him, restoring a sliver of clarity to his consciousness. If anyone else had been there, they would have seen his eyes revert to their normal black.
"This!" Luffy felt a surge of joy in his heart. "Could it be...?"
Before he could think any further, the agonizing pain struck again, plunging him back into endless torment. Luffy roared and shrieked. His heart pounded violently, then gradually slowed until it stopped beating entirely.
His violently twisting body slowly went limp, collapsing motionless onto the floor. His grayish-white pupils never regained their clarity.
An unknown amount of time passed before Luffy suddenly jerked, like a sleeping person jolting awake. His mouth opened and closed, and he blinked.
He blankly stretched out his hands, examining them. They were no different from the hands of the Zombies he had encountered before. Perhaps the only difference was that they were cleaner, devoid of minced flesh or dark black blood.
"Uh!" Luffy opened his mouth, but couldn’t utter a word. He no longer breathed; without airflow, his vocal cords couldn’t vibrate to produce sound.
Looking up, he saw the same clinic as before. Through the tempered glass, he caught his reflection. He looked no different from the Zombies he had seen before.
"So I turned into a Zombie after all!" he sighed inwardly. He moved his legs, and in the next moment, he opened the counter door and stepped out.
"My legs are so heavy, and much stiffer! Huh? Wait, that’s not right!" He suddenly turned back to look at the counter door. "I know how to open doors?"
At that thought, he abruptly focused his gaze on the medicines on the shelves. He could recognize every single word.
"Could it be? Do I still have human consciousness?" He immediately tried to recall his past.
His parents’ faces, their doting love, and all the events of the past surfaced in his mind.
"One plus one equals two, fifty plus fifty equals a hundred, when heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a man..."
"HAHAHA!" Suddenly, Luffy burst into laughter in his mind, his mouth gaping as he flailed his limbs wildly. "I’m still alive!"
Realizing this, Luffy grew incredibly excited. He covered his mouth with one hand, trying to take a breath, but there was no airflow. Then he touched his neck; his artery wasn’t pulsing. He picked up a sharp screwdriver and stabbed his arm, but felt no pain.
"Alas, I really have turned into a Zombie. It’s an undeniable fact!" he thought.
However, even though he had become a Zombie, he hadn’t lost his consciousness, which meant he was technically still alive.
Suddenly, he focused his attention on one of the hospital rooms that contained only a single Zombie.
He still needed to verify if he was truly recognized as a Zombie by others. It would be a complete joke if other Zombies still attacked him. If he couldn’t return to the human survivor camp and was rejected by the Zombie faction, he might as well take the screwdriver, stab himself in the brain, and be done with it.
With that in mind, Luffy gripped the screwdriver tightly and walked up to the door. He slowly pushed it open, his hand raised high, ready to strike. The moment the Zombie inside showed any sign of attacking, he would drive the screwdriver into its skull first.
CREAK.
The door hinges let out a noise. The Zombie inside suddenly turned its head, staring at Luffy with terrifying, pale-white eyes. A moment later, it turned back around.
It recognized him as one of its own—inedible!
"It’s not going to eat me? It really sees me as one of its own?" Luffy’s heart bloomed with joy.
He continued to slowly approach the Zombie, even bumping into it. The bumped Zombie suddenly whipped its head around and snapped its jaws as if issuing a warning, then turned back away.
"HAHAHA!" Luffy laughed inwardly. "The heavens haven’t forsaken me!"
Luffy turned toward the sky and gave a deep bow.
The apocalypse was here. Although he had become a Zombie, he was a Zombie with a human mind. Upon further reflection, Luffy felt it wasn’t all that unacceptable.
Then again, did he have any other choice?
His only option was to familiarize himself with his new identity as a Zombie as quickly as possible and do whatever it took to survive, even if it meant living in a Zombie state.
Clutching the screwdriver tightly, he cleared out all the other Zombies in the clinic. Even though he was a Zombie now and they wouldn’t attack him, his mind was still human; having Zombies around made him feel unsafe.
Luffy hadn’t quite adapted to the fact that he was now a Zombie.
He then inspected the clinic again. The front entrance was swarmed by a horde of Zombies, and the building had no back door. After ensuring his immediate safety, Luffy found an empty room and sat down on an IV infusion chair.
After reevaluating himself, Luffy confirmed that, just like the Zombies outside, his Power had increased, but his speed and agility had worsened. Exactly how much his stats had changed remained to be tested.
This meant he could easily be killed by "humans," just like any other Zombie.
Recalling his experience before getting bitten, Luffy made a decision.
Even as a Zombie, he had to keep a low profile. He knew that in the apocalypse, although humans were slaughtered on a massive scale and turned into Zombies, the mortality rate of Zombies would skyrocket after the initial apocalyptic baptism.
Once humans regrouped, they would use every available weapon to kill Zombies in order to secure living Space.
Aside from humans, there were many other dangers in the apocalypse. Not only did humans have to face them, but various other creatures did too. Having binge-watched apocalyptic movies and read countless apocalyptic novels, Luffy was firmly convinced of this.
Therefore, Luffy secretly decided to make keeping a low profile his highest code of conduct. Only by lying low could he survive to the very end.
That was why, upon becoming a Zombie, he didn’t immediately let the rush go to his head and run off to seek revenge against Li Yufeng. Instead, he hid in the clinic and reflected deeply on his bitter experience.
The current Luffy was absolutely no match for the group in that private booth.
Most importantly, he hadn’t reincarnated with knowledge of the apocalypse’s future trajectory to know how to seek luck and avoid disaster, nor did he possess an overpowered system like a novel protagonist to guide him. His only advantage was that he was a Zombie himself, unafraid of other Zombies.
Well, perhaps there was one more advantage: compared to other Zombies, he possessed intelligence.
As the saying went, "Even a god can’t stop a gangster who knows martial arts."
He wondered what kind of sparks an Intelligent Zombie like himself could ignite in this apocalyptic world.
Deep down, Luffy was faintly filled with anticipation.