“System, add the points.”
Magnus Vane took a deep breath and immediately opened the Strength tree.
He had three skill points available and no time to carefully study every option while half of downtown Atlanta was shambling toward him, so he committed to the most obvious choice.
Two points went into his basic Strength attribute, while the final point unlocked the first level of Skull Crusher.
[Attribute: Strength]
[Strength Lv.1 / 10 — Weakling]
[Strength Lv.2 / 10 — Scrawny]
[Strength increases physical power and improves the effectiveness of head strikes with Strength-based weapons.]
[Skull Crusher Lv.1 — Bruiser]
[Specializes in heavy melee weapons such as sledgehammers, increasing their effectiveness against enemies and obstacles.]
Magnus slowly exhaled.
The instant the points were confirmed, heat surged outward from somewhere deep inside his chest.
It spread through his shoulders, arms, back, and legs until every muscle in his body felt tighter and more responsive than before.
This wasn’t the temporary rush of adrenaline he had been running on since leaving the tank.
Something about his body had genuinely changed.
A grin appeared on his face.
“Okay.”
Magnus tightened both hands around the bent entrenching tool.
“Let’s see what two points of Strength can actually do.”
A walker staggered within reach.
Magnus stepped forward and swung.
Whoosh!
Instead of using the chipped blade, he turned the entrenching tool sideways and smashed the reinforced handle and shovel head directly into the walker’s skull.
The impact produced a sickening crack, and the corpse’s head collapsed under the blow before blackened blood sprayed across Magnus’s face and uniform.
The walker dropped instantly.
Magnus blinked.
“Damn.”
He wiped blood away from his eye with the back of his wrist.
The difference was obvious.
Whether it was the increase in Strength, the headshot bonus, Skull Crusher, or some combination of all three, the same weapon that had required repeated blows only minutes earlier had just crushed a walker’s skull with one clean strike.
“So the points actually work.”
That was all the encouragement he needed.
Magnus stepped into the next cluster of walkers and started swinging.
He struck left, pivoted, drove the tool into another skull, then reversed direction before the surrounding dead could grab him.
Six rapid blows sent several walkers crashing onto the street, some dead and others knocked off their feet beneath the bodies around them.
System notifications flashed across his vision.
[Experience Gained: +300]
[Experience Gained: +300]
Magnus caught the numbers even while fighting.
Three hundred experience per ordinary walker.
Ten walkers at Level 1 had totaled 3,000 experience.
According to the system’s 1.02 progression multiplier, the next threshold should be 3,060.
Which meant the math was brutally simple.
“One more.”
Magnus scanned the walkers around him.
“The eleventh kill should push me to Level 3.”
Then he looked down at his weapon.
That was a problem.
The military entrenching tool had survived far more punishment than it was designed to take, but the steel was almost finished.
The blade was chipped, the locking joint had loosened, and the shaft had bent enough that another few direct impacts might snap it completely.
Magnus’s gaze shifted across the street.
Rick’s horse was almost gone.
What remained of the animal lay among a crowd of walkers near the tank, its flesh mostly stripped away until the larger bones of the carcass were visible beneath the torn remains.
Magnus stared at one of the hind legs.
Then an idea hit him.
“Worth a shot.”
A walker blocked his path.
Magnus rammed the broken edge of the entrenching tool into its eye socket and immediately followed with a hard side kick.
The newly enhanced strength behind the strike sent the corpse crashing backward into two others, knocking the entire group onto the pavement.
Magnus didn’t stop.
He planted one boot on a fallen walker’s chest, stepped over it, and sprinted toward the horse carcass.
Two walkers were still crouched beside the remains, gnawing uselessly at bone long after most of the meat had been stripped away.
Magnus kicked the first one aside.
The second reached for him.
He drove his shoulder into it, forced enough room to move, and grabbed one of the horse’s exposed hind legs with both hands.
“Come on.”
Magnus braced his boot against the joint.
Then stomped.
Snap!
The bone separated with a sharp crack.
Magnus grabbed the heavy section and gave the system a mental command.
“Craft.”
Something invisible answered.
A strange force passed through the bone in his hands.
Loose tissue vanished, rough edges changed shape, and the entire length seemed to compress and reinforce itself as if an unseen craftsman were modifying it in seconds.
The process ended almost as quickly as it began.
Magnus stared at what he was holding.
[Horse-Bone Sledgehammer]
[Quality: 1]
[Durability: 300]
The thick end of the horse’s femur had been transformed into the oversized striking head of a primitive sledgehammer, while the remaining bone formed a solid grip long enough for Magnus to swing with both hands.
It was crude, ugly, and far too large to be mistaken for an ordinary club.
Magnus loved it immediately.
A walker staggered toward him.
He smiled.
“So that’s how you want to play?”
Magnus raised the bone sledgehammer.
“I can work with that.”
He swung casually.
Thud!
The heavy end caught the walker across the side of the skull.
Its head burst apart under the impact.
The force didn’t stop there.
The dead body slammed sideways into two nearby walkers, sending both sprawling onto the street.
Magnus stared for half a second.
One kill.
Two knockdowns.
A grin spread across his blood-smeared face.
“Now this is a weapon.”
The entrenching tool had worked, but using a folding shovel as a heavy club had always been a compromise.
The Horse-Bone Sledgehammer felt completely different.
Its weight matched his enhanced Strength, Skull Crusher supported exactly this kind of weapon, and every swing carried enough momentum to smash through the walkers rather than simply stagger them.
Still, Magnus knew better than to get carried away again.
He had already attracted far too much attention.
“I need to get out of the street.”
Magnus fought his way back toward the tank and spotted Rick’s abandoned duffel lying where it had fallen during the escape.
He swept the sledgehammer across another approaching walker, dropped it, then grabbed the bag without breaking stride.
Rick’s gun bag.
Weapons and ammunition.
Leaving it behind would have been criminal.
Magnus slung the heavy duffel over his shoulder and immediately checked the lower-left corner of his vision.
The flashing capsule icon was still there.
Now it had a timer beneath it.
[Infection]
[1:55:31]
The numbers changed.
[1:55:24]
Then again.
[1:54:47]
Magnus’s satisfaction disappeared.
He had less than two hours.
Whatever special rules governed his system, that countdown clearly represented the amount of time remaining before the infection reached a critical stage.
He didn’t intend to find out what happened when it hit zero.
Fortunately, Glenn’s alley wasn’t far away.
Magnus used the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer to knock aside two more walkers, then broke into a run.
He reached the narrow alley, jumped for the bottom rung of a fire escape, and hauled himself upward while dead hands clawed uselessly beneath his boots.
By the time he pulled himself onto the first landing, sweat was pouring down his face.
Magnus leaned against the railing and looked below.
A growing crowd of walkers packed the alley beneath him.
Several reached upward as if sheer determination might suddenly teach them how ladders worked.
Magnus laughed breathlessly.
“Sorry.
You already got one bite.”
He climbed higher.
“You’re not getting another.”
For the first time since waking inside the tank, Magnus actually felt good.
Exhausted, covered in blood, infected, stranded in an apocalyptic Atlanta, and carrying a weapon made from Rick Grimes’s dead horse—but good.
The fear and frustration that had been eating at him were finally under control.
More importantly, the appearance of the 7 Days to Die system meant he had something he hadn’t possessed when he first recognized this world.
A way forward.
Magnus climbed another section of the fire escape while considering his most immediate problem.
“Antibiotics.”
His expression hardened.
“Where the hell am I supposed to find antibiotics in downtown Atlanta?”
This wasn’t Day One of the outbreak.
Hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, grocery stores, and anywhere else carrying useful medical supplies would have been among the first places desperate survivors searched.
Walking blindly from pharmacy to pharmacy with less than two hours remaining would be gambling his life on shelves that were probably already empty.
Then Magnus stopped climbing.
“Wait.”
People nearby.
He knew exactly where a group of survivors with medical supplies should be.
His eyes narrowed.
The nursing home.
If events in this world still resembled the television series, the people protecting the elderly residents there had medicine.
Antibiotics were exactly the sort of supplies a functioning nursing home would have needed even before the outbreak.
There was only one problem.
Magnus looked down at himself.
Level 2.
A primitive sledgehammer.
A bag full of Rick’s guns.
And no group backing him up.
Walking into another survivor group alone and demanding scarce antibiotics was a good way to lose both the medicine and the weapons.
Even if those people weren’t immediately hostile, Magnus couldn’t afford a lengthy negotiation while an infection timer counted toward zero.
“I need someone with me.”
Magnus resumed climbing.
“Someone who won’t freeze when things get ugly.
Someone reckless enough to walk into a bad situation with a stranger.”
His boots hit the next landing faster.
Someone aggressive.
Someone armed.
Someone who would rather fight than back down.
Magnus already knew exactly who was waiting above him.
He climbed faster.
Metal stairs rattled beneath his boots as he took them two at a time, Rick’s gun bag bouncing against his side while the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer rested across one shoulder.
When Magnus finally reached rooftop level, three walkers were crowding the chained access door.
He didn’t slow down.
Magnus kicked the first walker square in the chest and sent it crashing backward.
He stepped into the opening, raised the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer with both hands, and brought it down.
Squish!
The first skull collapsed.
He pulled the weapon free and swung again.
Crack!
The second walker dropped.
The third lunged forward.
Magnus shifted his grip and drove the sledgehammer down one final time.
Squish!
Silence returned to the landing.
Magnus stared at the bodies.
Killing walkers with the new weapon was becoming disturbingly natural.
His old slaughterhouse experience helped him judge angles and force, but the Strength increase and Skull Crusher perk turned every clean hit into something far more destructive than anything he could have managed before.
He stepped over the corpses and looked through the rooftop door.
There he was.
Merle Dixon.
The older Dixon brother was handcuffed to a metal pipe, exactly where Rick had left him.
T-Dog’s dropped key was gone, the rooftop access had been chained shut, and a spilled tool bag lay close enough for Merle to have gotten his hands on a hacksaw.
Merle was currently using it on the handcuffs.
Or trying to.
His face was soaked with sweat and tears, his breathing ragged as he sawed frantically at the steel.
Whatever swagger and hostility had defined him earlier was nowhere to be seen now.
A man who had spent most of his life acting like nothing frightened him had finally found something that did.
Magnus almost laughed.
If Daryl ever saw his older brother looking like this, Merle would probably threaten everyone involved just to make sure the story died with them.
Magnus leaned toward the doorway.
“Hey!”
Merle froze.
His head snapped up.
For several seconds, he simply stared toward the sound as if he thought he had imagined it.
Magnus knocked against the metal door.
“Anybody alive out there?”
Merle’s expression transformed instantly.
“Hey!”
He scrambled as far upright as the handcuffs allowed.
“Yeah!
Yeah, goddammit!
I’m here!”
Relief overwhelmed him so completely that he actually laughed.
“Holy shit!
I ain’t dying on this damn roof!”
Magnus smirked.
Now that sounded more like Merle Dixon.
He lifted the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer and smashed the chain securing the rooftop door.
Clang!
The metal broke loose.
Magnus pushed through and walked onto the roof.
Merle looked him over from boots to blood-covered face, then at the enormous bone weapon resting against his shoulder.
His relief briefly turned into confusion.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?”
“Currently?”
Magnus approached the pipe.
“The guy getting you off this roof.”
Merle laughed again.
“Best damn thing I’ve heard all day.”
Magnus stopped beside him and noticed the obvious tear tracks still cutting through the dirt on his cheeks.
His mouth twitched.
“Were you crying?”
Merle stared at him.
Then he wiped his face with his free hand and gave Magnus a crooked sneer.
“Man, screw you.
Get chained to a roof with a few thousand dead sons of bitches downstairs and see how pretty you look.”
Magnus chuckled.
“Fair enough.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
If he had been handcuffed to a pipe with no escape and a building full of walkers eventually coming for him, he probably wouldn’t have handled it any better.
Magnus pointed toward Merle’s restrained wrist.
“Hold the chain straight.”
Merle immediately obeyed.
Magnus raised the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer.
Merle’s eyes widened.
“Hey, now.
Watch the damn hand.”
“Then don’t move.”
Magnus swung.
Clang!
The sledgehammer struck the section of handcuff chain wrapped around the pipe.
Strength surged through the impact, the metal links snapped apart, and Merle jerked his arm free before staring at the broken cuff still hanging from his wrist.
He was free.
“We can deal with the rest of that handcuff later,” Magnus said.
“Right now we need to get off this roof.”
Merle stood, rubbing his wrist.
Magnus grabbed Rick’s gun bag and threw it directly at him.
Merle caught it against his chest.
The weight made his eyebrows rise.
He opened the top just far enough to see what was inside.
Then he looked back at Magnus.
A slow grin appeared on his face.
“You just became my favorite person in Atlanta.”
“Save the gratitude.”
Magnus turned toward the rooftop entrance and tightened his grip on the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer.
Movement was already appearing beyond the doorway.
The noise had attracted more walkers.
Magnus glanced at the infection timer still counting down in the corner of his vision.
He needed antibiotics.
Fast.
And now he had exactly the kind of partner he needed to help him get them.
“Grab a gun, Merle.”
Magnus raised the sledgehammer as the first walker appeared.
“We’re leaving.”
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