Luke Li woke up just after dawn.
To be precise, he had barely slept at all.
The chair in the fire station duty room was as hard as stone, and every hour or two, walkers shuffled past outside, dragging their feet along the wall.
The sound of nails scraping against brick was enough to make anyone’s skin crawl.
He had not slept much, but his mental state was still decent.
With Constitution at 7, his recovery was much better than before.
Even after broken, scattered sleep, he was not all that tired.
The buff above his head confirmed it: [Mild Fatigue].
Danny had woken earlier than him, or maybe he had not slept at all.
He was sitting by the stairwell, chewing on an energy bar, with the fire axe leaning against his leg.
“How’s it outside?” Luke Li asked.
“It only quieted down in the second half of the night,” Danny mumbled while chewing.
“Around three, a group of walkers passed by.
From the sound of it, there had to be seven or eight.”
Seven or eight.
The number of walkers was increasing.
Luke Li nodded and went upstairs to wake the others.
Sarah was already awake, changing Emma’s clothes.
The little girl had cried for half the night, and her eyes were swollen like walnuts.
Now she was quiet, holding a firefighter doll she had found somewhere and staring blankly ahead.
Children adapted faster than adults.
Linda was in slightly better shape than yesterday, but she still looked half-dead.
She sat on a cot, staring at the wall with empty eyes.
She would not be useful in the short term, but at least she had not completely broken down.
Karen was the last to come downstairs.
She walked up to Luke Li with a wrench in her hand.
This woman had even slept clutching a weapon last night.
“What’s the plan?”
Clean and direct, straight to the point.
Luke Li glanced at the space above her head.
Last night’s [Assessing] had faded, replaced by a buff he was very glad to see:
[Trust – Initial]
“We head north to Atlanta.” Luke Li pushed the radio to the center of the table and pressed play.
The military broadcast was still looping, full of static but clear enough to understand.
“…CDC headquarters remains operational…
All civilians are advised to proceed…”
“The CDC is east of downtown Atlanta.” Luke Li pulled up the map in his head.
“It’s about two hundred miles from here.
Normally, that would be a three-hour drive, but I-95 is done for.
We’ll have to take back roads.”
“Back roads are more dangerous,” Karen said.
“But the highway will be jammed.
Even if there are walkers on the back roads, there won’t be too many.
The highway has both traffic jams and walkers.
Pick one.”
Karen thought for a second and did not argue.
Danny raised a hand.
“Wait…
Are we really going to Atlanta?
The news said that place already fell.”
“The CDC isn’t downtown.
It’s in Druid Hills, to the east,” Luke Li said.
“And we don’t necessarily have to enter the CDC.
Our target is the outskirts of Atlanta.
The terrain there is complicated, with hills and woods, so it’s suitable for setting up camp.
The resources around the edge of the city are also much richer than out in the countryside.”
He said that for everyone to hear.
“What if we run into the military on the way?” Sarah asked, holding Emma.
“Then we follow the military.
But don’t get your hopes too high.”
Sarah nodded and stopped asking questions.
Luke Li was now the backbone of the group.
At exactly seven, they set off.
The pickup drove out of the fire station and turned onto a two-lane country road.
The road conditions were much better than expected.
There were not many abandoned vehicles.
Occasionally, one or two sat crooked by the roadside, but they only had to drive around them.
On both sides of the road were stretches of pine forest and farmland, with open sightlines that reached far into the distance.
The first twenty miles passed without incident.
Luke Li even started to feel it was going too smoothly.
Someone with Luck 3 should not be getting this kind of treatment.
Then reality slapped him in the face.
When they passed the entrance of a small town called Hazlehurst, the road was completely blocked.
Someone had parked two large trucks across the middle of the road, leaving only a gap wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.
Behind the trucks was barbed wire, with a handwritten cardboard sign hanging from it:
“Outsiders keep out.
Warning shots will be fired.”
Luke Li stopped the truck a hundred meters away and picked up his binoculars.
Behind the roadblock stood three people, two men and a woman, all carrying rifles.
They wore ordinary clothes and did not look like soldiers.
Most likely, they were locals who had formed their own militia.
With firearms everywhere, it was easy for small armed groups to form after the apocalypse began.
He checked their buffs.
[Fear], [Hostility – Defensive], [Unity]
This kind of situation was common in the early days of the apocalypse.
Small-town residents blocked entrances, rejected outsiders, and protected their own resources.
There was almost no room for negotiation.
“We’re going around.” Luke Li shifted into reverse.
“Not going to try talking to them?” Danny asked.
“The sign says warning shots will be fired.
It’s obvious they’re terrified.
If someone gets nervous during negotiations and fires by accident, it won’t end well.
It’s not worth taking that risk.”
Luke Li could not explain to Danny that he could see their emotions, so he could only persuade him with common sense.
The pickup backed out and turned onto a narrower country road.
The GPS had already lost signal.
Luke Li could only rely on his sense of direction and road signs.
The dirt road was so bumpy that the people in the back were thrown forward and back.
After detouring for about forty minutes, they finally connected back to the highway.
The fuel gauge had dropped by one-eighth of a bar.
After another half hour, Luke Li spotted something on the road ahead.
He slowly eased off the gas.
An overturned school bus lay on the road like a stranded fish, roof facing up, its wheels still slowly turning.
The windshield was completely shattered, and the interior was pitch black.
Luke Li stepped on the brake.
There were eleven walkers around the bus.
They were scattered around it.
Some crouched on the ground, some pressed against the side of the bus, and some circled it endlessly.
A few were gathered together, heads lowered as they gnawed at something.
“Don’t look,” he said to the back seat.
Sarah had already covered Emma’s eyes.
Karen’s face was tight, and Linda lowered her head, her shoulders trembling.
Eleven of them.
More than any group they had seen so far.
Force their way through?
The pickup had enough power, but if a walker got dragged under the truck and jammed the chassis, that would be trouble.
There were no side roads on either side.
They had no way around.
Luke Li made a decision.
“Danny, take the wheel.
I’ll clear a path outside.”
Danny’s eyes widened.
“Are you crazy?
That’s more than ten walkers.”
“It’s fine.
I’ll take them down one by one.
Wait in the truck for my signal.
Once I signal you, hit the gas and drive through.”
He did not wait for Danny to answer.
He pulled the crossbow case from the back seat, took out the Barnett recurve crossbow, stepped on the stirrup to cock it, and loaded a bolt.
This was his first time using a crossbow in real combat.
But the aiming logic was similar to a gun.
Put the red dot on the target, pull the trigger, release the bolt.
The difference was that a crossbow bolt traveled in an arc, but at close range, that barely mattered.
He chose the crossbow because it was quiet.
“Don’t get out.
No matter what happens, stay in the truck.” He looked at everyone, then opened the door and slipped out silently.
The pickup was parked about thirty or forty meters from the school bus.
Luke Li crouched and moved along the roadside drainage ditch, crossbow braced against his shoulder, right eye close to the sight.
Take care of the lone ones first.
The nearest walker stood near the rear of the school bus, back turned to him, head tilted as if staring at the sky.
The distance was about ten meters.
The red dot settled on the back of its head.
Hold breath.
Pull the trigger.
The whole motion was smooth and clean.
The bowstring gave a muffled twang.
The bolt cut through the air and struck the back of the walker’s head with precision.
The walker stiffened, then fell straight to the ground.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Crossbow EXP +25]
[Ranged Weapon (Crossbow): Lv.0 → Lv.1]
The other walkers nearby did not react at all, completely unaware that one of them had fallen.
Luke Li drew a second bolt from the quiver, stepped on the stirrup, and cocked the crossbow again.
The whole process took about eight seconds.
That was the crossbow’s biggest weakness: slow reload speed.
Second target, beside the school bus.
Twenty-five yards.
Aim for the temple.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Crossbow EXP +20]
Third.
Fourth.
Luke Li moved like a precise machine.
Move, cock, aim, shoot.
Every walker dropped with one bolt.
The accuracy bonus from Crossbow Lv.1 kept his hit rate in a comfortable range.
The system was accelerating his learning curve, and Perception 7 let him judge distance and wind direction with impressive accuracy.
The fifth shot went wrong.
The bolt missed the head and buried itself in the walker’s shoulder.
The walker let out a hiss and turned toward him.
The others were drawn by the sound, their heads turning one after another.
“Fuck.”
Luke Li dropped the crossbow and pulled out the fire axe.
The wounded walker was already rushing toward him.
Luke Li sidestepped its outstretched hands, then brought the axe down at an angle, landing cleanly on its head.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Bladed Weapons Skill EXP +12]
At the same time, two more reached him.
One from the left, one from the front.
Luke Li pulled the axe free and swept it sideways.
The blade cut into the neck of the walker on the left, slicing off more than half its head.
[Walker Killed ×1]
The walker charging from the front was too close.
He did not have time to use the axe, so he drew the KA-BAR hunting knife from his calf and drove the tip upward through its lower jaw, through its mouth, and into the brainstem.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Short Blade Skill EXP +30]
[Short Blade Skill: Lv.0 → Lv.1]
In just a few minutes, Luke Li had taken down eight walkers.
The feeding walkers slowly stood, black-red slime hanging from the corners of their mouths, and began moving toward him.
Luke Li took two steps back, picked up the crossbow, and quickly cocked it.
One bolt killed the next one.
Then he finished the remaining two cleanly with the axe.
Luke Li stood beside the school bus, breathing hard.
His shirt was splattered with black blood.
Bits of tissue clung to the blade of the fire axe.
He waved toward the pickup.
Danny started the engine, and the pickup slowly rolled forward, squeezing through the gap between the school bus and the shoulder.
Luke Li jumped into the passenger seat and set the blood-soaked axe by his feet.
No one in the truck spoke.
Danny’s hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel.
It was the first time he had seen anything like that.
One man had slaughtered more than ten walkers as easily as chopping vegetables.
Even a video game would not have looked that smooth.
Karen handed him a bottle of water from the back seat.
Luke Li took it and drank two mouthfuls.
“Thanks.”
Karen said nothing, but the buff above her head changed slightly.
The warm yellow [Trust – Initial] was twice as bright as it had been yesterday.
Beside it, another one had appeared:
[Awe].
Pale gold, faint.
The pickup continued north.
Around four in the afternoon, more traces of towns began appearing along the road.
Then, as they climbed over a gentle slope, the skyline of Atlanta finally appeared.
The gray-blue outlines of high-rise buildings hovered above the horizon, like a row of uneven gravestones.
Above the city, small black dots occasionally crossed the sky.
If he was not mistaken, they were helicopters.
Everyone in the truck looked in that direction.
“Find a place to stop,” Luke Li said, looking away.
“To be safe, we’re not entering the city at night.
There are far too many walkers there.
We’ll move again tomorrow.”