The place Luke Li chose for the night was a standalone country church by the side of the road.
At a glance, it looked large enough to hold fifty or sixty people for worship.
The pickup drove along the gravel path to the entrance.
Luke Li turned off the engine and got out, carrying the fire axe in his right hand.
“Same as usual.” He glanced at Danny.
Danny followed with the fire axe gripped in his hands, moving with more decisiveness than before.
The inside of the church was dim and quiet.
Long wooden pews stood in neat rows, and an open Bible rested on the pulpit.
The statue of Jesus still suffered in silence.
The two of them made a sweep of the place and did not smell the unique rotting stench of walkers.
That was a good sign.
Luke Li and Danny cleared the church room by room.
Only after confirming the area was safe did Luke Li bring the others inside and start setting up defenses.
Two long pews were pushed against the front door.
The side door was blocked with tables and chairs.
The windows could be left alone for now.
Karen searched the storage room and found a dozen candles, a case of bottled water, and a basic first aid kit.
“Not bad.” Luke Li took the bottled water and calculated briefly.
It was enough for six people to last four or five days.
He lit two candles and placed them in the corner behind the pulpit.
The wall blocked the light, making it almost invisible from outside.
In the faint candlelight, the statue of Jesus was half bright and half dark.
Dinner was canned food and energy bars.
After eating, Luke Li sat beside the pulpit and opened the system panel.
It was time to deal with the things he had not had a chance to check earlier.
Walker Essence.
[Walker Essence ×1]
[Uses: 1.
Skill upgrades (cost increases with level) 2.
Minor attribute adjustment (10 Essence = 1 Attribute Point) 3.
System store exchange (not yet available)]
Ten Essence for one Attribute Point, and he currently had only one.
He checked his kill record again.
He had killed sixteen walkers in total, but only the first one had dropped essence.
The other fifteen had dropped nothing.
The drop rate was bad enough to make a man cry.
This must be the punishment for having Luck 3.
Still, it was fine.
There were billions of walkers in the apocalypse.
With a pool that large, more drops would come sooner or later.
Luke Li closed the panel and looked up at the ceiling.
The wooden beam structure looked fairly sturdy, but it would not withstand a large-scale impact.
As Luke Li was thinking, Karen’s voice came from beside him.
She was standing two steps away.
“What did you do before all this?
Were you really just a student?”
Luke Li glanced at her.
Karen’s buffs: [Trust – Initial] remained stable, [Curiosity] had appeared, and there was also a faint [Suspicion – Benign].
She was not really questioning him.
She was curious why a twenty-four-year-old graduate student had stocked up on supplies and weapons before the apocalypse.
And why, when facing walkers, he could stay so calm and take out eleven of them alone.
That had already gone beyond the range of an ordinary person.
Even active-duty soldiers might not be that composed when facing walkers.
“I’m a survival enthusiast,” Luke Li said.
“Some people like golf.
Some people like fishing.
I like studying how to survive the end of the world.
In your words, I guess that makes me a paranoid conspiracy theorist.”
Karen stared at him for two seconds.
“Your paranoia saved all our lives.”
She turned and walked back to the corner.
Luke Li watched her back.
The warm yellow [Trust – Initial] flickered once.
It did not become [Trust – Solid], but it did not weaken either.
That meant Karen did not fully believe his explanation.
The sun had completely set, and darkness spread.
The watch schedule was the same as last night.
He and Karen would take the first half, while Danny took the second.
Outside the church, things were quieter than they had been around the fire station.
There were only occasional insect calls and the sound of the wind.
Atlanta was still burning.
Around one in the morning, shuffling footsteps came from outside.
Luke Li looked out through a gap in the window.
Under the moonlight, a walker slowly walked along the gravel path.
It paused in front of the church and tilted its head as if listening for something.
Then it continued on.
The church was too quiet.
There was no sound source to attract it.
Luke Li waited until it disappeared into the woods before loosening his grip on the axe handle.
At three in the morning, when it was time to change shifts, he sat down against the wall and slowly slipped into light sleep.