Luke Li had originally planned to play it safe: scout first, loot later.
But Shane thought that going back and forth, slipping in and out repeatedly, might create unnecessary trouble.
The group circled up and discussed it for a long while before deciding to skip the scouting and go straight in to loot.
The city was nothing like the countryside.
It was far more dangerous.
Getting the greatest return with the fewest moves was the only way the risk made sense.
Luke Li thought that sounded reasonable.
It still wasn’t dawn.
He and Daryl rode their Harleys out of camp, with Glenn following behind in the pickup, responsible for perimeter support and hauling larger supplies.
…
First stop: the National Guard’s temporary staging area beside Interstate 85.
Glenn had already observed the place with binoculars.
The tents and sandbags were still there, but the people had long since pulled out.
Spent casings and empty magazines were scattered all over the ground.
Just from the bullet marks on the cover, it was obvious there had been a firefight.
And whoever they had been fighting definitely hadn’t been walkers.
If walkers could shoot, humanity might as well stop trying.
The military had retreated in a hurry, so there should be some supplies left behind.
Once they arrived, the situation was better than expected.
A dozen or so walkers were wandering around the tent area, but the supply tent was behind a sandbag wall, forming a natural barrier.
Glenn parked the pickup on a highway ramp two hundred meters away and kept the engine running.
Luke Li and Daryl slipped in.
Daryl picked off the scattered walkers around the perimeter with his crossbow, while Luke Li immediately climbed over and cleared the inside.
A suppressed Glock was practically a divine weapon in an enclosed space.
Pfft!
Pfft!
Pfft!
Three walkers inside the tent dropped.
[Walker Killed ×3]
The moment Luke Li opened the supply tent, he almost laughed out loud.
Two boxes of 5.56mm rifle rounds.
One box of 9mm pistol rounds.
Four M67 fragmentation grenades.
A tactical first-aid backpack.
A Kevlar bulletproof vest, practically brand new.
In the corner lay an M4A1 carbine fitted with an ACOG 4x scope, with a National Guard property tag still stuck to the receiver.
Clearly, some unlucky bastard had left it behind during the retreat.
Luke Li pulled the charging handle.
The weapon was in perfect working order.
There was no way he was turning this gun in.
Luke Li tossed a few things out to make room and put it straight into his system backpack.
He took all four grenades.
The 5.56 ammo was too bulky, so he only took half from each box and stuffed it into the system backpack.
The rest went into real ammo cans for Glenn to load onto the pickup.
He took all the 9mm ammo.
He used the Glock more often.
The first-aid backpack was carried out normally.
He put on the bulletproof vest, then covered it with a jacket.
No one would notice, but his protection had improved by far more than just a little.
Outside, Daryl shot down three more approaching walkers.
[Walker Killed ×3 (Daryl), Personal Assist ×0]
The whole thing took less than twenty minutes.
They had scored a rich haul and could move on to the next supply point.
…
Second stop: Peachtree Street, Atlanta Police Department’s 6th Precinct.
This supply point was tougher.
A two-story police station, its iron gate locked, with more than twenty walkers roaming nearby.
The density was twice that of the National Guard staging area.
Glenn parked the pickup three blocks away, climbed to the roof of an apartment building with binoculars, and reported positions to Luke Li over the walkie-talkie.
“Eight in front of the main entrance, three in the alley on the left, about ten in the parking lot on the right.
I can’t see the back door from here.”
“Copy that.”
Luke Li and Daryl circled through the back alley to the rear entrance of the police station.
The back door was a fire door, locked from the inside, but the hinges were exposed.
Luke Li pulled a crowbar from his backpack, pried the hinges off in a few quick moves, and the whole door fell inward.
It landed with a dull thud.
Growls came from the hallway.
Four walkers rushed out from deeper inside, all wearing police uniforms.
One even had an empty holster hanging at its waist.
The scene looked a lot like Resident Evil 2.
Luke Li dropped the first two with one axe strike each.
At the same time, Daryl’s crossbow bolt nailed the third.
The fourth lunged at Luke Li.
He kicked it into the wall, followed with another axe strike, and finished it on the spot.
[Kills ×3, Daryl ×1]
At the end of the hallway was the armory.
The iron-barred door was locked, but the lock cylinder was standard commercial grade.
One pry with the crowbar and it popped open.
The contents didn’t disappoint.
Six Glock 17s, brand new.
Two Remington 870 shotguns.
One AR-15 rifle.
A supply of ammunition, mostly 9mm and 12-gauge shells.
Three stab-proof vests.
Two boxes of tear gas canisters.
The most valuable item was a locked metal cabinet.
After prying it open, he found a Colt Python .357 revolver inside, gleaming silver, its six-round cylinder fully loaded.
Luke Li picked up the revolver and weighed it in his hand.
A good gun.
In the original show, Rick’s signature weapon was the Colt Python, a large silver revolver with tremendous power.
He put it into his backpack.
There was no way to fit all the larger weapons into the system backpack, so he left three Glock 17s in the physical ammo box and stored everything else in the system backpack.
The two shotguns were carried out openly.
Those could be brought back to camp.
Saying they had come from the police station made sense.
The AR-15 went into the backpack.
He wasn’t handing it over.
He stuffed in as much ammunition as he could, and his backpack slots were running short again.
No, they had already been short for a while.
He had been making space by tossing things out and swapping items around.
…
He took the lower-priority daily supplies from the backpack, lighters, batteries, and plastic wrap, and tossed them into the physical backpack, freeing up six slots that he filled entirely with ammunition.
After clearing out the armory, the two of them swept through the other rooms in the police station.
In an office, they found a hand-crank radio that could pick up emergency channels.
One look and he knew it was valuable, so he put it straight into the backpack.
In the break room lockers were several clean police jackets.
There were also two pairs of tactical boots.
The sizes were wrong, but purple-tier gear had to come along.
All the food in the break room fridge had gone bad, but the storage cabinet held an entire case of protein bars and several bottles of sports drink.
Blue-tier supplies were still useful.
The whole process took thirty-five minutes.
With high-value gold- and red-tier loot packed full, it was time to withdraw to a safe location.
When they came out through the back door, the walkers near the front entrance had already been drawn by the noise and were circling around the building toward the rear.
Luke Li and Daryl retreated quickly down the back alley.
Crossbow Guy turned as he moved, shooting down the two closest walkers behind them.
[Kills ×2 (Daryl)]
They regrouped with Glenn.
The pickup bed was already piled with supplies.
“Are we still hitting the third spot?” Glenn asked.
Luke Li glanced at the sky.
It was just past noon.
The third target was a large gun shop, closer to the city center.
The walker density was unknown.
“We are.
Why wouldn’t we?
But it’s just a quick sweep.
In and out in ten minutes.”
The gun shop was in worse shape than expected.
The display windows were smashed, the inside had been looted, most of the guns on the shelves were gone, and the ammo cabinets had been pried open.
But whoever had looted the place had obviously been panicking.
They had only taken the most obvious rifles, handguns, and common-caliber ammunition.
There was still plenty of good stuff left in the corners.
Crossbow bolts.
Three boxes of carbon fiber bolts, perfectly compatible with Luke Li’s and Daryl’s crossbows.
Scopes.
Two red dots and one holographic sight.
Gun cleaning kits ×4.
Two boxes of .357 Magnum rounds, just right for the Colt Python.
There was also an overlooked Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle, chambered in .22LR.
Light, quiet, and low-recoil.
All accepted with pleasure.
They only ran into two walkers inside the store, both silently dealt with by Crossbow Guy using his hunting knife.
[Kills ×2 (Daryl)]
Eight minutes.
Retreat.
On the way back, Luke Li sat in the pickup’s passenger seat and counted their haul.
The numbers on the system panel updated.
[Kills During This Operation: 6]
[Total Kills: 48]
Not enough.
Two more and he would reach 50.
Based on the pattern of getting 3 Essences at 40 kills, 50 should trigger another reward.
He needed to kill two more.
As if heaven had heard him, they passed a gas station on the return trip and saw two walkers lying over an overturned sedan, gnawing on its tires.
“Stop.”
Luke Li got out and cocked his crossbow.
Pfft.
Pfft.
Two bolts, two walkers.
Clean and precise.
[Walker Killed ×2, Total Kills: 50]
[Congratulations!
Total kills have reached 50, triggering milestone reward.]
[Walker Essence ×4]
[New Blueprint Unlocked: Basic Radio Repeater (Blue · Rare)]
Luke Li’s eyes lit up.
A radio repeater meant a huge leap in communication capability.
In the apocalypse, information was life.
Whoever knew where danger was coming from first could live longer.
Without changing expression, he accepted the reward and climbed back into the vehicle.
Daryl sat in the back, chewing on a protein bar, offering silent approval of Luke Li’s two shots.
Glenn was driving, clearly in a good mood.
“Every time I go out with you, it feels like we’re cheating.
We never come back empty-handed.”
At three in the afternoon, the convoy returned to the quarry.
The pickup bed was piled with two shotguns, several boxes of ammunition, the first-aid backpack, protein bars, and miscellaneous supplies.
That was what the camp would see.
The real core assets were hidden in the system backpack.
…
M4A1 carbine + ACOG scope.
AR-15 rifle.
Colt Python .357 revolver.
Glock 17 ×3.
Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle.
About 1,000 rounds of 5.56mm ammunition.
About 800 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
Two boxes of .357 Magnum ammunition.
M67 grenades ×4.
Carbon fiber crossbow bolts ×3 boxes.
Hand-crank radio.
Kevlar bulletproof vest.
Radio repeater blueprint.
…
If all of this were laid out, it would be enough to arm an elite ten-person squad.
But Luke Li wasn’t stupid enough to say that.
This was his trump card.
If things ever got so bad that he had to act alone, these supplies would let him survive on his own.
After returning to camp, he handed the shotguns and public ammunition over to Shane.
Shane held the Remington 870, looking at it like it was his first love.
“Looted from the police station?”
“Sixth Precinct.
There was still some stuff left in the armory.”
Shane racked the shotgun with a sharp clack, the crisp sound of metal striking metal ringing through the evening air.
The buff above his head changed again.
Beside [Reliance – Solid], a new marker lit up.
[Reliance – Preliminary].
From outsider to collaborator, then to a core figure others depended on, Luke Li had taken less than a week.
That night, he lay in the truck bed and opened the system panel.
Walker Essence: 8/10.
Two more to go.
Tomorrow, he could go out and kill a few more.
With a little luck…
Ten essences for one attribute point.
He already knew where he wanted to put it.
Luck.
Luck 3 meant bad things found him with an almost supernatural frequency.
A tripwire going off in the middle of the night, running into a horde while looting, slipping at a critical moment.
Raising it a little should at least bring him back to the level of a normal person and reduce those pointless losses.
He closed the panel.
In the distance, the black smoke over Atlanta had already begun to thin.
There really wasn’t much left to burn.