"Buuuurk, cough. Gulp, urk, bpp. Uwegh. Gulp."
I make the vivid sounds of twenty raw eggs going down, and I hear them myself.
If Grandpa had seen me starving for seventy hours, finally getting something to eat but having no way to cook it, so I piled them high in a bowl and gulped them down, he would’ve asked if I’d started YouTube.
"Fuuuaaah... grrk."
Even my burp is sticky.
Ugh... I can’t live like this.
Still, I guess I’ll live.
Ah... Seventy hours of fasting and then twenty eggs might’ve been a bit much, but I was so damn hungry.
I don’t even have any strength right now.
I’ll play a round of a board game while I digest, and if I get sleepy, I’ll just pass out.
Personally speaking.
If a zombie apocalypse comes and the power goes out, the immediate problem won’t be that your phone stops working. It’ll be that you die of boredom.
Of course, there’d be no reason to think about that in peaceful times when the electricity doesn’t go out, but damn it. Before the zombie apocalypse actually happened, I didn’t know the zombie apocalypse was coming either.
Nothing happens until it happens, right?
Anyway, since my hobby wasn’t PC games but board games, I spent the money I made from part-time jobs buying card games and board games one by one, and now there are fifty boxes taking up one side of my bookshelf. In an apocalypse where even the electricity has been cut off, they’re very useful sustenance for the mind.
I even once thought, if I’m going to be trapped inside the house, I might as well die while playing board games, so that says it all.
I took out a box of a horror card game, spread it out with a snap, shuffled the player card deck, and laid out the missions in a row.
Suddenly, hmm...
That thought came to me.
Are there no other people?
Games like this are fun when you play them with someone.
Has everyone in this world turned into zombies?
Back when things were peaceful, there were so many people, and even if I stayed at home I could talk to someone online, and if I logged into an online game, even if I didn’t have anyone I was particularly close with, I could party up, compete, laugh, or fight with people, so I never really felt lonely.
But now that it’s actually become a zombie apocalypse where even the lights don’t turn on, I feel like I’m stranded alone in the mountains, while sitting in my own living room.
Still, the game is fun.
I really like stuff like this.
This puzzle’s kind of hard to solve, huh? Hmm...
Is there really, truly no one?
Has everyone turned into zombies?
Tick.
Only the sound of placing a card disturbs the silence.
* * *
I slept a lot.
Wow, it’s already 2 p.m.
I think I slept for almost fifteen hours? Sixteen?
When I was starving, I kept waking up and falling asleep, so I was sleep-deprived, but after stuffing myself with eggs and getting drowsy, I fell asleep and woke up to this.
For now, I’ve drawn an absurd amount of water from the water purifier.
Side-dish containers, the rice cooker, pots, whatever—anything that could hold water, I filled it all. I drew enough water that I could even shower and still have plenty to drink all day today, and that’s so reassuring.
Right. I’ve decided to call that thing a water purifier.
Essence of life and all that sounds way too fantasy-like.
Having fantasy inside my house is a bit much.
I squeezed body wash onto a shower towel, wet it with water, worked up a lather, and for the first time in so long. So pleasantly. I scrubbed every last bit of the rotten stink off my body.
After splashing myself down and washing off all the foam, I finally returned to being human. I’m so fucking happy.
Ah, the blankets and stuff in the house, and the things that got all musty and started reeking over the winter and chilly spring, need to be washed too.
Being able to worry about that in a zombie apocalypse is lucky.
Anyway.
To do that, I need to go out and earn coins.
I also need to bring in the bags of snacks outside.
It’s not like anyone’s going to take them anyway.
Unless some mutant zombie that gets happy while munching snacks shows up, that is.
* * *
I brought the snacks in.
I placed them right in front of my house, in that exact spot beside the front door where the delivery guy always drops packages off, then dispersed my avatar.
The mage rounded up and wiped out 132, and the warrior killed 22. A total of 154 coins.
Add the 37 coins left over from yesterday, and that makes 191 coins!
Awesome.
I’m leveling up right away.
All the zombies in front of my place had turned into sand and piled up thickly, and I was able to pick up the four bags of snacks without much tension.
The fact that I peeked around here and there before opening the door because I was scared shitless doesn’t count, since no one saw it.
I’m craving something crunchy.
Salty is good, and sweet is good too.
But right now, it’s various chocolate-type pies and cookies.
I missed that heavy feeling of actually swallowing food as it went down my throat so, so much.
Crunchy snacks taste good, but they don’t really give you that feeling of a chunk going down.
"Ah...!"
After taking a bite of a pie, chewing, and swallowing it, an exclamation slipped out without me realizing.
It’s been six months since the zombie apocalypse started.
One week since the electricity went out.
Three days since my food ran out.
I only lasted this long because I rationed and rationed what I had. I haven’t eaten snacks like this since the very day the zombie apocalypse began.
It’s been six months!
I want to share this emotion with someone, but there’s no one here.
"Mmm...!"
I’m alone.
There’s no one.
Maybe everyone really has turned into a zombie.
But I feel a little better.
Ah, fuck.
It’s delicious.
* * *
It’s time to level up.
I have 191 coins, but I can only raise one level.
Nephaket, the one I raised last time and got eggs from, now needs 200 experience, so I have to choose from the remaining three.
Should I raise the builder, the warrior, or the mage?
First of all, honestly, the builder is low priority.
Because there are four bags of food beside me right now, and I’ve already made the water purifier. If I just put in coins, I can get water trickling out for twenty-four hours.
Based on my experience starving, food is important.
Convenience stores, or, what, marts, or other places with food that can be stored for a long time—I need to raid those for my diet to become richer. Of course, there are eggs. I know that. But I can’t fucking live the rest of my life eating nothing but eggs. I want to eat something delicious too!
Of course, for being able to obtain eggs, loyalty to the Book of Destruction.
But that’s that, and this is this.
I need to make the process of going out to secure food easier.
Then it’s between the warrior and the mage.
Hmm...
...The warrior can get to the destination quickly, and the mage can farm mobs, huh...?
Based on my experience leveling up that livestock-herding hero or whatever, if I raise a level, some new skill should appear too.
Which means, hmm...
Hmm, hmm.
...Let’s go with the warrior.
The mage is already great at mob farming.
Path of Sand is fucking strong.
But the problem is that he’s too slow.
It’d be better to do what I did this time: have the warrior bring a few bags to the apartment entrance, then use the mage to round them up and kill them.
Someone else might think differently from me.
Like, isn’t the standard play to level the mage, gain even more area-hunting ability, earn experience faster, and level up faster, and so on.
Sorry.
But I’m the god here, not you.
I’ll trust my own judgment and go with it.
After winning an argument with an opponent who wasn’t even there and feeling satisfied all by myself,
I leveled up.
[System: Would you like to raise Nephkent’s level?]
"Yes."
[System: You have used 100 coins.]
[System: Nephkent’s level has risen.]
[You have acquired a new skill.]
Heh.
Satisfying.
"Kheper Nephkent."
There’s something addictive about watching a mass of sand whirl into being around my forearm and take on a human shape.
When our eyes meet, yes.
I am an ancient warrior.
It sounds like total chunibyo bullshit, but it’s true.
Look at that muscular body I don’t have.
Since he leveled up, I need to check first.
The stats on my left arm.
[Coins: 91]
[Health: 44]
[Mental Strength: 3]
...Shit.
His health doubled?
Wow, raising just one level is huge.
Then, the skill.
[Rest of Maat]
𓄿 𓃣 𓊵.
This is...
As I stared at it, the way to use it started forming in my head—no, rather than the way to use it, what happens when I use it began to rise like some strange image, and, uh...
What...
A cracked land rumbling together, then it had been one whole piece originally?
What is this?
What kind of hallucination am I supposed to make of this, what... some kind of prophetic dream... or... Ah. I get it.
It’s healing.
This is a healing skill!
Wait, I have to test this.
I have plenty to eat anyway!
If I’m going to try things, now’s the time!
I stabbed my shoulder deeply with the spear.
A chunk of sand spilled off with a rustle, pattered onto the wooden floor, then somehow vanished, and my health dropped a ridiculous amount.
What is that spearhead made of for it to take off five points? Wow. I mean, it is special enough to turn zombies into piles of sand in one hit.
Of course, fuck.
I knew it wouldn’t hurt, but I still got scared.
Only I know that I got scared, so it doesn’t count.
"Rest of Maat."
Both hands, one bearing a shield and the other holding a spear, began to glow faintly.
Ooh, fuck.
I touched my shoulder.
Sand rushed in and restored it.
Even the shoulder leather covering that had fallen off regenerated.
My health returned to 44, and my Mental Strength dropped by 1.
"Ooh, fuck!"
Do you know what this means?
It means that if my health runs out, I can recover it and earn more coins!
Wow, fuck!
"Uhaha!"
I’m so damn happy.
Good. Let’s go!
Back to the convenience store!
This time, drinks!
I have plenty of snacks!
No one’s going to take them anyway, and they’ll be sitting there just as they are, so I can bring them back whenever I want!
* * *
I ran like hell to the convenience store.
I was so excited that I stabbed the shit out of the zombies in the apartment parking lot, and I kept enthusiastically skewering zombies on the way to the convenience store too, so in the end I wound up using the healing skill once.
I only had 1 Mental Strength left, but damn it.
Being able to fully recover my health again just made me too happy.
"Haha. This is the best!"
Laughing, I went into the convenience store.
There were people there.
Two women.
Greasy hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in at least five years, and haggard faces.
They were probably around twenty?
They had been holding each other and crying, but when they saw me, they screamed.
They even pointed a knife at me.
"............"
We stared at each other, both frozen.
...I’m confused.
Probably, I think.
I mean, in this situation.
Roughly speaking, I
froze because I was thinking,
Why are there people here?
Why aren’t they zombies?
And those women were probably looking at me while thinking,
Why is a naked man standing there with only a strip of cloth around his waist, holding a shield and spear?
And why is he wearing a dog mask on his face?
We exchanged gazes like that,
and stared at each other in a daze.