A few hours later, the sun was slowly going down as the sky started getting darker.
In one of the apartments, Orion sat lazily on the couch, no longer nude and wearing a pair of track pants and a T-shirt that would give him the necessary mobility while also not making him look stupid. He was counting the things that he'd collected from all of the different units with a bag of plain salted chips open on the side.
The food he had found was enough to last him for a long time, but it was mostly instant stuff with some canned food and a significant amount of snacks. Considering he didn't plan on staying here beyond the night, he didn't care for most of it. Aside from food, there were a large number of mineral water bottles in each unit. He also collected some miscellaneous items like a few sets of clothes, power banks, phones, and more, hoping to see if he could get any information about the area.
"Useless…all of these have no charge. These people must have been dead for at least three to four months, probably longer, for not even the power banks to have any juice left. Considering the state of this apartment, they were probably the first wave to turn, which means this apocalypse has most likely been going on for at least four months or longer," he spoke to himself. "I need to find a map of the area and see where the hell I am before doing anything else."
After some more searching, he was finally able to find the full address of the place, telling him that he was in the Kanagawa Prefecture, specifically, Fujisawa city. Unfortunately, he couldn't find any usable maps of the area. All he found were world maps and a couple of maps of Japan without the details needed to help him in navigation.
"Never thought I'd be saying this, but I've just been fucked over by online maps…Thinking of it, does this world even have Google? Or any of the big companies… Considering this is a fictional universe where product placements were limited and subject to copyright, hmm… Food for thought."
He climbed up the stairs and used a crowbar to pry open the lock to the roof. That was the closest he could come to getting a vantage point to give him an accurate idea of his surroundings. His immediate plan was to find an even taller building to get a good idea of the surroundings.
The moment he emerged, he felt a cool breeze hit his face and sighed with a smile, taking a moment to look at the setting sun and orange sky.
"I may be in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, but damnit, I get to live again…and this time, I might even get to be immortal if I play my cards right," he said, chuckling to himself. "The power of creation, huh? It's going to be a long and arduous road, but with this Exile Gear, I might just be able to get by. Upgrading my physique improves my mind. That's the only way for me to even start thinking of creating things with this tool. I'll start by trying to create a pure block of metal with the necessary proportions. How hard can that be, right?"
He suddenly shook his head. "Priorities, man. You're here to check out the surroundings. You can spend the whole night trying to fuck around with the gear. I wonder if I can find some over-the-counter ADHD meds here."
Getting himself back on track, he started observing the streets around him, only to let out a helpless sigh. The streets all around him were filled with zombies, with no chance of sneaking past them on any side. It may have been because of his commotion from the morning, but most of the zombies were clustered around the apartment where he was inside.
"In any case, I need to get out of here. I think consuming a unit of Origin Energy to test things with creation might need to be delayed a bit, though. I need to first improve my physique to deal with these hundreds of zombies. How are there so many? This looks like a suburb with apartments, with all the foliage and stuff. It feels unreal to see so many zombies."
After some looking, he found his target. A tall building on the edge of a park, elevated above the street on one side. The building easily had over twenty floors, and its rooftop would get him the best view of the surroundings.
After drafting a rough plan in his mind for his departure tomorrow, Orion went back inside, sticking the crowbar through the handle on the door and forcing it shut.
When he went into his room, he first recalled Great Red's words about dreams and thought about getting some actual experience in swordsmanship, even if it was the most basic moves. His immense experience in fencing seemed insufficient for his current needs.
He closed his eyes and tried to communicate with the Gear to get him a dream about basic techniques in swordsmanship. Unfortunately, the cost left him with a wry smile on his face.
Technique: Foundational Swordsmanship
Origin Energy Cost: 10 Units
That left him with no other option than to improve his physique to get an immediate improvement in his strength.
Lying down on the bed, he mentally summoned his status panel and focused on the 1.46 units of Origin Energy displayed there.
"Hopefully it doesn't hurt," he mumbled before having his sacred gear improve his physique with all of the origin energy that he possessed.
"Ahh, fuck!" He let out a pained yelp as his entire body felt like needles were being stabbed all over. He couldn't help but let out a scream as the torturous pain continued, barely weakening as time passed. Before long, he had passed out. His final thought was that he was glad to have waited to improve his physique instead of doing it in the middle of the zombie horde.
…
It was early in the morning when he woke up, with barely the first rays of the sun coming through the window.
His first thought after waking up was to see his improvements.
Name: Orion Vaelor
Exile Gear: Infinite Dream
Specialization: Creation
Origin Energy: 0 Units
Physique: 3.46
Matter Limit: 8 KG
"An exact one-to-one connection… by that logic, the zombies should have less than a hundredth of my physical abilities, considering the tiny amounts of Origin Energy that I get…Maybe the conversation isn't completely uniform for everyone."
Looking at the rising sun through the window, he quickly started packing. He put his essential supplies and some clothes in a large survival backpack that he'd found and stuffed everything he might need into it. He also pulled out the bag's rain cover and tightly wrapped it inside. He didn't want everything getting covered in blood when he reached the building.
After making sure that he had everything that he might need, he decided to get moving and walk to his destination. Considering the distance, it was barely a twenty-minute walk, but with the zombies filling the streets, his conservative estimate was to reach the building by sunset.
"All right, time to face the music," he summoned the katana into his hand, noticing that it felt even more comfortable than yesterday. With his increased stats, he was able to effortlessly hold the katana up. With that, he took a deep breath and opened both doors, immediately charging forward and slicing through three zombies that were closest to the gate.
Even though he hadn't been able to afford Foundational Swordsmanship, he was slowly growing familiar with the weapon. With some solid footwear, his balance was also much better, allowing him to freely take advantage of his better physical abilities as he quickly started clearing the street.
While he could have broken off into a run, directly slicing through the zombies and reaching his destination in less than ten minutes, he wanted to farm some more Origin Energy and get not only the Foundational Swordsmanship, but also get some leeway to practice with Creation to try and make some stuff on his own.
As he continued, slowly gathering more and more Origin Energy from the zombies, he eventually made his way to the main road with a bus stop right at the junction. That street was packed with even more zombies that were already rushing toward him, following their brethren as he continued to slice through them all like nothing. He slowly moved through the endless zombies, leaving countless corpses in his wake and getting drenched in blood in the process. After two hours of constant killing, he had only reached halfway to his destination, with still some ways to go. He was getting a little tired of the constant, monotonous killing, so he took refuge in a nearby building, slipping past the zombies with increasing proficiency. Immediately, he noticed a stark difference from the previous apartment. There were already rotting corpses of zombies in here, causing a horrible smell to permeate through the entire building. He could only lower his breathing and run up to the roof. Still, he took the chance to look through some of the units inside the building and realized that they had all been ransacked.
Similar to what he'd done with the previous building, this one had already been cleared by someone. With hope rising in his heart about meeting a survivor, he reached the roof to get a view of his remaining route, while also eating and drinking. Once he replenished himself, he stood up to see what the deal was with the following area.
"It seems there are people here…probably a small settlement," he said thoughtfully while looking at the almost empty street near the building that he'd planned on going to. While he didn't see anyone actively killing the zombies, for such a large street to be almost clear while the others were all packed with zombies from end to end, there had to be people clearing the zombies.
"My first human interaction since death. Hopefully, I don't get into any conflict…Could I join them? Probably not. I don't have the charisma of a leader, and my whole creation thing seems more suited for a loner…We'll see how it goes. Maybe we can cooperate or something."
***
If you like the story, follow it and leave a review, and whatever else, it motivates me a lot. I try not to leave any mistakes in the chapters, but if you find something glaring, let me know, and I'll try to fix it.