"What… are those things?"
Leo stared at the bizarre moon and the zombies blanketing the hills, his heart pounding violently. Just from what he could see, there were already thousands of zombies—everywhere his eyes reached, there were shambling figures.
And the moon… the moon was wrong.
Then Leo suddenly remembered the system panel that only he could see. The world's name was clearly written there.
"Seven Days to Die… Seven Days to Die… does that mean a massacre every seven days?"
He hadn't thought much about it before, distracted by being with Erina. But now—
"Thinking about it now doesn't help at all. A real zombie apocalypse isn't something you can compare to a game. In a game you can respawn. You know it's a game…"
Watching the zombies outside the window, a deep sense of despair crept in. The only reason they were still safe was because they'd built a wall around the RV and because the zombies' detection range wasn't very large.
Otherwise, with this many zombies, sheer pressure alone would be enough to flip the RV over.
Leo still believed metal could beat bone and muscle—but there were simply too many of them. The RV's metal shell wasn't that sturdy. It might hold for a short time, but if thousands of zombies kept attacking nonstop, even he wasn't confident it would last.
As he was thinking this, Leo noticed Erina's eyes move.
He immediately rolled over, covered her mouth, and pointed toward the window.
Erina looked at him in confusion, then followed his finger.
The next instant, her whole body stiffened. A muffled sound escaped her throat, but she quickly covered her own mouth and swallowed the scream.
Because of the distance, the noise didn't alert the zombies. Once her breathing calmed, Leo slowly removed his hand.
Erina kept her hand over her mouth, staring outside in disbelief. Her eyes reddened as she clutched Leo's arm tightly and shrank into his embrace in fear.
Leo silently held her close. At times like this, Erina was the only thing giving him any sense of security.
The two of them curled up together, cautiously watching the endless flow of zombies outside. They lay as still as possible, barely daring to breathe.
They didn't know how long they stayed like that. At some point, they even fell asleep briefly. But the zombies never stopped moving.
When they needed the bathroom, they used plastic bottles scavenged earlier, moving with extreme care, not daring to make a sound.
Leo stayed silent. Even though Erina looked extremely seductive while doing that, he felt no desire at all—only a slowly rising despair.
Because he noticed the moon growing brighter and brighter.
Not only that—red began creeping in from the edges of the crescent.
Under the increasingly crimson moonlight, the zombies that had once shuffled slowly began moving faster. Their eyes started glowing.
And whether it was his imagination or not, Leo felt they were becoming more frenzied. Occasionally, he could even hear distant zombie roars.
"Damn it…"
Watching their exaggerated movements, Leo took a deep breath and stared at the ominous moon, a terrible premonition forming in his gut.
He turned on his phone—already low on power—and checked the time before it shut down again.
2:00 PM.
Yet it felt like an entire day had passed.
"At least we made guns and ammo yesterday… otherwise we'd have no way to fight back at all."
Looking at the four or five stacks of gunpowder left in his inventory, Leo pressed his lips together in regret.
If he'd had more time—or infinite stamina like in a game—they'd already be living on top of the fully steel-reinforced gas station instead of hiding in this RV.
"But if what I'm thinking is right… then even the RV won't last long."
Leo gently stroked Erina's hair, letting her rest against him as the moon grew redder and the zombies more active.
He glanced at his real system panel.
Energy: 900.
Leo was silent for a moment. Then his hand slid under Erina's clothes, gently grasping her softness and kneading it.
He felt her smooth skin, the delicate bud beneath his fingers, her heartbeat gradually quickening.
"Leo…?"
Erina opened her eyes and whispered his name, confusion filling her gaze. She didn't understand why he was doing this now.
Leo raised a finger to his lips, signaling her to stay quiet. His hand didn't stop—in fact, it became bolder.
Erina's face flushed instantly. She glared at him in frustration, not understanding why he'd risk exposing them at a time like this. But now wasn't the moment to argue, so she bit her lip and tried to restrain his hand.
Leo didn't stop.
He took a deep breath and continued touching her. Erina grabbed his hand tighter, trying to prevent him from going further.
Then Leo kissed her.
At first, she resisted fiercely. But after accidentally making a small sound, she had no choice but to tilt her head back and let him kiss her. Her hand was gently pulled away.
Warm softness returned to his grasp, and Leo moved to the next step.
His finger entered Erina for the first time. The roughness made her uncomfortable, yet an unforgettable pleasure surged through her body. She clamped a hand over her mouth, desperately suppressing any sound.
When Leo finally withdrew his finger, a long, sticky thread stretched from her flushed skin.
He brought his finger to his mouth.
Erina struck him in anger and embarrassment, then fell silent.
She could already feel his burning heat. There was no stopping him now.
Leo slowly entered her, still as tight as the first time, pushing into the narrow passage.
Erina wasn't heavy. At first, sitting in his arms, she could still move slightly. But as they sank deeper into it—while desperately suppressing their voices—she lost the strength, leaving Leo gripping her soft hips and moving steadily.
Before long, both of them were breathing hard, hearts pounding, holding back every sound.
They succeeded.
When Erina finally rested against him to recover, the zombies outside still hadn't noticed them.
Leo exhaled slowly. The moon was now more than half red.
Silently, he crafted dirt blocks and stone blocks in his inventory—dirt requiring only soil, stone needing small rocks.
Only then did Erina realize something was wrong with the moon. She tugged on Leo's sleeve and pointed upward.
Leo nodded silently. He took out some scavenged food, wrapped it in blankets before opening it, minimizing noise.
But things didn't go as he hoped.
Halfway through their meal, the moon was almost completely crimson.
He turned on his phone one last time.
17:59:42.
Almost six.
The phone warned of low battery and shut down—right as the seconds ticked to 59.
The next instant, darkness fell.
The moon turned fully blood-red, dyeing the entire world crimson.
Without any time to react, a deafening roar erupted from all directions.
Leo rushed to the window—
Every zombie had turned toward them.
Their eyes glowed yellow. Their bodies were stained with an eerie, sickly green.
The next moment, they charged.
"Shit!"
Leo sprinted to the door, instantly sealing it with wooden frames, upgrading them to the maximum possible level.
But even as he finished, he heard their outer wall being torn apart—and fists slamming into the RV.
He rapidly reinforced the walls with more frames, but there were too many zombies. In less than twenty seconds, pounding began on the roof.
"Leo! They're climbing on top!"
The heavy impacts came again and again. Zombies slammed into the RV without caring about their bodies.
The massive RV rocked like a boat in a sea of corpses.
"Damn it!"
Leo pulled out his machine gun and fired through a shattered window.
Accuracy didn't matter. Just spraying was enough to explode zombie heads.
It didn't help.
Dead bodies were trampled flat. The horde pushed together, shifting the RV's balance, dragging it toward town.
The uneven pressure flipped the RV.
It slammed onto its side.
Leo and Erina were thrown violently. Before they could recover, the RV rolled again.
The floor became the ceiling.
Leo smashed his head into a cabinet, nearly blacking out. Erina was pinned under the bed—if she hadn't sealed the windows earlier, zombie arms would've torn her apart.
This was absolute despair.
Even if the RV held for a while, it wouldn't last until morning.
If morning even came.
Leo stopped firing. While the RV was still relatively intact, he rushed to Erina and rapidly built wooden frames around them, forming a tight enclosure to keep them from being crushed as the RV rolled.
He held her close, feeling her heartbeat amid darkness, shaking, and the sound of metal tearing.
"Leo…"
Her voice trembled with pain.
"Are we going to die? Are we… going to become zombies together?"
She was weak. Her head had been struck—she could feel blood flowing.
Leo took a deep breath and pressed his phone into her hand.
"Erina… my name is Leo. Leo from Huaxia. My mother's name is in that phone. If you can… if you return to your world… see if you can find me, or her. If you do… give her some money."
"Leo?"
Erina whispered his name, confused.
"I mean… goodbye, Erina. Being with you… really made me happy."
Return target?
"Yes.
In the next instant, Erina's warmth vanished.
Her heartbeat was gone. His hand grasped only emptiness.
As metal tore apart, Leo knew his fate was sealed.
"What a beautiful dream…"
Leo smiled and pulled a stack of gunpowder from his inventory.
He wasn't going to die quietly.
Author's Note:
Of course this isn't the original Blood Moon 😉