Going down the building's stairs, strangely, no ghost came to bother him.
Theo even prepared a torch in case one showed up.
'How strange…' He thought.
Until the moment he left, he didn't encounter a single ghost.
'Emily didn't eat them all, did she?'
Extinguishing the torch, he stored it in his inventory and scratched his face with his now free hand.
He didn't go right, but rather, left. To the right was the ice zombie.
As he walked, he thought of a song.
"Get down to the floor, this is Brunão's crew~ (vish)~ Get down to the floor, this is Brunão's crew~"
"…"
Realizing he suddenly started singing out loud while heading to hunt zombies, he began to sweat coldly.
'I can't believe I got so influenced in just one day…'
Well, he had been watching movies with music videos at every opportunity, and there was also Emily, who loves to hum.
Taking a deep breath, he knew he needed to be serious.
'I'm free, I'm free~'
"…"
'Okay, enough!'
He switched to stealth mode and took a deep breath.
His mind was worse than yesterday.
After massaging his head, he picked up the sledgehammer again.
Now he was in Serious Theo mode!
His shoulder started to shake.
'Stop!'
"!!"
[HP: 330/330]
'Zombie in sight. Alone, waiting to be killed.'
Grabbing an iron utensil, he walked and hid behind the wall.
*Beng!*
Throwing the utensil at the wall, he waited.
"Grrraaaahh!"
When it was about to arrive, he attacked with the sledgehammer.
*POWW!*
*CRACK!*
Making a gesture with his free hand, he thought: 'Home run!'
*SHATTER!!*
Theo had just smashed the zombie's head and sent the core flying, hitting a streetlight bulb.
The bulb's protective glass shattered, along with the bulb itself.
The sound was loud enough to attract several zombies, after all, this damn place is quieter than the Namib Desert!
"Screech!!"
And to make matters worse, something big… Very big was flying in this direction.
[HP: 1,244/2,500]
'Damn, there's already something with that much HP?!'
And, what was even scarier, something managed to make it lose half its HP!
'Can I just hide at home?'
Switching to stealth mode, he left.
He didn't even bother staying to find out what kind of bird it was. Just knowing it had 1,244 HP left and originally had 2,500 was enough for him to flee.
While escaping, he spotted a person at the end of the street.
'Violet?'
Seeing her, he opened his mouth, intending to say 'run!' in an urgent tone.
**
Zombies, now ghosts.
Surviving in this world was a huge challenge.
Every day was challenging.
Ordinary people were the quickest to die.
Before, with 2,133 people on the cruise ship, now only 959 survivors remained.
Even though the number had dropped to this, finding food became more complicated, as without their protection, the ghosts that suddenly appeared would kill them.
There was a fire user in her group; thanks to him, they discovered the ghosts' weakness, just like the sun.
This way, they only needed to wait outside the building.
However, this didn't make things much easier, especially at night when they had to create fire in every apartment where people were staying.
Now only a small group went out to search for resources, among them were Violet, Mia, and Sara.
There were only three others with them: Caleb, Will, and Esmeralda.
Although Esmeralda was called that, he was a muscular man, two meters tall, with curly blond hair and blue eyes.
"An ice-manipulating zombie," Will said in a grave tone.
"I'll handle it," Violet stepped forward, heading toward the zombie, but then she stopped upon noticing someone's presence.
"Theo?" she murmured his name.
On the other hand, he simply looked in her direction and seemed to want to say something, but no sound came out.
'Run?' She read his lips.
"Screech!!"
When she heard the loud cry of what seemed to be an eagle, but the sound was at least ten times more powerful, she understood.
"Let's go, let's go, we can't stay here," she said, speaking as quietly as possible, just loud enough for her group to hear.
She created an ice barrier, preventing the ice zombie from chasing them, and started running.
"What happened?" Esmeralda, who began running, asked.
"No talking, just run," Violet warned in a grave tone. "There's a possibly mutant eagle, very strong, in that direction. If it catches us, it might be our end."
"Did you see it, sister?" Mia asked.
"No, but I saw Theo. He warned us to run and then ran in another direction," Violet said.
"Can we trust him?" Will asked. He still had a slight impression of Theo.
He was also surprised that Theo had managed to survive this long.
"I trust him," Violet replied.
"That's all I need to know. If my sister trusts him, it means it's real. No more talking, let's go," Mia said, ending the conversation.
Although she wasn't much of a fighter, she was by no means weak. In fact, in the group, she was only surpassed by Violet.
*BANG!*
"ROARR!"
Suddenly, they heard a sound coming from behind them.
When Will looked back, his face turned as white as a sheet.
"M-Monster!" he exclaimed.
"Idiot…" Esmeralda muttered.
Even Sara was glaring at him. She also looked back and saw the creature with a 20-meter wingspan. And now, because of Will, their location had been revealed.
She even saw that thing swallow the ice zombie after tossing it into the air and opening its beak.
"Screech!!"
Following the creature's cry, a gust of wind hit them.
"This time, it's our end…" Mia murmured, full of sadness.
Just looking at it, at the ease with which this creature finished off a special zombie.
Even if Violet could take down a zombie like that, she needed to put in effort, but this creature simply tossed the ice zombie into the air and swallowed it whole.
"Die!"
While they were losing hope, they heard someone shout.
From the top of a house, they saw Theo!
He was holding two gas canisters and had ten more on the roof he was standing on.
Besides that, two others were almost hitting the creature.
With an almost human-like gaze, the creature seemed to disdain this attack and, with its long yellow beak, pecked at the direction of the canister.
**
**
After running in another direction, Theo saw the creature flying toward Violet.
He felt guilty and still owed her a debt.
That's when he noticed the gas canister shop.
He didn't think much and broke in, smashing the bars, then stored 14 canisters in his inventory and ran in the same direction the creature was flying.
He thought he wouldn't need to act when he saw the creature's focus was on the ice zombie, but someone's shout from Violet's group drew the creature's attention to them.
When he saw this, Theo prepared himself, placing 12 gas canisters on the roof and grabbing the last two.
Then, he shouted loudly, drawing the creature's attention to him.
When he succeeded, he threw the first two canisters, and when he saw the creature's intent to peck at them, he grinned predatorily and started throwing the canisters like a madman.
*BOOOOOOOOOOOM!*
"Take that!" Theo laughed loudly while covering his ears.
A strong gust of wind hit him. Even being over 100 meters away, the impact of the explosion from 14 gas canisters was powerful enough to cause devastation within a 100-meter radius.
He saw houses and buildings nearby being ravaged by the explosion. And even though he covered his ears, they were ringing.
'Is the core still intact?' If possible, he'd like to recover the core.
The creature still being alive… was unlikely. If it was, then he was screwed.
"There are two shiny jewels…"
Theo felt like he heard Emily's voice.
After looking around, he frowned: 'I must've heard things…'
But he still focused his vision on the explosion, soon spotting two lights shining like precious jewels.
Using stealth mode, boosting his speed to the maximum, Theo ran toward them.
He kept looking at the shining lights in the air while running.
'God, it's got to be at least a level 20 core,' he thought.
As they fell, Theo lost sight of them but kept running toward the light.
'I won't lose it!'
He was still about 20 meters away when he reached the debris caused by the explosion.
"To the left, near that pillar."
He heard Emily's voice again.
He didn't know where she was speaking from, but he still followed her instructions.
He approached and saw the two cores. Both were the size of a ping-pong ball. One glowed green, the other red.
He reached out and sent them to his inventory.
He didn't stay and ran back with his heart pounding.
He felt like he was cheating again.
After gaining some distance, he saw Violet's group. Mia waved at him.
He intended to ignore them and return to his building, but he ended up going to them.
When he stopped 5 meters away from them, Mia was the first to speak: "Theo, I'm so glad you're alive~! And thank you, you saved us!"
She looked at the others. "What are you waiting for?"
"Thank you!"
Encouraged by Mia, everyone thanked him, even Violet.
"No need to thank me, I did it because I owed Violet one," Theo replied. "Now we're even."
She looked at him deeply and nodded: "Yes, we are."
"Okay, I'm going," Theo turned.
"Wait," Mia called out.
"Yes?" Theo looked at her.
"Why not come back with us? Isn't it better than living alone?" she asked.
"No, thanks, I prefer to act alone," Theo refused firmly.
"Is it because of me?" Sara lowered her head guiltily, biting her lower lip.
"No, it's not," Theo said. "I admit, at the time, I was angry with you. After all, you accused me of doing something wrong without even knowing what I did or having proof. So yeah, I held a grudge against you. But that's over now. I also admit I used it as an excuse to leave."
"Huh?" She raised her head. "What do you mean?"
"I wanted a good reason to leave and act alone," Theo said honestly. "And you gave me that reason."
"I see…" She didn't blame him.
Even though what he said was true, she didn't feel she had the right to blame him for acting that way.
"Well, after you left, we all got screwed pretty bad, haha," she gave a dry chuckle.
"I can imagine," Theo replied.
"…"
"Theo, are you at least willing to keep in touch?" Mia asked, adding, "I just hope we can have a partnership. I see you've become capable, but alone, some things are harder to achieve."
"That's true…" Theo thought for a moment, then came up with something and said, "I have a lot of sardine cans. Is that of interest to you?"
"Of course!"
"*Cough*." Mia interrupted Will, who exclaimed a bit too excitedly, "Theo, how many sardine cans are you willing to trade with us?"
Meanwhile, Sara pinched Will's waist and twisted. She glared at him, and if Theo weren't there, she would've liked to give him a good slap for almost getting them all killed.
Theo saw this but ignored it and replied, "I can trade a total of 4,000 sardine cans. And I'll only accept cores."
"4,000!"
Even Sara was surprised.
With that, they could share with everyone and last a few days if they were frugal.
"We can offer 250 cores," Mia said with a professional smile.
'I was going to ask for 200… Actually, I'd even take 100,' Theo thought.
He didn't want to pretend to get them to raise the value.
He said, "I accept."
Hearing this, Mia sighed and extended her hand toward him, "I hope we have good cooperation."
"Likewise," Theo replied.
"When can we pick them up?" she asked.
"Right now," Theo said. "Do you have the cores with you? Or do you need to go back and get them?"
"I'll go get them, you guys can go with him," Violet said.
In the group, she was the fastest.
"My place is that thirty-story building. I'm staying on the top floor," Theo pointed.
"I figured," she gave a slight smile before starting to run.
"Shall we go?"
They walked and chatted a bit on the way.
"I have to say, what you did with that monster was sensational," Will said.
"Exactly," Esmeralda agreed.
"Well, it was more luck," Theo replied. "I threw two at the start on purpose, one in case the creature defended itself with its claws and another to limit its options and pierce the canister with its beak. I just didn't expect that mutant eagle to choose to peck the canister right away."
"Mutant eagle… Yeah, that makes sense to think of it that way," Mia said. "And what you did back there was very well thought out."
"Theo, how did you put…" Sara started to ask a question but stopped when she realized it was inappropriate.
"Want to know how I got the domestic gas cylinder onto the roof?" Theo knew they were curious about it.
"Well, yes," she admitted.
The others didn't deny it.
"Actually, I had prepared that beforehand," Theo lied. "My place is nearby, and I'm still not strong, so I need to rely on schemes to defeat certain individuals. In reality, I planned to use it against some fire-type zombie, but I didn't expect…"
He shook his head.
He didn't need to continue; they understood.
It was clear he didn't expect he'd end up using it on a mutant eagle.