Riverdale University Hospital.
The waiting area was crowded with patients and their families. Some sat quietly, keeping watch beside relatives hooked up to IV drips. Others had come alone, slumped in plastic chairs, half-asleep or staring blankly at the walls.
Coughs echoed constantly through the air, ragged and dry. The sound was infectious, carried from one row to another like the beat of a grim drum. Ice packs pressed against flushed foreheads, tissues stuffed into waste bins, bottles of saline dripping steadily from hooks.
The place reeked of sickness.
"Cough, cough, cough…"
A chorus of wheezing voices filled the corridor. Pale faces, drawn eyes, sweat shining on brows.
Some patients chatted anyway, trading complaints like currency.
"Why is this flu so bad this year? Half our building's sick!"
"Tell me about it. My whole block's infected—like a curse, I swear."
The older men grumbled while adjusting their drips, but soon their attention slid elsewhere. Their eyes tilted toward a figure sitting a few seats away.
Unlike the others, he wasn't pale, coughing, or shivering.
He wore a black peaked cap pulled low, his arms folded across his chest, eyes closed as though in meditation. He had no patient beside him, no drip, no fever. He looked perfectly healthy—out of place in a sea of the sick.
What's this kid doing here?
Is he trying to train his immune system or something?
College students these days… brains wired differently.
Muttering, the older patients shifted away. "Don't want to infect the young man," they told themselves, though the truth was simpler: his presence unsettled them.
That young man was Ethan White.
The Virus King.
---
Since awakening his SSS-level talent, Ethan could sense things others could not.
Even here, in this suffocating hospital ward, he felt the air thick with unseen currents. Invisible motes—viruses and bacteria—stirred like insects, drawn subtly toward him.
The hospital's IV treatment ward, filled with flu patients, was nothing less than a kingdom of viruses.
And yet…
Ethan frowned.
Notifications floated before his eyes, each cold and precise:
[Acquired Influenza Virus. Evolution Points +0.001.]
[Acquired Influenza Virus. Evolution Points +0.001.]
[Acquired Influenza Virus. Evolution Points +0.001.]
Again and again.
Tiny increments. Worthless crumbs.
The influenza virus spread easily, true, but its lethality was mild. The body usually shook it off with complications at worst. Of course it yielded almost nothing.
But still—he hadn't expected the gain to be so meager.
All morning he sat there, enduring the suspicious glances of nurses and relatives, drawing in virus after virus. And his reward? Not even a full Evolution Point. Barely a fraction—tenths strung together like scraps.
It wasn't enough to upgrade even once. Not even close.
Ethan exhaled slowly, irritation tightening his jaw. Every hour before the apocalypse erupted was priceless. Each increment of growth could decide survival. To waste a morning for this trickle… it was maddening.
But what choice did he have?
Hospitals were sterilized frequently. Viruses here were weakened, diluted. Only mild strains spread easily. Stronger samples were locked away in labs he couldn't touch.
Cancer? No use. Cancer wasn't viral—it was mutations of one's own genes. Bacteria? Most were neutralized before they reached him.
And so he sat, burning time, absorbing what little he could.
He even caught himself thinking about the sewers.
The plague rats.
In his past life, the sewers had been one of the earliest death zones. Mutated rats infected with ancient plagues, some even zombified, had swarmed the tunnels like a tide of gnawing death. They were terrifying… but valuable. Every plague infection carried weight.
Risky. But effective.
Ethan shook the thought aside for now, eyes flickering back to the faint stream of notifications. His Evolution Points ticked upward in slow decimals. Pathetic.
Then, a new prompt appeared:
[New infectious disease virus acquired. Evolution Point requirement for activating "Infectious Disease Evolution" has been reduced.]
Ethan's head jerked up.
"What…? It can work like that?"
His heart stirred. He had just been about to check his tree when a piercing shriek cut across the ward.
"AHHH! The lunatic is biting!"
Every head snapped toward the cry.
A figure in a hospital gown staggered out from a side room. His skin was a sickly, mottled gray. His fingernails had darkened to black claws. His eyes rolled wildly as he lunged, snapping his teeth at anyone near.
He moved fast. Too fast.
Not the sluggish stumble of film zombies, but a predator's sprint. Compared to the shuffling dead of movies, it was like pitting a hare against a tortoise.
Ethan's pupils shrank.
A zombie.
Already?
He recognized the man instantly. The patient he had taken blood from yesterday.
His gut twisted. Did I cause this? Did extracting that sample accelerate his transformation?
He stepped back with the crowd, blending in.
He could have struck. Even barehanded, killing a fresh zombie was trivial now. A sharp blow to the neck, and it would drop.
But he didn't move.
Why should he?
Stepping out now would only expose himself. If authorities detained him—even for a few days—that would waste the most precious window of preparation. No risk was worth it.
He had survived decades in the apocalypse by being cautious. That instinct had not dulled.
So Ethan stayed silent.
But then—the System whispered again.
[Detected: Low-level evolutionary virus mutation failure (Zombie).]
[Since the Trial has not officially begun, all experience, currency, and item drops are increased tenfold.]
Ethan froze.
Then, his lips curved slowly into a thin smile.
His eyes gleamed like gold.
That staggering corpse was no longer a zombie.
It was a treasure chest. A bag of coins with claws and teeth. The perfect prize at the very beginning of his trial.
---