At the first sign of dawn, Gray was awakened. As he opened his eyes, he noticed the unfamiliar ceiling above him, and he quickly got out of bed.
After taking a moment to look around and not seeing anything alarming, he finally realized, "Right, I guess this is real and not just some dream."
Grabbing the spear from the nightstand, he made his way outside, ensuring that no zombies had entered the house. After five minutes of checking both doors and all the windows, he finally felt relieved.
'Guess today I will be exploring around the farm. When I came in yesterday, I saw a barn at the back, maybe even dig a grave for the owners if I find a shovel, that's the least I can do since I'll be using their house for a while.'
"First things first, let's see how much gold I got!"
Gold: 238
"Holy shit, I'm rich!" Without wasting much time, Gray went to the upgrades tab and bought the next upgrade.
[New Upgrade]
(100 Gold) 15 Gold/Hour ✔
[New Hourly Rate]
33 Gold/Hour
With 138 gold remaining, Gray felt a twinge of hunger. However, the sight of the rotting bodies around him made eating unappealing. He decided to go outside to search for tools that might come in handy.
After removing the chair from the back door, Gray stepped outside, greeted by the early morning sun. He made his way toward the barn, staying vigilant for anything dead or alive.
After thoroughly inspecting the area, he discovered a horse in its stable. "Hey there, buddy! You're the first living creature I've seen since I arrived. Let me tell you, it's a relief! I was starting to talk to myself a lot..." he said with a sigh. Grabbing a bucket, he filled the water trough for the horse while continuing to look around.
Inside the barn, he found some hay, which he fed to the horse. Fortunately, he also came across a shovel and a pickaxe. With his new tools in hand, he headed to the back of the house and began digging.
After two hours of hard work filled with cursing and breaks, he finally managed to dig a hole three feet deep, large enough for two bodies. Returning to the house, he carefully rolled the bodies in bed sheets and dragged them outside.
"Hopefully, you two will meet the same people I did in the afterlife and explore another part of the universe," he said, offering his final words. He then began filling the hole. Once finished, he stepped back inside and opened all the windows to air out the rotting smell.
Finding bleach under the sink, he fetched more water from the well and started cleaning up the blood, discarding every piece of furniture that had been soaked in it.
Finally, after making the place somewhat clean, he relaxed and sat down at the table. He opened the system's HUD and noted that he had just over 200 gold.
[Status Info]
Name: Gray Ashwood
Age: 23
Race: Human
Gold: 237
Gold per Hour: 33
Gold Multiplier: 1.00x
[Upgrade Info]
(free) 1 Gold/Hour ✔
(10 Gold) 2 Gold/Hour ✔
(30 Gold) 5 Gold/Hour ✔
(50 Gold) 10 Gold/Hour ✔
(100 Gold) 15 Gold/Hour ✔
(300 Gold) 30 Gold/Hour
(500 Gold) 60 Gold/Hour
(1000 Gold) 120 Gold/Hour
(3000 Gold) 240 Gold/Hour
"Just two more hours until the next upgrade. It looks like the gold doubles with each upgrade. I'll leave the multipliers for now, but once I start earning three digits or more, they could really make a difference. I suppose breakfast will be just water and bread again... sigh."
After buying his breakfast and resting, Gray pulled the shotgun out of his inventory to examine it.
"So, if I pull this bottom part, it opens up, and I can see the shells. Okay, it has four shells left. I need to search the house to see if there are more shells around."
After searching through the closet and nightstands, Gray found a box containing ten shells. He placed them on the table and continued to familiarize himself with the new firearm. Eventually, he figured out how to reload it and felt ready to fire.
"This will be a last-resort option. I don't want to fire a shotgun and risk getting swarmed by zombies, or worse, who knows what else might be out there? For now, I plan to take it slow and hopefully figure out what kind of world I've landed in."
After putting the shotgun away, Gray closed all the windows and drew the curtains, just in case anything came by. He sat on the couch, opened the HUD, and bought the next upgrade since two hours had already passed.
[New Upgrade]
(300 Gold) 30 Gold/Hour ✔
[New Hourly Rate]
63 Gold/Hour
"And I still have one gold left, nice."
With nothing else to occupy his time, Gray began to explore the house more thoroughly. He was searching for essential items like tools, canned goods, and clothes that might fit him. Unfortunately, he came up empty-handed in the canned goods department, but he got lucky with the tools, finding a hammer, a wire cutter, and some screwdrivers.
'Not the best, but it's better than nothing, I guess,' he thought to himself.
As he continued his search, he discovered a notebook and a pen. He started jotting down some useful notes in case he forgot them later: "If I want to stay in this house for a while, I'll need to board up the windows or at least cover them with blackout curtains or sheets. I have two doors, front and back. The only problem is that if the house gets surrounded, I'll be pretty much trapped here. Decisions, decisions…"
After making his notes, he opened the system's shop to look for survival-focused skills.
{Basic Bushcraft Skill} (500 Gold)
{Basic Marksmanship} (500 Gold)
{Basic First Aid Skill} (500 Gold)
"So all basic skills cost the same, that's good to know. What about the more advanced ones?"
{Basic Marksmanship} (500 Gold)
{Intermediate Marksmanship} (2000 Gold)
{Advanced Marksmanship} (10000 Gold)
{Deadshot's Marksmanship} (15M Gold)
"15 million gold for pretty much an aimbot seems like a reasonable price, not gonna lie," Gray muttered while salivating at the thought of mowing down zombies left and right without missing a shot.
'But to get to that point I gotta play it slow for now, once I start making millions I can do whatever I want...'
Looking out the window, Gray's face drained of color. He got off the couch, grabbed the shotgun from the table, and took a better look outside.
In the distance, he spotted a lone figure stumbling from the highway onto the dirt road leading to the farmhouse. Realizing it was just one zombie, Gray found a surge of courage and stepped outside through the back door, picking up a pickaxe. He thought to himself, "I need to get some experience killing them."
As he approached, Gray's heart raced so fast that he feared the zombie might hear it. When he reached the three-yard mark, the zombie caught his scent, turned around, and growled at him.
Taking a deep breath, Gray prepared himself. He swung the pickaxe overhead with both hands, but misjudged the timing and ended up striking the zombie's nose, which made it stumble backward as it struggled to regain its balance. Stepping into a better stance, Gray finally delivered the killing blow.
"Phew... Okay, that could have been bad, but... eugh." Gray hunched over and started throwing up. "And here I was thinking I had gotten used to this... God, the smell is so bad. I guess there goes my lunch."
After dragging the body by the ankles and putting it to the side of the road, Gray went back inside the house, keeping an eye out in case more zombies popped up. After fifteen anxious minutes of not seeing anything, he finally exhaled and sat down.
Grabbing his notebook, he began to write.
"Zombies can smell the living. I yelled at the first one, so they rely on hearing, vision, and smell so far. Hopefully, that's as far as their abilities go. I have yet to encounter a different kind of zombie, so that's good news."
He paused for a moment, then added, "To be honest, if I started hearing some clicking noises or saw running zombies, I would have done a Kurt Cobain, too. But thankfully, I've got a golden finger."
Turning the page of his notebook, he continued to write.
[Melee/Ranged/Fantasy Weapons/Powers For The Future]
1. Melee (Bastard Sword, Katana, Baseball Bat, Crowbar, Fire Axe, Spear, War Hammer)
2. Guns (Rifle, Sniper, Shotgun, Pistol, SMG)
3. Protection Gear (Riot, Armor)
4. Vehicles (RV, Military)
5. Fantasy Stuff (Magic, Jumper teleportation, World Hopping)
6. Video Game Items (Doom, Terraria, Minecraft, Cyberpunk 2077, Warhammer 40k, Helldivers 2)
7. Novels Powers/Bloodlines (Saiyan, Kryptonian, Dimensional Farm)
8. Anime Powers (Quirks, Devil Fruits, Stands, Nen, Creation of All Things Jutsu, Arc Of Embodiment Magic, Ban's Immortality?)
'My golden finger seems to be a reality warper on a timer. If I can survive long enough, I'll become overpowered in no time. Fortunately, I've landed in what appears to be a low-risk zombie apocalypse world. It would have been nice to have a way to sell items, but unfortunately, I couldn't find one. Oh well'
With nothing else to do, Gray looked up all the prices of the things he had noted down, writing them alongside them.
"I'll start with what I think will be the cheapest and go from there. A Kamehameha is priced at 100 million. I suspect some of these items will be worth billions, if not trillions..."
'I'll start with the melee options.'
{Bastard Sword} (500 Gold)
{Katana} (700 Gold)
{Baseball Bat} (80 Gold)
{Crowbar} (100 Gold)
{Fire Axe} (200 Gold)
{Spear} (180 Gold)
{War Hammer} (1000 Gold)
"The prices are somewhat expected... Let's keep going."
{Glock-19} (1200 Gold)
{MP5} (2200 Gold)
{M16} (3000 Gold)
{AK47} (5000 Gold)
{M249} (10000 Gold)
{Barret M82} (15000 Gold)
{Mini Gun} (30000 Gold)
"I will probably buy some of these down the line, getting some marksmanship skills from the shop wouldn't hurt either, since I've never shot a gun before."
{Full Riot Gear} (3000 Gold)
{Medieval Chestplate} (800 Gold)
{Line-X/Carbon Fiber Chest plate} (1000 Gold)
"I remember watching a YouTube video about a guy making a Batman suit, and the one with line-X and carbon fiber was enough to stop a baseball bat, but not bullets. Having the chestplate and maybe something for the arms could be some good defense against bites."
{Z1000} (8000 Gold)
{Honda Civic} {12000 Gold)
{F-150} (18000 Gold)
{RV} (22000 Gold)
{Earthroamer LTi} (25000 Gold)
{Earthroamer SX} (30000 Gold)
{Humvee} (35000 Gold)
{APC} (50000 Gold)
'Melee weapons range from 100 to 15k gold, firearms, on the other hand, go from 1k to 30k, not including ammo. Protection gear is not that expensive, ranging from 500 to 3k gold, with the vehicles' side motorcycles being the cheapest and military ones the most expensive. RVs are in the middle of the price range, with the luxury options being in the high end.'
[Magic]
{Basic Magic} (5M Gold)
{Intermediate Magic} (50M Gold)
{Advanced Magic} (500M Gold)
{Merlin Magic (7 Deadly Sins)} (350B Gold)
[Teleportation]
{Short Range Teleport (20FT)} (20M Gold)
{Mid Range Teleport (200FT)} (200M Gold)
{Long Range Teleport (2 Mile)} (1B Gold)
{Jumper-style Teleportation} (20B Gold)
"Huh, I can't find any world-hopping ability in the shop..."
[DOOM]
{Super Shotgun} (80,000 Gold)
{UAC EMG Sidearm} (150,000 Gold)
{BFG9000} (20M Gold)
{Praetor Suit} (500M Gold)
{Doom Slayer Physiology} (700B Gold)
"Gawd damn! 700 billion? I guess if I'm ever in a demon apocalypse, I could get that. Would it come with the soundtrack too?"
After searching for about half of the items on his list, Gray got up, closed the notebook, and checked the windows for any signs of the undead. Seeing everything was clear, he stepped outside through the back door and into the barn.
'When I checked it earlier, I found a few 2x4s lying around,' he thought. He grabbed about 10 pieces of wood, each about 3 feet long, and set them near the house's entrance. When he went back to look for nails, he couldn't find any in the barn or the house, so he decided to buy a box for 8 Gold.
Using the wood, he began to barricade the windows, starting with the two in the bedroom. He used two pieces per window for added protection. Next, he moved to the two windows in the living room and secured them in the same manner. After going back to the barn for six more pieces, he completed all the windows in about an hour. He opted not to barricade the doors to allow for a better escape route, just in case.
Finally, as he looked inside the house, he gathered all the sheets, blankets, and curtains he could find and began nailing them to the windows, completely blocking out all the light coming from outside.
After finding a few magazines and some tape, he secured the doors in the same way. Once he was finished, the house shifted from being well-lit to almost completely dark. Nodding to himself, he wedged chairs against both doors and walked into the bedroom.
'I think I deserve a nap. I made the house a bit safer, dug a grave for the old corpses, and cleaned up a bit...' With that thought, Gray closed his eyes and soon drifted off to sleep.