After completing this delivery, Maxwell finished his day by making two more deliveries to two different parts of the city.
He had managed to earn exactly 86 energy stones, and with that, he set off towards the centre of Sheffield to return to his home, his own building.
He managed to reach that familiar place in a short time.
As the sky began to darken, and more zombies began to appear out of nowhere, he rode his scooter through them as if nothing was amiss.
Still, he suddenly stopped. He stopped in the middle of the road, about two hundred metres from his own building. The reason was that he heard a sound.
He wasn't invulnerable now, so he might be doing the most foolish thing possible, but he was also aware that a crying sound was coming towards him.
The sound wasn't coming from very far away. It was perhaps twenty or thirty metres away.
Not only that, but there were other, contrasting sounds in the area.
Maxwell had dismounted his scooter and was slowly but surely moving towards the sounds.
The sounds were coming from between the streets. Maxwell had hidden himself right next to a half-ruined building and then glanced with the corner of his eye into the semi-dark alleyway.
He honestly didn't know what to say when he saw what he saw.
What he saw were several mutated dogs. He saw three dogs, covered in thorns on one side, with sharp claws, oozing a strange yellow and red liquid in all directions.
It was as if the dogs had knives on their backs.
"Fierce Hounds..." Maxwell muttered.
They were the type of mutated zombies that the main character encountered on page 112 of the first book. That was the exact time when the main character got his first "female lead".
They weren't strong; despite being dogs, they couldn't be described as agile. They smelled bad, and the fluid they left behind was made of a heavy, acidic substance, which was what made them dangerous.
Still, what caught Maxwell's attention was what these three Fierce Hounds were whimpering about.
"Whiiimper…."
Maxwell could clearly hear a heavy, sad whimpering sound.
When he narrowed his eyes and looked more closely at the dark area of the alleyway, his eyes widened.
What he saw was an injured puppy.
Maxwell immediately lunged forward.
Without even caring that his military boots began to melt when they touched the acid, he rushed past the three Fierce Hounds and threw himself at the injured puppy.
The injured puppy naturally struggled at first.
When the Fierce Hounds saw Maxwell, they calmed down, and the puppy also became a little calmer.
Maxwell immediately picked up the injured puppy. He had owned a dog when he was young, but unfortunately, he had to part with it when he left his family home and found himself barely able to look after himself.
That's why he had a bit of a soft spot for dogs.
The Fierce Hounds yawned in front of Maxwell as if they were little puppies. They had stopped releasing that strange acid.
"Could the people I touch be avoiding danger?" Maxwell said to himself, but that didn't make much sense.
Perhaps the Fierce Hounds no longer saw him as an enemy because they didn't see him as an enemy, and because Maxwell was holding the injured puppy close to his chest.
Frankly, that made more sense.
Maxwell slowly made his way back to where his scooter was parked in the middle of the road, his boots practically melted through, took another pair of boots out of his inventory and put them on.
He then zipped his jacket all the way up and tucked the puppy inside his leather jacket.
The injured puppy fell asleep as if it were in its mother's embrace, despite being so badly hurt and bleeding profusely.
After quickly returning to his building, he threw his scooter aside and entered one of the flats on the first floor of the apartment building, gently placing the injured puppy on a table.
The first thing he did then was to check whether the dog had been bitten.
"Thank goodness..." Maxwell said to himself; there were no bite marks.
Even so, the puppy had numerous cuts and even a broken leg.
"A Husky, how beautiful." Maxwell had said, and then learned that it was female.
Immediately afterwards, he had used his market skills to buy disinfectant and bandages, and then found a small stick to keep the female Husky's leg steady.
Frankly, he had never treated an animal before… or a human. It would have been absurd for a Delivery Driver to do such a thing.
That's why Maxwell was inwardly anxious; he didn't want to cause the husky any more harm.
Still, with the help of a cotton bud, he applied the disinfectant very carefully and slowly to the husky's cuts.
Although the little puppy trembled in pain, Maxwell truly believed there was nothing else he could do.
He then used a bandage and a stick he found to immobilise the puppy's injured leg, then covered the wounds with the bandage.
Immediately afterwards, Maxwell noticed that, strangely, although the young female husky's trembling hadn't stopped, it had slowed down.
The young man smiled instantly; for a few seconds, her dead eyes really did seem to come alive.
"I must be losing my mind...How am I supposed to look after a dog? Especially when I do not even know what to do fully," muttered the young man, looking at the puppy husky lying comfortably on the table. He just didn't know how much love and hope this little female husky would give him when the time comes.
After all, the connection to life could be brought to a person from the littlest things.
Shortly afterwards, he moved from where he was and, as gently as possible, lifted the puppy off the table, got into the lift of the apartment building and went to his own apartment, the most luxurious room on the top floor.
After a quick shopping trip, he bought a bed for the puppy, laid it on the bed covered with soft blankets, and finally managed to take a shower to wash away the fatigue of a long day.
After getting out of the shower, he hadn't even tried to eat anything. He had actually changed his clothes and lay his head on the pillow.
Within minutes, his eyes grew heavy and he managed to fall asleep.