Hans walked upstairs and tried his best to ignore the gruesome scenes on the lower floors. By the time he reached his room, Kenji was still behind him, and Hans had him stay near the door while he opened the refrigerator and started thinking about how much food they actually had left.
"Right, we already secured this building. Time to collect whatever food is still good in the refrigerators and those small cold-storage units."
His own supplies weren't plentiful, and he doubted the other apartments had much either. Ordering takeout had been the normal way of eating for plenty of people here, with cooking treated as something that took too much time.
Hans was different. He had gotten used to cooking for himself, though he still splurged on energy drinks more often than he wanted to admit.
He took out an egg, some rice, oil, garlic, an onion, and a few seasonings.
Kenji watched from the side while Hans made egg fried rice, the smell slowly filling the room.
If the zombies were actually hungry foodies searching for food, they would've banged on Hans's door a long time ago.
The stove went off soon after, and Hans finally sat down to eat. Spoon after spoon disappeared while his thoughts went somewhere else.
"There's no survivor left in this building, apparently..." Hans wasn't sure if he felt good or bad about that. "The lower floors were strange too."
He hadn't been here when the apocalypse started. Maybe people really did panic, and the residents of this apartment complex were simply unlucky.
He was already looking forward to clearing the remaining buildings, but moving farther into the city wasn't on his agenda yet.
His unit count was too low, and the city had a population in the millions. One loud firefight in the wrong place could bring thousands of infected down on him.
"Even if I had a platoon of Conscripts one-shotting zombies every day, clearing ten million of them would still take forever..."
Hans clicked his tongue.
"First clear these buildings. Then get a simple base going, find survivors, train more units, rank up... and eventually the War Factory. One thing at a time."
By the time he noticed, the container of egg fried rice was empty and his spoon had hit the bottom. Hans stared at it for a moment and remembered his mother. His family.
"I wonder how Mom and Dad are doing now..."
He leaned back in the wooden chair, ready to rest for a while, when someone knocked on the door.
"Who is it?"
"Commander, Conscript Adam, sir."
"Oh?" Hans straightened. "Come in."
Adam entered carrying two large sports bags, one in each hand. Both sagged under the weight of whatever was inside.
"Commander, we gathered most of the valuables we could find, but we are unsure whether everything can be used."
Hans looked at the bags. Either the people living in this building had been richer than he thought, or there was a lot more jewelry lying around than he expected.
"It's fine. Leave them on the couch. I'll check them."
Adam set both bags down, and something metallic clattered inside.
"Anything else?" Hans asked.
"Alexei and Selene spotted several people waving a red flag from one of the other apartment buildings."
"Hmm?"
So there really were survivors nearby.
Friendly ones, maybe.
Probably.
Hans wanted to meet them, but cautious was still better than stupid.
"Wave something back so they know we saw them, but don't go over there yet. I'm training a Scout and an Attack Dog later; I'll have them check first."
"Understood, Commander. Anything else?"
"Block most of the ground-floor windows so people can't just look straight in. Keep the main entrance usable, and work out a watch rotation with the others. Four on watch at a time should be enough for now. Have the rest collect whatever food is still good, and don't bring anything rotten or contaminated upstairs."
"Understood."
Adam left to handle it.
Hans washed his plate and utensils, put them away, and finally turned toward the two sports bags.
Now for the spoils of war.
Kenji watched him approach the bags with far too much interest and furrowed his brows, as though he had seen this exact expression somewhere before.
Hans opened the first bag.
Jewelry vanished piece by piece as the System accepted it for conversion. Most of what disappeared was silver and ornamental jewelry. Gold was much rarer, barely reaching four hundred grams in total, while diamonds were fewer still.
When the first bag stopped reacting, several pieces remained at the bottom.
"That's too bad. Fake?"
The System apparently knew the difference between something valuable and something merely made to look valuable.
That was useful. If people tried trading jewelry with him later, at least he wouldn't have to become an expert just to know whether someone was trying to scam him.
Hans pushed the first bag aside and pulled the second toward him.
"Continue."
A few seconds later, the last acceptable pieces disappeared.
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[ Automatic Gold Conversion complete. ]
[ Gold: 40 (+1,781) => 1,821 ]
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Hans stared at the number.
Now that looked like money.
"System, train one Attack Dog and one Scout."
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[ Attack Dog queued. ]
[ Cost: 600 Gold | Training Time: 3 minutes ]
[ Scout queued. ]
[ Cost: 1,000 Gold | Training Time: 5 minutes ]
[ Gold: 1,821 (-1,600) => 221 ]
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Three minutes later, another prompt appeared.
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[ Attack Dog training complete. ]
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A dog strutted into the room with its head held high. Thick golden-black fur covered most of its body, while a flexible black vest protected its torso without getting in the way of its movement.
It looked intimidating for all of two seconds.
The dog barked at Hans, sat down, and started wagging its tail with its tongue hanging out.
Hans crouched in front of it and reached for the tag hanging from its neck.
"Good boy. What's your name, huh?"
He tilted the tag toward himself.
"Rex? So your name is Rex. Good boy."
Rex barked and licked his face.
Hans laughed and rubbed both hands through the dog's fur. His family had kept a few smaller dogs back home, and for a while he forgot that the animal in front of him was technically one of his soldiers.
Rex seemed perfectly happy with the attention until his ears shifted toward the doorway and he stopped licking Hans's face.
A shadow moved through the corridor.
Hans hadn't heard a thing, but Rex had already noticed the man before Hans even realized someone was there.
A second later, the System pinged.
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[ Scout training complete. ]
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Hans stared toward the doorway. What a sneaky bastard.
He gave Rex another pat. "Sit over there."
Rex woofed and obeyed.
The man stepped into view.
"Scout Dmitri Volkov."
Dmitri wore fitted black fatigues with thin reinforcement around the elbows and knees. A large rucksack rested against his back, yet almost nothing on him made a sound when he moved.
Hans's eyes quickly caught the grenades.
Three of them, all clipped to his gear.
One was obviously a fragmentation grenade, but he couldn't identify the other two at a glance.
Okay. A thousand Gold was starting to make more sense.
"System, show Dmitri's information."
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[ Name: Dmitri Volkov ]
[ Unit: Scout ]
[ Tier: 0 ]
[ Star Promotion: 0-Star | 0 / 3,000 ]
[ Primary Weapon: MP7A1 Submachine Gun | 4.6 × 30mm | Integrally Suppressed | 30 rounds per magazine | 2 magazines | 150 m effective range | Ammunition refreshes every 24 hours ]
[ Secondary Weapon: Suppressed P226 Pistol | 9mm | 15 rounds per magazine | 2 magazines ]
[ Melee Weapon: Combat Knife | Black-coated 18 cm steel blade | Indestructible ]
[ Grenades: 1 fragmentation grenade | 1 smoke grenade | 1 flashbang grenade | Refresh every 48 hours ]
[ Special Tools: Lockpick kit | 1 kg breaching charge | Compact binocular-rangefinder | Fiber-optic inspection camera | Night-vision goggles ]
[ Weapon Attachment: Integrated optic and laser module | Toggleable IR beam ]
[ Personal Kit: Lightweight tactical pack | 1.5-day field ration | 1.5-liter polymer flask | Supplies refresh every 8 hours ]
[ Uniform: Stealth-weave fatigues with adaptive surface camouflage | 20% visibility reduction in bright areas | Up to 80% effectiveness in dark areas ]
[ Additional Equipment: Soft-tread composite soles | Bone-conduction communications | Night-vision monocle | Compact med-patch kit | 15 m climbing rope | Multi-tool wrist module ]
[ Driving Proficiency: Jeeps | Trucks | APCs | Light IFVs | Light tanks | Small boats | Simple helicopters | Simple planes ]
[ Restriction: Cannot operate complicated aircraft or heavy armor ]
[ Trait: Cat Reflexes | +20% reaction speed | +10% movement speed | +10% accuracy ]
[ Remarks: Gateway to special-forces units. Extremely well-rounded reconnaissance specialist with high accuracy and mobility. Capable of reconnaissance, assassination, and infiltration. Poor against large concentrations of enemies. ]
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