Defense

When they took up their defensive positions, Kirk stood beside Mori. Mori glanced at the dejected newbies and smiled. "Wouldn't have guessed it. You're the smartest one of these dumbass rookies."

Kirk smiled too. "The difference is, I have a good teacher. They don't."

Mori's face darkened. "I don't take students. Don't think you can sweet-talk me into it..."

"You saved my life, and you've taught me a lot," Kirk said earnestly. "I think you're a good teacher. I wouldn't have survived this long without you."

Mori stopped responding and bent over to check his weapons. In the distance, three large groups of walkers had merged into one enormous, dark mass, closing in on the camp.

"Save your bullets. I want you to fight those bastards with your bare hands," Mori suddenly said.

"Boss, are you joking?" Kirk was stunned.

"I want you to listen to what I'm about to say. I'll only say it once. It'll decide whether you live or die, whether you grow stronger or turn into something rotten. Do you understand?"

Mori spoke slowly, his voice hoarse.

Seeing how serious Mori was, Kirk's expression turned solemn too.

"Never run away! When something comes at you, face it—don't turn your back on it! Face it, and you might survive. That bastard God won't let you die easily. He wants to keep torturing you. Turn your back, and you'll only die faster and worse!" Mori spat out every word. The bitterness and conviction in his voice made Kirk wonder what the man had gone through to become so cynical.

"Believe me, you can't outrun fate. If you don't want to be eaten until there's nothing left but scraps of bone, you have to be faster, fiercer, and tougher than them. Understand?"

Come on, it's not the Olympics. We don't need to be faster, stronger, and higher. Killing walkers with a gun still counts, doesn't it? Kirk grumbled to himself. Mori watched him closely and continued, dead serious. "Use your hands to kill them! That's the only advice I can give you! Face them! Hack their heads apart with a knife! Crush their hearts with your bare hands! Get blood all over that pretty little face of yours! Got it?"

Kirk was shaken. But he knew that once Mori made up his mind, it was hard to change it. So he silently took out his dagger.

Mori tossed a rusty iron rod in front of Kirk and stared into his eyes. "Fight like a man! Stick that iron rod into those bastards' brains!"

Kirk picked up the rod to show he was ready.

The fighting started soon afterward.

This was probably the biggest battle the rookies had faced since arriving in this scenario. It was Kirk's first time fighting walkers hand-to-hand. His Strength had reached 7 points, and he stood above them on the roof of a large bus reinforced with steel plates, viciously stabbing a metal pipe into a walker's skull. He twisted it hard, turning its brains into mush, then pulled it out and moved on to the next unlucky bastard.

He kept repeating the motion. At first, he'd been scared to get too close to the walkers, but he soon realized that all they could do was jump up onto the roof. His courage grew, and he got caught up in the killing. Mori used the blade on his right hand to split open one walker's skull after another, one slash per kill. Watching Mori crack open skulls, Kirk thought the man looked just like the fruit seller outside the school gate, driving a horse-drawn cart, holding a cleaver in his left hand and a watermelon in his right, and shouting, "Sweet and sandy! If it's not sweet, you don't pay!" When he got excited, he'd even yell at Kirk.

"Idiot! Watch what you're doing! Put some muscle into it! Don't waste your movements or your strength! Conserve your energy!"

"Dumbass! Get your damn ass down and closer to them! Make every hit count!"

Kirk cursed Mori inwardly, but under his tyrannical watch, he followed every instruction to the letter, fighting and killing until the walkers piled up in front of the bus. The walkers began climbing onto the roof.

"Watch closely. This is how a real man fights! Be nice to them, haha!" Mori split open one walker's skull with a slash, kicked another off the roof, then turned and shot a third in the head. His movements flowed like a dance. You'd never have guessed that a 200-jin bruiser could be so nimble.

Kirk was fired up too. With a furious roar, he began fighting the walkers face-to-face. They were less agile, which was their fatal weakness. Following Mori's instructions, Kirk baited them into lunging at him, then dodged aside. Their joints had hardened, making their movements clumsy. They couldn't control their momentum, and their overextended lunges left them briefly frozen in place. That was when Kirk had to drive his dagger or metal pipe into their heads and pull it back out. Once they fell to the ground, they were done.

But the walkers kept coming, and there was less and less room on the bus roof. When he dodged, he couldn't always avoid entering another walker's reach. Kirk took several hard hits. His thigh was clawed open, and blood ran down his leg. The walkers went wild at the smell of blood. Kirk panicked too, but he gritted his teeth and kept fighting.

He didn't want to be a coward. He didn't want to die pointlessly in this damn horde!

If you want me dead, you die first!

"Shit! Save your strength for your hands and feet! Quit howling! Shut up!" Mori shouted.

Kirk had been fighting for half an hour and was exhausted. Contractors had bodies that were converted into stats, but they still had a hidden Fatigue value related to Stamina. Kirk had only lasted this long thanks to the reward from his hidden mission: his Stamina had reached 7 points, even higher than that of an ordinary strong man.

Now the walkers were multiplying, and every defensive position was under pressure. Rick told the rookies to conserve their bullets and fight hand-to-hand as much as possible. Even so, the rookies were reluctant to face the walkers up close. Blondie and the others had already emptied their guns. They'd managed to kill some walkers, but once they ran out of bullets, their guns fell silent. Did they really have to fight hand-to-hand like that dumbass Kirk? Of course they weren't going to do something so stupid. They didn't dare, and just stood around doing nothing.

Kirk suddenly realized that killing walkers in hand-to-hand combat earned him 3 Survival Points, not 2 like killing them with guns. After he checked, the space gave him an answer: "Survival Point rewards are directly related to the difficulty of killing an enemy. Hand-to-hand combat is the most difficult and one of the riskiest ways to kill, so it receives a higher rating from the space and yields greater rewards."

That only strengthened his resolve to stick with Mori and specialize in close combat.

An hour passed. Everyone, including the Plot Characters, was exhausted. Then the rookies let out a series of shocked cries!

The terrifying Riot Police Walkers had entered the battle, staggering toward the barricade of cars.

"Open fire!" Rick stopped holding back. If they kept doing so, it might be too late.

Dozens of bullets struck the Riot Police Walkers' helmets. Sparks flew, but they kept staggering forward.

"Their armor is too tough! We can't hit the vital part of their heads!" Shane shouted.

"We'll have to wait until they get close and take them down in hand-to-hand combat. They're still carrying guns and ammunition," said Andalusia, the blonde gunwoman.

So everyone concentrated their fire on the walkers around the Riot Police Walkers, leaving the Riot Police Walkers to climb onto the bus roofs.

Then the brutal close-quarters fighting began.

Mori casually flipped open a Riot Police Walker's visor and plunged his knife into the hollow, milky-white eyes beneath. Then he lowered the visor again.

"Good boy. Daddy's putting your visor back on. You'd better get to school!"

Then he kicked it off the roof.

After that, he picked up a helmet that another walker had dropped, interested in trying it on. But the foul stench nearly made him vomit. Cursing, he slammed the helmet onto the walker's head.

Kirk followed his example, smashing a large brick against a police officer's helmet and stunning him. Then he plunged his sharp dagger into the officer's skull through the gap beneath the chin!

The Riot Police Walker collapsed. Kirk discovered that it was worth a lot: a System Prompt told him he'd earned 10 Survival Points.

Seeing how valuable they were, Kirk's eyes lit up. He started targeting the Riot Police Walkers, smashing them with a brick before finishing them off with his dagger. How often did you get to beat up Riot Police Walkers like this? It felt great.

Fortunately, the Riot Police Walkers didn't know how to use the pistols and other weapons they were carrying. Otherwise, Kirk would've been killed too.

As he fought, Kirk kicked a Riot Police Walker off the roof in a rather awkward way, and saw a Light Blue key fall to the ground. He'd killed plenty of walkers in the rookie trial, but keys had dropped very rarely, and equipment had been scarce too. Equipment must've been quite valuable in the space. This time, the Light Blue key had probably dropped because he'd killed a special mutant Riot Police Walker with exceptionally high defense. He used the key. Usually, rewards like Survival Points were announced directly, followed by golden numbers. This time, a Light Blue, swirling vortex appeared in front of him. That probably meant equipment was inside! Following the prompt, Kirk put his hand in. It felt warm and slick, like a baby in the amniotic fluid of its mother's womb, surrounded by a hazy, dreamlike sensation. Suddenly, he grabbed hold of something and pulled it out. It was indeed a piece of equipment!

[Bulletproof Vest for Riot Police]

[Type]: [Bulletproof Vest/Half-Body Armor]

[Grade]: [Light Blue]

[Slot]: Upper Body

[Specifications]: Weight: 2,600 grams.

[Material]: Special bulletproof steel

[Effect]: Reduces physical damage by 10%, reduces damage from bullets and other firearms by 50%, and grants immunity to fatal damage to the protected area.

Talk about perfect timing. Kirk put it on without hesitation!

The other bus roofs were in serious trouble, especially where the rookies were gathered. Everyone was afraid to fight the police officers face-to-face. The things didn't even fear bullets. The rookies were in a panic, too scared to move, and it often took several people to gang up on one walker.

Kirk spotted the Japanese boy, Ranmaru, wielding an Ōdachi in a flash of cold light, slicing through walkers' necks. Heads rolled everywhere.

That Japanese sissy sure knows what he's doing. His moves are precise, and he's got his footwork down. Looks like he's trained in swordsmanship, Kirk thought.

Suddenly, a walker tumbled off the roof, causing a commotion below. Everyone who could fight was on the defensive line, leaving only the elderly, the weak, women, and children below. Kirk jumped down and stabbed the walker in the head, sending it to the afterlife. Then another walker fell, landing squarely on Kirk's back. He could feel its rotting, foul-smelling drool drip onto his neck.

"Shit! Get off me! I don't want to be in Brokeback Mountain!" Kirk shouted, twisting and flailing. But the walker was too fast. It had already bitten him, tearing a huge chunk of flesh from his left shoulder, and was about to swallow it.

"Ah!" Kirk was in so much pain he nearly passed out.

Then came a bang. The walker's head exploded, and Kirk collapsed to the ground.

In a daze, Kirk heard the space's cold voice:

Contractor No. 4444, you have been attacked by a walker, taking 34 points of bite damage.

The walker's attack has inflicted [Bleeding], dealing 5 points of damage per second for 5 seconds.

The walker's attack has inflicted [Torn]. Your left arm is severely injured and has been crippled.

Your Strength has been checked. This attack does not inflict crushing damage.

You have suffered a physical attack from a walker. You must undergo an infection check.

Your Stamina is 7 points, and your Willpower is 2 points. Infection check in progress...

Infection check passed. You have contracted an unknown walker virus...

Due to the protection of the laws of the space, the walker virus you have contracted will not manifest for 7 days.