Chapter 1

"Beep—Equivalent recycling system activated."

As that emotionless, mechanical voice exploded in my mind, I was holding a barcode scanner, checking the last two rows of shelves at the "Red Lion" supermarket.

Before I could figure out if it was a hallucination or a miracle, the side window behind me shattered with a loud crash.

A foul-smelling gust of wind, carrying shards of glass, lashed down on us.

A dark figure dressed in blue overalls squeezed in through the window like a giant spider.

It's a zombie.

Half of its face was completely rotten, and unknown human tissue hung from its dark red gums. It made a sickening hissing sound from its throat and lunged directly at my neck.

My adrenaline surged instantly, and my body acted before my brain could process it. Instinctively, I raised the barcode scanner in my hand and pointed it at its face.

"drop!"

A red laser beam struck the zombie's slime-covered forehead precisely.

The system's cold voice once again projected a line of fluorescent blue text onto my retina:

[Target: Level 1 mutated infected individual. Estimated recovery value: Equivalent to half a bottle of mineral water.]

I suddenly widened my eyes.

Half a bottle of mineral water?! This monster's life can actually be converted into cash?!

The zombie's claws had already brushed against my nose, and the stench of decay assaulted my senses. I rolled away awkwardly, my back slamming heavily against the shelf, and several cans of soybeans hit my shoulder, making me gasp in pain.

Being trapped here for five whole days by the apocalypse, extreme hunger and fear had long since pushed my nerves to the breaking point.

As I watched the zombies rushing towards me again, an utterly absurd thought suddenly popped into my head.

"I'll take back your corpse!" I stared intently at its cloudy eyes, my voice hoarse and cracked with extreme tension. "I'll give you a bag of cookies!"

The air seemed to freeze in that instant.

The zombie's frenzied movements actually stopped abruptly.

It was less than ten centimeters from my throat, its sharp nails hovering in mid-air, and a strange pause flashed in its gray-white eyes, like an old computer that had frozen.

Is there a chance?!

My heart pounded as I stared intently at the empty space before me, waiting for the system to display a "transaction successful" message.

One second. Two seconds.

Nothing happened. The system was as silent as a dead man.

The eerie pause in the zombie's eyes was instantly devoured by a ferocious bloodlust. It opened its blood-red maw and bit down hard on my shoulder!

"Fuck your illusions!"

I roared, adrenaline instantly overwhelming my fear. I threw away the useless barcode scanner and pulled out the claw hammer tucked into my back.

The metal hammerhead, accompanied by a tearing sound as it ripped through the air, slammed down hard on his temple.

A sickeningly crisp "crack" sound.

Half of the zombie's head shriveled up like a ripe watermelon, and thick, dark red liquid splattered all over my head and face.

It convulsed and fell to the ground, becoming completely still.

I gasped for breath, my lungs throbbing like bellows. Ignoring the blood and grime on my face, I grabbed its ankle, gritted my teeth, and threw the heavy corpse back out the broken window.

Immediately afterwards, I frantically pushed over two heavy horizontal freezers next to me, and then knocked down two rows of shelves, completely blocking the gap.

After doing all this, I collapsed onto the freezer, my back soaked with cold sweat.

No system, no transactions. Five days of isolation and helplessness finally drove me to the brink of schizophrenia.

I closed my eyes with a bitter smile, as despair, like the darkness in a supermarket, slowly swallowed me up.

Sunset, sunrise.

Hunger was like a rusty, dull saw, repeatedly tearing at the walls of my stomach.

I huddled deep inside the shelf like a mouse, surviving by licking the last drops of juice from the can lids. Every breath became heavy, and the boundaries of time blurred completely in the endless silence.

The strange noise occurred when the rusty-smelling morning mist drifted over the overhead vents for the third time.

"Sizzle—"

A piercing metallic scraping sound, like a steel needle stabbing into my eardrum.

I suddenly opened my bloodshot eyes.

The sound wasn't coming from the blocked side window, but from the front door!

Someone was dragging something heavy outside, making a creepy noise as it scraped across the asphalt.

I grabbed the hammer, which was stained with dried blood, and climbed up the reinforced shelf using both my hands and feet.

The cold metal sheet hurt my palms. I held my breath and brought my eyes close to the louvered vent high up.

The morning mist hadn't completely dissipated, but the moment I saw what was outside, I gasped, and my blood seemed to freeze instantly.

Not a survivor.

Nearly twenty dark figures stood densely packed on the street in front of the supermarket.

Instead of wandering aimlessly as usual or frantically attacking the roller shutter, they stood in a loose, crooked line.

They're in line!

A bunch of mindless zombies who only know how to kill are lining up in front of my supermarket!

The absurd scene nearly shut down my brain. And as my trembling gaze shifted to the front of the line, my hand holding the hammer suddenly went limp, and I almost fell off the shelf.

Standing at the very front was a man wearing tattered blue overalls.

Its right side of its skull was completely collapsed, and dried brain matter and black blood covered half of its face—it was the same zombie whose head I had smashed with a hammer and thrown out the window a few days ago!

It didn't die. Not only did it not die, it even returned with a group of its own kind.

Revenge? Massacre?

I bit my lip hard to keep myself from making a sound, my mind frantically calculating how long the roller shutter could hold out.

But what happened next completely shattered my entire understanding of the world.

The zombie in work clothes didn't lunge at the door. It slowly turned its mangled head, stretched out its only intact arm, and pulled it backward with all its might.

The "heavy object" it was dragging in its hand stumbled and crashed in front of the roller shutter door.

That was a living person.

A middle-aged woman. Her hands and feet were tightly bound with rough electrical cables, a wad of dirty rag was stuffed in her mouth, and her eyes were filled with despair and extreme fear on the verge of collapse. She writhed wildly on the ground like a fish out of water, emitting mournful moans.

The zombie in work clothes pinned the woman's shoulder to the ground with its slime-covered foot.

Then, it slowly raised its half-flattened head, and its only remaining gray-white eyeball stared precisely at the vent where I was.

It knows I'm watching it.

The zombie's rotting jaw opened and closed, emitting a hissing sound from its throat, like a broken bellows being pulled.

Blood and froth from its torn vocal cords dripped from the corner of its mouth as it struggled to utter a few indistinct human syllables, one by one:

"Change……"

I felt as if I had been struck by lightning, and I gripped the edge of the shelf tightly.

"Change...change...things!"

Deep within my mind, that cold, mechanical voice, silent for three days, suddenly boomed again without warning:

"Beep—High-value transaction target detected. Equivalent recovery system, requesting connection."