Chapter 25: The Cat Scout
By now, Byeol no longer screamed after suddenly being thrown outside.
Cats were experienced hunters after all.
After several incidents, it had already realized that zombies were attracted toward creatures making loud noises.
Meanwhile, cats themselves were naturally silent hunters of the night.
For them, approaching prey quietly was one of the easiest things imaginable.
However, Byeol had absolutely no desire to hunt.
The moment it was tossed outside, it immediately dashed back at lightning speed before crashing headfirst into Joo Joowon’s raised leg.
Byeol: "..."
Now that both his hardware and software had improved, Joo Joowon realized his speed truly had become much faster.
If this had been before, although he would still have been able to track Byeol’s movements with his eyes, actually intercepting the cat would have been extremely difficult.
Most of the time, before he could even touch a single strand of fur, Byeol would already have dodged away.
Compared to cats, creatures famous for their agility and fast reflexes, humans naturally appeared far clumsier.
For most people, unless they relied on tools, catching a running cat barehanded was extremely difficult.
The six points of Strength and seven points of Agility brought results that genuinely surprised Joo Joowon.
He immediately scooped up the Byeol that had crashed into his leg and slowly headed downstairs while raising the arm shield.
"Go! Pikameow!"
Byeol was truly speechless toward Joo Joowon’s shameless behavior.
As a cat with an extremely cautious personality, it normally did not even play with cat teaser wands or laser pointers.
It especially hated games where people tossed it around and made its body lose control.
The outside environment now was even worse than when it had once been a stray cat.
The moment it stepped outside, it could smell thick blood and disgusting rotting odors everywhere.
A cat’s sense of smell was eighty times stronger than a human’s.
Joo Joowon was still wearing a helmet, so he could barely smell anything.
But for Byeol, those scents were overwhelmingly obvious.
It flattened its ears and immediately rushed back at full speed.
Joo Joowon reacted quickly and grabbed it to inspect the situation.
Its tail was not puffed up.
Its eyes still carried anger.
It had not extended its claws either.
That meant there were no zombies currently present in the hallway.
Only after confirming that did Joo Joowon finally place the cat down and carefully move forward while holding the arm shield.
Byeol instinctively wanted to run back upstairs.
However, after remembering that the area near the apartment door upstairs also carried similarly obvious smells, it hesitated slightly.
The cat irritably flicked its tail, lowered its body, and crouched on the spot, waiting for Joo Joowon to finish hunting and come back to pick it up.
Joo Joowon still followed the same zombie clearing pattern as the previous floor.
He first targeted the apartment directly across from the elevator.
Because Byeol’s scouting this time had not created any major noise, the zombies trapped inside had not started roaring either.
As a result, Joo Joowon could not determine whether there were humans or zombies inside.
Therefore, he chose to knock on the door.
If zombies were inside, hearing noise would definitely make them rush over.
Although an accident had occurred while killing zombies yesterday, Joo Joowon still believed that the vast majority of zombies at this stage were probably mindless creatures.
The only unfortunate thing was the power outage.
Even during daytime, the hallways remained dimly lit because the building’s lighting and natural sunlight were both poor.
Whether he liked it or not, he could now only work hard during the daytime to farm monsters.
After knocking several times, no movement came from inside the apartment.
Joo Joowon immediately turned around and moved on to knock on another door.
Situations like this could only mean two possibilities.
Either nobody was inside at all, or someone was inside but deliberately staying silent out of caution.
When the trading market system went online yesterday, Joo Joowon had already noticed some disturbing situations from the player messages.
Certain players with so called "foresight" had already started forming groups to seize supplies.
Although they still feared the laws and morality of the old world and were only robbing resources instead of killing people for now, it was easy to imagine that as time passed, most people’s moral bottom lines would only continue sinking lower and lower.
Murder and robbery might eventually become completely ordinary occurrences.
And if killing humans also granted experience points, then the situation would become even worse.
Even without examples like that, anyone with even a little social experience would never casually open the door for strangers.
Before the apocalypse, even when ordering food delivery, Joo Joowon always asked the delivery person to leave it outside the door instead of opening it personally.
The residents in this building merely happened to live in the same place temporarily.
Even running into each other a few times inside the elevator could already be considered fate.
Naturally, nobody would respond to him for no reason.
This time, after he knocked on the door, an enthusiastic response immediately came from inside.
The door shook loudly from repeated impacts.
Seeing this, Joo Joowon immediately took out the unlocking tool stored in his bag and began a new round of hunting.
The increase in attributes and the existence of the arm shield greatly boosted his confidence.
He now even dared face zombies directly without relying on sneak attacks.
While holding the arm shield in front of himself, he practically fired point blank into the zombies’ faces.
Red and white fluids splattered across the shield, while a small amount landed on the helmet.
A quick wipe with tissue paper was enough to clear his vision again.
The motorcycle helmet was also one of the main reasons Joo Joowon dared engage in close combat.
Its defensive capability was excellent.
Before obtaining proper game equipment, this was absolutely a god tier item for killing monsters.
It allowed him to focus only on protecting his body while no longer fearing blood splattering toward his face during close range zombie kills.
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