Chapter 9: Clearing the Floor
Even if people managed to gather the courage to fight zombies, the chances of being killed in return were still extremely high.
After all, courage and combat ability were never closely connected in the first place.
Even if ordinary people without professional training mentally prepared themselves beforehand, once they truly faced a zombie head on, how many could actually remain calm and fearless?
After killing the two zombies, Joo Joowon did not stay there.
Instead, he immediately returned home to recover his stamina.
Only after confirming that his condition had returned to its peak would he head back downstairs to continue hunting zombies.
No one could blame Joo Joowon for being overly cautious.
The game had started at midnight, so the hours between midnight and morning had naturally been filled with chaos and panic.
At that time, even if the residents heard noises outside, they would not dare step out to investigate.
But now, an entire night and morning had already passed since the apocalypse descended.
Most people had probably regained their composure by now.
There were only so many places where zombies could be killed easily.
Once those opportunities were gone, people would have no choice but to take greater risks to level up.
One step ahead meant every step ahead afterward.
If people did not seize the chance to kill zombies at the beginning, then once zombie levels increased later on, how would they even continue leveling?
Moreover, the zombies had all transformed from the living creatures that originally existed on Gaia.
Their numbers were limited.
If one person killed more, then another person would naturally have fewer left to kill.
Strictly speaking, everyone was in competition with one another unless zombies could respawn endlessly like ordinary monsters in games.
In Joo Joowon’s opinion, that possibility existed, but it was probably unlikely.
Up until now, the game had not released any quests, inventory storage, warehouses, or maps.
There was only a simple personal status panel.
However, when the apocalypse game descended, it had already launched directly as a full public release version.
There was no way the developers had overlooked such basic functions, yet those features still did not exist or perhaps they simply did not exist yet.
But regardless of whether those systems would appear in the future, Joo Joowon could already tell that the game’s difficulty clearly belonged to the type of games designed purely to torment players.
In the hell difficulty game like this, if he failed to establish an advantage during the early stages, then there would simply be no future for him at all.
Joo Joowon’s zombie clearing route spread outward from the center toward both sides.
His killing speed was not particularly fast.
Mainly because after splitting open several zombie skulls, the fire axe had already become somewhat dull.
Fortunately, every floor had its own fire axe, so for now he did not need to worry about replacing his weapon.
During the process of hunting zombies, Joo Joowon also conducted several experiments.
After there were no more noises outside, zombies would usually calm down after about ten minutes.
Zombies also did not rely on smell to hunt humans.
Instead, they mainly depended on hearing and vision, with hearing making up the overwhelming majority.
The reason he was so certain about this was because he discovered a zombie inside one apartment that had been restrained with handcuffs.
Well... it was not because the owner could not bear to kill it.
Rather, the couple simply had rather adventurous bedroom tastes and the person had already been restrained before the apocalypse game descended.
Unfortunately, the apocalypse game happened to arrive while they were in the middle of being intimate, so even though the zombie had been trapped, neither of them managed to survive.
At roughly twenty meters away, the zombie vision seemed to stop functioning.
Joo Joowon had tested this himself by throwing an object to the opposite side and the zombie had immediately turned its head to follow the sound instead.
Inside that apartment, he obtained two bundles of hemp rope and a rope binding guidebook.
As for the scattered whips, electric stun devices, and similar items, Joo Joowon did not take any of them.
After all, they were merely bedroom toys with almost no offensive capability, so taking them would be useless.
An entire afternoon passed as Joo Joowon cleared out all the apartments on the left side.
His efficiency was not particularly high, but he was already quite satisfied with the results.
After all, swinging an axe to chop zombies was exhausting physical labor.
In total, he gained 6 points of experience, one copper coin, and one pair of Beginner Running Shoes.
One of the apartments seemed to have no one inside at all. Throughout the entire afternoon, not a single sound came from behind the door.
Whether it was just his imagination or not, Joo Joowon felt that the zombies during the daytime seemed slightly weaker than the ones at night.
However, the difference was limited, probably only the difference between one hundred percent and ninety percent strength.
Even so, he decided that in the future, he would try to hunt zombies during the daytime whenever possible.
Killing zombies was exhausting work, so even though he only lacked one point of experience to level up, Joo Joowon did not continue pressing forward.
Instead, he directly returned home to eat dinner while also checking over his gains.
The newly obtained equipment gave him one additional point of Agility.
Logically speaking, an Agility stat of 8 already exceeded the normal human average by 3 points, yet he did not feel any major improvement in his movement speed.
After seriously thinking about it for a while, Joo Joowon concluded that Agility probably did not increase raw running speed. Or rather, it did not improve literal movement speed, but instead enhanced neural reaction speed.
In other words, if he wanted to run faster, then Strength and Physique also needed to improve alongside it.
Only then would his actual speed increase.
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