There was no chase, so after running for about 5 minutes, during which I covered a considerable distance, I finally made another attempt to find a safe place.

This time I went into an inconspicuous one-story hut. In the bedroom I found a sleeping granny, at least in appearance. After carefully checking her eyes, I realized that she was not a zombie and was actually sleeping. Ignoring her, I soon found a small basement. There was not much space here; on one side there was a huge pile of cans with all sorts of cucumbers, tomatoes, compotes, stewed meat and so on. On the other hand, mostly potatoes. Between all this goods I could have settled down, but I still didn’t dare lie down on the bare ground and brought myself some kind of mattress and blanket. It was obviously quite cold here, although I haven’t felt that cold yet.

Unfortunately, this cellar could not be locked from the inside, but the main thing for me is that there seemed to be no one in the vicinity, there was no time left. I wouldn't want to run into zombies right now.

It is interesting that all the drugs in the inventory, in addition to their names, were also marked like “Analgesic”, “Febrifuge”, etc. And on some, to my surprise, I saw the mark “No effects.” Is it a sham? In any case, I first took some pills in increased doses, after which I finally added 20 parameters to my endurance.

Status.

Name - Rick.

Race - Human (process of abolishing zombification)

Level - 20

Strength 30

Agility 27

Stamina 50

Durability 30

Small regeneration.

Inventory 1 cubic. meter.

Auction

One question per day (blocked)

Store (locked)

Mind (locked)

Unallocated characteristics - 0

Credits - 0

Having noted a small regeneration, I looked at the details.

Passive ability. Slow restoration of all functions and limbs of the body. Accompanied by increased metabolism.

Well, great. But I somehow didn’t think about food; I don’t feel hungry at all. Luckily, grandma was thrifty, so this wasn’t a problem.

I got goosebumps all over my body, despite the fact that I still didn’t really feel pain, I realized that something was clearly happening to my body. After lying motionless for a while, I finally began to feel the first signs of pain, primarily in my left calf, as well as in the places where my fingers were missing. But I still have difficulty feeling my body at all, it’s scary to think what will happen when sensitivity returns completely. I took out the strongest painkillers I knew, ate a couple more batches of pills and then gave an injection to each of the places where I already felt pain.

After thinking a little, I decided to eat anyway, even though I didn’t feel like it. I took off my helmet, washed my face as best I could and rinsed my mouth with alcohol and mineral water, since I only took a little water and had to use brine to wash my face. I had no intention of leaving here, the pain was gradually intensifying and something was clearly happening to my body, I felt trembling. Having managed to open and gobble up a couple of cans of stew, I was caught by a real onset of various feelings mixed with pain. Fortunately, the painkillers apparently helped because the pain remained tolerable, but in addition to the pain, I felt such terrible fatigue, as if I had been running for days without stopping, this fatigue came upon me suddenly and soon I fell asleep.

I came to my senses from the same pain, but the fatigue disappeared. I looked at the little finger on my hand and was surprised to see that it had almost completely grown back, although the skin in place of the restored flesh was wrinkled and unhealthy, like an open wound, and it all ended in unpleasant scabs; some incomprehensible process of regeneration was going on even now. I couldn’t really move my little finger, I just had to hope that even if the bone didn’t recover right away, it would eventually recover.

A similar process applied to all injuries, including the calf, and the calf grew overgrown with flesh and healed even faster than the little finger. The thumb of my left hand, which I had originally returned as best I could after the dislocation, now looked and functioned as expected. In some places with minor wounds, only stiff, wrinkled skin remained on the outside.

Maybe not right away, but over time I will definitely return to normal and look like a normal person with all the consequences. The system reported that the mind would be returned but did not provide other details. Making a choice in favor of zombie, I understood that perhaps I would remain this same zombie forever, albeit with reason, it was a risk that I took consciously. I didn’t believe that I could survive the zombie apocalypse. I'm not a martial artist, I'm not a super assassin, and so on. I'm a good loader, some kind of salesman, a lover of online games and movies, in general an ordinary, unremarkable guy.

Taking out the mirror, I examined my face, except for the upper lip and a couple of other places covered with wrinkled skin and scabs, I looked tolerable, better than some Frankenstein. A mask on the face and I`m almost a normal person.

I injected another dose of painkillers in especially painful places and decided to wait until the pain subsided a little. I enjoyed the fact that I was human again, and I also felt the newfound strength in my body. This feeling was great, as if my body had been rented before and now it belongs to me, at least if you compare these sensations. You get used to good things quickly, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this feeling here and now.

While I was lying around, I finally decided to check what an auction was, I somehow had no time for it before.

Attention!

When you buy someone else's item, the item disappears from their inventory and appears in your inventory, you must have enough free space.

When putting your item up for auction, you must first place it in your inventory and until the item is purchased or until you cancel the lot, the corresponding amount of inventory space will be occupied.

When you place a buy order, you must have enough free space in your inventory to receive the item. When you create a buy order, you pay the commission. All credits for your order will be frozen until you cancel the order or the item in question is sold to you.

For each purchase or sale lot you put up, a commission of 10% of the cost of the goods is charged, the minimum commission amount is 1kr.

Current lots (filter by time the lot was added)

Headless chicken - 10kr

Dirty teddy bear - 10kr

Smelly socks - 10kr

Analgen 10 tablets - 5 kr

Glock 17 pistol, without ammunition - 100kr

Kitchen knife - 10 kr

SPAM stew - 10kr

Further...

At first I didn’t understand why smelly socks and a teddy bear were on the list, but soon I understood. Apparently someone just didn’t mind spending 1 credit to test the auction function, so he shoved the first thing he could get his hands on there. Well, the fact that almost all shitty goods were sold for 10 kr is explained by the minimum commission, that is, 1 kr per lot. I had some experience in online games, so the auction function seemed quite simple and understandable to me. The filter could be changed and products could be filtered by price, type, weight, and so on. Someone even had as many as 10 credits available to put a gun up for sale. But I don’t have a single credit at all yet, it’s obvious that they don’t give credits for killing humans. Experience received for killing humans was also because of my primal zombie state. But knew I will check that one for sure soon enough.

So far there were few goods, and many were clearly foreign, so the system auction probably works all over the planet. I didn’t even know yet how many credits they give for killing zombies, but apparently people are already farming with all their might. I didn’t really want to run around killing zombies, but trading at the auction interested me. It’s just a pity that in order to start this very trade you will first have to kill at least a few zombies.

Having filled my stomach again with basement delicacies, I finally felt relief, the pain had dulled enough for me to function normally. It was time to start a rehabilitation course and get to know my newfound capabilities. Having doubted a little, I still decided to leave the helmet here so as not to scare the old lady, and it was disgusting to put it on now in this form; I would have to wash it properly.

Having opened the cellar, I finally crawled out. It turns out it was already early morning. I decided to first examine the surroundings, but somehow I didn’t want to go out completely unarmed, so I went to the kitchen and grabbed the largest kitchen knife I could find, better than nothing. I hid it and took the knife out of my inventory again, having played enough I realized that I could get it out at any moment, so I left it in my inventory.

In order to remove a knife from the inventory, you had to select it in the status through the inventory, then look at the place where this knife should appear, for example on the table or in your hands, the outline of this very knife will appear, after confirmation it appears in your hand. Of course, there were a lot of restrictions and there seemed to be a lot of steps, but if you get used to it, you can do everything pretty quickly. The only clue by which you can understand that I’m about to take the barrel out of my inventory is my gaze; if you don’t look directly at your hands, nothing will come of it. I was silently horrified by the possibilities of a surprise attack that are opened up with the help of inventory; now there is no point in paying attention to whether a person is armed or not, just immediately regard everyone as heavily armed.

There was peace and quiet outside, at least as far as I could see. Somewhere far away in the field I saw some silhouettes, but that was all. Houses nearby will have to be checked separately, but for now it was enough for me that the surroundings of this house were not infested with zombies. I began to warm up in the yard, testing the capabilities of my body. Jogging, squats, jumping, push-ups. Everything was very easy, the body felt light and supple. The running speed was incredible; when jumping, I took off about a meter from the ground. There was no fatigue or shortness of breath even remotely, no matter how much effort I put in. It’s not a sin to sell your soul for such a body. Turning into a zombie was a cheap wholesale.

Having been completely satisfied, I decided to stop there; after all, the wounds were still healing on the fly and the pain had not gone away. Returning to the house, I was about to lie down in the den again, but I heard that old lady voice.

- Son... Son, is that you?

- No, grandma, I was just passing by.

I sighed, I’ll have to show myself to her, it’s good that I grabbed medical masks with meds so that the lower part of my face was hidden, otherwise I already looked almost normal.

Approaching the bedroom, I knocked.

- May I come in?

- Come in! Of course come in. I was afraid that I wouldn’t ever see you again...

Entering inside the room I looked at the grandmother, she was sleeping in her clothes, her eyes were watery and looking at me, but her gaze was a little cloudy.

-Are you okay gran? - I asked skeptically.

- Yes, son, everything is great. Forgive the old woman, I thought I wouldn’t see you again.  I had nightmares that you were gone forever...

The old woman slightly wiped away her tears, came up and took my hands, carefully examining my face, as if she really saw her lost son. By this moment, she had already seen me perfectly well but she continued to call me son, and even though I hid the lower part of my face, the rest of me was smeared with dried blood, there was no opportunity to change my clothes yet. It became clear that she had some kind of schizophrenia or something like that, it’s hard to say. I even felt somehow uneasy. Maybe her son really left yesterday and tried to become the primal, or maybe not, Its hard to say now. There’s no point in asking any questions to this old lady.

- Granny, I’m not your real son, I was just passing by...

Then granny got scared and burst into tears more than ever. Her legs gave way and she grabbed my hand with both hands.

- I'm sorry son, I'm sorry... just don't leave anymore, please don't leave grandma...

So she wailed with tears in her eyes, and I was taken aback by this. To be honest, a tear fell into my own eye and I felt sorry for her. If she wants to call me son then so be it. It doesn`t cost me any money right?

- Okay, grandma, stop it, I’m not going anywhere, can you hear me? - I said and lifted her to her feet.

“Really?...” she squeaked.

- Well, yes, where should I go, I have no one but you. - I said, realizing that I actually wasn’t lying.