Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars
Chapter 21: Solving 401 Before Nightfall

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Solving 401 Before Nightfall

He unfolded the arm guard the zombie had bitten and looked it over. There were no obvious tears, just a few wrinkles...

"This thing is great. When the zoo bought it, the seller said even a tiger couldn’t tear it. Turns out they weren’t bullshitting..."

Still a little uneasy, he inspected the arm guard carefully one more time. It definitely wasn’t torn, so he put it back on.

He waved at Su Qing, who was still standing there stunned, and asked her to go back to 601 to get his spear.

Meanwhile, he went back into the room, found some bedsheets and other cloths, and wrapped them around the AC unit’s mounting bracket outside the balcony. Then, he looped the rope coming down from the floor above around the unit one more time, creating a third anchor.

Su Qing brought him the spear. Lin Fan used tape to fashion a handle on it and, like he did with his short club, hung it from his waist.

Carrying a long weapon was a hassle, but he had to do it. Facing multiple zombies with only a short weapon was a recipe for disaster.

He couldn’t just use his fists, after all...

It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in his strength. He just didn’t know how the infection spread, and he needed to avoid injury at all costs.

Lin Fan had never bothered with one-life clears or no-damage runs when he played games, but he never thought he’d be forced to be so cautious in real life.

’It would be great if I could put these in my storage space, but unfortunately, none of my homemade weapons will go in.’

’I still don’t know what those dropped materials are for, but what if I process them into something useful? Could those items be put into my storage space then?’

’A shame I don’t have time now. I’ll just have to try it later when I get the chance.’

"Wait... you... what are you doing?!"

Su Qing saw Lin Fan climb back onto the windowsill and grab the rope, preparing to descend again. She rushed forward and asked frantically.

"Huh? I’m going to keep going. Still have 401 to deal with..."

Lin Fan answered, a bit confused.

"Are you crazy? You just got hurt! You’re not going to rest, you’re going back down? What if there are more zombies down there?"

Su Qing said anxiously. Her expression showed she was genuinely worried for Lin Fan’s safety.

"Heh... it’s nothing. Just a scratch."

’I can’t very well tell her, "I only lost 10 HP. You lost 70 and you’re still alive and kicking. You think my constitution is worse than yours?"’

He could only reassure her, "It’s fine. I’ll ice it tonight, and it probably won’t even hurt by tomorrow."

’Besides, these people upstairs were so loud at night that I could never sleep, leaving me exhausted during the day. I have a bone to pick with them.’

’If I didn’t absolutely have to go through 501, I would have gone straight for 401 from the start!’

Since Lin Fan insisted, Su Qing didn’t try to stop him anymore. She just watched from the side, anxiously clutching the window frame.

Lin Fan grabbed the rope, leaned back out the window, and planted his feet on the building’s outer wall, walking his way down step by step.

With the experience from his first descent, this rappel went exceptionally smoothly. Lin Fan had even learned from last time, grabbing a thin blanket beforehand and tossing it onto the AC unit of 401.

He landed lightly, without making a sound.

The sun was not as bright now, and he could make out the scene inside the apartment.

The living room of 401 was a chaotic mess, covered in dark red bloodstains.

Footprints and handprints were stamped densely all over the floor.

But he saw no health bars, which meant no zombies were in sight.

’From my position outside the balcony window, I can’t see into the bedroom. The zombie must be hiding in there.’

So, Lin Fan tried his old trick again. He hammered on the glass with his elbow a few times, hoping to lure the zombie out, seize the initiative, and then charge in for the kill.

Unexpectedly, the apartment remained silent. The sound of his knocking on the glass failed to stir even a ripple in the quiet room.

It was as if the bloody footprints and handprints were part of the apartment’s original decor, and the "culprits" who kept Lin Fan awake at night had never existed at all...

"This..."

Something was definitely wrong.

Feeling waves of pain from his right arm, Lin Fan decided to be more cautious.

These old-fashioned plastic-steel sliding windows were usually left unlocked, especially during the sweltering summer.

Lin Fan tried each panel. Sure enough, the one in the middle slid open. He held his spear at the ready, leaped lightly, and landed inside the balcony of 401.

The moment he stepped inside, the smell reminded Lin Fan of the instant he and Su Qing had entered the bedroom in 402.

Only the master bedroom door was closed. The closer he got to it, the stronger the overpowering, metallic stench of blood became—the same smell as the apartment across the hall.

’The fucking smell of danger...’

’If I smelled this in the wild,’ Lin Fan thought, ’I swear I’d turn and run. But I can’t do that here. This place is right above my head when I sleep.’

He thought back to the little girl from 402 who had turned into a monster, and her strange, non-integer health bar.

’It felt like some kind of omen. But whatever it was an omen of, if I just left it alone, I’d be the one paying the price. After all, only a thin floorboard separated this place from my own apartment.’

He had a feeling—just like with the bone-spur zombie the little girl had become—that a non-integer health bar might represent some kind of mutation. If that was the case, the longer he waited, the bigger the problem would get.

Outside, the sunlight had already turned yellow; the sun was about to set.

’Night... nocturnal...’

Unsure if his guess was correct, Lin Fan adjusted his grip. He held the spear with his left hand about a third of the way down from the tip, giving him room to maneuver in a close-quarters fight.

He slowly turned the bedroom doorknob with his right hand, took a step back, and then used the tip of his spear to gently push the door open.

Learning from his last encounter, Lin Fan first poked the spear into the room, keeping his body hidden behind the doorframe as he slowly pushed the door open to probe what was inside.

Nothing happened. Even when the bedroom door was wide open, nothing emerged.

’Even a monster with some intelligence couldn’t possibly be this calm and unconcerned.’

Lin Fan backed up a few more steps, held the spear in front of him with both hands in a defensive stance, and peered into the room from the doorway.

A trail of partially dried blood stretched from the large bed all the way to the doorway, stopping just short of the living room.

A gory, mangled pile of flesh lay heaped on the bed...

"Pile" was the only word for it; "body" would have implied something far too complete.

From Lin Fan’s angle, he could only see two grayish-blue feet splayed out to the sides, each still attached to a section of a lower leg.

Beyond that, it was impossible to tell what was what.

Chunks of bone and flesh were jumbled together on the bed—yellow fat, brown muscle, and bluish-green viscera, all mixed into an indistinguishable mass.

But one thing was certain: this was truly a corpse. It wasn’t moving, and it had no health bar.

Not seeing a health bar made Lin Fan breathe a sigh of relief.

’If this was also a Mutated Zombie, I couldn’t even imagine how I’d fight such a pile of gore.’

Other than the pile of rotten flesh on the bed and the trail of blood on the floor, the room was just like the living room: bloody handprints and footprints were smeared everywhere, on the walls and the floor.

But other than that, there wasn’t a single living thing to be found.

’Impossible...’

’Judging by the decay of that pile of flesh, it didn’t die today. That means something must have still been active last night...’