Chapter 4: Chapter 4
The virtual screen hovering in my vision displayed exactly three items, courtesy of the rabid zombie dog I had just turned into a high-protein organic smoothie.
[Form: MA-39/Cerberus (Uncommon) - 200 EP]
[Description: An infamous T-Virus biological weapon classified under the MA-39 project. Essentially a highly aggressive Doberman Pinscher pumped full of mutagens, resulting in redundant organ systems, decaying skin, and a severe lack of impulse control. Warning: Does not actually grant three heads, but definitely grants three times the urge to bite crotches.]
[Trait: Split-Maw Bite - 50 EP]
[Description: Mutates the host’s mandible, splitting the lower jaw down the center to unhinge horizontally like a pair of fleshy, muscle-bound pincers. Exposes hidden, auxiliary rows of needle-like teeth. Greatly increases bite force and flesh-tearing efficiency. ]
So as expected, the shop wasn’t going to let me buy cool video game cheat codes right out of the gate.
It only unlocked biological templates and traits from things I had personally slaughtered and digested.
It made me feel a bit emotional that there was no "Human Voice" option listed anywhere. Guess I was officially a mute, rotting freak. Dashed my dreams of dropping a witty, sarcastic marvel-tier quip before biting someone’s face off, doomed to just grunt like a constipated caveman while terrorizing the local tourist population.
I had a grand total of fifty points to my name. I couldn’t even afford the budget-tier Cerberus form yet, which was probably a blessing in disguise because running around on all fours sniffing wet dirt and licking my own nonexistent balls sounded like a massive downgrade.
I could buy the split maw, but that felt incredibly boring as well as impractical.
I swiped away the shop menu and pulled up the glorious, dopamine-generating Roulette Wheel.
[Spin Roulette - 10 EP First Spin]
It was time to indulge my inner degenerate and play some gacha. Ten points was a cheap enough fee to gamble with my undead life.
I tapped the virtual roll button. The neon wheel spun with a digital whir, flashing icons from a dozen different fictional universes. As I watched the colors blur, I was praying to whatever sick god was running this show for something that would help me survive the night. I didn’t need a massive fucking buster sword or an assault rifle right now. I just needed to not get eaten by something bigger than me.
The wheel slowed, ticking past a bunch of useless garbage, before finally stopping on a cracked human skull covered in crusty, cauliflower-like yellow growths.
[Reward Acquired: Trait - Clicker Echolocation (The Last of Us)]
Description: Integrates the sensory biology of a Stage 3 Cordyceps Infected. Grants the host the ability to map their surroundings in pitch darkness using high-frequency sound waves.
[Would you like to equip this trait? Available Mutation Slots: 1/1]
I stared at the floating blue text, my rotting brain completely stalling out.
Slots? What the fuck is a mutation slot?
System, I thought I was supposed to be the ultimate biological vacuum cleaner. Explain this slot bullshit before I pop a blood vessel I don’t even use anymore.
[Notice: The Host’s current Form (t-Virus Zombie - Degraded) is structurally unstable garbage. You possess exactly one (1) genetic mutation slot. Attempting to force additional mutations into a degraded chassis will result in catastrophic cellular rejection and explosive meat-liquefaction. Change your Base Form to unlock expanded genetic capacity.]
It made sense...kinda. I had expected the [Better Evolved] to be some sorta deus ex machina that would allow me to buff up to hell, but guess I gotta save for these other forms too.
Whatever. I had one slot, and I was going to use it.
I mentally confirmed the equip, and a dull, throbbing pressure immediately built right behind my eyes.
I had expected magical video game UI toggle but instead felt that my body was actually mutating in real time. The flesh around my jaw and upper cheeks started itching with a maddening, deep-tissue burn, feeling exactly like a colony of radioactive yeast throwing a rave in my sinuses.
Then came the wet tearing noises.
Hard, calcified fungal plates physically erupted through my rotting skin, pushing outward in thick, crusty yellow clusters. The mutation violently aggressively ripped through my face.
Thank the gods that my nerves are fucking dead.
Also thank fuck the growths sprouted strictly around my eye sockets instead of completely blinding me like the poor bastards in the games, leaving me looking like I was wearing a grotesque, mold-covered masquerade mask.
My ears twitched, and the cartilage inside my ear canals hardened into dense, ridged spirals. My auditory nerves expanded, stretching to accommodate a massive influx of new frequency data. Even my throat felt tight and weird as my vocal cords reshaped themselves to produce sounds no normal human could ever make.
After panting through my newly mushroom-crusted face, I opened my mouth to test the new biological hardware.
Click. Click. Click-click-click.
A series of sharp, rapid clicking noises rattled out of my throat.
The second those sound waves bounced off the trees, my brain lit up with a three-dimensional, grayscale map of my surroundings. It was completely mind-blowing. Even though my decaying eyes could only see a blurry, dark soup, the echolocation gave me a razor-sharp outline of the entire clearing.
I could sense the individual leaves on the ferns. I could map out the dead hiker’s decomposing body lying ten feet away, right down to the cheap brand of his hiking boots. I knew exactly how thick the brush was behind me, and I could trace the winding paths of the forest as they stretched deeper into the dark.
Hell yeah, I had just scored the ultimate stealth cheat code.Was going to help a lot in navigating these pitch-black woods without ever needing a flashlight, tracking threats long before they even knew a horny corpse was stalking them.
I felt a sudden surge of massive confidence. I was no longer just some fragile, slow-moving Resident Evil tutorial enemy. I was actually turning into a proper apex predator.
Of course, a heavy, throbbing reminder between my legs immediately ruined my cool villain moment.
My giant, purplish-grey erection was still standing at absolute attention, stretching the ripped fabric of my trousers to its second breaking point. The constant, obnoxious hum of the Apex Breeding Urge was still aggressively whispering filthy, degenerate thoughts into my brain, totally uncaring about the fact that I now had a face full of hardened cordyceps fungus.
I let out a wet, raspy sigh.
Priorities first. I needed to find those train tracks, locate the Ecliptic Express, and figure out where the hell I was on the timeline. And if I happened to run into a certain petite, short-haired S.T.A.R.S. medic along the way, my bulletproof meat weapon was already fully loaded and ready for action.
Clicking my tongue, I mapped out the path of least resistance through the dense brush, and shuffled forward into the dark.
----
Ten minutes of navigating the pitch-black Arklay woods had already proven that hiking while dead is a massive pain in the ass. Especially when your coordination resembles a drunk toddler, and your gravity-defying, concrete-hard zombie-schmeat keeps catching on low-hanging pine branches.
Using the newly acquired clicker-sense made getting around a hell of a lot easier, painting the terrain in sharp grayscale outlines. Tree roots, low branches, and potential threats showed up clear as day in my mind.
The only real downside was the goddamn noise.
Click. Click. Click-click-click.
The throat vibrations made me sound like a defective typewriter, or maybe a hyperactive dolphin suffering from a severe case of Tourette’s. It was genuinely absurd. If there were any terrified hikers quietly huddling in the bushes nearby, this mechanical mouth-clicking was probably driving them straight to the brink of a psychiatric ward.
Just imagine praying for rescue in the dark, only to hear a rapid click-click-click approaching, accompanied by the wet twang of an eight-inch zombie-pole whipping past the foliage like a fleshy kickstand. It was a literal miracle the local flora hadn’t castrated me yet.
Thankfully, the forest wasn’t empty, and the local population was just as weird as I was.
A tattered park ranger showed up around fifteen minutes into the stroll, shuffling in slow, aimless circles around a massive pine tree. The guy looked like he had completely forgotten what he was doing mid-thought but decided to keep going out of sheer spite.
Half of his face had been scooped out, leaving a gaping cavity where his left cheek used to be, while his jaw worked on autopilot, grinding yellowed teeth against the cold mountain air.
The poor bastard was running on a Windows 95 screensaver loop.
Stepping directly into his orbit didn’t trigger even a hint of aggression. He didn’t turn, growl, or even miss a single step. Even getting a grey, dirt-caked finger poked into his decayed shoulder did absolutely nothing to break the spell. He merely stumbled a few inches, adjusted his trajectory, and resumed his pointless little orbit.
Moving directly in front of him to block his path yielded the same underwhelming result. The ranger shuffled straight into my chest, bounced off my ribs, drifted two steps to the left, hit a tree, and bounced right back into his circular routine.
The absolute brain-dead simplicity of it was fascinating.
This was the raw, unedited reality of the T-virus. No pack mentality, no territorial dominance, just a complete wiping of the cerebral hard drive until nothing remained but a few looping lines of code. Shuffle. Chew. React to loud noises. Repeat until the meat falls off the bone.
Wandering deeper into the trees revealed even more of the local welcoming committee.
A pair of guys in shredded business suits—likely survivors from the crashed Umbrella transport up the mountain—were currently busy bumping into each other chest-first, bouncing apart, and continuing on in opposite directions like broken Roomba vacuums. Corporate synergy at its absolute finest.
Then, a female zombie came into view, leaning flat against a massive granite boulder. Her forehead was pressed hard against the cold stone, her jaw grinding away with rhythmic, scraping noises.
Right on cue, the biochemical disaster in my trousers flared up with absolute, zero-chill violence. A thick wave of hot, concentrated filth flooded my rotting brain, instantly locking my eyes onto the back of her denim hiking shorts. They were torn wide open, exposing a patch of pale, grey-green thigh.
Instantly, my inner monologue transformed into a Nobel-prize-winning debater, presenting a highly logical, completely shameless case for why touching this corpse was a mandatory requirement.
This is a crucial scientific experiment, my brain rationalized. I must test the tactile sensitivity and defensive reflexes of the female T-Virus host. Does she possess any vestigial modesty or boundary-enforcement protocols? Yes. Strictly academic. For science.
With my giant, purple meat-scepter throbbing in complete agreement, shuffling closer was the only logical option.
Reaching out a grey, trembling hand, a firm, experimental squeeze was delivered right to her left butt cheek.
The flesh felt cold and incredibly squishy, like a pack of cheap ground beef left in the back of a sketchy supermarket freezer.
Waiting for her to turn around and rip my throat out felt like a solid possibility, but absolutely nothing happened. She just kept grinding her jaw against the granite, completely oblivious to the fact that she was currently getting felt up by a fellow rotting corpse.
A quick squeeze to the right cheek followed, strictly to ensure the sample size was scientifically valid.
Fascinating, I thought, nodding sagely in my mind. Total lack of boundary defense. A monumental breakthrough in zombie sociology.
Testing her pain reflexes was next on the agenda. A hard shove to her shoulder sent her stumbling sideways. She nearly tripped over a root, but her decaying muscles quickly corrected the balance. Turning her blank white eyes vaguely in my direction without actually registering my presence, she shuffled right back to her beloved rock, pressed her forehead against it, and went back to grinding.
A fist-sized rock scooped up from the dirt seemed like a good diagnostic tool. Chucking it firmly at the back of her skull resulted in a hollow thock sound.
The impact sent her face smacking straight into the boulder. Bouncing off the stone, she spun around with a long, rattling growl vibrating deep in her chest, her hands pawing weakly at the empty air.
But there was no actual aggression behind it. It was just a reflexive, involuntary irritation response, exactly like a sleeping dog growling at a loud noise. Within a few seconds, her hands dropped back to her sides, the growl fizzled out, and she waddled right back to her rocky boyfriend.
Find yourself someone as committed to you as this dead woman was to her favorite boulder.
Walking away from the academic testing zone was probably for the best, but the victory was incredibly short-lived. The feverish warmth in my groin was building fast, transforming from a distracting itch into a heavy, demanding fire that made focusing on anything else nearly impossible.
My thoughts kept slipping.
One second I’d be shuffling along, trying to draft a mental checklist of survival priorities, and the next, my train of thought would completely derail. I’d snap back to reality only to find myself standing completely still, staring at the torn shirt of some random passing female ghoul with a look of pure, primal hunger.
A violent shake of my head did little to clear the fog. This was getting dangerously out of hand. Checking out rotting, maggot-infested meat was a level of down-bad that shouldn’t even be biologically possible.
If a living, breathing heroine didn’t cross my path soon, there was a very real chance I was going to try and seduce a pine tree.
No way I was going to cross the line and touch a zombie-ussy...
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Author Note From Future: Many people have commented in this and next Chapter about MC not consuming zombies he had encountered right now. Just chalk it up to him feeling a bit hesistant in killing human shaped creatures and all. If you wait till Chapter 6, he consumes them anyways.
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