Chapter 64: Zombie Beast

"Hey, Hank, this is already the sixth portion of food you've eaten today."

A person stared at Hank with a grim expression.

In this special situation of food scarcity, every portion of food had to be carefully rationed.

Ordinary people in the base basically only received one meal a day.

Only those who ventured out to search for supplies maintained three meals a day to sustain their combat effectiveness.

However, he had never encountered a situation like this, where someone ate six portions of food in one sitting.

He even suspected that Hank might have contracted some kind of virus during his last outing.

Not only did he think so, but Hank's teammates thought so too.

After all, in this damned apocalypse, every unusual occurrence needed attention, because it could very well save one's life.

After eating the last bite of food in his hand, Hank left the cafeteria without a word.

His teammates exchanged glances and followed him.

"I advise you not to follow me."

As the protagonist whose body had undergone an unknown change, Hank was the most anxious one.

He knew that his appetite used to be no different from others.

Eating six portions of food in one sitting this time, he was almost scared to tears!

Moreover, he was still hungry.

If he wasn't afraid of attracting too much attention, he could have continued eating.

Though he was already attracting a lot of attention.

"No way, Boss Hank, are you really sending us away already?"

"I'm going out this time, and I won't be back until I figure out what's happening to me."

Hank sent his teammates away, returned home, fully armed himself, and then drove off on a motorcycle without looking back.

After leaving the base, Hank did not follow the main road to the town; instead, he took a small path, driving his motorcycle up to a nearby mountain.

Few people usually came here.

Although Creatures frequently appeared here.

But ever since a small team came here to hunt and discovered infected animals, no one had come back.

Because no one knew whether the animal you killed was infected with the virus.

What if it was brought back to the base? The entire base would be gone in no time.

But now, a starving Hank couldn't care less.

The acidic liquid in his stomach was burning his insides; he felt that if he didn't eat soon, his stomach would be burned through by the acid!

Perhaps because no one had been here for a long time, Hank spotted a deer as soon as he entered the mountain.

Hank didn't hesitate, raised his gun, and shot it dead.

Bang ~

The sudden gunshot in the mountain startled the birds in the trees.

The wild beasts near Hank were frightened by the sudden sound and fled, but some strange Creatures, upon hearing the gunshot, instead ran wildly towards the sound.

Hank walked up to the dead deer, touched its body, and feeling the still-warm corpse, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, this was a normal deer.

So, Hank found some firewood on the spot and built a bonfire.

By the bonfire, he skinned, butchered, and roasted the dead deer.

But before it had been on the fire for long, the intense hunger made Hank's mouth water.

Hank could no longer hold back and bit into a piece of meat.

And this was as if a switch had been flipped; once he bit, he couldn't stop until all the meat in his hand was swallowed into his stomach.

Perhaps because the food he had just swallowed hadn't been fully digested, Hank's rationality slowly began to return.

Recalling his frantic state just now, Hank's body trembled.

"Could—could it be—I've really turned into—a zombie?"

His behavior of eating raw venison just now was very much like a zombie, which made Hank mistakenly believe that he had been infected with the virus and was about to become a zombie.

Recalling the zombies he had seen before, Hank's heart immediately turned to ash.

At this moment, Hank felt like dying, and he had even pulled out his pistol and aimed it at his own head.

Because of this, Hank didn't notice that he was being watched!

Just as Hank was about to end his life, a腥风扑来 (foul wind) rushed from behind, and Hank was immediately tackled to the ground.

Hank rolled several times on the ground, feeling a sharp pain in his lower back; he must have accidentally scraped it on a sharp stone while rolling.

After being tackled, the instinct developed from years of fighting zombies made him immediately block his neck with his forearm.

And the next second, he felt his forearm tighten.

Hank looked closely and saw that it was a decaying beast's head.

That rumor was true!

There really were zombie animals on this mountain!?

Hank raised the pistol tightly held in his other hand and fired several shots, blowing up the decaying beast's head in front of him.

When Hank pushed off the corpse pressing on him, he found himself surrounded, with several dark figures rushing at him one after another.

Bang bang bang ~

Immediately, gunshots rang out continuously.

A few minutes later, after killing all the zombified animals, Hank leaned against the trunk of a large tree to rest.

Hank was covered in foul-smelling black blood, and the thick iron plates on his arms and calves were already deformed; he just didn't know if they had been bitten through.

When encountering zombies, wearing iron armguards can save your life at a critical moment.

Even if zombies are incredibly strong and have astonishing biting power, it is difficult for them to tear through iron plates in a short time.

However, with animals, it's not necessarily the same.

Animal canines are very sharp.

"!!!"

Realizing this, Hank suddenly stood up.

He quickly went to the river he had seen when he came up the mountain and washed the dirty blood off his body with the river water.

At the same time, Hank removed the armguards and leg guards from his arms and calves, revealing the skin underneath.

And Hank indeed saw wounds!

Those wounds were not caused by wild beasts biting through the iron, but by the deformed iron scraping against his skin, tearing it.

If it had been before, Hank might have breathed a sigh of relief.

But now, Hank's entire body was covered in the dirty blood of zombie beasts, and that blood must have touched his wounds; even cleaning the wounds now was too late.

Well, I'm tired, let it all be destroyed.

Realizing this, Hank completely lost his last shred of hope.

If before he could have deceived himself by saying he had no wounds, that he might not have been infected with the virus, but merely had an increased appetite, that was no longer an option.

But now, whether it was just an increased appetite or not, he was going to become a zombie.

With this wound, he would become a zombie in at most four hours, right?

Of course, it might be even sooner.

After all, he might have been infected with the zombie virus even before this.

Hank silently raised his gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Click ~

The bullet was gone.