TWD: Saving Merle First - Chapter 117: At the Very Least, a Corpse King (Patreon)

Wade's consciousness returned, and his eyes flew open. He sat bolt upright on the bed.

The room was pitch-black, and a thick, rotten stench hung in the air, like damp, decaying meat left to dry in an oven.

He decided to open the door, but before he could consciously move, his hand was already on the knob.

Wade stared at it for two seconds. An unsettling feeling crept over him, as though something inside his body no longer matched up.

He unlocked the door and stepped outside. Through the grimy glass, he could see the sun in the distance. It hadn't moved much.

He couldn't have been unconscious for long. Still, something was definitely different about his body.

Wade stood still and relaxed. The instant he thought about drawing his knife, his hand was already resting on its hilt.

Had his movements gotten faster?

Not just a little faster, either. It was an unreasonable, almost impossible increase.

No, wait. His actual movements weren't the problem. His neural reflexes and the speed at which signals traveled through his body had improved.

Suppose that, before, the whole process of receiving a command, processing it, and producing a response had taken ten seconds. Now his body could finish in six.

But Wade was still accustomed to waiting the remaining four seconds for an answer that had already arrived. That was the strange sense of disconnection he'd felt.

Put simply, his software and hardware had been upgraded to version 2.0, but the person operating them was still stuck on version 1.0.

Wade clicked his tongue. Of all the ways to hold himself back, this was a new one.

What a pain... Or maybe it wasn't.

He opened the system panel and spent one point on Spirit, an attribute he'd largely neglected until now.

[Spirit: 6 → 7]

A cool sensation spread through his head, like taking a sip of an ice-cold drink. It traveled all the way to his feet, leaving him feeling wonderfully refreshed.

When he raised his hand again, the unsettling feeling was gone.

Mind and body as one.

The words surfaced in his thoughts for no apparent reason.

Were they a warning or some kind of revelation? He couldn't tell.

Wade turned his attention to Agility and noticed that its level, now at ten, was glowing gold. The plus sign next to it, however, had turned gray.

Apparently the system wouldn't let him increase it any further.

Hold on. If the attribute were permanently capped, shouldn't the plus sign have disappeared entirely?

Maybe this was only a temporary restriction. Perhaps he needed to complete a quest or reach some particular milestone before he could raise it again.

And even if he never managed to go higher, having all his attributes at level ten would already put him in a position to call himself the pinnacle of humanity.

Satisfied with that thought, Wade stopped worrying about it. He took out his high-powered flashlight and went farther into the shop.

There didn't seem to be a workshop or storeroom anywhere. Then again, the staff room had looked like it belonged to another decade. Perhaps the owners had never bothered renting extra space for storage.

Wade went back to the sales floor and started rummaging through what was left.

Loose 5.56mm rounds? He'd take them.

An abandoned gun-maintenance kit? That too.

Daggers and hunting knives that usually wouldn't be worth a second glance? Into storage they went.

He sighed. Until the camp acquired proper industrial machinery, recruited people who knew how to use it, and built even a basic industrial operation, he'd have to keep taking whatever he could find.

After collecting more blades, ammunition, usable gun parts, and maintenance tools, Wade left the shop.

The sun was beginning to sink. Wade looked at the walkers wandering through the streets and raised his M4 again.

A little exercise before dinner always made the food taste better.

Soon, the desolate streets echoed with muffled gunfire and the metallic clink of spent casings.

By the time he'd emptied his fourth magazine, his shoulder had started to ache. Wade stopped shooting and slipped into a nearby apartment building.

He worked his way through the walkers in the stairwell with his Bowie knife, taking a fire axe from an emergency equipment cabinet along the way and tossing it into his Storage Space.

Even a tiny scrap was worth taking.

As he climbed, Wade's attacks grew sharper and more ruthless. He had only to see a target and move his hand, and another walker dropped. It felt as though he'd activated some ridiculous cheat that let him cut through enemies without resistance.

The sensation of power, along with the satisfaction of every kill, was almost intoxicating.

Before he knew it, he'd reached the fourth floor. Only after stabbing another walker and noticing the number on the wall did he come fully back to himself.

He glanced behind him. The narrow staircase was littered with corpses. Black blood slid down the steps, gathered in little pools, and spilled farther down, repeating all the way below.

The sight was disturbing enough to make him stop looking.

Wade entered the corridor, picked a relatively clean, spacious room, and locked himself inside. He shut the windows, drew the curtains, lit a candle on the table, and then lit a cigarette.

He took a long drag and exhaled. As the smoke left his lungs, his restless mind began to settle.

First, what the hell had that giant walker been?

A creature infected by multiple mutations? Something created by a different virus altogether?

He couldn't remember anything like it.

Damn it. He should have watched more zombie movies in his spare time back when he was working as a butcher. Now he'd encountered a creature he couldn't identify, and it was giving him a headache.

Then there was his plan for this trip. He wanted to gain a few more levels before returning to camp.

The settlement was about to enter a period of rapid expansion, and he probably wouldn't be able to keep dumping every problem on Rick before running off for days at a time.

Besides, mutated creatures were roaming all over the place. The stronger Wade became, the more options he'd have if he encountered one again.

"Ugh... Aaaah!"

A Volatile's shriek split the air like thunder.

Wade sprang to the window and lifted the curtain on the side where he'd heard the sound. His pupils contracted again.

In the shadows of distant high-rises, several Volatiles crawled out of the deeper darkness. They crouched low, half their enormous bodies exposed to the fading evening light.

A few impatient ones darted forward and caught hold of windowsills or railings with their claws, climbing upward with frightening agility.

Wade stared for a moment.

Crane and his people really were something else. They'd spent two or three months living alongside these monsters. That took serious nerve.

No wonder none of them seemed remotely afraid of ordinary walkers after escaping Harran.

When you had instructors like these, terrifying creatures with a perfect record for teaching people fear, how could you possibly come out timid?

Wade let the curtain fall. He went into the corridor, dragged two walker corpses back to the room, and used his blade to cut them into chunks, smearing the remains over the window and windowsill.

The smell was awful, but it would help cover his human scent.

Otherwise, if one of those creatures came through the window while he slept, he'd be in serious trouble.

And with his current physical abilities, if he ever turned into a Volatile himself, he'd probably be at least a Corpse King.