The world regained color as I made my entrance, to a very startled classroom. This is when I discovered my first problem. I was a guy in riot equipment, weapons, in a random school in Japan, with no identity, and to top it all off, I couldn’t speak Japanese.
“Ohio?” I tried.
The Students looked at me strangely, but were remarkably calm for a moment, before breaking into conversation, of which I understood nothing. Perhaps a dude materializing out of nowhere was straight out of some anime for them, so they seemed to be taking it well. That was up until the screaming. The zombies had apparently already started their rampage in the school. Looking around, there was a surprising lack of a teacher. Without waiting for the kids to react, I rushed to the door, dragged a chair to a door, pointed at a kid, and motioned for him to barricade it, before I left to fight some zombies.
This was when I encountered the second problem. The overwhelming majority of zombies in the hallway were kids. Taking a moment to calm down, I sprinted down the hall, while shooting, doing my best to clear out the zombies before anyone could start investigating. This seemed to be a wise decision, as as soon as the gunshots sounded, people stopped opening doors to investigate. Them mistaking it for a school shooting, as foreign as that was for Japan, seemed to create a situation where the zombies stopped spreading as quickly through the school, as everyone in the school started to barricade all the classrooms. Hopefully that was a good thing. As I slid down the hallway, I just happened to encounter a break room for the teachers. And recognizing a guy from the missions section, a mission that I happened to not take, I decided to complete that mission anyways. Even if I wasn’t going to get anything for it, the dude was apparently evil somehow. He very quickly became collateral damage as I cleared away the zombies throughout the hall. I was naturally much more careful with my aim after that.
Unfortunately, my easy clearing came to a quick end, it was amazing how quickly you can empty a magazine. I decided to hold off on using my pistol, but it stayed ready for use. Instead, I switched to using the bayonet. I wasn’t exactly about to start using the grenade launcher in an enclosed area. All things considered, it probably would have been smarter to start with the Axe in hand, but hindsight is 20/20.
It wasn’t like the movies. There weren’t zombies around every corner. Once the screaming had started, people looked for cover, so it wasn’t like the school was instantly infested. Regardless, the damage that was done in the beginning resulted in an unfortunate death toll. After doing a few sweeps through all the hallways, I had killed roughly 50 zombies. It was already enough to earn 25 points. Which meant that I could spend some more points.
I quickly found a quiet corner, barricaded the room, and pulled out my phone. It was easy to find the app, as there were so few apps on it. I pulled up the Zombie CYOA tracker, and saw my kill count and points. I had already accumulated 26 points. I only hesitated slightly before dumping 20 points into stat points, and then putting those towards agility.
7 -> 9
Agility determines both your physical speed and your dexterity. It will improve your speed, your reaction time, and your overall balance and body control. At max level you will be able of record-breaking bursts of sprint speed and able to physically react at speeds that many would consider impossible.
I just needed 30 more zombie kills to max out two of my stats, and I hadn’t even left the starting zone yet. Well, it seemed like a large portion was about base building, which means I really probably should have selected those types of missions as well, but no use worrying about that now. I checked over my equipment, making sure my bottle of vaccine pills were still safe in my vest pocket, (I had already swollowed one before leaving the first classroom.) and then I adjusted the strap on the m4, tieing it off on my vest so I couldn’t easily lose it, but no longer limited in range for stabbing with the bayonet. There was a small danger that it could snag on something, but that was the case anyways, worse case scenario, I pull the tab that makes the vest fall off and make a run for it with less protection.
I continued making sweeps through the hallways and checking any empty classrooms and bathrooms, until I was sure that the majority of the threat had been cleared away. I then went to the front of the school, and made sure that the doors were secured, and I moved some desks to barricade it in.
Then, I did what anyone reasonable would do. I searched the internet for news articles about the outbreak, printed it out a bunch of copies, as well as a short article explaining my role as a zombie hunter, and that the school had been cleared, as well as some instructions to move to the cafeteria. Since it was all in English, I had to use a robot translator that probably did a less than stellar job of translating everything into Japanese, but I hoped it would do the trick. I also took a few minutes to type out a variety of different phrases that I thought would be needed to coordinate and communicate, with both the English and Japanese robot translations, and printed those out as well.
I finished printing enough leaflets to hand out to each classroom, so that was the next thing I did. After that, I made my way through the hall, slipping the sheets under each door after knocking on each one in turn, then I headed to the cafeteria. I could have probably tried to clear the bodies of the zombies in the hallway, but sometimes seeing is believing, and it was the new reality, so I decided not to in the end. For that same reason, I left a single zombie tied up in the cafeteria, to show anyone the zombie for those who haven’t seen one.
I couldn’t do anything about it if they chose to try to leave the building instead of following the instructions, and I was worried about that, but fortunately the kids seemed to be following the instructions that I had given as they slowly made their way towards the cafeteria. Although I had instructed them to try to stay silent, to avoid drawing new zombies, it couldn’t be helped that many of them were crying, or whispering to each other.
It was probably fine though, there was enough noise insulation between the inside and outside of the building, and it was unlikely that there would be more in a short time frame. And it certainly wasn’t as load as the M4 was. I hadn’t attached the silencer, since it would have gotten in the way of the bayonet. My 1911 was silenced though, and that was the only one that still had ammo anyways. As the Kids made their way to the cafeteria, I made sure to look over them, to determine the state that everyone was in. What I was most worried about was if there were anyone who had been bitten. I only had the single bottle of vaccine pills, and it certainly wasn’t enough to go around. To buy more, I would need to kill a bunch more zombies. It was doable, but not quickly.
Once everyone was settled, I cleared my throat to get everyones attention. Not that I lacked it, being the scary dude in riot gear with a gun.
“First things first, does anyone here speak english?”
A surprisingly large number of hands went up.
“Right, thats good, umm, can one of you volunteer to translate for me?”
The cliff notes: one of the main characters will volunteer, and translate, I make a claim to be part of the airforce that happened to be participating in a joint exercise with the self defense force of Japan when the outbreak began, and I volunteered to be one of the people dispatched to secure vulnerable regions, hence all my gear.
I then had class leaders begin to direct their fellow classmates into checking if anyone was bitten or scratched, and to have them report to me for possible treatment. I had to reassure them that killing anyone bitten who hadn’t turned wouldn’t be necessary, but that they would still need to be treated as soon as possible. This seemed to reassure them, especially when I showed them I had a small supply of vaccine pills. It was unfortunate that I didn’t have more, but it was more than enough for the few that were injured and yet hadn’t yet turned. After distributing the pills, I was left with only half the bottle remaining. The students in question had the school nurse help with cleaning and disinfecting the wounds. The rest of the students were broken up into groups, where they first helped move furniture to barricade all of the entrances, while smaller groups used some cleaning supplies and gloves from the cafeteria to help move the bodies. I insisted that no one else help if they didn’t have protective gear, as I didn’t want any new outbreaks happening. Even then, I ended up giving out the rest of my pills to the ones who had volunteered, because I didn’t want to risk it. Everyone that wasn’t doing something was trying to comfort each other, or were busy trying to call their parents, or otherwise were just crying.
There wasn’t much I could do, other than to prepare the surviving in the Apocalypse as best I could. The school wasn’t an ideal place to make a permanent camp, there were too many openings everywhere, and it would be too difficult to secure. So my next step was looking for a place to shelter a bunch of teenage kids. And then there was the other problem. Food. The cafeteria had a stock of food, but it wasn’t a doomsday level of stock. At best, it would keep everyone fed for a week, if everyone limited themselves to one meal a day.
But, I did have the system with me, so I just needed to kill a few more zombies to buy supplies. I was planning on doing that anyways.
After looking over my documents, I remembered that one of the missions I could have taken mentioned a mall. That seemed promising. Malls tended to be more secure, having cages for every shop, and limited entrances. It wouldn’t be difficult to secure such a place. But I was sure I wouldn’t be the only person to think of that. In any case, the first order of business was to secure the immediate area.
I had maybe a week before I needed to have a base set up, so that I could start buying supplies for a base in the CYOA. If the Mall turns out to be a decent spot, then I could think about reinforcing a bus for transferring students. While I could use the RV, it wasn’t ideal for so many people. I kind of regretted not buying the bus as well.
Alternatively I could try remodeling the school to be more secure.
Either way, I needed to find a way to feed everyone even without my system. And I needed to kill more zombies. By using the gun on the zombies so early on, there were fewer people panicking trying to leave the classrooms, and more people sheltered in place. This meant more people survived, but it also meant fewer zombies to kill, and in turn, more people to try to keep fed. A morbid way of looking at it.
After making some plans, and making sure everyone that could help was busy, I decided it was about time I secured the outside of the school as well. Rather than try to leave from the entrance, and possibly allow more zombies in, I went to the roof, and climbed down. Naturally, I first made sure to inform some of the class leaders of what I planned to do, so that they wouldn’t panic or anything.
Luckily, it was a clean trip down, no hordes of zombies as soon as I stepped out. It seemed the entire outbreak at the school happened because of a single wandering zombie at the gate, judging by the gore left over, and the few zombies that were present in the yard and by the entrance. After going around the building, I only ended up killing about 15 zombies. I went further and found a set of dorm buildings. That was going to take a bit longer to clear, but given that it was during the school hours, there shouldn’t really be anyone there, hopefully. Unfortunately, I was very much wrong. There were far more students still in their dorm rooms than I would have expected.
Judging by the number of zombies in the dorms, probably one in every five students were either skipping class, or didn’t have class when the outbreak started. Luckily, there were quite a few survivors. Unfortunately, I was out of pills, so I could either spend more points to be able to make more people immune, or I could leave those that have been infected to their fates, and spend points on more stats so I could kill zombies faster.
Ultimately, I decided to spend the points on more pills. More immune means more fighters I don’t have to worry about becoming zombies behind the lines. I was able to get the keys to the building off of a half eaten janitor, so I was able to check every room, and gathered the survivors, and repeated a similar process as what happened in the main building of the school. After checking everyone, I pulled out my phone. It looks like I had killed about 127 more zombies, judging by my accrued points.
I decided to spend some on more vaccines to distribute, so I now had 12 more to distribute. I decided to hold on to 5 of them, and gave out the rest. I after all, had a future mission to complete, and some pills would be needed for later. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t let me purchase more bottles, so I was stuck with what I had. After giving them to the most level headed and those that were bitten, they were quickly used up. I had them secure the dorms, and another group that had taken the vaccine got started on clearing the building of bodies. They might be freaked out, but the initial shock had already passed for most of them, and everyone was in survival mode, so it wasn’t hard to get them started once they found a direction for survival.
The dorm had the benefit of being more secure, and it was already set up to be lived in, so once the immediate threat had passed, it would be much easier to set up a base here. I decided that there was no immediate need to go to the mall. I would first set up a base here, and start accruing points for the base as soon as possible. Having a gun seemed to make a difference when it came to securing authority, and although I had bought extra ammo, it was ultimately limited. While the students were securing their dorm building, I finally made a trip to the RV. I restocked my ammo, and loaded my M4, and my spare magazine, swapped the bayonet for a silencer, and attached the axe to my belt. After setting it all up, I moved the RV to block off the entrance at the gate, which was surprisingly narrow, so it was easy to do. That out of the way, I locked it up, and headed back to the main campus. Because I planned to be using the Axe in the most immediate future, I needed to spend some points on strength. It was tempting to max out those other stats, but strength would be needed to make proper use of the Axe. I chose the battle Axe to begin with because you didn’t need much skill, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t need strength.
I bought 4 more stat points, and brought my strength up to 9.
5 -> 9
Strength determines how much physical force your body can exert. At max level you will be able to perform near superhuman feats of strength, lifting weights usually reserved for powerlifters with relative ease.
After settling everything, I returned to the inital group, and informed them of everything, and assured them that the military had plans, but for now, we needed to shelter in place, and that according to the plan I would be able to have supplies delivered in a month. In the meantime, I was going to go out to gather immediate supplies, and wanted everyone to reinforce all of the entrances in the dorms, and to avoid going outside, because there were reports of mutated intelligent zombies that could climb. For that reason, I had them start boarding up all the windows. There was a nail gun in one of the supply closets, so they were able to get to work relatively quickly.
Everyone quickly got started transferring things from the main building to the dorms, while I made my way back to Entrance. I was going to leave the RV where it was, because I needed the entrance blocked, but I planned to find something else to barricade the entrance in the future. I would also need to spend some time setting up some traps. I started making my way through the streets, clearing out a single block at a time, it was tedious, and It was tiring. After a thought, I bought a pack of smokes from the system that for some reason not only had no health demerits, but magically restored stamina somehow. That kept me going for a while at a much faster pace. And I was quickly increasing the number of points available to me. After about an hour, I had killed another 200 zombies, and finally encountered the first mutated zombie. After that I started encountering variants and sprinters with increasing frequency. After the first one, I stopped to top off my stat points again.
Level ✮ 5 is considered the average of human ability. Level ✮ 10 is the peak of human ability, bordering superhuman.
9 -> 10
Strength determines how much physical force your body can exert. At max level you will be able to perform near superhuman feats of strength, lifting weights usually reserved for powerlifters with relative ease.
5 -> 10
Endurance determines how much damage your body can endure without bruising, shutting down or otherwise suffering. It also factors in how quickly you recover from any injury or sickness. At max level you will be able to shrug off impacts most would crumble from and continue to power on even with what should be debilitating injuries.
7 -> 10
Stamina determines how long you can perform at maximum output without tiring. At max level you will be able to push yourself to your limits for near inhuman amounts of time without rest or exhaustion.
9 -> 10
Agility determines both your physical speed and your dexterity. It will improve your speed, your reaction time, and your overall balance and body control. At max level you will be able of record-breaking bursts of sprint speed and able to physically react at speeds that many would consider impossible.
5
Intelligence determines your clarity of mind and ability to comprehend and retain information and knowledge. At max level you will have perfect recall and be a savant in one academic field, able to grasp even complicated concepts with relative ease, though you will still have to manually learn.
5
Perception determines your ability to notice details others would miss and your overall awareness and intuition. This can often be misconceived as luck. At max level you will have an almost supernatural danger-sense, able to subconsciously sense danger a few moments before it occurs.
With those all upgraded, physically I was like a low level Captain America. I couldn’t outpace cars on the highway like he could, but I could sprint far faster than a normal human, and keep going for an absurd amount of time. With the strength on top of that, the axe started feeling almost weightless, and my efficiency increased by a good margin. By the end of the day I had cleared out more than a dozen blocks, all filled with shops and zombies, and even a few apartment buildings. There were supplies I could grab, but that wasn’t my current priority. I put what could fit in the backpack, but I wasn’t going to kill myself over it, I could always make trips later.
I decided to call it a night. I stopped at a hardware store, filled a moving truck with supplies to reinforce the entrance, and headed back.
By the end of the day, I had managed to max out all my stats at 10.
Even after all that, I still had 326 points left to spend.
I went through Everything, and Got the students to work helping with Reinforcing the gate, and making sure the entire territory was fenced off and secured. The outside was surprisingly easy to defend, having an almost drawbridge style set up on an elevated area. There was only a single entrance, so it was incredibly poor luck that a zombie got through to begin with. After it was all set up, I checked the base options in the CYOA app, and found that I had already qualified a few of the options.
Its one thing to survivor the apocalypse, but truly exceptional individuals also know how to thrive and rebuild. To form something their own from the remains of the old world. Setting up your own territory, protecting it, guarding it and becoming self-reliant are all key aspects to becoming a true powerhouse and figure of recognition in this world.
For every 5 Security you gain more Reputation each month. Activate these as you reach the needed milestone within your territory.
1
Gain: 2
Security
Planting this flag will mark the acre of land surrounding it as your territory. For every month you manage to protect this territory, you will be rewarded points. The more security your land has the more rewards you will gain at the end of the month.
Gain: 2Security
For this security to be gained you must ensure your territory contains a shelter that can reasonably shield you from the elements.
Gain: 1Security
For this security to be gained you must have your entire territory fenced in. It can be wood or wire.
Gain: 1Security
For this security to be gained you need to set a watchtower within your territory that has a reasonably clear view of your base surroundings.
Gain: 2Security
For this security to be gained your territory must be walled in. These walls must be reasonably solid and sturdy.
Gain: 2Security
For this security to be gained your base must have access to a reliable water supply.
I had some of the students set up a rotation on the roof, and built a lookout tower to watch the entrance and surroundings from a safe distance. I made sure that there would always be at least three people awake and watching, ready to alarm the rest if needed. For that purpose, I bought an additional phone from the shop, and had it be part of the lookout tower.
With all that settled, I called in an Airdrop, using this months chance for supplies.
Supplies are a vital part of survival in a zombie apocalypse. You can exchange your Points for a supply drop to get much-needed resources. They can be called upon once a month. They will spawn near cloud-level and begin a parachuted descent down somewhere within three miles of your location. They will have a bright smoke flare to signal their position. Contents within are guaranteed to remain undamaged regardless of how rough the trip and landing might be. It is also guaranteed to land somewhere possible for you to pickup.
0
Cost: 10 Points
A plain wooden shipping crate measuring 60x60x60. It will be full of resources to your specification, as long as they can fit within.
1
Cost: 20 Points
A standard 20 foot shipping container. Naturally, this can hold significantly more resources than a crate, including resources that wouldn't had fit otherwise such as fencing or wood planks.
Of course, I made sure to take stock of what was needed. In the shipping container were enough MRE’s to last the month for the number of people we had, a few barrels of gas and oil, building supplies, a generator, and most importantly, weapons and ammo. When the supplies finally dropped, it seemed to really reassure the students, not to mention how it made my cover story that much more believable. How could I not be coordinating with the military, if I was able to order supplies? For that reason, my position as leader was further cemented, even if I didn’t know a lick of Japanese.
For the next month, I made regular trips out, getting more supplies, clearing out zombies, and gathering survivors. I was slowly making my way towards the mall.
While I was doing that, I had the students busy reinforcing the shelter, and setting up a spot on the roof to grow vegetables. It was easy enough to find some potatoes, and it took a while, but I was able to deliver a good number of bags of fertilizer and dirt.
With the added supplies, I was able to start bringing other students with me, on rotations. I decided to have the most level headed of them come with me regularly, so that I could have them fulfill one of the missions I had selected. By the end of the month, I had already completed all of the mission objectives that I had selected, but I still had 9 years and 11 months before I could move on to another world. It was looking like it was going to be a tiring 10 years.
On my way to the mall, I did end up encountering the girl from the mission, and it was easy enough to have the students take care of her back at the school, so mission complete I guess?
With a lack of more vaccines, I wanted to get rid of all the zombies in the city before my 10 years were up. It didn’t take me long to create a system involving everyone I had rescued, to start systematically clearing out, and securing zones. The trouble was when there were variants. Normal people just can’t handle things like that. They moved too fast, and were too clever. But an Army was quickly forming, and our roof top farmland was expanding. Not to mention, with every acre of land added, I got more points.
Eventually, I had to bite the bullet and buy some of the weird clothing and weapons from the shop. They basically turned people into very low level supes, each one looking ridiculous, but coming with certain minor powers, like immunity to fall damage, increased strength, etc. It took a lot of effort to get the kids to agree to wear them, but once they experienced the effects I had to fight with them to get them to give them up for the next group on patrols. This increased their chances greatly if they ever encountered any mutated zombies. With the core students who received the completion reward for the zombie kill missions, they were already near superhuman like me, so they were less enthused about them, but still wore them. Of course it did create a lot of questions, and eventually I told them that I wasn’t from this planet and I was here to help survivors.
They seemed to take it like “as expected” for some reason. Maybe they remembered how I initially just appeared out of nowhere or something? Eventually, I was able to learn Japanese. My increased learning speed and intelligence certainly helped in that regard.
And for the next 10 years, I continued calling in air supplies once a month for each territory that I had claimed, and I continued clearing out zombies until there were none left. When that was done, a construction project began that involved closing off the entire city in giant walls, that had routine patrols. I bought vehicles from the shop, so that people could go on patrols outside of the walls and look for survivors in other cities. Slowly civilization was rebuilding, and the initial government was weirdly completely absent, as if no one in any position that was even remotely in charge had survived at all. Perhaps that was the fault of that one drawback.
Unfortunately, there were still quite a few threats, most notably, from within. There were plenty of criminals, and more than one that tried to stage a coup. Far too many predators. I may have had a limited number of vaccines for the zombie virus, but I luckily had an unlimited supply of cures for those with that condition, and It happened to be the color of brass. Eventually dissenters grew quieter, and people who took liberties took permanent vacations. I wasn’t complaining about having more targets after all, they only helped me complete my last mission.
At the end of the 10 years, the world faded to gray, time seemed to freeze, and a window popped up in front of me, no longer tied to my phone.
“Hearth and Body Meta”