Dominic watched cautiously from behind as his death clone brazenly entered the house. He then tried to connect with his death clone and found that he could easily see what it saw like he was watching a high-quality first-person point of view.
What made Dominic satisfied was the fact that this did not interfere with his normal sensory functions nor did it really distract him. In the future, if his Acuity rose higher, he might even be able to have multiple viewpoints active in his mind at the same time.
The interior of the house was normal but very banged up. Countless tables, chairs, and decorations that usually made this suburban house feel lived in and full of life were now strewn about like debris.
Dominic checked the ground floor and saw that apart from a mess, there was nothing else but some blood stains. His death clone followed the blood upstairs slowly and then saw that all the doors had been broken open.
The trail of blood merged and converged into the master bedroom, where upon entry, Dominic was treated to a sight from a gore and snuff lover's wet dream. He immediately blanched and began dry heaving once more since his stomach was still empty from the earlier session just a few minutes ago.
Dominic did not know much about his neighbors since he was mostly indoors working on his game's development, only coming out when it was absolutely necessary, but now he learned that the person who lived in the house behind him was part of a family of 6.
There was dad, there was mom, there was the adult woman who was crippled by the cat, two teenage twin girls, and one toddler boy who were splayed in the room, and the specific descriptions of their states were omitted from Dominic's mind as he deleted it immediately.
His death clone even seemed stunned by the sight, but this was impossible since it was stoic and expressionless, not even a twitch of change appearing on its form. Dominic hurriedly made it leave the bedroom and explore the other rooms to find anything useful.
Well, almost as if some form of cosmic deity was smiling upon him - finally - Dominic found the father's stash of weapons. It seemed he was a gun collector and had a display case with stock amounts of ammunition.
Well… it made sense. He was a man with an aged wife, three daughters, and one underage son; he naturally had to make sure that he could protect his precious family in this cruel world. Unfortunately, he was not as fast as the mutated cat and could not reach his armory in time to save his family.
However, this benefited Dominic, making him think of the 'one man's meat was another man's poison' saying, which didn't seem to really apply the way he thought it did. Immediately, the death clone packed up all the weapons and ammunition into various bags and boxes it found in the room.
One thing Dominic quickly learned was that his death clone had no concept of stamina or tiredness. After all, it did not have muscles in the conventional sense and operated using some esoteric rules, so in a way, it was like a smart undead clone.
However, it had a strength limit. It could attempt to lift strenuous things and not feel fatigued, but if something surpassed its strength limit, nothing could be done about that.
Dominic hesitated before moving to enter the house with his other death clone. The moment he entered, he immediately sensed the difference between using his clone and his own self… the smell!
He had already vomited twice, but he had to take a step outside as he felt dizzy due to the sheer stench of blood and exposed meat/organs that filled the house. The other death clone went inside, and in a matter of minutes that Dominic spent rubbing his temples with fatigue due to mental strain, everything had been packed up and brought down.
Dominic checked it and nodded before glancing at his own house. With this, he should be able to challenge the giant pitbull as long as it did not have something like 'copper skin and iron bones'.
Even then, it still had eyes as weak points, but Dominic did not have any gun training and did not know if he could muster the accuracy to shoot. Playing first-person shooters made him familiar with the idea of guns, but did nothing for the actual usage and manipulation of them.
Still, that was why he had death clones. With the two of them armed with rifles and firing at the same time, they should be able to get something done. Or better yet, one of them barged in and acted like an aggro tank while the other hid and waited for the perfect chance to fire a fatal blow.
Actually, there were many ways Dominic could handle this, but there was only one problem. The initial slaughtering had died down, and the entire neighborhood was quiet as death. If he fired a gun right now, everyone and everything would know about him.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Putting aside the monsters that might be attracted due to the noise, the humans who heard the sound of weapons would instantly become paragons of greed, especially if they were also unarmed.
In an apocalypse, the value of weapons was not something that needed to be expounded upon, especially when the 'monsters' were not yet so far gone that they could not be dealt with accordingly.
So there was a risk, but then again, everything was a risk in his current situation. Staying in this particular house was a risk, sleeping in the grass was a risk, even standing where he was - like an idiot - was a risk.
In the end, it was up to Dominic himself to weigh the risk and decide on the best path for himself. As such, he sighed and brought the weapons closer to the wall along with his two death clones and then tossed them over using the three of them.
One was on the other side to receive, one sat on the wall to carry, and one lifted them up from the neighbor's yard. Dominic naturally was the one receiving since that was the least strenuous and took little of his limited stamina despite his increased stats.
It took a short while for everything to be carted over, and Dominic walked on his familiar yard that he had just run away from in a flurry about half an hour ago. He felt like it had been years since he had last been here, and his heart swelled with emotions.
In the end, he simply sighed and sat down against the wall while watching his two death clones arm themselves appropriately. Making sure they were set, they slowly sneaked over to the house while Dominic watched.
He had no plan of going nearby in case anything went wrong, and from here, he could also identify anyone who was attracted by the noise before they came and flee if necessary. His vision split into three, one from his perspective and two from his death clones.
It was a bit weird to view it like this, but he found that he could barely manage it because his main body wasn't doing anything too strenuous. Upon entering the house, Dominic noted through his death clones that apart from the broken window in the kitchen and the damaged furniture, everything else was intact.
The death clones cautiously snuck upstairs and saw that everything was as Dominic left it, except for his bedroom in which the giant pitbull was happily sleeping on his rug beside his bed.
His PC setup and everything were intact, and there was virtually no damage except for a bit of blood splattered apart from his corpses that were dragged up and devoured. This reminded Dominic of his torment at the hands of this monster, and deep hatred flashed in his eyes.
What surprised him was the utter lack of reaction by the giant pitbull towards his death clones. Even iflazy, the giant pitbull had been boosted by the Omega System and become an apex predator, so its danger senses should be relatively okay.
Yet it did not sense death creeping upon it. It was either that the Death Clones were too weak to pose a threat and so did not trigger its warning signs, or that it could not easily detect the death clones because they had no smell, no blood, no flesh, and no body heat.
Or it could be both. Whatever the case, one death clone snuck in and placed the muzzle of its rifle in the ear of the sleeping pitbull that breathed like a tractor that was working and aimed downwards.
Making sure the safety was off - as even though he was not gun trained, Dominic was still American enough to know how to turn off the safety of a gun - the death clones immediately opened fire wantonly into the monster's right ear.
There was immediately a splash of blood and the sound of drilling as the monster yowled and jumped up, taking the death clone up with it. It screamed and thrashed, using a paw to smash its right ear, which knocked the death clone away.
The other death clone raised its rifle up to shoot but paused. After all, the giant pitbull stood in place with extremely bloodshot eyes, panting heavily as if it had run a hundred miles. Blood leaked from its right ear in copious amounts, and a bit leaked from its eyes like a trail of tears.
The beast growled with anger and seemed infuriated, walking forward confidently and calmly to deal death upon the measly prey that dared to harm it. It couldn't help but sneer inside as it saw that the strange being before it was frozen in place, likely from fear.
Of course, all of this only occurred in the giant pitbull's head. The death clone was standing in place due to surprise from Dominic's end, as he saw the giant pitbull gurgle blood from its throat in some sort of failed growl before wobbling left and right on the spot.
Eventually, it fell to the ground and struggled to get up as the volume of blood from its body increasingly poured out from its orifices. Eventually, its body could only twitch and tremble on the ground repeatedly until it finally stopped moving.
This made Dominic feel surprised at how easy it had been to take down this monster, at least compared to that treacherous cat. However, Dominic then thought of his advantages and felt that if he failed to succeed even after sneaking up and shooting the enemy right in the ear, then he might as well give up his precious spot among the still living.
Immediately, Dominic's bar filled up once again and went to the next level, granting him one allocatable attribute point. Immediately, he placed it into Potency once more and directly felt his body become leaner yet more muscular and aerodynamic.
With 2.8 points, he was now arguably 3 times as strong and fast as a peak human male, which brought him to the level of powerful fighters who had trained their bodies to near perfection.
Dominic enjoyed this feeling of power growth because, as a man and given his circumstances, it made him feel more secure about his existence. He now wished he had some form of technique he knew that could bring out the full effect of his growing power, which could also benefit his death clones.
Well, there would be time to learn such things once he secured his home and shelter for the rest of the apocalypse. Immediately, Dominic had his death clones drag the giant pitbull's bleeding corpse downstairs and place it in the living room for now.
Dominic did not want to throw it away to attract other predators or carrion feeders, not to mention that while he still had refrigerated supplies and food to last for a while, and could even loot the nearby houses or supermarkets for more. He knew that with production basically halted in the face of the apocalypse, he might have to get used to the idea of eating monster meat in the future.