Lucas finds any task acceptable as long as it doesn't involve killing insects immediately.

After determining the task, Lucas wastes no time and heads straight to the nearby woods from the collapsed courtyard wall.

In the woods, there are at least one or two mushrooms that have probably stopped releasing spores and might have withered.

After taking a few steps into the woods, Lucas locks eyes with an infected dog.

Using a flashlight, Lucas notices some changes in the infected dog.

The large blood holes on the dog's body have disappeared, and in their place, a huge heart covered in mucus is beating strongly.

This infected dog is evolving!

This discovery surprises Lucas, and his guard against this dog reaches its peak.

Lucas clearly remembers that in the previous apocalypse, the infected beings started evolving after about a month.

Has there been a change in this apocalypse?

Could it be due to his own rebirth, causing a butterfly effect?

Lucas thinks it's impossible.

Although he now has special abilities, he is still insignificant in this apocalypse and doesn't have the qualifications to trigger a butterfly effect.

Looking at the infected dog in front of him, Lucas identifies the problem—it's probably something off about this dog.

The infected dog's eyes are different from those of other infected creatures.

Its eyes are not gray-white!

Upon careful consideration, Lucas realizes that when he last saw it in the woods, its eyes were not gray-white.

He had overlooked this detail due to nervousness, only noticing the blood holes on its body.

Lucas has only seen such eye color in evolved infected creatures.

However, without exception, the level of those infected creatures had already surpassed the red level and reached at least yellow.

Yellow is the third level among the seven levels.

If Lucas were to encounter a yellow infected creature now, he wouldn't even consider running away and would pray to avoid such bad luck in his next life.

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The intense light from the flashlight makes the infected dog uncomfortable, and it bares its teeth at Lucas before turning and walking away.

Without hesitation, Lucas follows it.

The mission assigned by the system is for Lucas to find the cause of the abnormality in the infected dog, so naturally, he needs to start with the dog itself.

Since the infected dog shows no intention of attacking Lucas, he feels confident and fearless.

As Lucas follows the infected dog further into the woods, he spots two mushrooms and instinctively tightens the saw made from insect legs in his hand.

The saw, made from the forelimbs of insects, can be used as a saw, a club, or a knife.

It has become Lucas's most powerful weapon, even more potent than the handgun in his pocket. Currently, it is an invincible tool.

This tool can harm red-colored insects, something the handgun cannot achieve.

The infected dog passes between the two mushrooms without stopping, but Lucas pauses when he reaches them.

One of the mushrooms catches his attention.

Both mushrooms have entered the withering stage, but strangely, one of them has several bite marks on the "stalk," the stem of the mushroom.

Upon closer inspection, Lucas notices five notches on the "cap" as well, the umbrella-like top of the mushroom.

Observing the notches, Lucas recalls the infected dog he encountered earlier.

Could it be that this peculiar behavior of the dog is due to eating these mushrooms?

With this in mind, Lucas shines the flashlight on the notches and realizes that they were not formed after the mushroom matured. They must have been bitten during the seedling stage.

At that stage, the mushroom had not yet produced spores, lacked the ability to spread infection, and was not considered an infected organism.

A question arises in Lucas's mind.

The infected dog must have been pierced by the insect leg, turning into a zombie dog. At what point did it eat the immature mushroom, causing its body to be influenced by some unknown ability of the mushroom while still maintaining some clarity in its infected state?

Or did the dog eat the mushroom first and then get infected by the insects?

Lucas feels that he has found some kind of answer, at least completing half of the mission.

As for whether the dog ate the mushroom before or after getting infected, Lucas realizes his intelligence is insufficient and decides to leave it to the surviving human scientists for further research.

Swinging the saw made from insect legs, Lucas cleanly cuts down both mushrooms, planning to take them back to the courtyard later.

Although these mushrooms cannot be eaten, they might be useful in exchanging something with the system.

They could even be used as poison. Since he doesn't have much to begin with, wasting things is not an option.

Lucas stopped, and the infected dog in front of him also stopped and looked at Lucas, then at the mushrooms. It bared its teeth, as if urging Lucas to catch up quickly.

After a few minutes, the dog led Lucas out of the woods, and they arrived at several rows of corrugated iron houses.

There must have been many people living here before. The ground was littered with corpses, and the scene was gruesome.

However, at this moment, it was eerily quiet, pitch black, making Lucas feel a little uneasy.

If a horde of zombies were to appear at this time, Lucas didn't think he would be able to escape.

As a precaution, Lucas prepared to run at any moment and lit a homemade gasoline bottle that he had brought, throwing it into a pile of corpses.

Boom!

The homemade gasoline bottle instantly ignited.

The pile of corpses caught fire, and the flames blazed brightly.

After half a minute, although the horde of zombies did not appear, Lucas heard the distinct dull groans of zombies coming from tens of meters away.

Lucas listened carefully and felt that it should be the sound of a single zombie.

At this moment, the infected dog guided Lucas to follow it, not far away.

In a highly vigilant state, Lucas followed the infected dog to a corrugated iron house.

The sound of the zombie was now clearly audible, coming from inside the corrugated iron house.

"You want me to follow you to find this zombie?" Lucas asked the infected dog, who was only about ten meters away from him, and he already had a rough idea in his mind.

Without any surprises, the zombie inside the corrugated iron house should be the owner of the infected dog.

Although he had many questions in his mind, Lucas still shooed away the infected dog, which he used both his hands and feet to do, and asked it to stay away from him before walking to the front of the house.

The structure of the corrugated iron house was simple, usually a single room, and the situation inside the room could be seen at a glance.

With a handgun in his left hand and a saw made from insect legs in his right hand, Lucas broke the lock on the door.

As the door slowly swung open, Lucas caught a whiff of a foul odor.

He raised his hand and shone the bright flashlight inside.

At a glance, Lucas saw a zombie lying on the bed in the room.

Upon closer inspection, this zombie was probably a severely disabled person. It had no legs and only one arm.

No wonder it couldn't move even after being infected.

Lucas didn't rush in but carefully scanned the entire room with the bright flashlight.

On and under the bed, Lucas noticed several pieces of block-like objects that were similar in color to the mushrooms.

Could it be...

Lucas thought of a possibility, and his mood fluctuated for a moment.

This infected dog was probably asking him to save its owner.

The mushroom blocks on the ground were likely its previous efforts to save its owner.

Furthermore, the mushroom blocks confirmed Lucas's previous conjecture.

The abnormality of the infected dog, which was different from other infected beings, was one hundred percent related to the mushrooms.