As I had chosen my apartment room and had everything settled in, I began to think about the meeting I just had.

''Wow what hard asses, not a shred of humor. It's reasonable to be thorough with safety protocols but got damn you don't have to be so uptight even afterwards.''

''Let's see... So secondary stat points cannot be increased by normal level up. What would make my chances of survival better if luck is discounted from the equation.''

In youth Richard had played a lot, meaning borderline obsessed with a game called World of Warcries where the setting fitted somewhat similarly to his situation, he pondered what parallels he could draw and started his theory crafting from there.

After cross examining the knowledge he had from previous games and the stats he currently had, he came to a conclusion after some deliberation.

''I have got fairly good Str, Vita and currently Int and Spi are not useful so I should up my Agi to 10 and dump the last extra point on stam. METAGAMING BABY !''

Agility increased +4 [ 6 → 10 ]

Stamina increased +1 [ 7 → 8 ]

He stood up and tried a basic muay thai fighting stance throwing a few punches he noticed a distinct difference in his attack speed.

''Wow if I keep going on and level up enough I might actually be buff AF and unlock yellow hair, find fine piece of red speedos and transform into super Sayin' Richardo Mailous''

''Putting that aside, I can feel that those people are not the kind I want to put my trust in. The way that Elena chick looked at me was exactly the same as my bitch of an (ex) fiancé when she lied straight to my face.''

''Now the question is what could they want me for? Supplies maybe?...Nah as far as I could infer from that dick Jaume they have leveled multiple times and they still weren't leaving so there must be something that they can't overcome by themselves or not just yet.''

As he thought up to this point the friendly grin of Elena came to his mind, winking to Jaume he became 90% sure that it wasn't anything good for him.

''What is my value currently? They have taken most of my supplies, being somewhat friendly towards total strangers that are not even Spanish. Neither did I give an impression of a strong team mate but rather a somewhat goofy and wet behind the ears lucky brat, so my guess would be meat shield, bait or distraction... How troubling indeed...''

Richard felt cold sweat dripping from his neck, knowing the reality of his current situation. If he just told them: ''Let's part ways, was nice meeting you guys!'' They would most likely turn hostile and his chances of survival would diminish significantly.

''Why is life so hard? Even before the zombie apocalypse and this shitty game I was betrayed and used, how could I imagine anything else from total strangers? One step at the time, calm down and prepare as best you can Richard.''

Standing up feeling somewhat downtrodden at my current blight, some part of my consciousness still reminded me that Elena & the crew might not be as bad as he makes them up to be.

He was reminded of the times when he himself was spontaneously helping a stranger in need such as an old granny missing a bus in the dead of winter and giving lift to her destination and some other times that he was being nice just for the gesture and self satisfaction.

''Yeah, there are still good people in this world, like that year...''

Richard fell deeper into thought as he was reminiscing about an old incident years back.

I was at the time a naive 16 years old, coming from school and stopped by a local shop and started to walk homewards, when suddenly I saw a man 20 or so meters away fall unconscious and his face started to turn red.

As I went closer to the person in distress he saw that his face was quickly turning purple shade and panicked what to do.

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I stood there dumbly while a woman passing by had pulled at the side of the road and yelled in fluster what the fuck am I doing, call 112 quickly and help the poor man.

Still in shock I watched the woman trying to give CPR doing chest compressions and watching the man's slightly obese stomach jumping up and down like an bouncy ball. Soon the paramedics arrived with defibrillators and oxygen. I was totally overwhelmed by the situation and just wished that the man could be saved.

After the medics had performed first arrival emergency treatment they took the man away and feeling guilty of my ineptitude I decided to put the whole thing behind me because those first responders are heroes, and they can definitely save him.

Later that night I passed by the incident ground and just saw multiple funeral candles erected on the place he fell, and I felt like shit.

That day I promised that I would try to better myself so that I could overcome unknown and strange situations in the future, because had I responded quickly, maybe the man could have been saved at the time.

I pulled myself out from the thoughts of the past, and began to think about the future.

''Guess there is only one thing to do now. Adapt before I am forced to adapt, learn what can be learned and practise what I can.''

I picked up the trusty Curtain-kun and started to do different kinds of strikes, feeling what kind of attack would inflict the most amount of harm with the least effort.

One hour after my hard work paid off.

Skill — Staff mastery Lv.1 learned

The summary for the skill was just what one can expect, increased blunt damage using staff weapons, but I couldn't be happier about it since I have not seen swords or the like anywhere.

Besides, the staff are quite nice with their long reach, comparing them at least to kitchen knives and the like.

After a few more training rounds with the staff I was exhausted, so I was prepared to go to sleep and wait for what tomorrow brings with it.

The night went on quite uneventfully for Richard, except when he tried to sleep he was distracted by gunfire sounds coming from the bottleneck blockade and some faint moans of pleasure from the hallway.

''I get it that some people get off in dangerous places, but can you at least tune it down a notch when people are trying to rest.''

After a short while the moans stopped and Richard had gotten somewhat used to the occasional gunfire he finally fell into deep sleep.

Suddenly banging sounds started to echo in Richard's apartment and in the hallway as Jaume performed an unnecessarily loud wake up call.

''NEWBIE RISE AND SHINE''

Startled from sleep I jumped out of the bed looking around in this new environment.

''Today is the day, whether I get out of this city alive or die in a ditch somewhere in this shithole.''

I started to dress up and put my things ready for the departure.

After finishing my tasks I came out of the apartment seeing that the Chick & Dicks gang was waiting for me in the hallway seemingly ready to go.

''Yo newbie! Ready to depart? '' Called out Jaume cheerfully while nudging Marc's shoulder a little.

''Newbie this is Marc, he doesn't speak English so he can't say hi to you but he is very excited for the new addition for the team.'' Jaume introduced the last member that I had yet to meet while nodding to Marc to smile.

''Buenos días Marc, como estas?'' I said in broken Spanish and offered a handshake.

''Buenas dias Richard.'' He said while offering a handshake.

As I clasped his hand he started to use more and more force, maybe to embarrass myself or to test whether or not I was stronger than the initial estimate.

To be honest, his handshake was monstrous to me, I currently had 10 strength but it felt like my hand could turn into mush any given moment so when it came to this point I could only be subservient and give the ol' classic hide the pain harald reaction.

Elena eyed the handshake with little reaction and then broke it off seemingly berating Marc for his rude behavior.

''Now that introductions are done, we should start setting towards the exit and be done with this place, any objections?''

''Nope''

''Proceed as we planned. ''

And I of course could not risk turning them hostile so I answered with positive.

The Chick & Dicks squad was equipped with tight fitting clothes and a backpack and I could see a few firearms on them as well as multiple daggers.

Marc seemed to be the brute, or in game terms the tank as he had a riot shield next to him and machete hanging from his waist, others were basically gunmen supporting and securing his back with crowbars and fire ax as secondary weapons.

What seemed strange to me was Elena was not carrying anything other than dual daggers but it seemed to me quite foolish to take risks at close range, or maybe she didn't feel like fighting at all.

As we departed fully geared and ready to go, what came to my mind was exactly where was this secretive exit that Elena refused to tell me about and how do we get there?

''So about our destination, how far is it? Do we take car or walk?''

I decided to ask, since it would be stranger and more suspicious to not be curious about my current destination than to just silently accept it.

''We'll take the car from the parking hall, the destination is about 30 minutes away if we are lucky not to run into any obstacles. The place we are planning to break out is old smuggling route used by cartel that should not have been discovered.''

Nodding, I continued to follow them into the parking hall entrance while pondering the extra information provided.

''So it should be a tunnel or something like that... This could be bad if they really do intend to use me as bait. I have never been too keen of trapped in small spaces after visiting inside of the great pyramids, as that shit was uncomfortable.''

Soon we stopped in front of a gray SUV and started to toss our back bags in the trunk and were about ready to set off. I saw a few bags of white powder, a handgun and a few magazines of bullets.

''So this should explain how they know about the smuggling route. Cool cool cool cool, this is not a problem. I can totally trust my back into these fine, coke powered gang members. Oh who am I kidding here? They will totally just bail and use me as meat shield when needed.''

I sat down on the backseat buckling the seatbelt thinking about what is to come and could feel anxiety and butterflies on my stomach, waiting for what is to come.