Daz was surprised to feel very light as he ran to the scrap metal skip. Maybe this was due to the bonus stats he had received from his 'Shovel Knight' class? He pushed the thought aside since he had more important things to deal with right now.

He quickly grabbed as many sheets of metal as he could reach. Unfortunately, he could only get six. They were very heavy, but oddly enough, Daz could hold all of them without collapsing. He had always been somewhat fit, but never to this extent. He chalked this up to his stat boost again.

He then sprinted to the only entrance the recycling centre had. It was a gate that was held together by several iron bars and was rather old and a bit rusted.

The company he worked for had no interest in replacing it due to the cost of such an action and Daz felt like it could collapse any day now, let alone if it were under the attack of monsters, regardless of the type.

After he had reached the gate, he dropped the metal sheets on the ground and took a quick second to catch his breath, and he checked his phone's timer. He had set one for two hours a few minutes ago to stay on top of things.

1:54:39

"Fuck, that took six minutes! No more breaks, time to push this body to its limits, Daz," he whispered to himself.

Daz quickly ran over to the tool box. This was different from the tool shed in the fact that the shed held the company tools while the box was for items donated by the public. The shed contained nothing but brooms, hooks, rakes, spades, that kind of stuff. But the box had more handheld items like drills, saws and screwdrivers in it.

Daz rapidly slammed his hand into the box and began rummaging around for screws and a power drill with reckless abandon. He had no such luck. Thankfully, he was a very decisive person, so he took out a big toolkit that had roughly thirty flathead screwdrivers in it, and he then pulled out a worn-looking hammer from the box.

After doing so, he ran back to the gate at full speed. Once there, he started lining up the sheets of metal against the gate and the wall that it was attached to.

He then aligned a flathead screwdriver with the corner of one of the sheets and slammed the hammer down onto its butt as hard as he could. Immediately a loud clanking sound could be heard as the sheet was pierced by the flathead and Daz's entire arm went numb.

'Holy fuck! That was powerful. Twenty percent is a lot, huh?' Daz thought before he picked up another flathead and hit that one into another corner, he repeated this on each sheet in each corner until there was finally four holes in each of the six sheets.

1:30:01

Daz was getting anxious at his timing for things, but he ignored his phone for now and rushed back to the scrap metal skip. He soon returned to the gate with several wires made entirely out of copper.

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"I hope I'm strong enough to bend you," he whispered before he immediately tried and miraculously enough, they bent extremely easily to his touch and they also formed into the shape he wanted surprisingly enough. Daz chalked this up to his increased dexterity and maybe his Basic Crafting Skill.

After straightening out the first wire, he threaded it through the hole he had made in the metal sheet and looped it around the gate's metal bars. Daz repeated this for all of the wires and sheets, although it took him several trips to the scrap metal skip and he had to improvise on the last one by using cut television cables since he couldn't reach any more metal wires.

0:45:35

"Fuck! That took forever!" Daz shouted while he ran to the wood and timber skip. With the help of a hook, he had retrieved from the tool shed; he had fished out several cabinets and wardrobes.

With tremendous effort, he slung one over each shoulder and ran back to the gate. He placed these wooden creations in front of the metal sheets as a way to reinforce them.

He copied this process until he was out of wardrobes and cabinets. His body was covered in sweat and ached all over, but he ignored this for now and checked his phone once again.

0:06:12

"Shit shit shit!" Daz exclaimed. Although he was excited at the chance to live in an apocalyptic world, it meant nothing if he died before getting any merit points and buying any proper defensive gear from the shop.

As his last task, he ran back to the tool shed and grabbed a second shovel to join the first one he had gotten his class from which he now held.

Due to how tired he was, Daz slipped when leaving the tool shed and fell over. "Ouch!"

Looking up, Daz rubbed his head and looked confused. For some reason, there was only one shovel now, not two. "What the hell? Where'd it go?"

Daz shook it off and quickly grabbed another shovel. He held both tools in his hand as he went to check the time before a sudden white flash blinded him. Opening his eyes, he could see that once again, a shovel had disappeared, however, this time he noticed that the remaining one now looked shinier and sharper.

"D-Did they combine? No way..." Daz reentered the tool shed to test his theory.

If one were to look at the entrance to the tool shed, they would see nothing but a constant stream of white flashes. A few minutes later, Daz emerged from within the blue container. In his right hand now lay a pristine looking shovel whose edge looked like it might be able to cut paper if enough precision was used.

"It's a crazy new world, so anythings possible, I guess? I need to test things and ask questions later for sure though," Daz uttered to no one in particular.

He didn't take even a second to rest and ran to the gate. Upon reaching it, he jumped up on the wardrobes he had placed earlier so Daz could now see across the vast grasslands and hills that the skip site faced. He could see a vast horde of zombies slowly shuffling towards him. There must have been at least two hundred of them.

The period of protection has now ended

Due to the extensive and near-perfect measures you have taken in preparation for the incoming monster attack, you have been assessed as being a highly adaptable subject, so the difficulty of your beginning attack has been increased greatly. If you can manage to overcome this trial, you shall receive an equal amount of merit points for your efforts.

Good luck, host.

"Fuck me. I try to be prepared, and I get a stronger attack because of it? Just how am I going to kill 200 zombies with a shovel and some basic traps?" Daz complained, but he still gripped his shovel tightly in both of his hands. Although he was already quite tired from his building, he was going to kill those zombies, no, he had to kill those zombies.