The sunrise on day 3 once again caught Michael already on the move. He made it to the supply drop in the 1st business district without much difficulty, yet despite defeating 16 zombies on the way he had yet to get a white drop. Michael ate the first can of soup at the drop sight. Then he threw back a bottle of tea, before replacing most of his tuna cans with the various food options this drop site provided. He immediately got the impression that he would enjoy eating the food from this drop site far more than he did the tuna. Perhaps, fish just was not to his taste. Mark left a stack of tuna cans alongside one of the tubs. Someone might want them. He would keep a few meals worth, but would replace the rest of the seven day supply he was allowed to carry in his inventory.

Michael did catch sight of another contender, but when he raised his arm in welcome the man cautiously backed away before ducking behind cover. The man looked to be in a rough state. He had been shirtless, having used his shirt as a bandage for several wounds on his legs and torso. The guy was definitely having a more difficult time than Michael currently was. Of course, Michael still had a couple of welts on his back he had earned to get him to this point.

Regardless, the man was entirely too skittish. Perhaps there was a reason. Maybe he had already been attacked by another contender, or perhaps he was just overly weary. Michael shook his head, if two days was enough to reduce the man to that state, there was no need to get the man on his contact list. The guy would not likely last very long. There was even less chance of him becoming a future power house, someone worth getting to know early.

Michael checked his homepage, 3,000,422 contenders remaining. Surprisingly day 2 had not seen them dip the 52,000 it would have taken to get them below 3 million, although that would likely change within a couple hours this morning. Perhaps he should not be that surprised. Only determined people had chosen to enter the survival battle.

Sure there would be a fair percentage that had misjudged their capabilities and did not have the right mentality to participate, but even then many of them could stay around for weeks given the right circumstances. Other than them, there were plenty of people, even some as or more capable than him, that had likely gotten unlucky in the opening days. It might be a few weeks or a month before this battle had really weeded out those that did not belong. It was unfortunate that they would be dead, but they should have self reflected a little more before putting themselves in the situation.

Whatever, was not his problem. Michael made a beeline deeper into the business district. He passed everything from single story restaurants to multi story office buildings. All the while he did not have any problems dealing with the zombies that moved to intercept them. It was not until he ran into the first pack of dogs that he ran into some real trouble.

He had finally picked up his first stat point just prior to being set on by five vicious canines. He had added it dexterity, to help deal with the reported speed of the dogs he had been told about. Vince and Michele had not misled him. He heard a deep guttural growl, whose purpose seemed to be to alert the rest of the pack.

Five rottweiler looking brutes came streaking out of an alley heading right for him. They were a hundred pounds of pure muscle, covered with black fur, and their teeth bared sharp canines. Their bite probably would do less than a zombie's would for the same amount of effort, but there was no question on which he would rather be facing.

[Dark hound, tier 0, x 5]

The beasts only had to clear a hundred feet worth of distance to reach him. Something they would accomplish in seconds. Michael's left arm shot up sending bolts into the pack. He popped off five bolts taking down two of the dogs. A third lunged, intending to slam into his body and knock him down. Michael’s right arm delivered a one handed swing it did not do much more than knock the beast off from a collision path. The beast landed and wheeled around, but Michael was already focused on the next two.

Michael’s back swing caught another of the beasts pushing it aside. One of the beast's claws snagged and tore a gash on his green vest, but Michael was already focusing on the next. Two more bolts took its center chest bringing the mutt down. Leaving only two opponents for Michael to deal with. He felt he could manage with just his bat with only two.

His left hand moved to the bat and he delivered a powerful blow to one of the hounds heads and front shoulder. The canine was sent reeling, dazed, but not seriously wounded. Michael had to bring his back around immediately to stop the other from grabbing ahold of his ankle. The battle went back and forth for a bit, but he was eventually able to snap one of their legs. It allowed Michael to devote his full attention to the other. After that it was a simple thing to beat the dog down, and even easier to target the two wounded canines. A second that had been wounded by one of Michael’s initial five bolts had hobbled back into the mix.

It had been more intense of a battle than anything he had gotten into the day before. It had also caused him to expend a quarter of the bolts from his bracer. All for just a couple more crowns, not much considering the effort he had been required to exert, but it was something. That brought him up to 42 crowns in total. Hopefully it would be enough to buy some of the lower end items, but since he could gather that many in a couple of days it would likely not buy him anything game changing.

Michael barely paused after the battle. His SP had dropped to 81, but was already on its way back up. He only considered turning around for easier grinding fields for a moment before dismissing the idea. It would not necessarily be a wrong move. He would likely be able to gain more crowns and stat points moving through an easy area, but all it would take would be one more green drop to make losing out on a handful of stat points worth it. Sticking to a more challenging area, would be the better move provided he actually did get rewarded for doing so.

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Michael ran into several more groups of zombies before running into a second pack of dogs. The dog packs were more dangerous, but apparently they were fewer and far between. This time Michael targeted the legs when he could since snapping a leg would take the hound out of the battle, whereas their heads and bodies were far tougher to beat through despite his 15 in strength. The trio he had passed yesterday had been right to move out of this area, without the bracer, Michael would have had a lot of difficulty. The second pack required him to expend 8 bolts, but he did not feel as bad since there had been 6 hounds in the pack.

This time the pack dropped a white ball that Michael used to bring his dexterity up to 17. He took a few practice swings and moved around a bit. His agility was at 13, so there was once again a 4 point disparity between agility and dexterity. The same difference when he had first noticed the lag between his reaction and his movements. This time though, he did not notice a hint. It made sense, the higher his stat points went, the less each new point would affect him. If he put another point or two in dexterity, he would likely start to notice things again.

It took Michael a moment to realize he was not alone. A middle aged woman emerged from one of the nearby buildings. “Excuse me, young man. I don’t suppose I could convince you to help me get to the supply drop. I haven’t eaten in two days. A pack of dogs chased me inside on day 1, and I have not been able to leave without them chasing me back inside.

Michael studied the woman. The woman had a warm and pleading expression, sunken slightly due to having endured a couple of days without food and water. One of her legs had been wounded, but had healed to the point that she could move with only a small limp. Likely, a dog had savaged her and she had been able to knock it away and take refuge inside before they tore her apart.

Michael thought about it for a few moments. It was not about any benefits he could receive or making a friend that could be useful to him in the future. This lady likely could never offer him much. He genuinely wanted to help the woman. His parents had raised him to be kind and considerate to others when able. Most people on the bottom half of Steeple city would gladly stop what they were doing to help someone, since they all knew how difficult life could be. That being said. It was at least an hour and a half back to the pink drop, and that was assuming she could keep up with his normal pace. Three hours out of his way might not seem like much, but it could be quite costly when every minute of grabbing more resources was important.

Michael looked down, unwilling to look the older lady in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t afford to backtrack that far,” Michael stammered. It might be calloused to him, but he knew it was the right answer for him. When survival through the entirety of the battle was uncertain for even the best of contenders, what chance was there for this lady who was already days behind during a critical time.

“I understand,” the woman replied with a shaky voice. His appearance had probably offered her hope. Him refusing to escort her back, in her mind, might have sealed her fate. Her not continuing to beg him for assistance, showed Michael what she was really like at her core. A selfish person would have done whatever it took to get Michael to help them begging and pleading, but this lady had simply made the request and accepted his answer. Likely she did not want to set him back. Possibly, she already was aware that her chance to survive to the end had already passed.

“Listen, I can’t afford to backtrack, but I can spare some food and water. We are allowed to carry seven days worth of food in our inventories. I will give you four days worth of what I have. That should give you time to heal up and get to a supply drop yourself,” Michael said. Cans of food, water bottles, and bottles of tea appeared on the ground.

“Thank you so much,” the lady said once again, her voice wavering. “Are you sure it is okay to give me this much?” she looked up at him. Despite her thirst and hunger she did not immediately go for the food.

“Yeah, three days worth of food should be more than enough. If I haven’t made it to another supply drop by then. Well… it would likely be because I was dead. Go ahead.”

The woman did not need him to reassure her again. She immediately scooped up one of the bottles of water and started gulping it down. Michael waited for her to finish. He was eager to move on, but he could spare a couple more minutes.

“Listen,” Michael started. The woman finished the water and reached for one of the cans, although her attention was back on him. “Do you have a weapon?”

The woman shook her head. “I jabbed mine into the side of one of those beasts, and lost it.” Michael glanced at the bodies, but none had a knife still sticking out of them. Either these were different hounds, or the knife had been dislodged and fallen wherever the hounds had been running around.

“Okay, I have a bunch of pipe wrenches I picked up from some zombies in the industrial area. I can give you one of those,” Michael said, pulling one from his inventory. “Also, I would recommend you move east as soon as you can manage. I just cleared the route here taking out a couple packs of dogs and zombies. Maybe if you head that way now, you will not run into too much trouble. The dogs don’t travel that far east, and if you make it into the industrial area you should have an easier time. I ran into a couple of people there yesterday, and all together only one tier 1 zombie had been caught in the area. Perhaps some more have evolved, but I think you stand a better chance there than with the dogs.”

The woman nodded. “Thank you again, I will definitely head that way after I eat a little.”

“Good,” Michael smiled. “One more thing. Before I leave, are you good with being on my contact list.”

The woman looked at him questioningly, so Michael explained what he knew about the list. After that they wished each other luck and Michael continued west. He now had one more contact, Hannah Smith. Hopefully, the woman would make it, but Michael’s attention soon shifted back to task.

Michael only had to fight his way through another pack of five dogs before he found what he had been hoping for. A green splotch appeared on his map. This time the dot was see through and encompassed the entirety of an 5 story office building, or at least the portion of the building within his sphere of influence.

The creators evidently wanted contenders to know there was a green drop inside, but they did not want to make things so easy that Michael could immediately find it. He would have to search the entire building until he found it. It was just an inconvenience for him, since he was not going to leave here without it.