Rebekah Clark’s eyes widened in surprise at the mention of her nickname. It was clear, it was one of the last things she had expected from him. But before she could voice the questions, Michael cut her off.

“Oh, I ran into Phil,” Michael said, sharing the contender page from his interface. While he had three new contacts, Phil was the only one on the friend list. Michael wondered if showing their contender page would become the standard to prove you knew someone and had not killed them. Presumptively, a contender's name would be either removed or otherwise indicated if they had died.

In any case, showing Rebekah Phil’s name seemed to remove the girl’s weariness of him. She stretched the collar of her shirt to look at the wound on her left shoulder. An outline of the things teeth was clear on her shoulder. The bottom part of the skin and surrounding tissue even flipped up. It was likely that the zombie’s teeth had met bone on top, otherwise the zombie would have quickly ripped the piece off of her. Still another second or two and the zombie might have worked the chunk of flesh completely free. The wound was not pouring out blood, like Michael might have expected, but small streams were streaking down to disappear beneath her shirt.

Rebekah’s face took on a contemplative look. She wrestled with the idea for a moment, before sighing. “Could you help me bandage this up. I don’t think I can secure the wounded area properly without a bit of help.”

“Sure, I would be happy to help,” Michael offered, stepping forward. “But… Oh.” He had been about to ask how exactly she wanted to do that, since he did not have anything, but apparently she had been prepared.

Rebekah had summoned a long white cloth from her inventory. “I’m going to turn around and take off my shirt. Go over the wound, and I will bring it around my front and hand it back to you under the opposite armpit. You just have to send it back over the wound and help me make it tight as possible. After three or four wraps, I will need you to tie it off, so we will leave a bit of a tail with the other end.”

“Oh okay, seems you know what you are doing,” Michael said, moving closer and accepting the white cloth.

The girl apparently had decided to completely trust him. She had already turned away from him, and was gingerly working to get the black long sleeve shirt off and around the injured shoulder. “Not really. If I really knew what I was doing. A wound like this really should be stitched back together, but I don’t have a needle or thread. And I would be lying if I said I actually knew how to do that. Hopefully, some battle function will help it heal right. Don’t have to worry about a scar or anything since this is not my real body.”

She winced as the black shirt scraped across the wound. She hesitated for a moment, but then sighed again before reaching her right arm around to unhook the bra. She covered her front with her left forearm. It was definitely needed since even out of the corner of his eye he would be able to see everything. He stood more than a foot taller than the girl, so being behind her did not block a thing.

“How much HP did this drop you? If you don’t mind me asking,” Michael asked as they got to work.

After ensuring he was doing it right she finally answered. “Actually, not too much. Only 12 points. However, I did throw a couple of points into toughness this morning after getting a more serious wound on my leg.”

“Ahhh, the reason why you’re missing half of one leg of your pants,” Michael noted. With a second glance, he noted that there was blood on the back side of her leg that had dried and was flaking off.

“Yup, that one. I only lost 5 HP from the actual attack, but It must have hit my an artery or something. I thought I was going to bleed out. I was losing 2 HP a second. Luckily, I was able to finish off the last of the zombies and put pressure on the wound quickly after. It slowed to 1 HP within a few seconds, and stopped soon after. Still the wound dropped me into the 20’s.”

“Tighter…” Becky directed. “It was a real shame. I had to hole up pretty early yesterday. Only had time to get 4 points in total. Thankfully, I found an office with food and medical supplies to ride things out. Otherwise, I might not have recovered as much as I did.”

Michael grimaced. This girl had ducked out early yesterday, and yet she had still grabbed one more stat point than he had. He knew his bracer easily was worth a handful of points, but he did not like being behind in any area. “Any luck this morning?”

“Sure, up until I ran into tier 1. Thanks by the way. I don’t think I could have gotten out of that.”

Michael nodded, as he pulled the white bandage taunt before tying it off with the other end. The knot would rest on top of her shoulder blade. Becky spent the next minute putting her clothes back on. Both shared what little information they had learned in the last 36 hours, but neither learned too much since both had spawned in the wharf district and moved into the 3rd industrial district. The packs of dogs he had been told about was news to her. She had met one additional contender yesterday, but they had not had much to share with each other since it had been around noon on day 1. Still Michael learned where she had been that morning, so he could avoid the area

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“Thanks for saving my life and the help afterwards,” Becky said, picking back up the knife she had dropped earlier.

“You aren’t going to ask me to team up?” Michael sarcastically asked.

“Haaa… Not at this point in time. It would only decrease the amount of drops that I could get, and as long as I don’t run into another tier 1, I should be fine on my own. In a week or two, that might change. Are you good being added to my friend list?”

“Of course, finding good people here is always a priority, just after getting stronger. I agree, it is definitely too early to start teaming up. I just wanted the boost to my self esteem, at being asked,” Michael smirked.

“Geez, you are one of ten thousand or so contenders that already got a green drop, and you are still fishing for compliments,” Becky said, raising her eyebrow. Michael shrugged. “Okay, mr. insecure, I’m headed to the pink drop to I guess pick up some fish. Catch you later.” She waved before heading off.

Michael watched her disappear out of sight, while he thought over what he had learned. Just as the wasp venom had given him a poisoned status, causing him to lose 1 HP over 10 seconds, Becky had gotten a bleeding status that would have eventually led to her death. Losing 2 HP a second for an indefinite period of time was alarming. The girl would have died in less than a minute.

The attack also hinted at the fact that some attacks could do far more damage than what they would if this was purely a game. His fingers brushed the small nub on his throat. If he had taken a full dose of venom in the neck, it could have killed him. Similarly something could lop off his head with one slice. In theory, he could improve his toughness and become a little more of a game-like character, where attacks would be less likely to cause instant death, but that would take a while and a lot of stat points. For now he was better off with his don’t get hit in the first place strategy.

His strength was enough to one hit most tier 0’s, but it would likely take quite a few more points to get it to the level that tier 1’s would fall easily. Michael would not be surprised if it took him half a dozen serious blows to down one of them. Something that would be extremely difficult with their improved speed, not to mention if there were other zombies in the area. Michael was better off increasing his dexterity from now on. It would help him react quicker and improve his aim with the bracer. Fortunately, the bracer would allow him to deal with tier 1’s for now, while he improved in other areas.

Michael went right back at it. Unfortunately, it started getting dark before he was able to locate anything of real note. Day 2 had pretty much been him meeting some other contenders and grinding through zombies. He collected 6 more stat points and another 22 crowns. The first 3 stats went to dexterity, putting it at 15 equal with strength. The next 3 went to agility bringing the attribute to 13.

Once his dexterity had gotten to 14, Michael had already begun to notice that his speed was deficient since his body could not move fast enough to match his reactions. It was like it was lagging behind. It was not extreme, but once his dexterity had moved up to 15 the deficiency had become slightly more noteworthy. One point in agility had made the lag disappear almost entirely, but Michael continued with the stat. Agility would help him weave in and out of battle with the tier 0’s, and help him to keep ahead of tier 1’s if he ran into a group. It went along with his, avoidance is the best defense strategy quite nice.

Ten stat points for the day was by no means a small amount, but Michael was not quite satisfied. Nightfall had caused him to hunker down in an utility closet, since he definitely did not want to be out at night at this point. His reaction, speed, and strength had increased, but he still could not see in the dark. A characteristic, the zombies might not share.

He would basically be losing 11 hours of battle time, but one mistake would end it all. Not to mention, who could say if there would be nocturnal undead or beasts out at night. Seemed like something the survival battle creators might add in. Besides, his SP regeneration was waning significantly. It would take a lot more time to earn drops. With diminishing returns, it was not worth the risk.

Michael pulled out another can of tuna. This morning the tuna had been such a wonderful exotic food for him to taste, but after eating it for the third time in a row, it had started to lose the same impact. He wanted to get some more options. He should have traded for some of the beans or soup cans from the trio he had met.

It did not matter. It should be a simple enough thing to pick some up tomorrow. Despite a day’s worth of walking and fighting, he had only made it through a fourth or maybe a fifth of the 3rd industrial district. He had exited the hydroelectric plant and traveled through several more industrial complexes, but had not seen a hint of another green drop. Neither had he gotten lucky and received a yellow drop, or even run into another tier 1.

The trio he had met earlier had warned him about the dog packs that he would run across if he proceeded into the 1st business district, but Michael could not help but wonder what might lie in an area that scared other contenders away. The thought had been growing all afternoon, as he moved easily through the lower difficulty enemies that he kept running into.

Now, he was sure that challenging a more difficult area would be the right move. The bracer gave him a little more leeway than most contenders could afford, but who could say how long that edge would last. The encyclopedia had hinted at upgrades that could increase an item’s quality, but if Michael did not get one of those his bracer would soon not be powerful enough as enemies increased in strength.

Michael took a closer look at his tactical map. Michael had set himself up near the dashed line separating the two districts. Tomorrow morning, he would be fresh and could move right in. The business district still had a lot of areas that were extremely dark gray since he had only noted the taller buildings, but the pink drop site was not too far. He would be able to reach it in about an hour. Perhaps for breakfast he would already have something else to eat.

After hitting up the supply drop, he could continue west. Even without considering stops it would likely take him a good 3 or 4 hours to move across the large district into the historical residential district, or perhaps he would already find what he was looking for prior to getting that far. Regardless, tomorrow he would try to make a lot more progress than he did today.