'Wierd why am I not hungry?' Only now did Zed realized he hadn't eaten anything since he joined the realm it has almost been a full day since he last ate.

He still ate 3 cans of fish with some bread. 'hmm, not even thirsty after eating so much salted fish?' Zed was starting to worry a bit since this was unnatural and he worried that something might have broken in his body do to the realm.

So he still drunk 2 bottles of water as his frown deepened.

As Zed pondered about his situation he came upon a couple of conclusions.' This is due to me joining the Relm or because of the skill Self-sufficiency. Could the part of making my body more Self-sufficient be taken literally as I don't need to drink, eat, breath as much for my body to function?' Zed couldn't quite digest something like that.

"Hey, Zed where are you going!?" Gorge called out to Zed as he saw him leave the confines of the shelter.

"Hey Gorge, I'm just going to explore the city a bit" Zed didn't expect someone to ask what he was doing so he told a half-truth.

"Alone? You know how dangers the situation is outside!" Gorge was full of surprise as he couldn't even imagine someone surviving alone in the city without anyone covering your back.

"I need to pick up a very important item from my apartment that I forgot." Zed came up with a hasty lie on the spot as he felt a bit bad about lying to someone who seemed to show so much care about him.

"Let me come with you then!" Gorge full of sincerity offered his help making Zed feel even worst about lying.

"It's okay I couldn't drag you into my own problems." Zed was determined to now roll with his full of holes lie as they say fake it till you make it.

"That is what friends are for, so let me grab my gear and let us go." Gorge was about to leave, but Zed called out.

"Wait, where I'm going is super dangerous I couldn't let you risk your life for me like that." Zed was starting to panic a bit as he was not going back to the apartment hell he didn't even know anything about this city.

"Even more of a reason for me to go with you, I couldn't let a friend go all alone in that dangerous city." Gorge felt touched by how much Zed seemed to care about him as he would better go alone in the dangerous territory then let him face danger.

It's not like zed was against Gorge helping him, but he could not back down now even more now." Listen Gorge you are a good friend of mine so it would be against my principals to bring you along with me."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Before gorge could speak Zed intervened reassuring Gorge." I'm used to working alone, I have been doing fine this far."

Gorge looked conflicted, but in the end, he agreed. "Okay, Zed, but do take care of yourself."

Zed sighed in his mind hearing Gorges response. "I will, see you later Gorge."

Zed left the shelter after that tiring conversation. He was never good at lying since he didn't need to really lie much in his life.

But at least it wasn't all for nothing.

Novice Deceiver You have taken the first step in the art of deceiving others. You can deceive others 5% better.

As Zed strolled through the city he couldn't make heads and tails of why the city seemed so empty.

He felt it would be too strange if he started asking all these common questions in the shelter, so now he had to figure things out himself.

'Could there been an eviction done by the city as they had prior knowledge of the meteorite coming as that would be logical, but why would there still be such a shelter in the supermarket then?' Zed couldn't still quite get the big picture as he hadn't even seen any sights of the military only a retired general.

"What is that sound?" The ground was shaking it felt like a giant beast was walking, but the tempo of the sound was too fast for that.

He could see the manhole cover trembled around the street like they were about to come off.

"Fuck!" Zed went into a mad dash as he understood the situation as soon as he saw rad rats come out of the manhole cover.

It was a rat stampede!

it seems that the radiation increased the rat birthrates as the danger around them increased.

There were thousands upon thousands of rats in sewer system before the radiation hit, now that number should have reached such terrifying numbers that Zed could not help but shudder at the idea.

He quickly ran into the alleyway he noticed when he was passing by it. The alleyway had some metallic stairs at the side of it.

Using his superior height and strength he jumped up and reached the side of it and quickly climbed up as he continued running up the stairs all the way to the top.

Zed used the railing as a stepping tool to reach the roof where he pulled himself up.

*Ting*

The railing he used hit the ground as it couldn't withstand the force of Zeds Jump.

Looking down he could see a massive wave of rats running down the street in the direction of the shelter.

"What is that?"

Radiation gnawer Health 300 The Radiation gnawer was once a regular rad rat but it stumbled upon a very tiny fragment of a meteorite that changed it completely.

Zed could see a creature that was at least 3 times bigger than the rad rats surrounding it.

Its fur was in a tinged green color and you could see flees in the size of cherries on it.

Every now and then it took a bite of rad rats surrounding it leaving them to be cannibalized by there kin as it only took a bite to satisfy its spontaneous hunger.

As it fangs were more like little saws it left fierce lacerations on the rad rats it bit. Bones were no obstacle for it too.

Zed could even see the asphalt beneath its feet be torn up by its claws as it ran down the street.

Zed wasn't even sure he could take it on in a 1vs1 scenario not to mention it had a horde of rad rats with it.

'If I was a bit slower in my response I could have lost my life.' He looked down from the roof as the rat horde passed him by. He found it interesting that the rats came out of manholes before the stampede from above ground reached them. In a sense there where 2 stampedes one underground and one above ground.

As the rad rat stampede was passing him by he recalled the information he knew about rats.

Rats are animals which seem to live only to eat and breed. Compared to the amount which they eat rats have rather small stomachs thus they will continue to eat small bits throughout the day.

In a day they could eat from quarter to a third of their own body weight.

It would normally take the rats around two months to reach adulthood. But in food rich environment they could speed this process up to be shorter than a month.

With the ability of a pair of rats being able to produce up to 80 or so offsprings in a year they possessed truly frightening reproductive powers.

Zed could not even imagine what changes did the radiation bring in these creatures.