Peeking over the corner and looking both ways, Danny spotted three zombies. Two were standing at the end of the right side of the crossing corridor, while the remaining one was somewhat at the middle of the left side.

Fortunately for him, it seemed that none of the three were looking directly at his direction. Danny was confident he would be able to walk across the intersection without drawing attention to himself if he wanted to.

The question was: should he?

Since there were no doors to close in order to trap the three zombies inside like he had been doing with the rooms he walked past, Danny had two options ahead of him. He could simply walk ahead and ignore the zombies for now and leave dealing with the threat for later, or he could fight them now.

Both approaches had advantages and disadvantages.

If he opted to ignore those enemies for now, Danny would be able to further scout the floor and postpone any confrontations for later. By avoiding the fight, Danny’s would maximize his chances of remaining undiscovered and would be able to inspect the area undisturbed. Obviously, knowing what else was there in the floor and its layout before engaging the prowling undead in the corridors would be a very welcome advantage.

On the other hand, by choosing this course of action, Danny would be leaving a potential threat at his back.

Even if could maintain his stealth for now and cross to the other side of the corridor undetected, nothing guaranteed that he would be able to do the same during his whole exploration of the floor.

If he was eventually detected by any zombies further ahead, and the commotion caused by fighting them off attracted the enemies he had left behind, Danny would be surrounded on two sides and his decision to ignore them now could very well come to bite him in the ass… quite literally.

If he chose to immediately deal with the three zombies instead, then Danny would not have to worry about enemies coming from behind to pressure him.

On the short term, the chances of any more zombies getting inside the stairwell and then coming to the third floor was practically non-existent given the poor sound transmission from the floors to the stairwell itself, so there were no worries there.

Therefore, by killing off the zombies on the corridors as he encountered them, Danny could dismiss any concerns over being surrounded for the time being, allowing himself to fully focus on the exploration ahead.

Of course, by fighting them now, Danny would be risking being discovered early on without properly assessing the threats that waited further along the path or mapping the area. Worst-case scenario, the commotion would trigger the horde of undead down below to rush to his position, forcing Danny to fend of waves and waves of zombies with no other place to retreat to other than the emergency stairwell.

‘What to do, what to do…’ Danny weighted his options silently whilst still crouching down and leaning his back against the wall.

Those considerations only took him a few seconds however, and moments after spotting his foes for the first time, Danny had already reached a decision.

He would take care of his enemies first before resuming his exploration. And with a bit of luck, he would manage to remain under the radar after he dealt with them.

Danny swiftly took his crossbow from one side of his backpack with one arm before picking up a bolt from the quiver that remained attached to the other. Then, he loaded his crossbow with it before taking one last glance to the enemies on both sides of the crossing corridor.

In order to dispatch his enemies as swiftly and silently as possible, Danny decided to make use of his crossbow instead of his hammer once more. Even if he ended up spending some of his bolts in the process, he thought it was a worthy investment of his resources if he succeeded in maintaining his stealth.

Seeing that he was good to go, Danny quickly but silently made his way to the solitary zombie on one of the sides of the corridor. The whole way, Danny only kept his eyes fixed on his prey. The sound of his heartbeat and steps thundering in his ears as he drew closer and closer.

When he was only a few steps away from his opponent, Danny lined his shot with the creature’s head and fired without hesitation.

As soon as he pressed the trigger, and without waiting for the results of his attack to make themselves known, Danny rushed ahead in the direction of his foe.

Unsurprisingly, the bolt had accurately pierced the skull and brain of the undead creature, sealing its fate forever. However, before its body could fall motionlessly to the floor, Danny managed to reach it in time and grab it, slowly and carefully lowering it to the floor to avoid producing any more noise.

He had run towards it precisely for that reason. To keep the ruckus to a minimum.

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Then, Danny looked backwards to see if the short engagement had warned the other two zombies further behind him to his presence. The kill went completely unnoticed though, as his other enemies remained completely oblivious to the death of their ally.

Releasing a soft sigh, Danny loaded his weapon with another bolt and rapidly made his way to his opponents on the other side of the corridor.

There was no time to waste as he was in plain sight. All it took was for one of his enemies to turn around in order for him to be completely exposed. And Danny wanted to make the most out of the fact that his presence was still hidden.

There was hardly any furniture in the corridors that he could hide behind other than a few potted plants here and there that would be almost as good as nothing at all, so his best bet was to get to them as fast and quietly as possible to give them no time to react to his deadly approach.

In the end, the two undead did not even have a chance to fight back. Danny managed to close the gap between them in pretty much no time, and soon enough, the first bolt had already claimed another kill.

The thumping sound produced by the body of the first zombie of the couple hitting the ground did alert the second one though. Nonetheless, by the time it turned to check the origin of the noise, another bolt was already piercing its temple and putting an end to the fight.

Once he finished killing all three of the zombies, Danny waited with bated breath for a few seconds to see if his actions had elicited any response from the horde of undead as a whole or any other zombies at his floor.

Despite his caution, after attentively listening for a while, no other enemies seemed to be rushing to his position.

‘I think I am safe for now.’ Danny thought while relaxing his posture.

After that, he went over each one of his kills to retrieve his bolts. He would be leaving their crystals where they were for now, just as he had done with all of his other kills in the factory previously. He would be coming back for them later.

‘I am looking forward to seeing how my stash of crystals will look like after my job here is done… though taking them out of each zombie will be a pain...’ Danny thought with mixed parts of anticipation and reluctance.

Sadly, two of the bolts he had fired could not be reused anymore. Clicking his tongue, Danny discarded the useless ones and put away the remaining useful one before returning his crossbow to its place at the side of his backpack.

Although his crossbow would probably see more action soon enough, Danny preferred to keep both his hands free as he explored the place.

It would be easier to respond to any surprises that jumped at him with his own two hands unburdened than if they were occupied holding something. At least, that was how he felt.

Even if he knew that he could simply drop his crossbow to free his hands in case the situation demanded him to, he would rather not risk his sole ranged weapon’s integrity, as it could be damaged by the fall or be stepped on during a melee.

Also, it was not as if it took a long time to rearm himself. A few seconds would do.

Resuming his investigation of the floor, Danny made his way forward, steadily and quietly progressing in the same fashion he had done so far. He closed any opened doors he came across and crouched low to go under any windows, unnoticed to any occupants inside the rooms.

The second crossing corridor he came across was fairly wider than the first one. In fact, it was even wider than the one he had been traveling in. five to six people could walk side by side on this new corridor, whilst only four could do so in the main one.

At one end of the wider corridor, stood the elevators that he had expected to find in the building. All three of them had their doors shut, meaning that either they had stopped at lower floors or they were stuck in between them. Only time would tell which case was true.

At the other end, there was a unisex bathroom. The first one he had come across ever since entering the place.

The whole floor was comprised of multiple office spaces with very little difference from one another. No doubt this was where all of the paperwork of the factory was done and where most if not all of its white-collared employees used to work.

Not that it mattered anymore what the old purpose of each room was.

After being occupied and turned into a survivor’s camp soon after the Apocalypse had started, the factory initial appearance and interior design had completely changed, each of its buildings’ inner rooms altered to better serve the needs of its new residents.

Only markings on the walls and old furniture pieces that the newcomers had not bothered to move betrayed the rooms’ original appearance.

Other then inspecting each room individually, there was no other way for Danny to know what he could find in them. It would be hard for Danny to guess what he could find in each one, as their new arrangement was completely disassociated with the factory’s layout and logic.

Only the members of the survivor’s camp would be able to tell what went where and why. That is, before they had been completely wiped out and the undead had claimed this place for themselves…

Now there was no one left alive to show Danny around and tell him what went where and why.

In any case, it seemed that there were no zombies in sight in this newly explored corridor, which was fortunate for him. The fewer enemies he had to deal with before he finished scouting the first floor, the better.

There was no need to say how advantageous it was to fully know your surroundings in a battle. Not only would Danny be able to utilize the land in his favor in that case, but he would also have a better grasp on the threats he was facing at the floor.

Information was power. It could swing the direction of any battle from disastrous loss to major victory. Danny was no brilliant general, but he was wise enough to recognize the value of knowing your field of battle.

In an ideal world, Danny would be able to clear this floor entirely and secure it as a place to fall back to before he had to tackle the majority of the horde of zombies downstairs, but that would depend entirely on his own efforts and a bit of luck.

There was no helping it. Luck was a major and impossible to remove part of his ongoing challenge.

The lighter the commotion when eliminating the zombies on his floor and the quieter the noise he made, the lower the chances of attracting the horde to his location. Even so, all of that only served to push the odds in his favor. He could not completely eliminate the risk.

Making some ruckus was simply unavoidable while progressing, no matter how silent, cautious and lucky he was. Danny could only do his best and deal with any issues that came as they cropped up and hope for the best.

In any case, all of that was only speculation. What he needed to do was keep moving forward and the first order of business was to check the bathroom.