Sloane awoke to a silent room.

Then her head began throbbing.

She winced and held her forehead while getting out of bed. She drank pills and tablets first thing in the morning while thinking that tending to her sickness had really started to turn tedious thanks to her recent wounds.

And it wasn't just those either, surviving the apocalypse was harder than she originally gave it credit for.

She needed to loot for supplies, hunt monsters, and take care of herself all at the same time. It was worse than being an adult in modern society, at least then all they had to do was work at a job without risking their life.

Also, she's never had as much appreciation for modern healthcare as she has now.

On top of all that, she also needed to upkeep her weapons, protective gear, and feed her supernatural abilities.

That last part was especially important since it was the only thing that could allow Sloane to survive in this new world all on her own. Guns wouldn't help her run from giant monsters after all.

And how does one shoot a giant skeleton down using only a revolver anyway? And don't get her started on how guns could ever be used to deal with hordes big enough to overwhelm the military.

With that being said, Sloane needed to prioritize gaining stars, that was a must.

If only she could do it safely...

The humanoids were smart enough that she only needed to hunt them for a single day before the rest see her as a threat and decide to scout her house.

How much more does she need to do for them to swarm this place enmasse? Sloane wasn't eager to find out.

She wasn't the military, she had limited ammo, resources, and manpower. And even if she was, she's sure that a battalion of well-armed soldiers would have a hard time fighting the horde she saw last night.

As is, Sloane was confident that she was going to die the following week.

How does she stop those things from entering her home?.. Prevent them from getting near it even?

Sloane remembered the church and how the things they believed in deterred monsters and evil spirits and such...

Religious symboletry?

Sloane never really believed in that kind of thing before.

God himself knows that she's prayed more times than she can count for the pain to stop only for her prayers to get no answer.

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It didn't work before the apocalypse but maybe things like that actually had power now?

Gods wouldn't be out of the ordinary among grinning humanoid monsters, stars that give out supernatural powers, and a wounded sky.

It had a decent chance at working, and trying it out didn't hurt. And how hard was it to carve crosses out of wooden furniture anyway?

Not that hard, as it turns out, Sloane only had to spend a few hours carving chair and table legs before she had enough crosses to place on all the doors and windows of the house.

At some point during her carving, Sloane had also noticed she woke up during dawn, which meant she slept for an entire day after she collapsed yesterday.

Sloane looked out a boarded window as she carved away at a stick. This was the last cross she needed to make, now all she had to do was nail them to the doors and windows.

Sloane threw on her gear and picked up her revolver.

She hoped that these symbols were as holy and effective as the churches believed them to be.

She went around the house hammering idols on doors and below windows.

She still had doubts about the effectiveness of these things, and how could she not? They weren't- didn't seem like they would have any effect on the monsters.

But if they did...

Sloane looked at the sky, well, maybe there were still humans left out there, when did the apocalypse start again? Do people go to churches on days that aren't weekends? Last she heard there were still religious communities around the city too...

Humans couldn't have been wiped out since they had the help of these things right?

Sloane let her thoughts go, why was she so worried about other humans when her own situation is also quite dire?

Sloane's gaze left the slowly brightening sky and moved towards the empty neighborhood, in some houses, she could spot figures standing by the windows, they were staring at her, like wolves gazing at sheep.

She looked away and entered her home.

She needed to drink more medicine and get some rest, recover. Fighting the monsters while sick sounded like a death sentence.

Sloane woke up at noon, she had a headache gnawing at her head then.

A cup of water quickly fixed that, she then checked on the state of her wounds- the scratch on her chest was starting to scab while the one on her stomach had gone shallow.

Sloane moved around her room, the pain from them was bad, but bearable, just enough that she can still go downstairs and begin preparing for another round of looting.

She was scared though, as she didn't know if the humanoids were capable of moving houses or not.

Did the houses she cleared out two days ago now have monsters occupying them? Sloane wasn't sure, but with her gun, she was confident that she would be able to take them out.

Their presence didn't matter to her now that she needed more supplies while recovering.

Sloane went out once she finished her breakfast.

She was going to take several trips this time around since she felt relatively fine health-wise and had a gun to fend off the monsters.

Her goal was to clear the two neighboring houses of supplies by the end of the day and then after that, begin systematically killing the humanoid monsters plaguing her neighborhood.

The question then would be what kind of benefits would she want to get using the mass she gets after killing them?

Filling the star that gave her mana channels was a good start, but then after that...

Maybe her enhanced nerves should get upgraded? A single stage of it had been extremely useful to her so far.

And she's sure that the side effects can be negated if she does things carefully...

Sloane stared at the revolver she left on the table.

She rests her fingers on the gun affectionately, her index and middle were on the chamber, her pinkie was at the tip of the barrel and...

Why was she hesitating? She had a gun now. She could kill these things if she wanted.

Even with that self-directed speech, Sloane just couldn't muster up the courage to make a move.

She found herself slumping on top of her bed, her exhausted body didn't want to do anything and her mind quickly followed suit. It was probably because she worked for most of the day already, so she wanted to sleep.

Sloane lay there, face half buried in sheets and eyes lidded. Rest didn't seem so bad, it helped her recover.

Sloane wanted to work more but for now, she could only muster the energy to drink medicine and rub herself clean with alcohol.

Sloane fell asleep.

Sunlight was shining on her bedroom window when she woke up, piercing through the curtains just enough to lightly illuminate the walls of the room.

Sloane found herself staring at it.

She got up, changed, and headed downstairs to check her revolver, maintain her gear, and re-bandage her wounds.

The monotony was getting familiar now. Sloane also thought her daily schedule is better than rotting her mind watching videos all day. Or crying herself to sleep.

She was right. It was infinitely better.

Sloane picked up her gun and walked to the door. She left her crossbow behind but in its place was a spear she used as a crutch. She was feeling so weak that her legs didn't have the energy to walk.

Speaking of her spear, the sharpened ceramic she used had broken at some point- maybe when she slammed the humanoid on that wall, - so she had to replace it with scissor heads.

Now it was more of a bident than an actual spear.

After a hearty breakfast and some rest on the couch, Sloane eventually got the energy she needed to continue working so she went out with her knapsack strapped to her back.

She looked at the distant building, there was no humanoid gazing at her creepily from the window.

She's going to loot everything in that house.