Warning: Slight Gore
Chapter 5 – Discovery Galore
They drove through the night.
It was quiet on the road, not another person or car in sight.
Despite being a more rural area, Yichen still remembered encountering quite a number of cars when his family drove up. Now, with the exception of a few abandoned cars at the side of the road, they had yet to meet any living person. They saw a few zombies though.
“Do you know which road to take after this?” Yichen asked as he examined the GPS map on the phone in his hand.
“Not really?” Kyle confessed. “Do you know how to read that?”
“It’s not too hard to learn, but I don’t think they accurately portray the distances between the streets—ah. We missed it.”
“Sh*t. Okay, give me a sec.”
With a smooth brush of his hand against the wheel, Kyle made a haphazard turn, slightly brushing the curb.
“You know, there’s really nothing to it,” Kyle said, straightening the wheel, “It’s quite easy to drive.”
Yichen looked up only to see Kyle driving on the wrong side of the road. Tactfully, he lowered his head once more. He was more worried about other things.
When the two boys were planning their trip, they had already mapped out their route towards the nearest City B safe camp.
Truth be told, it wasn’t the safe camp designated to their location. There was a closer safe camp up north, farther into cottage country.
However, they wanted to look for Kyle’s father. There was a camp that wasn’t too far from the hotel that Kyle’s father was originally staying at, and it was the likeliest place to find the man.
The safe camp was within one of the national parks just outside the city. It was a trip that should’ve only taken a few hours maximum if they used the small highways. The problem was that they had encountered several road blocks and had to reroute each time.
In cottage country locations, it was better to say that any road that wasn’t a small highway, was a local cul-de-sac. They were no closer to their destination than when they first started.
While planning, Yichen and Kyle had discovered that the GPS on their phones still worked. In order to save their mobile data, they preloaded their maps. The issue, however, was that while their GPS worked they had no way of checking for roadblocks or suggestions for rerouting.
It was like going through a maze, just by car instead.
“Turn left here,” Yichen said, pointing to an upcoming crossroad.
“We need to head to a gas station too,“ Kyle stated, “We’re running out of gas.”
“Way ahead of you. There’s a gas station with a convenience store just in front,” Yichen stated nonchalantly with his nose still stuck to the phone in his hand.
“Oh, I see it.”
A violent jolt broke Yichen out of his trance as the car drove over another curb when they were turning into the gas station.
“Oops, sorry,” Kyle apologised sheepishly as he parked near—almost three feet away—a gas pump.
Without mentioning the distance, Yichen asked, “Are you sure you’re on the right side?”
“Huh?”
“The opening of the gas tank.”
“Oh! Uhh, I think I am.”
Yichen opened the door and poked his head out to double check. After confirming that the opening was indeed on the same side of the pumps, he retreated into the car once more.
“You remember how to fill a tank right?” Yichen asked, “If not, I bookmarked the page on the phone.”
Kyle gave a sarcastically eager nod, “Yes mom, I’ve got it.”
Yichen ignored his quip. “Okay, then while you fill the tank, I’ll see if I can grab something from the convenience store.”
While they had packed food and rations into the car, Yichen wanted to prolong their stock as much as possible. It was better to have something on hand than to clear it all and then scavenge for more. Yichen was not worried about the fact that the ‘blackhole’ had already cleared half a bag of roasted almonds.
Not. At. All.
Yichen grabbed a long kitchen knife for self defence.
He was just about to get out of the car when Kyle held him back.
“Take the bat,” Kyle said, “I’ll take the knife.”
Yichen hesitated.
“If anything, I can always just hide in the car,” Kyle stated, “You don’t need to aim as much with the bat… or use that much strength.”
Yichen who had scrawny arms: “…”
“Just take it? Please?” Kyle pleaded while stuffing the handle of the bat into Yichen’s hands. In the end, the latter gave in to the former’s wishes and put the knife down.
The two took a brief survey of the area. It was now in the early hours of dawn. Their surroundings were silent, especially after Kyle switched off the engine. After determining that the coast was clear, the two slipped out of the car and began their respective tasks.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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He heard it before he saw it.
The slurp and squelch of something wet. Yichen whipped his head towards the invisible sound that came from behind the counter. Yichen gripped the bat in his hand a little tighter. He mentally prepared himself as he carefully made his way towards the counter.
The checkout counter was elevated, so Yichen couldn’t see over it until he reached the edge. The smell hit him first; the nauseating stench of stale blood like meat that had gone bad.
Then he saw it; it was facing away from him, crouched over something that Yichen couldn’t quite make out.
It was male… maybe. It was hard to tell. There was a chunk missing out of its waist, and its legs were mostly shredded and bloodied up. It was amazing that it could still move.
Since it was distracted, it hadn’t noticed that Yichen was behind him.
Carefully, Yichen inched past the counter into the small enclosure.
With a deep breath, Yichen raised the bat and swung as hard and fast as he could.
There was almost zero resistance.
It’s like smashing a watermelon, Yichen thought.
Yichen was stunned by the turn of events, and even more, deeply shocked by his own comparison. He could almost feel his mind begin to fall ap—
“Grr–” he heard the low growl.
His head whipped around towards the source of the sound.
His eyes widened in shock at the sight of a red fox. There was no indication of injury or broken skin, but Yichen could tell from its entirely white eyes: it was a zombie fox.
Yichen instinctively readied his bat. He swung just as the fox launched itself towards him.
Contrary to Kyle’s belief, Yichen’s aim was extremely accurate.
Amongst his teammates, he was well known for his precise shots and amazing hand-eye coordination. Truth be told, he could have thrown the basketball at the fence himself when they were testing the zombie back at the house. He had only given the ball to Kyle out of spite. If he had been the one to throw the ball, it would’ve easily landed less than a centimetre away from the gate.
Thus, Yichen’s bat met its mark just as smoothly as before.
However, unlike the previous zombie’s soft head, the zombie fox didn’t go down as easily. Even though Yichen had swung the bat with the same amount of strength, he had only managed to send the fox flying to the wall.
The zombie red fox got up within seconds, fiercely growling at Yichen who had managed to injure it.
Yichen readied his bat once again. The fox made another attempt of attack; this time it feigned to its right in order to throw Yichen off. Perhaps, if its opponent were not Yichen but someone else it would’ve worked. Yichen was an observant and perceptive person; he was very skilled at reading people’s body language.
He anticipated the fox’s movements. Although it was quite nimble, he could still see the trajectory of its movements. He aimed strictly for the head this time.
Yichen made a smooth strike in one movement before quickly following up with another. The fox’s head was fully bashed open when he landed a third strike for good measure.
There was a brief moment of pause before Yichen fell onto his butt. Legs weak as the adrenaline drained out of him. His head lowered as his breath slowly evened out. Once he calmed down, he stared dully at the headless, dead fox. His mind was somewhat blank.
He took a few more deep breaths before standing up once again. He made his way to the counter once more, and started his search for keys to the backroom.
Yichen wasn’t too interested in the stuff on the shelves. Most stores kept their inventory in the back.
He found a set of keys on the half-eaten corpse on the ground.
Yichen was taken aback by his ability to adapt to the gruesome sight. Not long ago, he was still vomiting at the sight of his dead mother and freezing up at the sight of his zombified neighbours. Now he could take care of two zombies on his own and pat down the remains of a human being.
Just as Yichen had guessed, the stock at the back was untouched.
There was more than they could carry. He stacked up four large cases of bottled water and two cases of sports drinks. He lifted them up with the same amount of strength needed to carry a large stack of books.
This Ignis Virus definitely did something to our bodies, Yichen thought. Even with his originally feeble arms, he could easily bring down someone twice his size—given that they hadn’t also been affected by the virus.
He made his way out of the backrooms and wobbled towards the car. The sight of Yichen carrying six large cases gave Kyle a fright.
Once Kyle had finished filling up the tanks, he had driven the car closer (a little too close) to the door of the convenience store and was waiting for Yichen to come out.
He quickly opened the trunk and helped relieve the shorter teen’s load.
When Yichen could finally see his feet again, he noticed the position of the car. He turned towards Kyle and chose to ignore the fact that the car was now straddling the sidewalk of the store.
“There’s more,” Yichen said, “But we need to take weight into consideration. If we carry too much we’ll waste gas.”
Kyle nodded and rushed in along with Yichen. When he noticed the red fox corpse on the floor he gave Yichen a look of askance.
“Zombie fox,” Yichen said curtly, “They move a lot faster and are sturdier.”
Kyle frowned, but didn’t ask further. He was about to turn his attention to the task at hand when something caught his eye. He turned back to the fox and walked closer.
It was hard to see, but when he was standing before the corpse, he realized that there was something shiny within its thoroughly smushed head.
“Hey, Xiao-Chen! Xiao-Chen, look at this,” he said as he stooped down and used the knife that he was carrying to pry at the opened skull.
Yichen was carrying out a box of jerky from the backroom when he saw Kyle hovering over the dead fox. He walked closer.
Kyle looked left and right as if he was searching for something. When he couldn’t find anything, he took a deep breath and used his hand to dig out the object embedded in the zombie fox’s brain.
Yichen made a face of disgust.
“What is this?” Kyle asked, raising an object above his head. It was a small rock-like object—translucent in appearance, but not as sparkly as a gem.
“Zombie heart?” Yichen suggested.
“It came from its brain though?” Kyle retorted, then paused before asking, “Is there such a thing?”
“I don’t know, the movies never said anything about that.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow looking at his friend with amusement, “I thought you weren’t going to reference movies?”
“I haven’t read any light novels or manga that mention it either.”
“There are light novels about zombies?”
“There are light novels for everything.”
“…Right.” Kyle raised his hands slightly while Yichen swiftly retreated two steps.
Kyle grimaced in confusion, “What’s wrong?”
“Please don’t touch me with those hands.”
“…”
“There’s a washroom… Go quickly before you touch anything else.”
***
The two teens piled as much goods as they could into the truck and even managed to stock up with a few jugs of gasoline.
“Kyle, you need to drive more carefully,” Yichen said with a serious look on his face, “If we crash, we will burn.”
“Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence Yichen.”
They had just turned onto the road when another car shot out and skid recklessly into the gas station, startling the two teens.
It was a new, grey-coloured SUV. The boys looked on as the doors slid open before the car fully stopped. A group of people rushed into the convenience store. It had been a while since they had seen living people, so the scene was especially impactful.
“Should we…” Kyle began, but Yichen shook his head.
“Let’s go, if we try to make contact there’s no guarantee they’ll want to take care of two brats.”
Kyle may have noticed, but Yichen had seen the expression of the man who was standing on lookout. He had a hard look on his face when he noticed their car, as if telling them to scram. Yichen was not willing to have conflicts with other human beings.
Kyle took the other’s words to heart and paid no further attention to the group behind them.
They had not even passed the second block when they encountered another group of people. They drove a blue hatchback and were speeding towards their car at an alarming pace.
Yichen understood it, before he saw it, “Turn back, quickly turn back!”
Kyle must’ve understood as well, because he was already mid U-turn when the words came out of Yichen’s mouth. Kyle stomped on the gas pedal and raced down the road. When he glanced back, he saw the blue car and the rising dust behind them.
The two cars raced down the road trying to escape the horde of zombies behind them. Yichen’s face was buried in his phone again.
“Turn there,” he said, he was getting the hang of this slightly inaccurate GPS.
They swerved around the corner and drove onto a wide, dirt road. Just as they were about to relax, when they realized that the blue car had followed their route.
“F*ck,” Kyle said, cursing their tail. He pressed the gas pedal to the base.
“Can’t you drive faster?” Yichen complained.
“Who said that I should be more careful like a minute ago?”
“That was before there was a zombie horde on our ass.”
“I’m pressing the gas as far as I can!”
“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to release your pressure before pressing again to make it go faster.”
“Are you the driver? Or am I the driver?”
Kyle glanced up at the rearview mirror, only to see one of the people behind them sticking half their torso out the backseat window. “What are they doing?”
Yichen looked up as well, then peered at the side mirror before twisting his body to look out the back window.
There was a young man who had his arm and head sticking out of the window. He was probably not much older than Yichen and Kyle. The youth held his hand above his head and…
Yichen and Kyle couldn’t understand what they were seeing.
They looked on in astonishment as a ball of flames formed within the young man’s hand. With a flick of his wrist, the fireball shot out towards the horde behind them.
“Holy sh*t,” Kyle cursed. “Do they have that in your light novels, Yichen?”
“… I have no idea,” Yichen said with his jaw slightly lowered in awe.
There was silence as the two watched the scene unfold behind them.
“Do you think we could do that?” Kyle asked, his eyes flitting back to the road in front of him. Thank goodness this was a relatively straight and open road. Otherwise… Well, Kyle was sure he could’ve managed.
Yichen mused for a while before they jolted up, flying a little over a speed bump. He returned to his senses when he felt his heart flying into his throat.
Yichen looked at Kyle who had his eyes on the scene behind him. “Look at the road! —Probably, I don’t see why not. Maybe the fever was a prelude to the changes in our bodies. Perhaps all we get is super strength and enhanced senses.”
“That’s no fun,” Kyle whined. “What’s the use of being stronger than normal?”
Kyle lifted one of his hands off the wheel to emulate his words, “I want to be able to wave my hand and bam—oh sh*t!”
At the flick of his hands, a tall pillar of dirt sprouted from the ground right in front of their car. Kyle quickly swerved out of the way. Narrowly avoiding most of the wall, only nicking off the mirror on Yichen’s side.
The two were stunned silent.
A brief moment passed before Yichen said, “Can you try not to kill us, please?”
“Holy sh*t! I have powers! I have earth powers!” Kyle howled in excitement. “I’m like a superhero!”
“Mr. Dirtman, can you please put your powers to good use and direct them to the horde behind us, instead of trying to impale us?”
“Who the hell is ‘Mr. Dirtman’? And… I don’t know how I did that.”
“Just… flick your hand in that direction or something,” Yichen suggested.
“But… what if I flick it in front of that car?”
“Switch drivers.”
“Can you drive?”
“You can do it, how hard can it be?”
“But I can’t stop the car, we’re going too fast.”
“I’ll hold the wheel?”
“And the gas pedal?”
“I’ll straddle the middle and switch with you.”
“Are your legs long enough?”
Yichen gave the other a hard glare, before ignoring the other’s jab at his lack of height, “Turn there. We’ll slow down after the turn and switch.”
Kyle nodded and perfectly executed Yichen’s instructions. With a surprisingly skillful drift, Kyle managed to turn the corner without swerving too harshly.
Just after the turn, Yichen hoisted himself so that he was straddling the gear-stick between them. With a smooth transition, the two switched feet on the gas pedal. Yichen held the wheel as steadily as possible while Kyle twisted his body and lowered the window.
In the same way as the youth in the car behind them, Kyle stuck his head and arm out the window. He squinted as the wind whipped against his face. With great effort, Kyle surveyed the situation behind them.
The blue car was still following them, and the youth was still throwing out balls of fire at the mob.
Kyle had to time it well so that he wouldn’t interfere with the youth’s attacks. Just as the fireball was about to reach its target, Kyle’s concentration heightened.
He waved his hand in the direction of the zombies. “Bam!”
Within seconds, a large earthen wall much wider than his measly pillar shot up right in front of the zombies. This wall blocked the width of the dirt road; it even split apart the row of bushes on either side. The wall wasn’t high, probably a little taller than the height of a normal adult male, but it served its purpose.
Kyle wanted to raise his hand in triumphant success only to feel extremely drained. His vision grew blurry, speckling into darkness.
He nearly fell out of the car. Luckily, Yichen immediately noticed his friend’s abnormality and managed to tug him back in, preventing him from becoming roadkill.
While Kyle was dealing with the mob behind them, Yichen somehow managed to fully slip himself into the driver’s seat.
With nowhere to go, Kyle ended up squished against the car door with half his butt on one of Yichen’s thighs. Once Kyle was safely back in the car, Yichen slowed down.
The car came to a full stop.
“Hey, can you move?” Yichen asked. Then half-serious, half-joking he added, “You’re too old for Santa. And you’re cutting off the blood circulation to my leg.”
Kyle was actually unable to move. His limbs felt so numb that he even wondered if they were still there. His eyes were closed shut from the dizzy spell he was experiencing. With a tired huff of laughter, he joked, “Sorry, I kinda… feel like a sack of potatoes right now.”
“I think a sack of potatoes has more value than you at the moment?”
“Even though I have powers to control earth?”
“Hmm, good point,” Yichen acquiesced with a soft smile. “Good work.”
“Hmm, thanks.” A wide, sleepy smile spread across Kyle’s face.
Just as their banter ended, the blue hatchback pulled up beside them.
Thanks for the chapter (≧▽≦), I wonder if our Yichen has power🤔
…. he already had ‘master of misdirection’ invisibility (ala Kuroko’s basketball) pre-apocalypse. It might be full on ninja stealth now.
Loving the banter here! Sassy but wholesome 😂
Can’t wait to see how Yichen learns about his power! Fingers crossed its not a tragic scenario, but… zombie apocalypse eek.
Thanks for the chapter!! ❤
Thank you for the chapter<3
Kyle just turned into Toph lmao
Mr. Dirtman hahaha xD Srsly, I like the comedy aspect here :3
And Yichen read the wrong novels wink But, is that even a thing in western zombie stories? I think not?
Thx for the ch ٩(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )و
Fear of the walking dead later seasons have hybrid zombies and Z Nation have a pseudo-zombie ( he was bitten but has human consciousness not like a zombie at all) though others didn’t develop elemental powers or other abilities.😆
Okay, that’s at least a bit xD No cultivation of abilities through crystal cores D: (We westeners are too realistic in the zombie genre? xDD No idea lol)
Crystal cores haven’t been invented for Western zombies yet.😁
First encountered this type of zombie in Dominion’s End (by Yu Wo).
Thank you for the story!
An yea the Wests to sciency for mystical stuff like cultivation like stuff aka elemental powers space inventorys, crystal nuculi. Closest we get is xmen or superman so genetic mutation or alians right?
I am loving this story. This makes me think how us westerners with no info from eastern books would respond kinda to eastern style stuff..
Ikr, the closest zombie show that I know that has elements similar to cnovels zombies is All of Us Are Dead… but that’s a kdrama. However I hear ‘The Girl with All the Gifts.’ Also has human-zombie hybrids. That’s about it, no superpowers :/
Thanks for the chp, I love these two. This is so good already
thanks for the chapter <3
Wow your writing is so nice! I can feel the surprise and adrenaline!!
“There are light novels for everything.” So true! 😂
Thanks for the chapter! Can this novel be uploaded to novelupdates?
Sadly, I think novelupdates only accepts release info for translated novels. This one is an original novel. ☺️☺️But I’m happy that you think my novel is worth it!
Idk if I should comment this or not but I can’t help but see Kyle as KEL and Yichen as SUNNY from the game omori but just aged up 🥲 idk why my mind went to them probs cause I just finished game but damn…the bantering of Kyle and Yichen is healing me, gorgeous work author honestly
I love this two 🤣
Their chemistry is rather great, thumbs up
I catch up. The story is really good! Can’t wait to read more X3
Exciting!!!!
Thank you so much for the chapter and I love your writing!!
Haha! Thanks for the chapter 🤣
Hmm so I wonder if the ml can smell yichen is it beast transformation or zombie emperor??? And Kyle is such a dork I wonder what it was that yichen keeps looking at his elbow and wrist for?
That was exciting! It felt like i was reading what it felt like to play temple run!
AHHHHHHHH, I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER, THIS STORY IS REALLY AWESOME!!!!! 😆😆🤩🤩
Dirtman– 🤣🤣
the chemistry of the two of them is so funny and fluffy at the same time hahahah
I’m dying at Yichen’s, “Mr. Dirtman” 😂!
Also, just a thought but in the scene where Yichen is in the store fighting the zombies with the bat — maybe the words “swing after swing” might work better. I mean, cuz technically you “swing” a bat.
The banter of these two is great. 😂
♥️❤️♥️❤️♥️❤️♥️
Kyle and Yichen bff for life lmaooo fingers crossed i am too invested now