Chapter 1

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Bastille University. July 19th.

The rumbling sound of thunder could be heard as grey clouds cast a dark shadow over the entire campus. The university compound was extremely quiet and it was devoid of its usual youthful vigor.

In an old and dark storage room in the student dormitory on the west side of Bastille University, a young man was sleeping on a broken sponge cushion. 

Suddenly, a series of strange noises came from outside the door. It was as if someone wanted to come in. That person kept pounding in urgency. 

The pounding became more intense, waking the young man who was fast asleep. While he rubbed his sleepy eyes, the young man subconsciously muttered, “What’s wrong with you? It’s not time for class yet, is it? Martin, if you’re sneaking out at night again, I’ll report you!”

Crowe habitually stroked his messy hair with his right hand as he reached to switch on the lights, however, the incandescent light did not turn on. “Oh, d*mn! Is there a power outage in the university again?” Crowe murmured.

With great effort, Crowe opened his heavy eyelids. He greeted his roommate subconsciously but when he was fully awake and took a look at his surroundings clearly, he was stunned for a moment.

“Huh… What is this place?

Who moved me out of my room?!”

Crowe felt that it was soft and comfortable under his buttocks and he quickly gazed and scanned through his surroundings. Soon, he managed to get a grasp on the situation. He saw a tattered cushion under his feet and a hole in the ceiling above his head. At the corner of the wall, there were broken buckets, as well as a large pile of junk lying all around. Suddenly, everything seemed so familiar to Crowe.

“The storage room? Why am I here?”

Crowe specifically recalled that he fell asleep soundly in his dormitory.

How on earth did he end up in the storage room of his university dormitory after he had slept last night? 

‘Could it be… that someone played a prank on me? But who would do this?’

Everyone he knew were all grown-ups. Who would play such a childish prank on him?

His memories were all over the place. Crowe tried to recall for a long time but he still couldn’t remember how he had ended up sleeping in the storage room.

He stood up in confusion and he was still puzzled. Suddenly he remembered something. “Right! I was woken up by a knock on the door.” 

At this very moment outside the door, the knock that he heard earlier continued. 

Knock, knock knock!

The pace of the knocking was getting faster and faster. It seemed like the person knocking was very impatient. 

Crowe’s body tensed up. After all, there was no one around him in this dark and small room. It was hard for him not to be nervous after he heard this sudden strange sound.

Taking one step at a time, Crowe crept toward the wooden door and listened cautiously until the sound gradually weakened.

Creak—! 

He twisted the handle and slowly pushed open the wooden door and a ray of light gradually shined through. Crowe was relieved when he found out that there was no one in the room. Perhaps, he was just hearing things after spending the night in the storage room. 

Crowe couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The entire corridor was dead silent and there were torn-up clothes littered all around the hallway. He then turned back and continued to look around. 

Suddenly, he noticed something on the wall in front of the storage room— it was a bright red bloody handprint! 

Crowe’s pupils widened rapidly and his breathing stopped momentarily. He then felt a chill down his spine and thought to himself. ‘A bloody handprint? Could it be that someone was murdered around the university campus?’

He had been lying on the crime scene all this while. Was it possible that he was being framed as a murderer?

His thoughts muddled and Crowe seemed to have completely forgotten that he had slept in this room for the entire night. But before he could come to his senses, a figure wearing a white-gray sailor suit appeared at the end of the corridor.

“Junior… Junior!” Crowe screamed toward that person.

After he saw a familiar figure, Crowe’s trembling heart calmed down a little.

Crowe was about to wave his hand but at that very moment, the sight in front of him caused his hand to stop in mid-air. His entire body stiffened and a trace of cold sweat flowed down from his forehead.

Crowe saw that the person in the messy sailor suit was limping around wearing a pair of tattered shoes of an odd color.

The person’s legs were crooked and were badly mutilated. The broken bone edges were rubbing against each other and half of her pretty face was stained with blood, while the other half of her face looked as if a truck had run over her. A grayish-white eyeball, which had a little flesh, was dangling from the corner of her mouth. Both of her hands showed signs of burns and her burnt flesh was still intact to her bones. She was holding a human heart that was almost crushed.

“Oh f*ck, is that a f*cking zombie?”

Crowe shouted because he couldn’t believe what he saw. At that moment, his heart thumped rapidly. 

He had only fallen asleep for a while and when he woke up, it was the end of the world! 

The next moment, a series of gasping noises could be heard as he regained his senses. The female zombie at the end of the corridor seemed to have picked up the scent of a living person.

She ignored her legs that were about to give way and sprinted toward Crowe.

He had no time to hesitate and only those who were familiar with zombie movies understood this. Zombies were monsters with no emotion, the only thing that they knew was how to kill and to eat humans. 

Naturally, Crowe understood this principle and he didn’t go forward to assess the situation. As an athlete, his instinct was to start running for his life.

As he reached the stairwell entrance, there were three zombies whose heads were lowered. They were chewing on something but they suddenly raised their heads.

Roar!

The zombies with their ravenous blood-red eyes and blood that dripped down their mouths were staring at Crowe, who had just accidentally run into them. As he saw the three zombies, Crowe immediately gave up on the idea of bolting out.

‘There’s a zombie at the end of the stairwell too!’

His eyes wandered for a way out as he felt his heart incessantly beating, Crowe took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

Suddenly, he realized that there was another zombie at the end of the corridor who seemed to resemble the dean of Bastille University.

The zombie dean was wearing a black suit and his face was pale with droplets of blood that flew from the corner of his mouth. He was slowly moving toward Crowe.

Behind him, Crowe’s university junior and the three other zombies gathered together and lunged at Crowe like mad dogs. The situation was intense!

“Why are you guys so ferocious!”

Crowe’s pupils contracted rapidly as he looked at the small group of zombies that were approaching him menacingly. He made a quick decision and took aim at his target and decisively chose to breach his way through the university president. After all, he was an athlete and Crowe believed that he could make it out.

After Crowe successfully breached through, he left the group of zombies behind him but he didn’t expect that the iron door that led outside would be locked. Crowe had no choice but to head back up the stairs.

At the stairwell of the top floor, the green safety light flickered slightly. He was panting heavily as he approached the broken window. At this moment, Crowe was at the vantage point and had a clear vision of the situation outside.

The campus, which was originally bustling with people, was now completely barren. The road was full of wandering zombies and evergreen trees that grew on the flower bed were only left with dead plants, which were covered with black corrosion marks. It seemed that someone had spilled gasoline all around, and it gave off a pungent smell all over. 

The buildings everywhere seemed to have gone through a riot. There was blood all over and severed limbs and bones were seen everywhere. There were even a few zombies that were roaming about on the bridge in the center of the lake. This really was an apocalyptic occurrence!

Crowe hid in the corner of the stairwell. He was now between the third and fourth floors of the student dormitory. He moved carefully and looked around, while he tried to find a way to call for help.

Crowe slowly crept up to the top floor but what shocked him was that there were too many zombies blocking that corridor. He roughly counted and found out that there were at least six or seven zombies there. His heart tightened as he was alone and unarmed, how was he going to escape this?

“Ding! the Infinite Modification System has begun binding…”

At this moment, a cold voice was suddenly audible in his mind.

“What system?!”

Just as Crowe thought that all hope was lost, the system appeared..