Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Garrett didn’t manage to fish anything useful out of Ethan. Left with no choice, he walked away, frustrated.

But he’d already decided—once he got back, he was going to dig deep into who Ethan really was.

Just then, a tall, Amazonian-looking woman strode up to Ethan, smiling.

”Ethan. Remember me?”

Ethan’s eyes lit up.

”Vivian! Henry’s old crush. What—looking for him?”

”...”

Vivian rolled her eyes. Some things really never changed. Ethan always somehow managed to drag Henry into it.

She didn’t respond directly. Instead, she smoothly changed the subject. ”Ethan. I heard you say earlier your compound only has about fifty thousand people right now. Any interest in coming to Deepwater City to develop?”

”I’m not really feeling it,” Ethan said casually. ”But you can always go seduce Henry. He’s super easy. If you pull it off, you can have him swing by Deepwater City, help you ’keep the house in line.’”

”...”

Vivian looked like she wanted to bang her head against the table. ”Ethan, I’m being serious. Deepwater City compound is over two hundred thousand people right now. If you come, we can run it together. If things go well, we might even push it into major-compound territory.”

”If I had that kind of free time, I’d just take over Atlas City compound,” Ethan said, rolling his eyes.

Then he pointed at her like he was giving life advice. ”You should focus on locking Henry down. That’s the real path. Way easier than grinding a compound up from scratch.”

”...”

Vivian’s smile turned stiff.

”Ethan, I’m going to exchange crystal cores,” she said, forcing politeness. She made a quick farewell gesture and walked out fast.

She’d realized something very clearly: you couldn’t have a normal conversation with this guy. Another minute and she was going to explode.

Watching her leave, Ethan shook his head.

”Giving you an opportunity and you don’t even know how to take it,” he muttered. ”You’ll regret it later. Henry’s a catch. Plenty of women are gonna chase him.”

Just then, another beautiful woman approached. She’d been waiting not far away, and only came over after Vivian left.

”Ethan,” she asked, voice a little tight, ”do you remember me?”

Ethan looked at her. She seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place her right away.

”You’re…?”

”I figured you wouldn’t,” the woman said, not surprised. Then she prompted him, ”Starlight State University. Early days of the apocalypse. Patterson Hall. You had a few of us girls move bodies, and you paid us in crystal cores.”

”Oh.” Ethan’s face cleared. ”Right. Grace, yeah?”

”Yes!” Grace’s eyes brightened, relief and excitement mixing together.

”Not bad,” Ethan said, giving her an approving look. ”You made it to the summit, which means you’re probably part of a compound’s upper ranks now.”

Grace nodded. ”That day, we dug hundreds of crystal cores out of the zombies you left behind. It scared us half to death.”

”After that, we used those crystal cores to gather a team and leave campus early. We went to a small town near Starlight City and built up little by little—from a few hundred people to what we have now.”

She looked at Ethan, gratitude overflowing in her eyes.

”All of it started because of what you gave us,” she said quietly. ”Without you, we probably would’ve died to the zombies…”

Her throat tightened before she forced the rest out.

”And even if we survived, we might’ve ended up being used by whoever was stronger.”

In the apocalypse, she’d seen too many women meet miserable ends. Even now, in plenty of compounds, women were still treated like commodities—like property, or breeding tools.

Before the end of the world, being pretty was an advantage.

After it… being pretty could feel like a sentence.

How many former ”goddesses,” campus beauties, and sweet girls-next-door had eventually been reduced to nothing more than someone else’s outlet?

Grace was smart, and she knew exactly where she stood. If it hadn’t been for Ethan and his team…

She and her friends might’ve been just another set of those stories.

Seeing the sincerity in Grace’s eyes, Ethan felt a quiet sense of relief.

Ever since that time he’d saved those women at the supermarket—left them crystal cores too, and still ended up disappointed—he’d stopped doing ”stupid nice” things like that.

He hadn’t expected that one casual decision back in Patterson Hall would end up changing a few women’s lives.

Ethan wasn’t exactly a good person, but all of a sudden, he found himself thinking…

The single guys in his squad might finally have a shot at getting girlfriends.

He remembered Grace’s group had been four girls, and if he wasn’t mistaken, they’d all been pretty cute.

We saved you. You paying us back with your bodies seems fair, right? Ethan thought.

He rubbed his chin and studied Grace. ”You guys ran into some kind of opportunity, didn’t you?”

”Huh?” Grace blinked, surprised. ”How did you know?”

”Back then none of you had abilities,” Ethan said. ”A few hundred crystal cores could help you get moving and maybe build a small compound. But there’s no way it could’ve stacked you up to Tier 10.”

Grace’s eyes went wide. ”You can see my Tier?!”

Ethan grinned. ”Minor stuff. I’m more curious about that ’opportunity’ you ran into. Can you take me there?”

He even rubbed his hands together, looking weirdly eager.

”Of course,” Grace said with a smile. ”After the summit ends, I’ll take you guys. I promise—you’ll be shocked.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes. ”That easy? You’re just agreeing?”

Was she trying to repay him… or did she have another agenda?

Grace seemed to read the suspicion in his gaze. She straightened, expression serious. ”I understand what you’re worried about. I’m someone who repays my debts. Without you, we wouldn’t have what we have today. I only want to repay you. I won’t have any bad intentions toward you.”

”Alright.” Ethan nodded. ”I believe you.”

He wasn’t too worried, honestly.

Tier 10 was untouchable to most people. To Fallen Star Squad, it was just a slightly tougher ant.

What he was really curious about was the opportunity they’d found—something that could take someone with no ability and raise them that far. How insane did it have to be? And if they went, could he and his squad get a piece of it too?

”Then, Ethan,” Grace said, ”I’ll go exchange some crystal cores first. Tonight I’ll bring the girls from my group to see you!”

Ethan blinked.

…Wait. Why did that suddenly sound kind of weird?

Not long after, Ethan left the conference room as well.

By now, everyone who’d come for the summit had gathered in the rear area of the compound.

No one was going to turn down trading low-Tier crystal cores for high-Tier ones.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen after this—human strength across the Atlas Federation was about to surge, and humanity’s odds of survival would jump with it.

Of course, synthesizing that many crystal cores would still take time. Even though the process was largely mechanized—and Tier 7 and below could be mass-produced—the sheer volume this time was ridiculous. It was going to take a while.

And while Atlas City, and the entire Atlas Federation, worked at full speed to synthesize crystal cores…

In the neighboring Yamato Empire, at Mount Fuji…

The massive volcano—which hadn’t erupted in centuries—began to tremble.

After half an hour of shaking, Mount Fuji hit some kind of tipping point.

Then it blew.

”BOOM—!”

The thunderous explosion echoed across a six-mile radius as scorching magma blasted in all directions.

Countless zombies around Mount Fuji were swallowed up in the molten flood.

And it wasn’t just zombies.

Several large compounds near Mount Fuji were wiped out on the spot.

Hours after the eruption began, at the summit—right at the mouth of the volcano—

A strange humanoid creature climbed out.

Its skin was red. Its features were… wrong, like something that only made sense in a nightmare.

It looked around, first startled by what it saw.

Then its face twisted into excitement.

It shouted down below a few times, voice sharp and alien.

A moment later, more and more creatures just like it began crawling out of the crater, blinking in curiosity as they wandered off in different directions.