Trash in the Apocalypse

At dawn, inside the living room.

The infected who got crushed by the giant stress ball growled and clawed at Jun. Some were stuck on the roof, on the floor, and the walls. Most of the furniture in the living room got pushed to the sides, dragging the infecteds near to it.

Jun reloaded his shotgun before storing it in his inventory. There's no point in using such a powerful weapon when you're taking out disabled enemies.

Jun brought out his baseball bat and started his infected killing spree. Everything went too easy that Jun couldn't believe it himself. With each infected dying by taking one hit in the head, the surrounding area in front of him was finally cleared.

Now, he just needs to "kill" them and take his hard-earned essence shards.

Behind the giant ball of spikes, the shrieks and roars of infected could still be heard. The infected on the other side seemed to be hitting the giant stress ball, causing it to vibrate repeatedly.

Jun looted the last corpse and was surprised by what he got. A yellow stone appeared on his palm together with an essence shard. He quickly checked the item description.

[Energy Stone]

[Description] A stone that contains powerful energy. Increase maximum energy by 10 when used.

Jun was speechless. He thought that there was nothing else that dropped from this regular infecteds, but here is the proof that he shouldn't make assumptions based on logic. When he read the item description, he immediately thought of Edward.

It would be useful to Edward since he could tank longer, but Jun still chose to use it for himself simply because he had skills that drain a lot of energy too. He just consoled himself that he would surely give Edward the next energy stone that he would find.

Now that he thinks about it, he still had that red gem from the Destroyer that he killed. He couldn't use it since he doesn't know how to absorb it. Looting the energy stone gave him some idea, and he wants to try it right now.

Amidst the crazy roars on the other side of the living room, Jun calmly took his time as he tried feeling out the "energy" in his body. He stared at his hand, fiercely like wanting lasers to shoot out and disintegrate the gem in his hand.

Of course, that method failed.

He took a deep breath, then calmed himself down. With his eyes closed, he gripped the gem softly. He was looking for any small sparks or changes in his hand.

A few seconds later, a warm sensation came from his palm, that same feeling when he first used the skill that he created, Howling Rage.

The feeling circulated on his palm, followed by a melting sensation that crawled into his wrist, then to his body. When he finally opened his eyes, the red crystal was nowhere to be seen.

A notification then said that he gained +1 power.

Jun smiled wryly before absorbing the energy stone.

"Fvck! So I really need to use energy to absorb it. That was quite simple."

Jun thought that he could finally have an "unbitable gloves," but when he tried to use energy to cover his hands, he miserably failed. The energy he could generate on top of his palm wasn't even the size of a beansprout.

"Is that brat actually a genius?" Jun thought to himself.

Just as he was pondering over things, a bright flash of light came in front of him. The giant stress ball that blocked all of the infected started shrinking down at a fast rate, like a balloon that started losing air, it returned back to its original size.

"Holy mother of—!"

Jun decided to ran instead of finishing whatever he wanted to say. Behind him was a group of infected who got released from the stress ball. Since nothing is blocking their path, dozens of infected charged at Jun.

"Unlucky, so unlucky! Evo! You should have at least told me that there's a time limit! Fvck!" Jun yelled as he ran onto the kitchen's backdoor.

***

"Where is he? Did he come out? Did you see him come out?"

Marianne continuously asked Edward as he used a toy binocular to look at the house where Jun is.

Edward said, "I don't know. I don't think this is even working. It's so hard to see using this!"

"Can you two lower your voice?" Adrian said while pulling out the knife from an infected's head.

They're currently standing in the middle of the street, two blocks away from the subdivision. The number of infected roaming on the road could be counted by one hand, and they were being taken care of by Bernard and the four women from the bank's group. Sheila was guarding the back of the group, making sure that no infected could ambush them.

It seemed that most of the infected in the area were gathered at the house they were previously at. A large group of infected was randomly running around the area.

At that time, the kitchen's backdoor finally opened, spatting Jun out, who didn't even close the door as he ran without looking back. There were no weapons in his hand as he madly ran for his life.

After a few seconds, an infected slammed on the door as it couldn't stop its momentum from running, followed by another one, and another. The first infected got sandwiched by the wall and the infected behind it. As the number of infected piled up, the first infected became crushed.

The roars of the infected echoed in the once quiet subdivision.

Seeing that there were only a few infected chasing after Jun, Adrian's group confidently formed an arc formation. They acted like this since only Adrian and Jun knew that there were dozens of infected were being led by an evolved infected.

"Get inside the building!" Adrian shouted while pointing at the nearest house. He then took the lead as he ran towards it.

Evo stared at the horde of infected following Jun. He then took an item from his inventory, a small circular stone. He playfully tossed the stone, then caught it, doing the act three times, then pinched hard.

"Jun... this took me three hours to make. Let's hope that I'm a good thrower." Evo muttered to himself. He took a throwing position as he gathered every power into his hand.