CHAPTER 34: BERSERK FORCE

The gym’s locker room was underground, and it was quite obvious that in this darkness, they were level 2 zombies. For many, this would be a problem, but for Rick, it was nothing. If Travis thought he would give up any item he had here after realizing the dangers, he was completely wrong...

As soon as Rick went down the stairs, he was surrounded by darkness. Nothing had changed; he was a level 3 mutant, and his eyes could see even in the darkness. However, he still used flares and other glow sticks to better illuminate the place. The light was more of a matter of comfort and helped him see small items that might be on the floor as well.

As he began to move in the darkness, Rick used the two smaller hatchets due to the narrower hallways. He barely took 10 steps before the first level 2 zombie ambushed him, before he could touch his clothes, Rick decapitated him with one of the hatchets.

[Obtained Survival Points x4]

[Obtained Level 2 Mutant Crystal x1]

Throwing one of the axes, a muffled noise was heard, and another alert went off.

[Obtained Survival Points x4]

Rick soon approached him and picked up another crystal. The entire fight took less than 10 minutes, and Rick swept through the entire underground locker room, eliminating a total of 11 Level 2 zombies. After that, the tedious task of breaking in and inspecting the students’ individual lockers and equipment lockers commenced.

It wasn’t a bad harvest, throwing darts, baseball bats, throwing spears, weights, arrows, knee pads, gloves, elbow pads, shoulder pads, and plenty of helmets. There were even some full-body protective suits that protected the spine in extreme sports, and suits that regulated body temperature used in water and winter sports. Unfortunately, there weren’t many bows here, only three were found, and 1 was defective.

Rick also swept all the food he could find in the lockers, there were lots of sweets, chocolate bars, protein bars and many packets of protein powder and other vitamin supplements used by college athletes. There was a store like that in the arcade, but when it came to food, it never hurt to collect everything.

Before leaving, he climbed up to the ceiling of the locker room and planted one of Ethan’s signal transmitters, and even set a trap next to it. Rick had already left one at the fire station, and Joe had set another one at the captain’s house as well.

In the end, when Rick left the locker room, he decided not to negotiate for more bows with Travis’ group. He would have to waste more time going to another city, checking out another campus, but he thought it was easier to do that than deal with these treacherous people...

"Are you leaving yet?" Travis asked as Rick got on his bike.

"Yes, I killed some of the monsters using some of the light, but I didn’t find anything of value there... I decided that the effort of cleaning the place wasn’t worth it..."

"We can still trade some bows for other supplies if you want..."

"My group isn’t interested..."

"VROOM"

Rick revved the bike and left without saying anything...

Travis stood idle for a while, before finally yelling for some men to check the locker room...

***

Minutes later, Rick arrived at the gallery, they spent the rest of the day looting the many clothing stores, prioritizing the many winter clothes, restaurants that still had a lot of grains, canned goods and sausages that were still expired. The main thing in this gallery was alcoholic beverages, sodas and juices. Rick swept all of these too.

Lastly, they went to the supplement stores, taking large quantities of protein-rich items that would make any athlete in an apocalypse happy. Rick also stopped at a baby store, taking a little bit of everything for the youngest member of his Base.

Joe, who after consuming more than 30 level 2 crystals, and was now also level 3, made Rick take many vending machines that had a lot of junk food. Thinking about the children at the base, and not about Joe’s will, he also took all of them...

At the end of the day, they took everything back to the box truck, which this time failed to hold everything Rick had collected. He then left the excess items at the old warehouse where they spent the night; the box truck would only have to make more trips the next day. When night fell, and Rick, Ethan, and the Captain went to bed, Joe spent the whole night trying to understand what his Universal Force was...

And the next morning, two surprises happened. Rick was woken up by Joe who was all smiles saying that he had already mastered his first ability.

"Impossible, you must be confusing your new sensory capabilities with the Universal Force..." Rick replied skeptically.

"Hahaha, come on... Your big brother will show you how I am the most talented person in the group..."

Rushing Rick outside the old warehouse, Joe concentrated and suddenly a red energy covered his body from head to toe. His muscles became denser, and the veins on his body became even thicker and more visible. Rick could hear his heart beating at a rate that was no longer human. Surpassing more than 250 beats per minute and continuing to increase. His hair and eyes that were previously black gained a sinister red tone.

Only then did Joe look at Rick with confident eyes and an arrogant smile on his face.

"Wow Joe, I underestimated you, this is really rare... I had prepared a gift that I found in the gallery for you, which would be delivered to your room, but I think it is better to give it to you right now."

When Rick removed a large black plastic bottle and handed it to Joe, his smile changed thinking it was some kind of protein powder, but it completely changed when he turned it over and saw that on the bottle there was a picture of a muscular horse, it was a supplement for animals.

"Hahaha! This goes well with your Universal Force..."

"FUCK YOU!"

"Hey, calm down, this universal energy is called Berserk. It’s the only energy that mutant animals can use... Pff... HAHAHA..."

Rick couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing again, this time he even fell to the ground while wiping the tears from his face...

"Enough of this joke, it’s not funny... Grrr"

Joe started to get frustrated with his friend’s exaggeration and even let out a slight roar of anger before speaking again, gritting his teeth:

"Hahaha!"

"You’re kidding, right?"

"I’m not, this energy goes well with someone who has a lot of strength and a brain as well as muscles HaHaHa..."

"AHHH"

Enraged, Joe jumped towards Rick, kicking him while he was still laughing on the ground. Rick stopped laughing immediately with the strong kick to the stomach that knocked all the air out of his lungs... His body was dragged several meters away, raising dust and hitting a fence that surrounded the abandoned warehouse.

Before he could even get up, Joe was on top of him again, this time raising his foot ready to stomp him on the ground, but Rick was more alert and dodged the stomp, he then rolled and stood up with a serious look and a hand on his abdomen.

"Hey, I overdid it, okay, so calm down a little."

"ARGH"

Roaring like an animal and with his eyes getting even redder, Joe rushed towards Rick again, this time throwing punches with his full strength, when one of them hit the ground, it raised large amounts of dust causing damage to the concrete and causing an impact wave pushing away everything nearby.

Rick’s eyes widened, if that hit him, he could really get seriously hurt here.

Realizing the seriousness of the problem and not having much to do to avoid hurting his out-of-control friend, he activated Blink and reappeared behind Joe, starting a chokehold... Joe, who was now just roaring in fury, tried wildly to use his hands to scratch Rick’s face, trying to remove him from his back, without success...

Joe continued roaring, until the grip on his neck affected his breathing, and made him slower and slower... Finally he lost all his strength, falling to the ground on his knees, starting to lose consciousness...

Only when Rick saw the color of his hair return to normal did he finally free his neck from the powerful grip.

"What the hell are you guys doing?"

Hearing a familiar female voice, Rick turned around in surprise for the second time that day and saw Maya next to her, the captain shaking his head in shame, and Ethan’s eyes widened after seeing the inhuman and serious fight between the two best friends...

Rick sighed as he confirmed that the famous doctor had left the base and come to the city, probably interested in something in the hospital that they were going to loot today...

"It’s a long story, actually not that long, let’s wait for Joe to wake up and I’ll tell it just once..."