The group had to spend the rest of that day and the next day recovering and preparing for the next expedition.Gabriel had to recover from his wound, using Damage Relocation he could distribute the damage of his wound to the rest of his body and in this way he only had to endure some general pain instead of an injury that incapacitate his entire hand. With one finger less Gabriel couldn't work as fast as before, despite having lost a not very useful finger and his mutations he had to spend a whole day making the new Oscar armor with the help of the veteran.

During these days Yeni and Lucia were training together, after all she lacked experience in close combat and the soldier had plenty of it. The rookie had a lot of talent when it came to learning but since she had to sleep like a normal person couldn't advance as fast as Gabriel would like. Like a little plus the regeneration and extra stamina she had helped her to develop her muscle memory more quickly.

As for the mutations Gabriel, he increased his vitality and regeneration to use explosive skills without having to suffer so much collateral damage, after all his hair despite having grown a little didn't even reach his shoulders. The rest was invested in Oscar, since he was the group's distance combat specialist, he needed to maximize his ability to move and some regeneration didn't hurt either.

Gabriel evolved

Vitality 2: You have two times the vitality of a regular person.

Vitality 3: You have four times the vitality of a regular person.

Regeneration 2 : Your body heals four times as fast as an average human.

Oscar evolved

Regeneration 1 Your body heals two times as fast as an average human.

Super Agility 2: Your body is as agile as cat.

Super Agility 3: Your body is so agile that it looks like your bones are made of rubber.

Fast Reflexes 2: Your reflexes are at the same level of a hummingbird.

Fast Reflexes 3: Your reflexes are at the same level of a fly.

Enchant Stamina 3:You have great Stamina! You can run easily run four marathons.

Finally, there was Michi who dedicated himself to using the satellite to explore the entire neighborhood and find several points of interest such as the various hordes that needed to be isolated and exterminate. Luckily the cat only had to use the mouse it's hard to use the keyboard if you don't have thumbs. The strangest thing he found was a series of fires in the north of the city, they may be the result of faulty gas installations, but they seemed to follow a linear pattern. Given the possibility that it was a unique infected that could manipulate fire Gabriel decided to investigate it later when the strength of the group is more consolidated.

At the beginning of the eighth day of the apocalypse Gabriel was lying in the bed of his room with Yeni next to him. The survivor had already gotten used to having one less finger and the only thing he had lost was some grip strength but there was another problem that bothered him.

Gabriel: Hey do you think I forced Lucia to grab the mutation?I could have give her more options.

Yeni: Na man, you did what you had to do. In this world there is no time for subtleties, it isn't bad to put someone between a rock and a hard place. You need to be asshole from time to time to deal with people.

Gabriel: I don't know, now that I think about it Why I'm asking things about morality to someone who has “two faces”?.

Yeni: Two voices and yes my moral compass is a fucking carousel. Your problem is that you are trying to be a perfectionist, you want the best possible outcome of each situation and things aren't like that. Zombies and magic shit don't change the fact that this is still the Earth and some day shit will hit the fan. When that happened and your plan is ruined you will go crazy if you are so obsessed with making everything perfect. I think your strength isn't in doing everything right at first, you power is learn from your mistakes and recover. Dude you are literally come back from the death.

Gabriel: Yea. . .I think you are right. The only thing I can do is prepare myself if Lucia has a psychotic breakdown.

Yeni: Now my time to make a question. What the hell happened to you last time? They catch you with your pants down?.

Gabriel: I honestly didn't think that kind of infected would appear so early. They could be evolving faster, or they appear early in the city's.

Yeni: I hope it's the last thing, in your timeline where were you on these dates?

Gabriel: I don't remember exactly, but I was able to escape from the city in the early days and went to a small town. There I was living alone for 2 years.

Yeni: Alone for 2 years? How the fuck did you not go crazy ?.

Gabriel: I had a friend named Fan, we communicated by shortwave radio. We thought we were the only survivors in Argentina until we received a message that came from the Malvinas.

Yeni: Why you and Fan didn't get together?

Gabriel: She was to far like 500 km from there, our original plan was to wait for the infected to rot or starve. As you will see that wasn't a very good idea.

Yeni: That suck.

Gabriel: Na, in the end we could meet face to face but. . I don't feel like continuing the story.

Yeni: Fuck, You let my with a cliffhanger? but I can understand you situation. I also have some traumatic shit in my past so if you wanna do a dick measuring contest in the future about that I am cool with it.

Gabriel: Yea its better if I talk about that this but for now is enough.

Yeni: Is like taking a huge shit, if you hurry you're gonna suffer a lot of pain but if you take it with patience and little by little not only doesn't it hurt but you will feel better after doing it.

Gabriel: I really hate that analogy but it's surprisingly accurate.

After that little talk they both got up and met with the rest of the group in the dining room for breakfast. Lucia had proved to be quite useful since she was the only one in the group who knew how to cook. Between that, the time she spent putting on makeup and her training was the member of the group that had less free time.

Gabriel: This is really good.

Lucia: Thanks! doing little things like this make one feel less useless. So. . . are you two a couple?

Gabriel: Na.

Yeni: We are just fuck buddies so if you wanna ride this 30 rollercoaster you are free to do it

Lucia: No thanks, I separated from my boyfriend recently. It was just curiosity more than anything.

Gabriel: Look, I will be honest with you, we need to prepare ourselves in case some types of extremely dangerous infected begin to appear early. I thought we were ahead of time but what happened in Lucia's apartment left me quite worried.

Yeni: Who are those bastards that worry you?

Lucia: Are we going to make a super secret weapon?

Oscar: What do you have in mind?

Gabriel: First, the type of infected that concern me are those that are going to start growing a dense bone layer as if it were an armor. The most common type are the Skeletons that evolve from the Brutes, they are the same but armored to the point that they can even withstand a bullet of small caliber like 9mm. Yeni could kill them with their mass but we can't count on her forever.

Lucia: I don't want to interrupt you but where do you get all those names? Was there any kind of consensus in your previous life or did you invent them?

Gabriel: Well. . . he . . .

Yeni: Are you fucking kidding me? You invented names all the time?

Gabriel: Not only me, Oscar also invented the name of a unique infected.

Oscar: Don't drag me with you, I didn't know that all names were invented by you.

Gabriel: Ok guys, you have no idea how difficult it was to have a common nomenclature in my other life so I took the initiative.

Lucia: It is fine, can I rename the skeleton for something cooler like. . . Bone Breaker!

Gabriel: Fine, the Bone Breaker is something we have to get a countermeasure before they become a problem.

Yeni: That sound good but, I will decide the name of the next infected we find.

Gabriel: Ok can we get back to the topic?

Lucia: Sure, are we going to jump an armory to get some heavy weaponry?.

Gabriel: Not exactly.

Michi: The guns are very loud and will take away the advantage of stealth. Thanks to this we can dismantle hordes in a relatively safe way.

Lucia: And why don't we use silencers? We have tools to manufacture them.

Yeni: Unlike what you see in the movies, silencers in high-caliber weapons don't reduce all the noise, they just keep you from screwing your eardrums when shooting.

Gabriel: Exactly so our other alternative is to use weapons like maces, war hammers or what I want to get acid. You will see the Skele. . . Bone Breakers are extremely dangerous in melee so it would be safer to take care of it from a distance and that is why we need acidic projectiles to melt their bone armor.

Michi: Give me a second to think, common acids would take a long time to weaken the bone so I hope you're not thinking about what I think you're thinking.

Gabriel: Yep, super acids is what we need.

Michi: I've heard a lot of crazy things coming out of your mouth but this is the most dangerous.

Lucia: What does getting high like a kite have to do with killing armored zombies?

Yeni: Not that kind of acid you vampire bimbo.

Michi: Super acids are a special kind of acid that is only found in laboratories. Its uses are few and even the most harmful of them does not even have a practical use because of how potent it is, literally the only component on planet earth that can contain it is Teflon everything else is dissolved in a matter of seconds. A single drop would be able to kill any of us.

Gabriel: Because of that I don't want to have the most powerful one,I want to get Magic Acid. An acid used in high-performance fuels can melt bone and isn't as dangerous. The plan is to put it in arrows and let Oscar shoot them.

Yeni: Are you sure about that? I don't want to clean the remains of this old fart with a mop.

Oscar: Acid Arrows? Sure why not? Sounds fun.

With the new objective in mind the group decided to invade a local chemical warehouse. The team would be composed of Yeni, Gabriel, Oscar and Michi with Lucia staying at the base to watch them from the communications room. Gabriel and Oscar had to share the same bike while Yeni and Michi were on the other. In this case they replaced the sack that had ammunition for Gabriel's sling with another one containing dozens of arrows for Oscar, having only one range fighter will be enough.

Inti armor

A light armor ideal for acrobatic maneuvering.

Oscar's new armor was quite austere, nothing too crazy. The main objective was to provide protection but at the same time keep it light enough to facilitate the task of moving on the battlefield and always having the most advantageous position. A chest of Kevlar and then a mask that covered his face were the most fortified parts, as always it had eye protection thanks to the safety glasses of the builders. Oscar also had to carry several arrows, because of this was necessary to decide between having more ammunition or protection. Luckily he always had support so he could afford to trust his teammates to cover him while he used his bow.

The trip had no difficulty, Michi's radar plus Lucia's support makes finding the safest route easy. The common infected were no longer a danger and even variants such as the Runners and the Brutes ceased to pose a threat if they were alone. That way, leaving a corpse path they reached the warehouse they were looking for. When they reached the huge industrial-looking building they noticed that the street was empty and there were only a couple of abandoned cars.

Michi: I detected 10 Runners, 3 Hunters, 20 normal infected and. . .4 unidentified in the area.

Gabriel: Oscar climb that lamppost, from there you can shoot without problems.

Oscar: Can I do that?

Gabriel: Trust me, you have more than enough mutations to do it.

With a superhuman agility the old man could climb that thin metal structure and stand on the small surface without problems.

Oscar: This is nice.

Gabriel: I told you.

Old age was something quite difficult, every second you spend you become weaker, more fragile, more idiotic and your senses leave you one by one. Feeling like your body rots little by little is an unpleasant experience that Oscar felt daily. However there was something worse than that, to think Is this all? I am done? Looking back on your whole life and not being satisfied with this really sucks.

Having now not only a new chance but a totally new world to explore was too good to be true. Facing legions of unspeakable horrors and dancing with death every day was the nightmare of many people but for Oscar that life had lost its taste after decades of monotony was heaven.

Oscar was above the lamppost after having performed a feat only possible in dreams could feel like a child. Exploring this new world and finding the limits of his body and then breaking them gave him a happiness that he thought he would never feel again.

Gabriel: Yeni make some noise to attract them, it will be safer to fight here since we don't know the structure of the building and I don't want any surprise attacks.

Yeni: For your luck I'm a lousy bitch.

Then the woman began to hit her shield with her mace creating a rather loud noise. Thanks to this several infected people began to leave through the doors and windows of that place directly attacking Yeni who was in front of the group. Gabriel was near her with his sword using his explosive mutations to enter, make some cuts and then retire to wait for them to recharge. Yeni was crushing the infected with her weapon and Oscar was responsible for killing the dangerous ones before they even reach the group's tank. The pace of the fight changed when Gabriel noticed a different type of infected leaving the building.

This new type of infected didn't seem to be too dangerous, it was a malnourished person with an unusually big stomach to the point that they looked like women in the late stages of pregnancy. The neck was unusually long, twice that of an average person and it was constantly drooling a green substance. The clothes it still possessed were in an unusual state, it seemed to be severely burned but the rest of his body had no sign of fire damage.

Gabriel: Spitters! They can spit acid with a range of 10 m.

Oscar showing off his skills began to quickly kill that new type of infected. With his bow and improved physical abilities he could calmly execute them before they approached. His mechanical and precise movements like a clock were the result of decades of experience mixed with the new capabilities of his being.

15 minutes later everything was clean, Michi didn't detect any other infected, so they began to take out the Hell Crystals and then entered the warehouse to find the components they needed. The weakest acids that were needed to create the super acid were there but not in the amounts Gabriel would have liked. Another thing they found was a pair of iron oxide jars, ideal for making more termite than they were falling short of those components.

When they finished putting the components together and the Hell Crystals decided to return to the bunker, after all exploring with several bottles of extremely corrosive acids wasn't a good idea. On the way back, a very important issue arose that they had to discuss.

Yeni: Ok Quickshot is my turn to name the new variant and Splitter is super lame. I will call you . . .Vomitors !.

Lucía: That sounds horrible.

Yeni: Suck a dick Lucy, when it's your turn you can name the infected as you please.

Lucia: Fine whatever. Hey I see something strange, in a nearby park all the trees are. . crooked do you want to take a look?

Oscar: We have plenty of time before nightfall.

Michi: Curiosity killed the cat and yes it's ironic that I say that, you don't have to mention it.

Gabriel: If that's what I think it is, we must go back to the bunker to prepare. Tomorrow I will show you how to kill God.

Yeni: Do you really need to be that dramatic Quickshot?

Gabriel: Yes.