Given that the repairs that the crystals provided the undead with were purely passive and undirected, and adding to it the fact that the undead were remaking damaged tissue and body parts with nothing other than raw soul energy, regrowing them from almost nothing, the repairs were patchy at best.

The result was a meaty growth not unlike a cancerous tumor.

Those makeshift uneven bodily repairs were good enough in less sophisticated areas of the body like muscles and the like, making the undead almost as good as new after they were completed. It also did not matter too much if the zombies’ internal organs became a mess, since they were not properly living anymore, and had no need for them to be in working condition.

The brain however was another matter entirely.

The brain was a complicated piece of organic matter that was responsible for the processing of information and how living beings on Earth, like humans, interpreted and interacted with the world around them.

Zombies also needed the brain to be in somewhat of a decent state to move around and hunt other living beings. A less than perfect repair using solely the passive regeneration provided by the soul crystals was not enough to put it back in working condition and allow the dead to make a comeback from their injuries.

That was why Danny and any other survivor had to destroy it in order to put the zombies down for good. That was easier said than done however, given that evolution granted all humans – and consequently their dead counterparts – a solid bony armor surrounding it to protect the fragile and essential organ from harm – the skull.

Not that it posed a problem for Danny and prevented him from smashing his way to success with his trusty hammer though. The increase in strength only made it easier to put down zombies lately.

Anyways, back to the present.

Despite the tragic fate that had befallen to the passengers of that bus by the side of the road, finding the overturned vehicle was good news for Danny. The limiting space and awkward positioning of the vehicle after the crash, made it fairly easy for Danny to exploit the circumstances to dispatch all the undead present in an effortless manner. All he had to do was find a funneling path to engage the zombies in a controlled manner or strike them through cracked windows and wait for the job to be completed with minimal risk to himself.

Although some of the zombies had managed to free themselves from the death trap and were roaming the area close to the accident, most of the now dead passengers still remained inside, meaning that after a few minutes of work and some intense hammer swinging, Danny had over twenty more corpses to extract the crystals from.

Not too shabby for a single-day’s work.

The chore of removing the soul gems from their meaty prison afterwards was boring and time-consuming though, but it had to be done. Therefore, Danny pulled his metaphorical sleeves up and got to it without complaints. That was more than a week’s worth of crystal consumption in his current pace after all, not something to turn his nose up at.

After a long process of breaking skulls open and digging up crystals, Danny got back to the road and threw himself back to the repetitive motions of running, fighting, getting the crystals from his foes and then all over again.

In this fashion, Danny breezed through the route that Lara’s family had supposedly travelled. No matter how much attention he paid to the road, in the end he did not find any traces of them or their vehicle until the sun began to set.

Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, Danny did not make it to Clear Water village in that day as well, given that he had to stop to collect the crystals from all his downed foes, and doing so took a considerable amount of time, but Danny had no regrets.

The weight of his pouch was substantially heavier in his hands. Whenever Danny thought about the valuable pile of shiny treasure he managed to get in a single day or looked at the pouch that contained it, he could not help but smile, as if he was a greedy dragon admiring his hoard.

By this point, Danny’s stock of crystals had entered the mid one hundreds, which meant that, if his income was suddenly cut off for whatever reason, he would still be able to keep training for a month and a half, give or take. So, Danny was very satisfied with how things were going.

The stronger he got, the more zombies Danny could deal with at the same time, and consequentially, the more crystals he would be able to get. That, in its turn, would make him even stronger and able to fight even more zombies, creating a virtuous cycle that hopefully would place him in a solid position to defend himself from the invaders in the near future.

By getting stronger and overall better at fighting, Danny also had an easier time in combat, meaning that he was taking less and less risks when going against the undead as an added advantage as well.

He could even start to take on bigger groups of enemies if he so wished, but Danny very quickly reigned in his greed. Bigger groups of enemies meant bigger rewards, but he still felt that slow and steady was the best course of action.

Danny was loathe to let overconfidence be the death of him after managing to survive so long under the demon’s torment, so Danny decidedly chose to act prudently. Wouldn’t it be the biggest joke if he managed to survive an old demon for years only to fall because of his own folly at the hands of a mindless creature?

He would still test his limits, of course, but it was best to keep the risks to a minimum to make sure he could actually handle them.

He also was not pressing for more crystals, having just acquired a decent stock of the shining stuff, so there was really no reason for him to rush things.

Taking all that into account, it was with a smile on his face and feeling contented that Danny went to sleep that night inside an SUV that was parked next to the highway.

The next day, Danny woke up to the sound of a zombie smacking the door of the car he was resting in.

Seeing that the windows were in no danger of breaking, Danny lazily stretched his body and blinked a few times to chase away the drowsiness from his eyes.

After a couple minutes of yawning and getting himself ready for the day, Danny opened the door of the SUV, violently hitting the annoyingly groaning undead in the process, and knocking it down to the floor.

While the foe responsible for waking him up was down on the ground, Danny finally stepped out of the vehicle and was greeted by the new day sun. Following that, he adjusted his clothes and strapped his backpack on his shoulders before putting his foot on the chest of the zombie that was trying to get up, keeping its back glued to the floor.

Danny studied his opponent from his vantage point as it struggled and flailed in futility. There wasn’t really any risk of the zombie freeing itself as Danny easily overpowered the creature with his newfound strength with almost no effort on his part.

He was trying to gauge how much stronger he was now compared to before, using his enemy as a point of reference.

Danny felt that one of the best ways currently available to him to understand his growth in power was pitting himself against enemies. By fighting against the risen dead again and again Danny could get a feel of how much easier it was to kill them for good, and in doing so, measure how far he had come.

The difference was getting blurrier with each passing day however. Danny no longer felt the adrenaline rushing whenever he faced the ravenous zombies. He did not feel threatened anymore when facing a single enemy, being able to make short work of them easily.

He still made a conscious effort to not let overconfidence get to his head, but the fact remained that one single zombie was already too weak to pose a challenge to him. Danny was confident that even bare-handed he would be able to kill them without getting a single scratch, so it was hard to avoid looking down on those enemies.

Danny needed a more objective and efficient way to measure his strength, but all thoughts led back to the demon, his personal source of unease and information. He had to think of a way to get Tutu talking without breaking their agreement, but his head still came empty of ideas.

Clearing his head of this line of thought, and coming back to the present Danny unleashed a single powerful hammer strike to the trashing zombie that was still firmly stuck under his boot.

Blood splattered on the paved floor and onto his leather covered arms with some even reaching his face. However, Danny did not even bat an eye to the mess that covered him, quickly switching from combat to gathering mode. He had been bathed so many times with gore by now that he already was used to the sticky feeling and unpleasant smell that came after every fight.

Humans were adaptable creatures. Even before the apocalypse, many people made their pitiful lives by rummaging through trash and living in dumpsters. After a while, even the most unpleasant of circumstances would become a mere sidenote in the background, filtered in one’s mind as an everyday insignificant detail.

After he extracted the crystal, Danny checked his watch and got back inside the SUV to quickly consume it. Last night he had planned running a little bit of the way before doing his first training session of the day, but the early combat and gathering process took enough time that made little sense for him to run first and stop soon afterwards.

Although he was a bit early, Danny felt that there would not be any issues if he pushed his session a little bit in advance. Eight hours was just an estimate after all, not an absolute rule. So, Danny quickly closed the car door back again and secluded himself inside, swallowing a crystal immediately afterwards.

Other than a slight bigger discomfort – no doubt caused by consuming the soul gem in advance – there was not much of a surprise. It all proceeded exactly as the previous times, with some slight differences here and there, as Danny came to expect.

Not long after, he was back up and running alongside the highway.