Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

While the battle raged on for the defense of the Safe Zon, Elena and Olivia slept quietly in their beds. All the while, Zane sat awake, watching as the thunder flashed, and the storm continued to pile down upon the desert city.

No doubt the infrastructure of this city would be heavily damaged by the flash flooding. And unlike in the old world, there would be no efforts to repair it. Still, Zane sat there in silence. Drinking some coffee, which he brewed.

He silently watched and waited within the house, almost as if he was anticipating an attack from the undead, or perhaps even the living. While drinking his coffee, Zane was cleaning his new rifle. Not that it particularly needed maintenance, as a properly made AR-15 could go through thousands of rounds before needing to be cleaned. But because he had nothing better to do.

And while Zane cleaned his weapons and drank his coffee, he played with the system. He had not spent as much time as he could looking through the UI and seeing all of the minor details that the system had available for him to make use of.

But since he now possessed down time, Zane decided to do so, and it was when searching through his character screen that he noticed something he missed before. It was incredibly easy to miss, as it was a small circular symbol with a skull on it. Almost as if it were a medallion of some kind.

Zane immediately became curious as he used his thoughts to click on this symbol, which opened up an entirely new screen that he was unaware of before.

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[Achievements]

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Zane felt a little foolish. He, after all, had experience with video games that had such a feature before, but he had been too hasty with his system use prior to now in order to discover this. The moment he realized there was an achievement screen, Zane realized there were likely rewards he would be granted upon completion of them.

Thus, Zane was overly eager to click on this screen where it revealed his current progress on certain achievements.

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[Achievement: Slayer of the Dead – Tier I]

[Requirements: Slay 100 Walkers or other Tier I Undead]

[Progress: 100/100 Tier I Undead Slain]

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[Rewards:

Title: Slayer of the Dead - Tier I

+500 XP]

[Claim: Y/N?]

---

This was not the least bit surprising to Zane. He had killed an ungodly number of walkers over the last week. In fact, in order to reach level five, Zane estimated that he and the girls had killed well over a thousand Undead since the Apocalypse began. Or perhaps close to it. After all, he did gain some significant help from the Stalker early on, who he traded bodies for blood crystals with.

Zane had also consumed a Tier III Blood Crystal which advanced him by a level on its own. So maybe the number wasn't as high as he thought. Regardless, it was obvious that this was the first achievement that one was supposed to unlock. Especially from the XP given, which would have given a level 1 awakened survivor two level ups, as well as some decent progress towards their third.

There was, however, another interesting nugget of truth revealed within this achievement. There were undead other than Walkers that shared the Tier I status. Undead that Zane and the girls had yet to run into. That was an interesting thought in and of itself.

Zane however decided to put this new information to the back of his mind as he decided to hold off on claiming the rewards for the Achievement, before looking at the two others he seemed to have met the requirements for, as those that were still locked presented themselves in a faded color, while those that appeared unlocked were presented to him in a bright sanguine color.

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[Achievement: Corrupted – Tier I]

[Requirements: Consume 100 Tier I Blood Crystals]

[Progress: 100/100 Tier One Blood Crystals Consumed]

[Rewards:

Title: Corrupted – Tier I

+2,500 XP]

[Claim: Y/N?]

---

This was a far more substantial achievement, no doubt intended for those more capable awakened. After all, 2,500 XP was enough at level five to get him roughly halfway through his progress bar, which when combined with the previous five hundred XP from the prior achievement, as well as his haul of blood crystals today, meant that Zane would actually be able to gain a level up.

This was an exciting prospect for Zane. But there was one other achievement that was unusual. At least more unusual than the other two. Because it was labeled differently than the others, and had a skull symbol next to it.

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[Hidden Achievement: Murderer]

[Requirements: Murder a fellow living being in cold blood]

[Progress: 1/1]

[Rewards:

Title: Murderer

+15,000 XP]

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Upon witnessing the massive reward for what Zane believed was such a simple task. Zane became deeply concerned about something, which he believed to have been a serious flaw in his thinking. Until now, Zane believed that the system was a boon to humanity, a necessary tool in its current war for survival as a species.

But this hidden achievement, one which he suspected by the very notion, would only display itself after it had been unlocked. It completely shattered this misconception of the system being something benevolent.

If the system was going to reward living beings for murdering one another, then the intentions behind its design were clearly far different from what Zane had originally thought. And if that was the case… What other sinister hidden achievements were there?

Zane, of course, decided not to think about this any longer, as it was impossible to know. Instead, he claimed the rewards for all three achievements. Instantly gaining three levels as he did so, and significant progress into a fourth.

His system lit up with similar messages one after another.

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[Rewards Claimed!]

[Title Unlocked!]

[+500 XP!]

[Rewards Claimed!]

[Title Unlocked!]

[+1500 XP]

[Level Up! You are now level 6!]

[+2 Attribute Points]

[Rewards Claimed!]

{Title Unlocked!]

[+15,000 XP]

[Level up! You are now level 7!]

[+2 Attribute Points!]

[Level Up! You are now level 8!]

[Plus 2 Attribute Points!]

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Zane had already estimated he would gain such advances in levels, but due to the nature of how he achieved it, he felt deeply disturbed. Not because of his own actions, but because of the ramifications of humanity's long-term survival that it represented. Ultimately, he sighed heavily before clicking on the level up feature.

Where he would go on to apply his new attribute points to the areas that he felt were most necessary.