Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

The safe zone opened its makeshift gates to allow the two vehicles to enter its domain. The walls appeared to be made from scrap materials scavenged from across the city, and had "guard towers" stationed behind them where men with sniper rifles stood vigilant.

It was not unusual for Humvees to leave the gates and come back for re-entry. After all, most of the equipment that was used by the national guard prior to the revolution was now distributed among the awakened teams who began to go out into the city and farm the undead for xp.

Thus, nobody thought anything of it when Zane and the girls entered through the gates and followed Garth into the interior of the secluded area. The safe zone was relatively unmolested, unlike the rest of the city. There were few signs of damage to the buildings that existed within it.

But what was noticeable were the tents that were placed everywhere. There simply were not enough buildings to house the population and because of this, people dwelled in tents, and some in makeshift shelters fashioned together with whatever could be found.

Some of these tents operated as stalls where people would exchange whatever they had to sell for blood crystals. This included everything from food, water, ammunition, building materials, and of course someone's body, if they were particularly desperate.

As Zane finally stopped the car outside the city center, he exited the vehicle with the girls in tow, where he immediately spoke to the man who had helped them find the safe zone, and gain access to its interior.

"Thanks for the escort… I'll see you around."

It was incredibly clear by the tone in Zane's voice that he did not really want to associate with anyone who was not already in his group, and thus was saying the bare minimum to get Garth off his back.

This was not surprising, as things had drastically changed across the world, and society was no longer remotely civilized. It was only natural for someone like Zane who had been out in the wastes since the start to be cautious around other living beings.

Garth simply smiled, extending a hand of friendship towards Zane as he allowed the young man to go off on his own.

"No problem man, if you ever need anything that I can help with, come find me in my tent. It's easy enough to find, as I have painted the tarp in a way that will immediately catch your eye!"

Zane nodded his head, before turning away from Garth, and instead spoke to Olivia and Elena.

"Olivia, get in the car and consume our blood crystal supply. However, just use enough to level up. We have no idea how much our shit is worth, or the general value of blood crystals. Elena, you keep watch over Olivia while she's in her debuff state."

Olivia did not resist Zane's orders and immediately nodded her head. She knew Zane did not like being asked questions for shit like this, and thus she remained silent. Once Zane knew that the woman had understood his intent, he accessed the storage of their vehicle and grabbed some excess supplies where he went out to sell them.

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Zane had spent several hours wandering through the safe zone, stopping every tent that had a stall outside where he inspected what was for sale. He very quickly learned the value of blood crystals. A single Tier I blood crystal could buy a magazine worth of ammunition. While Tier II blood crystals were worth significantly more.

As for Tier III blood crystals, nobody had really gotten their hands on one yet, and if they had, they likely consumed it rather than try to trade it. All in all, Zane sold his excess and unnecessary supplies for a pretty price.

After all some things were in higher demands than others, like vices such as alcohol and tobacco, something that Zane had a large supply of. Because of this, Zane was able to make a hefty profit as he walked around the safe zone in search of the underground slave markets.

Only to find that they were not as underground as Garth had remarked, one simply needed to go to the outskirts of the second layer of defense and find that there were dozens if not hundreds of people bound and chained being sold to the highest bidder in literal slave auctions.

As Zane sat by and watched the slaves for sale, he realized that he had enough blood crystals on him to buy several slaves. Which was good, because the odds of a person surviving their awakening were low. And Zane would probably need to buy several if he wanted to succeed in this regard.

There was just one problem. Zane was perhaps the only man who had not bid on a slave throughout this entire auction. The reason was simple: Zane was a good judge of character, and the slaves who were presented all displayed a level of defiance in their eyes. Defiance, which would prove difficult to tame.

What Zane needed wasn't a pleasure slave, or a meat shield, or a physical laborer. What Zane needed was a team member. One who would prove to be a valuable and loyal asset to him and the girls. Because of this, he was looking for a slave who he could buy their loyalty with the gift of freedom.

Thus, all the slaves were eventually sold off to other people. All but one. At the very end of the auction, a young woman was dragged out. She was dressed provocatively, to say the least. As if to exemplify her physical assets.

She was an exceptionally beautiful young woman and appeared as if she were the age of a university student. The girl had long and messy blond hair, with matching bangs, and green eyes. There was a complete and utter lifeless expression on her doll-like face. Almost as if she had lost the will to live.

But what was most noticeable about the woman was the exceptional size of her bust. If Zane was being honest, Elena was already quite gifted in that regard, and Olivia was even better. But this girl had some of the nicest knockers he had ever seen on a woman. Leading him to believe that she had already been spoiled by her captors.

This seemed to be a belief that was shared among the other interested parties as well as they sighed in regret over the idea that the girl was "used goods". That is until the auctioneer made a sudden announcement.

"Now I can see there are several of you in the audience who are already interested in buying this beautiful young lady. And why wouldn't you? Her assets speak for themselves. Clearly a top quality product right here, one you won't find anywhere else!

But I would be remiss if I did not alert you to the fact that this lady is actually a virgin! I know, I know, shocking right? How could a fully grown woman this beautiful, and with a body this sinful, be pure? But make no mistake, we have verified this fact to be true!

Because this young lady is such a beautiful and untainted specimen, the starting price will be raised substantially. We are starting the auction off at 60 blood crystals! I know, I know a hefty price, but I believe you can all see that this slave, in particular, is worth it!

Now, do I hear 70 blood crystals?"

Zane was not particularly interested in using this slave for carnal desires, unlike everyone else who was in attendance at this slave auction. Instead, he was more interested in the girl because of the lifeless expression on her face. A woman who was that mentally broken could prove to be a loyal asset if Zane did the work to rebuild her state of mind.

It was the lack of loyalty among the other slaves that had prevented Zane from bidding on them. But, if he gave this girl her freedom, and gave her a reason to live, her loyalty would be unquestionable. It was for this reason that he was convinced that this beautiful and busty blonde would be the best addition to his team.

With this in mind, Zane immediately raised the price to a level that nobody expected him to.

"Two hundred blood crystals!"

Everyone was shocked when they heard this bid. After all, Zane and the girls had an enormous head start on the rest of humanity. In fact, they were probably the only human beings on the planet, or at the very least within this city, who were beyond level five.

This meant that the xp required to level up was significantly lower for these other awakened survivors than what Zane needed. This also meant that because they were significantly lower levels, they had a much harder time harvesting blood crystals, and as a result, naturally had less than Zane and the girls.

To put this in perspective, 200 Tier I blood crystals were essentially 2,000 XP to Zane, and 1,600 XP for everyone else. This small fortune, if consumed by Zane, would not even grant him one tenth of the XP he needed to level up to 12.

But for everyone else? This was two or three levels' worth of blood crystals. Nobody would ever part with such a fortune, even for a slave girl as beautiful and tempting as the girl on display.

But 200 blood crystals were a fraction of what Zane and the girls had recently scavenged. Olivia herself had just consumed substantially more than that the moment they entered the Safe Zone. And though this was a staggering sum to the plebs around Zane, he and his girls were powerful enough to wipe out flash mobs of the Undead with little difficulty.

Meaning that harvesting Tier I blood crystals was extremely easy for them, and because of this, they had entire duffle bags full of them.

Even if Olivia consumed 90% of the fortune they were sitting on at the moment, Zane would easily have enough left over to outbid the rest of these plebs. He was definitely confident in this, as the 50 some blood crystals he had on him from selling the booze and cigarettes he had scavenged were worth enough to buy two or three other slaves.

The auctioneer didn't even believe Zane had this many and was quick to ask for proof.

"My friend, two hundred blood crystals is an absurd sum. This is a serious auction, and thus we expect you to have a serious bid to offer!"

Zane rolled his eyes and tossed a sack at the man. The sack contained the fifty blood crystals Zane had on him, and though this was a far cry from what he had promised, it was still a shocking number of crystals.

"consider this my down payment. I'll have to go back to my… Tent to fetch the rest. With this payment, that girl is now my property. Nobody is to touch her without my consent. It should take me no more than fifteen minutes to collect the rest of the funds. This will suffice, yes?"

Obviously Zane did not reside in the safe zone, but since he had tossed out such a huge sum as if it were nothing, he knew he would attract the greed of everyone else around him, and thus he did not say he had to go back to his vehicle, where Olivia was currently resting.

The auctioneer truly believed Zane was telling the truth and immediately broke out into a wide grin as he confirmed that Zane had indeed won the auction.

"Congratulations, sir! This girl is indeed yours! We will hand her over to your possession when you return with the promised funds!"

Zane silently nodded his head as he walked off, casting one last glance at the blonde bombshell who he had saved from a terrible fate.