"Those skills are fire! How are you so strong?!"
"Hey, you must be in the top 20 in the Leaderboard…"
The survivors celebrated after they confirmed that they had won. Gratitude was evident in their eyes, and Shane could tell that their reactions were genuine.
He could tell that through his Survival Instinct and Danger Sense… They were completely unlike the many other groups of survivors he had encountered before who had thoughts of stealing his loot or aiming to kill him while he was busy.
"What's your name, hero? I'm Stan… These are my colleagues, Jorvik and Clint…" The smallest in the group of three asked.
These three were wearing mining uniforms with their safety helmet and axe with them.
"I'm Shane… I'm quite curious why you guys decided to explore this place just with the three of you." Shane replied.
Stan laughed after hearing this.
"There's no way we'd like to explore this zombie-infested tunnel… We're just unlucky." Stan replied.
"Oh… You can go ahead and loot the Zombies first. You can also take all the ones we've killed. Anyway, we're probably dead by now without your help." Jorvik said.
Shane smiled at this and replied.
"I'll take that offer since I have to level up quickly. If I looted some materials from the ones I didn't kill, I'll pass it to you…"
As he said this, he immediately completed the loot.
"Mhmm?" Stan was curious seeing Shane just standing there.
"Oh… I'm done looting… I'm just checking all the items I got." Shane said as he was indeed checking his inventory right now. To his surprise, the Spitter Zombies he had killed just now were quite generous.
[ You have earned 33 Experience Points. ]
[ Loots obtained: Item Upgrade Crystal x3, Zombie Cores x3, 500mL water, 100mL Spitter Zombie Blood, Acid Pouch x2, Spirit Enhancement Bottles x2, Fine Crossbow x1 ]
The number of the crystals and cores was larger than he expected, and they even gave him one crossbow for each!
This was definitely a decent loot. If he could continue looting several crossbows, he could equip several squads and and build a brigade of crossbowmen soon.
"What? You're done looting?" Jorvik asked as he couldn't believe it.
"That was fast… Do you have some kind of invisible hands like our Leader?" Clint asked.
"Hey… You're not supposed to say about our Leader's invisible hands." Stan said while shaking his head.
"Ahhh! My bad… My bad… Please forget about that, Sir Shane. Once again, thank you for saving us." Clint replied.
"Right… In any case, what I did was Auto-Loot it's something you'll get once you reached level 25." Shane explained.
"Auto-Loot!" The three of them repeated at the same time. This was definitely and interesting loot.
However, the requirement of reaching level 25 was just too much for them.
"As expected, you must be a ranker… There were only three people who had reached above level 25… Hahaha… You also messed up, Shane." The three then laughed as they confirmed that Shane was definitely one of the top rankers in this apocalypse.
Shane was also stunned at this, as he recalled that there weren't many Survivors who could reach that level yet.
"The three of us are only level 15, and we're already quite decent in our shelter… To be exact, you would still find level 9 or 10 in our shelter, especially the ones in the production class." Stan said as he explained about the shelter where they came from.
Apparently, Stan was the group leader of the mining team of this shelter to find more iron ore…
Well, Shane could see that they were hard workers as their faces were etched with dirt and their eyes weary but unyielding.
Stan then explained that they had been mining as usual—when the earth had betrayed them, revealing this hidden path.
It had led them to an underground tunnel that seemed to be man-made.
Jorvik, the burliest of the group, wiped the sweat from his brow. His beard was matted, and his hands calloused. He showed his pickaxe to Shane and chuckled.
"Never thought I'd be fighting zombies with a pickaxe…" He grumbled.
Shane nodded. "Life takes unexpected turns."
It seemed that they had gone too far with their mining, which led them to reach this Tunnel under the abandoned city.
Clint nodded at this. He dusted his miner's helmet on his head as he noticed that the flashlight on it was barely giving him some light.
"We originally thought that this tunnel could give us plenty of coal, but it seemed that we were too much."
Stan then explained everything that had happened to show their sincerity to Shane…
"Zombies swarmed us. We barely made it here. We used up all of our Zombie Lures as well. We'd like to pay you, but we only have 20 Zombie Cores that we've gathered for today. Normally, we would give half 80% of it to our Leader for our Clan and Shelter's operations but we could give them all to you right now."
"Ohhh… I don't need it… You can just keep your Zombie Cores… However, I might have to ask for your help since it will be nighttime soon. There would be stronger Zombies out here, so if it's possible, can I rest in your shelter for tonight?" Shane asked.
"Of course!" The three of them answered in unison. They really wanted to help Shane, even for a bit.
Soon, they tended to their wounds using ointment and bandages since Healing Salve was expensive. Anyway, most of the injuries they obtained were from the Spitter Zombie's acid and not from being bitten by the Zombies.
Shane offered them a protein bar from his backpack.
"Food," he said… He felt a bit bad if he was the only one eating while walking, so he offered a protein bar to each of them.
Stan and the others were also hungry at this point, and even if they were feeling uncomfortable to get too much help from Shane, they still accepted the bar…
"We're in your debt."