Kapitel 46: Chapter 46

**-Author-**

Forty one. That is the amount of walkers they counted, as they approached him. All with a knife protruding from their skull, or a bullet wound on their skull head. They found him laying next to a corpse with a hatchet stuck on its head, panting heavily, clear signs of exhaustion on him.

"What the fuck were you thinking?!" Shane admonished him angrily, regardless of how impressive his display was. "Couldn't fucking call for help?!"

"I had it covered as you can see." Xenon gathered his wits and regulated his breathing. He stood up and dusted himself off.

"Bullshit." Shane retorted. "What you were doing was recklessly put yourself in danger. We couldn't come here and helped you finished off the rest, BUT NO, you had to do it on your own!"

"I agree." Jim nodded. "This is unlike you. What were you thinking?"

"There was no need to waste bullets. I can recover my knives, but bullets might come in handy." Xenon raised his hand in surrender. "And I did a headcount, sweat to god. I've done this before, you see."

"But you gotta admit, this doesn't look very good does it, son?" Dale added his own piece. "I mean as far as we can tell, you were suicidal on this stunt of yours."

"Forty one walkers. Eighteen killed with my gun, twenty-two killed with my knife, and one killed with my axe. I was in no real danger the whole time, as you could see, I kept my bullets until the last moment. Had I ran out of bullets before, I would've called for help. That was the point either way." Xenon explained calmly. "And as I've told you, I have done this before."

"That doesn't sound good either." Dale remarked again. "You gotta look at it from our perspective."

"And I completely agree with you, but you should also admit that you're being unfair. I was never in any danger, and I ran out of bullets at the last walker. Consider the results for a moment." Xenon retorted. "The rest are safe. None of us were hurt. We've only expanded eighteen bullets, and I was never in any real danger. Now, we still have more than enough bullets in case we're attacked again by surprise, and don't have the time to coordinate like we did. Win-win, right?"

"It's not fair to only look at the methods, I believe the results are noteworthy as well." Andrea commented in my defense.

"Forget about it. Let's go check on the others." Jim sighed and shook his head.

"Wanna give me a hand getting back my knives?" Xenon asked with a disarming smile. "I'm very attached to them, you see."

"We'll stay with him, you guys can go back." Andrea offered, as she knew they couldn't waste more time with him. They agreed with her and ran back to the camp to look for the rest.

"Be careful if Ed was bitten." Xenon cried out, as he remembered something important.

"So, what was that really about?" Andrea raised an eyebrow at him, when the rest was far enough.

**- Xenon -**

"Honestly? Exactly as I said. Bullets can save your life in a tough situation. I honestly didn't believe it was necessary to use any, and I was confident I could do this." I answered. It was also a huge part of the truth. I didn't want them to waste any bullets, the extra EXP was just a welcome surprise. Though the Quest may have made me a bit too zealous.

"Men with their pride. Always having something to prove." Andrea rolled her eyes.

"Now that's unfair, you know I'm right." I defended, but let's face it, from their point of view, it must have seemed rather suicidal and idiotic. "Amy, back me up here."

"Well..." Amy, for her part, just made a so-and-so gesture with her hand.

I shook my head and started collecting the knives off walkers.

"When did you learn to do that anyway?" Amy said thoughtfully. "I don't remember you throwing knives the last time we went to Atlanta."

"Daryl taught me. And I found this nice set of knives on my travels." I shrugged.

"So, in two weeks, you became an expert?" Andrea remarked. "That's impressive."

"I know. I'm just that amazing." I nodded humbly.

"Can't disagree after the display, to be honest." Andrea added. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't think what you did was wrong."

"I dread what would've happened if you weren't with us." Amy confessed. "You were the one who noticed them. You were the first to act when you did, when everyone was panicking. I think they don't give you enough credit, judging you for a single mistake you made."

"That's right." Andrea agreed.

"Thanks. It means a lot." I said gratefully.

"And I think you were right." Amy continued. "I don't even need to say it. this whole situation proved that you were right."

"Right about what?" Andrea asked curiously, as she took another knife out of a walker's skull. Honestly, I'm surprised none of them are too disgusted by it, they certainly were the first time we went to Atlanta, but now it wasn't as noticeable as before.

"We were talking about how this exact situation may happen, actually." Amy explained to her sister what we were talking about. By the time she was done, we already extracted all the knives I threw.

"You know, you're smarter than we give you credit for." Andrea spoke after a moment of silent. "I guess that's why you're still alive."

"I'm flattered." I chuckled.

"She means it. And I agree. I think you should bring this up with Shane and the others." Amy said passionately.

"I will." I nodded.

**- Xenon -**

We walked for a while to reach the camp, as I had dragged the walkers for some distance before getting offensive. A lot of things came out of this encounter.

< 41 EXP Gained ! >

< Quest Complete : Attack on Camp. >

Description: Kill the walkers attacking the camp single-handedly.

*Requirements:

->Walkers: 41/41

*Rewards:

-> 58 EXP

-> Glock Magazine x 2

-> + 2 STR

< You have leveled up! >

< Evaluating performance… >

* Ding *

< You are eligible for rewards! >

< +1 STR Gained! >

< +1 DEX Gained! >

< [Empowered Strike] has leveled up! >

< [Sprint.] has leveled up! >

< [Weapon Mastery: Handgun] has leveled up! >

< [Proficiency: Knife Throwing] has leveled up! >

[Empowered Strike. (Passive/Active)] LVL 4

Cost : 8 SP

Empower your next attack, increasing its speed and damage.

( Speed & Damage increase based on DEX and STR )

[Sprint. (Passive/Active)] LVL 2

*Passive:

-7.5% Stamina consumption while running.

*Active:

Cost : 1.8 SP/sec

Increases your sprinting speed by 12.5%.

[Weapon Mastery: Handgun. (Passive)] LVL 2

Increases your accuracy and recoil control when using a handgun.

[Proficiency: Knife Throwing. (Passive)] LVL 5

Increase the speed and damage of your throws.

< Perk Gained! >

[Aceso's Blessing]

Increase your recovery rate while resting.

+5% SP per min

< Status >

Name : Xenon

Level : 7 | Progress : 1/130

Race : Human

Age : 16

Stamina (SP) : 27/240

STR : 17

DEX : 12

CON : 4

END : 12

CHA: 14

WIL : 4

INT : 24

WIS : 13

LUK : 9

Unused Stat Points: 6

This little endeavor of mine turned out to be completely worth it. Upgrading my skills is one of the hardest thing to do, and I know because I tried to do it before. Upgrading my stats? Even harder. Not only did I get free stats, but also STAT POINTS! I could use those to increase any stat of my choice.

I am obviously holding on to them for now. Why? Because the threshold for a stat increase tends to be low at lower levels. Increasing my STR from 1 to 2 isn't the same as increasing it from 30 to 31. It demands a lot more effort, and I'd rather be a bit weaker right now, than waste the opportunity for a major power up. Not to mention, I may not even want to put it into STR and DEX, which are the obvious choices. I still didn't know what the other stats truly represented, but I do know they are even harder to increase. Like WIL, CON and LUK.

The magazines are a welcome surprise, especially since they were an extended version that could take up to 33 rounds, which means I will run out of 9 mm bullets once I load them.

And finally [Aceso's Blessing], a perk that allowed me recover 5% of my SP while resting. I still don't know what the System considers as "resting", but it's nothing too difficult to figure out.