Nathan was currently on a rooftop of a 4-story building.
In front of him was a mall. He was observing it through his binoculars which he looted from one of the apartments at the apartment building that he used to live.
The mall had a spacious parking lot with hundreds of tents and trailers camped outside the mall. The mall, tents and trailers were surrounded by many buses and trucks, forming a circular wall to prevent zombies from entering. Inside and on top of those buses and trucks, there were armed people armed with guns and system items.
In this wall made up of buses and trucks, there was only one entrance which was an 8ft-tall and 15ft-wide movable gate and had six people guarding it.
The reason why Nathan was checking out this mall because it was too eye-catching and most of the convenience stores nearby where he usually hunts were looted by him and the human groups.
He was amazed by the setup. Truly, any group, be it humans and zombies, will have a hard time entering, except if the opposing side had aerial units.
'But how long will this camp last?'
In his mind, the fact that malls were a common go-to place to set camp in zombie apocalypse-themed movies or shows, they will be constantly attacked or harassed by other human groups. And if the human groups won't get them, the zombies will -- there's always that dumb moment where someone in the base tries to hide or shelter an infected loved one which will eventually end up infecting everyone in the base.
And for Nathan, who has [Coward's Way], entering and exiting this camp would be a piece of cake for him, unless they've set up traps or have something that could detect his presence.
After observing the camp for a couple of minutes, he put away his binoculars.
He removed the sword sheath attached on the backpack's side as and placed it on his back, and took out his fanny pack from his backpack as well. He left his backpack and hid it in a corner.
He wanted to be light as fuck.
His goal was to investigate the area first before deciding how he could take their resources for himself.
He headed towards the mall.
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Nathan was already inside the circular wall made up of buses and trucks, and passed through the sea of tents and trailers at the parking lot.
He could see all kinds of people: children, teenagers, adults, and old people. Except for the children who were running around and playing, the rest had haggard faces.
He was careful not to bump into anyone because it will deactivate his invisibility.
When he got to one of the entrances of the mall, there were two armed men guarding it. They were talking about why this zombie apocalypse was happening and were giving it our religious reasons.
He wasn't interested so he just ignored them and continued walking.
He headed to the area where the shelves for the food were located. When he got there, it was empty, not a single food was found.
'Did they move the food to a storage room or something?'
With that, he decided to look around the other areas inside the mall.
There were still a number of appliances and items of clothing left inside the mall. There were also tents camped inside the mall and people walking around and talking.
'Perhaps this is where the leader and the high-ranking members of this group stay?' he thought as he looked at the tents camped inside the mall and slowly approached it.
When he got close to one of the tents, he could hear moans.
Nathan wasn't interested in watching or listening to people having sex so he decided to look for the storage room instead.
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Nathan finally found the storage room.
What he found was that its entrances were tightly guarded. There were even people patrolling in and out.
Seeing how it was tightly guarded, he decided to go outside of the mall to find a place to sit and assess the details that he found.
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Nathan was sitting outside the mall thinking about what to do.
In his field of vision, the mall was on his left, while the sea of tents and trailers camped at the parking lot were on his right.
He was torn between killing all the guards or not. It's not like he could just storm in and ask these people to give him their supplies, even if it was just 20%. Plus, there's a limit to the number of supplies he could carry. Ask them to carry it for him? Good luck with that.
Although he has blood on his hands, in his mind, those he had killed were people who "threatened" his life while the others were needed for his experiments so it was "reasonable". He hasn't yet reached the point where he would kill children, directly or indirectly.
If he killed all the guards and the adults or just about half of them, who would protect the children when zombies attack? Who would they send out to search for supplies? With the rate of how zombies are evolving and those 3m-tall zombies, their defenses will fall sooner or later. There's also the threat of other human groups.
Why not join or form an alliance with another group then? Well, with the zombie apocalypse, good luck in finding a group that still treats people "humane".
Okay, what about the government shelter then? This is what Nathan was confused about. Why didn't they?
But after thinking about zombie-themed movies, shows and light novels, it won't be a surprise if those officials would violate human rights. In Nathan's mind, even without the apocalypse, government officials are no strangers in bending laws to their favor.
But wait... What about those people Nathan killed? Don't they have children or nephews and nieces depending on them?
Well, this is the beauty of Nathan's twisted logic when it comes to his morals. He never considered those things or just ignored it.
His way of thinking is like this: When something he is going to do fits with his morals, he will do it without a shred of guilt. But when it's something with the proof or evidence right in front of him to showcase the cause and effect of what he is about to do, if he could not justify his actions, he will not do it.
But they're currently in a zombie apocalypse where food is very important, right? It's not like food will just drop from the sky.
Yes, but in this case, he couldn't deny the fact that there are still other places in the city where he can find food.
Why not take over as the leader of this group then? Nope. Not a chance in hell. He wasn't interested in playing leader.
<Author's thoughts: This is the 3rd chapter for May 26 - June 1. By the way, I made a typo on the previous chapter and already corrected it. The dagger on Nathan's left thigh is a [Grade D] Long Dagger.
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.>