(Dear readers, park your brains here to claim one Monocle. >3<)

(The first female lead to appear is Little Moon Beth Greene; guess who comes next.)

(The book contains some personal headcanons and original characters. Every effort is being made to keep everyone in character.)

(Regarding intuitive anchor levels for attributes like Strength: Level 3 corresponds to an average adult female, and Level 4 to an average adult male.)

(Don't ask why the plans keep changing, plans can never keep up with reality. It's definitely not because there was no detailed outline.)

(Comments weren't deleted, but whenever readers pointed out errors, corrections were made, and when the original text got deleted, the comments went with it. Sincerely sorry about that.)

(Don't ask why the early game focuses on Agility and Perception, it isn't nerfing combat power. Firearms are the main weapons early on, and pulling a trigger doesn't require massive Strength!) (Added note)

(The six core attributes are divided independently. In the late game, they'll each branch into six distinct talents, that's not nerfing combat power by splitting attribute points either!) (Added note)

Lin Feng drove the hunting knife up into the walker's jaw. The eight-inch blade punched clean through the skull and tore apart the neural center inside.

He pulled the blade free. The creature folded to the ground and stopped making noise.

[Killed Walker ×1, EXP +1]

[Level Up, Skill Point ×1]

He glanced at the digital screen only he could see and dropped that single attribute point into Strength.

[Strength Level increased, Current Level: 7]

A solid surge of power welled up through his body. Lin Feng let out a slow breath.

Then he looked at the two hundred EXP required for the next level, and his mind went completely blank.

One walker, one EXP. Two hundred EXP meant two hundred walkers.

...Yeah. Not laughing anymore.

This was his seventh day in this damned world. On day one, the sight of a zombie had nearly made him freeze up completely. Now he handled them without breaking stride, blade up, blade down, move on.

The one thing he still didn't know was when this apocalypse had actually started.

That gap had cost him. When he first crossed over, he had no stockpiled supplies and no usable weapon to speak of.

The one saving grace was the Exp Allocation System. Kill walkers, earn EXP, level up, gain skill points, grow stronger. Simple enough in theory.

And at least this wasn't home. This was America, a country where firearms were practically a food group. He, personally, had an eight-inch hunting knife.

So thoroughly overpowered, clearly.

Right now, aside from Strength sitting at Level 7, his Agility, Constitution, Endurance, Perception, and Spirit were all sitting at Level 6.

The numbers didn't look impressive. They were already vastly beyond what any ordinary person could manage.

Take his current Strength at Level 7, enough to rival athletes with dedicated professional training behind them.

Anyway.

With the last walker in the gun shop dealt with, Lin Feng slid the hunting knife back into the thigh scabbard and started scavenging.

Empty display cases. Shattered glass. Bare shelves. Lin Feng shook his head.

Seriously, if you're going to drop someone into an apocalypse, at least get the timing right.

Arriving late meant picking through other people's leftovers. A full week, and he hadn't seen a single handgun, let alone a rifle.

His storage space held just under two cubic meters worth of supplies. Currently that amounted to three and a half boxes of carbon-fiber crossbow bolts, a fifty-five-pound recurve bow, some 9mm ammunition, a little food, and some water. That was the whole inventory.

Complaining about it wouldn't change anything. He could only hope his luck improved.

He got to work.

One heavy tactical Bowie knife, solid piece of gear. No need to stow this one; he clipped it directly to the right side of his tactical belt.

An entrenching tool, chops, saws, digs, and in a pinch can cosplay as a frying pan. Stored.

A tactical hand axe, a solid find. Stored, on the off chance he ever needed to cosplay the Axe Gang.

Midway through the search, something clicked. Lin Feng vaulted over the counter, reached underneath the desk, and felt cold metal against his fingers.

He couldn't help smiling.

There it was.

He worked it free with a firm pull. A Glock 19, pulled from beneath the counter.

Tsk. Of course. What gun shop owner in the land of the free wasn't going to keep a piece right there for exactly this situation?

He confirmed the magazine was loaded, disengaged the safety, and tucked the Glock into his storage space.

The reasoning was simple: drawing from the space was faster than drawing from the hip. That margin gave him the initiative in most situations.

Now, if someone happened to be an Old West quick-draw artist — the kind who cleared leather and put rounds downrange in under a tenth of a second — then sure, speed from the hip won. That wasn't most people.

Besides, anything in the space couldn't be found in a pat-down. Useful for playing ambusher when the moment called for it.

Lin Feng kept working through the shop. Nothing else significant turned up. A few gun maintenance kits, a couple of tactical accessories, a red dot, a holographic sight. That was about it.

Search done. He drew the Bowie knife, moved to the shop door, and looked out.

The street was quiet. A handful of walkers drifted through, sparse and aimless.

Next stop?

Pharmacy?

Or keep hunting for weapons?

He thought it over and settled on the pharmacy. Medicine was the gap in his supplies right now.

Food wasn't the issue. He'd sorted that out days ago. Between the storage space — which held roughly three months of food and water, and the backpack on his back with more than seven days of rations, he wasn't going hungry anytime soon.

Lin Feng retraced his steps, slipped out the back door of the gun shop, and moved into the alley.

He found leverage on the wall and scaled the fire escape beside him in a few quick moves, boots clanging against the metal rungs. He came up over the edge onto the rooftop.

He hadn't even caught his breath before three walkers nearby turned and started toward him.

Lin Feng moved forward without hesitating. One clean stroke took the nearest walker's head off. He followed through with a kick that sent the body into the ones behind it, knocking them down together. Then two fast, precise slashes finished it.

He stood there and breathed out.

Good thing the walkers in this world were brainless and couldn't run. If they could, getting caught at close range like that would have been genuinely rough.

An engine roar cut through the air. He turned. An orange-red sports car was tearing straight down the avenue without a care in the world, drawing every walker on the street into a stumbling chase behind it. Within moments it had rounded a corner toward the outskirts and disappeared.

Tsk. Somebody out there was living well, cruising off in a sports car while he was still grinding it out on foot, scavenging from rooftop to rooftop.

Rough life.

He pulled the binoculars from his pack and started scanning the streets below, looking for a pharmacy that hadn't been picked clean.

It didn't take long. He found one, small, and by the look of it, untouched.

Even better: most of the walkers that had been clustered in front of it had chased off after that sports car. The area had mostly cleared out.

"There's my shot."

He was already using the binoculars to map a rooftop route across when something in the lenses stopped him cold.

Someone was handcuffed to a rooftop.

He lowered the binoculars. Rubbed his eyes. Looked again.

Still there. A person, restrained by handcuffs.

Why did that person look so familiar? He adjusted the focus carefully, and the image sharpened.

Crew cut. Punk clothes. Middle-aged. Cuffed to a rooftop.

The memory clicked into place.

Confirmed. He was in the world of The Walking Dead.

Because that unlucky bastard handcuffed to that rooftop was Merle Dixon.

Following the original plot, Merle, convinced no one was coming, would take a hacksaw to his own hand. Then drag himself to a nearby apartment, cauterize the stump on a heated iron plate, and run. After that would come a stretch with The Governor, then the eventual conflict between The Governor and Rick's group, and Merle choosing Rick's side.

After everything that followed, Merle would go alone to face The Governor.

And that would be the end.

Not that any of that changed the facts. Whatever else Merle Dixon was, the combat ability was something else entirely. Missing a hand, running on pure adrenaline and blood loss, and still dropping multiple walkers without breaking stride.

Hard as nails.

So what would Merle look like with both hands?

➤ Next: Rescue Operation in Progress

Chapter 2 - Rescue Operation in Progress

Lin Feng pocketed the binoculars, pulled a Glock 19 from his storage, raised it skyward, and fired.

BANG!

The shot reached Merle mid-curse, still on his knees raging at God. Merle scrambled upright and squinted, there, on a rooftop over a hundred meters out, somebody was standing.

That shot. That kid just fired that shot.

Merle broke into a grin, yellowed teeth and all, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Holy shit — I knew it, I knew it! Screw the walkers, screw Rick, screw T-Dog — hahahaha! God... God is on my side! Hahahaha!"

Still laughing, Merle threw his left arm up and waved wildly, making sure the figure on that rooftop knew he'd seen.

Lin Feng waved back, then tucked the pistol into his waistband.

He let out a slow breath and rolled his neck. Strength seven, Agility six. He hoped that was enough to close the gap between them.

If it wasn't, he'd watch Merle saw off his own hand and find his own way out.

He would save the man, but not at the cost of himself. That was the line. At least for now, he wasn't crossing it.

Across the way, Merle's wild elation was already curdling into something else. Merle turned toward the white door, that one lifeline, and found it shaking under impacts that were coming harder and faster than before.

Lin Feng's figure had vanished from the rooftop. Merle could only stand there and pray.

"Oh, holy shit. Run faster, man. Run faster, bro."

Lin Feng had already sized up the distance and broken into a sprint. To shed every unnecessary pound, he quietly transferred the contents of his backpack into his storage as he ran.

Full sprint. Max acceleration. One stride, one leap, he cleared the alley in a single bound, more than three meters of open air beneath him.

He hit the next roof in a roll, came up running, ignored the walkers shambling toward him, and kept moving.

Rooftop to rooftop. Over ten minutes later, he reached the building closest to Merle's position.

Then he stopped.

Rooftop travel was done. What separated them now wasn't another narrow alley, it was a street packed wall to wall with walkers.

From across the gap, Merle got a first real look at the newcomer. Young Asian guy, looked about Glenn's age. But tall, solid build, buzz cut, tactical backpack, blades on the hip and thigh.

Not someone who looked easy to mess with.

Merle filed that away as a first read on the guy, then plastered on the friendliest smile available and waved.

Lin Feng waved back. Then he turned and studied the problem. Getting into Merle's building, that was the question.

Something clicked. He jogged around to the far side of the building.

He was right. The walkers over here had all drifted toward the noise Rick's group made fleeing, there weren't many left. And beyond them, bolted to the wall, was another fire escape.

Lin Feng caught Merle's eye and held up a hand. Sit tight. Then he headed down.

He had to move fast. Let too many walkers cluster up and rushing that street became a death sentence.

A few minutes later he hit ground level, checked the street, same count as before, still filing steadily in the direction Rick's group had gone.

Doable.

He drew a breath, burst from the corner, blew past the walkers without a glance, and hit the alley at full speed.

One kick launched the nearest walker straight into the ones behind it, buying him a half-second. He took it and went straight up the fire escape, hand over hand.

Something grazed the bottom of his boot.

He glanced down. Dozens of hands stretched up from below, grasping, clawing, trying to haul him back down.

He smirked and kept climbing.

The rooftop came up fast. He swung himself over the edge.

"Oh, fuck! Man — you are an angel!"

Lin Feng laughed. "Then you guessed wrong. I'm not."

He crossed straight to the locked door, pulled the hunting knife from his hip, and worked the blade through the gap. One eye socket. Then another. Then another.

Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.

The walkers hammering the door went still, one after the next, until the last one dropped.

Only then did he walk over to Merle. He crouched, rummaged through the tool bag on the ground, and came up with a hammer. He held it up. "Hey. Ready?"

"Hell yeah, but don't you dare hit my hand. Saved my life or not, I'll still come after your whole damn family."

"Heh." Lin Feng raised the hammer. "You won't get the chance."

He brought it down hard on the rusted bracket.

The force shuddered straight through the metal and up Merle's arm, numbing the wrist. "Holy shit, man, what did you used to do?"

Lin Feng didn't answer. He swung again, harder. The bracket let out a teeth-aching shriek of grinding metal,

And snapped.

"There you go." He dropped the hammer, stepped back, and shook out his own tingling wrist. "Welcome back to the living."

The handcuffs were still locked around Merle's wrist. Compared to getting eaten alive up here, that was nothing.

Merle yanked the cuff free from the bracket, grinning wide, voice a low rasp. "Thanks, man. You got somewhere to be? Could roll with me if not."

The footsteps around them were picking up. Lin Feng nodded. "Works for me."

Merle clapped him hard on the arm. "Then let's move. We head back, and I'll treat you to a free boxing match when we get there." A beat. "Oh, Merle Dixon. That's the name. Your future boss."

Lin Feng snorted. "A guy who just got unhandcuffed from a rooftop doesn't qualify to be my boss. Name's Lin Feng. Your current boss."

Merle blinked. Then threw his head back and laughed. "Hahahaha! Then I guess we'll see about that!"

Lin Feng glanced at the door. It was rattling again under fresh impacts, the hammering had drawn them over.

"You'll come around. But right now, we need to move."

Merle stepped over to where the Winchester Model 70 hunting rifle had fallen, slung it over his shoulder, and cracked his neck. "Let's go, brother. I've been looking forward to this."

What exactly Merle was looking forward to didn't need spelling out.

Lin Feng had no intention of talking anyone out of it.

One simple reason: he wasn't the one who'd been chained to a rooftop. What right did he have to tell someone else to be the bigger person?

And beyond that, if Merle bottled this up today and let it fester, it would come out eventually. On some future supply run. Aimed at T-Dog.

No question about it. Merle Dixon, proud racist that he was, was absolutely the type.

Except for Daryl, there wasn't a soul in that camp he wouldn't go after.

➤ Next: They Aren't That Tall