Ezra continued his climb, forcing himself to look away from the gore staining the floors. The metallic scent of blood was thick enough to taste, hanging heavy in the stagnant air.
Yet, strangely, there were no actual pools of liquid left behind. The floorboards were bone-dry, as if the wood itself had parched.
This only intensified the gnawing sensation in his gut.
Something was fundamentally wrong with this place. He needed to reach the top as soon as possible.
Before, his haste was driven by the hope of a quick rescue, but now it was fueled by a primal instinct screaming at him that the danger lay below.
"The mutants are already dead," he whispered to himself.
If the immediate threat had been neutralized, he couldn't understand where this suffocating sense of dread was coming from. He felt himself spiraling into a deep, jagged paranoia. He tried to force his mind toward something else, anything to break the tension.
"Summer... she has to be fine," he thought, clenching his jaw so hard his teeth ached.
She was waiting for him at the hospital. He had to get to her. To do that, he had to reach the roof. He had to reach the top floor. He had to….He had to…..
Suddenly, Ezra froze mid-step. Why exactly was he so desperate to reach the roof?
"The military will be there to evacuate the survivors," he answered his own thought.
Was that really it?
"Yes."
A biting coldness crept up his spine, settling between his shoulder blades. He tried to trace back his reasoning for the climb.
At first, it had been a logical choice based on his belief that a rescue was imminent.
The logic hadn't changed, yet the intensity of his desire to reach the top had morphed into something obsessive.
It was as if his own thoughts were being catalyzed by an unknown, external power, pushing him upward with a force that felt less like hope and more like a command.
This realization was enough to stall his climb. Only then did he notice the oppressive stench of blood hanging in the air. It was far more intense here than on the lower floors, nearly double the strength.
Ezra was currently on the fifth floor. He stood perfectly still, forcing his mind to calm so he could analyze the situation.
Between himself and the soldier below, they had killed over thirty mutants, yet he had only seen about twenty survivors.
Given the sheer size of this hotel, both numbers were suspiciously low. He was willing to accept the possibility that the monsters had already eaten the rest of the guests, but the smell told a different story.
The copper tang in the air suggested a systematic massacre. It felt as though something had moved upward, slaughtering everything in its path. It was a terrifying thought, but it was the only one that fit.
Ezra reached for the door of a nearby room. He pressed his ear against the wood, listening for the rasp of a mutant or the frantic breathing of a human.
Hearing nothing, he eased the door open. He held an arrow firmly in his hand, the sharp tip ready to serve as a makeshift dagger if he were jumped.
The room was vacant. Aside from the lingering smell of blood, there were no signs of a struggle. He ignored the stench as best he could, crossing the carpet to the window and looking down.
The carnage below made his face pale.
Everywhere he looked, the horrifying abominations had claimed the streets. Fire and smoke billowed from several blocks, turning the city into a sprawling, living hell.
"Calm yourself, Ezra."
There was no time for a panic attack. His wife was alone at the hospital. Since it was on the outskirts, he hoped the situation there was more stable, but watching the horror spread toward the horizon made him realize that waiting for a rescue was a fool's errand.
He had to move on his own. But escaping without being torn apart by the mutants seemed like an impossible dream. To get to her, he would have to clear a path through a mountain of corpses.
A sharp glint passed through his eyes. He opened his status screen and frowned at the text.
"My title says I get ten times the rewards for a one-shot kill."
As far as he could remember, he had killed more than half of the mutants in the lounge with a single arrow. Yet, he hadn't received a single bonus. He wondered if there was some hidden condition he had failed to trigger.
He had a feeling that wasn't the case. There was something fundamentally wrong with the hotel, and he needed to confirm his theory. He looked down at a lone mutant wandering aimlessly on the street below.
Ezra nocked an arrow and fired. Before the monster could even let out a rasp, the shaft destroyed its brain.
[You have killed an ordinary Mutant.]
[10x rewards are triggering!]
[Congratulations, you have obtained Agility attribute +5.]
[EXP: 5]
[AGI: 8 (+5)]
His eyes widened in shock. The title had triggered perfectly. He couldn't understand why it had failed him before.
He decided to test it again. He spent several minutes scanning for lone targets, careful not to alert a swarm.
He didn't know if there were evolved mutants nearby capable of sensing the trajectory of his shots.
After half an hour of waiting, he found another isolated monster. He dropped it with one shot to the skull.
[You have killed an ordinary Mutant.]
[10x reward is triggering!]
[Congratulations, you have obtained 50 EXP.]
[Level: 2 (55/200)]
He tried twice more, obtaining five points in both Agility and Intelligence. Each time, the bonus triggered without fail. T
he confusion on his face deepened. What had stopped the rewards from triggering during the fight in the lounge?
A bad feeling took root in his chest. Something was wrong inside the hotel. This wrongness dreaded him. Ezra wanted nothing more than to go as far from here.
But going outside was a death sentence with his current strength, but staying here felt like being trapped in a predator's mouth.
His ammunition was also dwindling. He had roughly forty arrows left. That wouldn't even get him across the street, let alone to the outskirts.
Ezra's gaze landed on the [Shop] icon. If he could unlock it, he hoped he could purchase more arrows, just like in the webnovels he used to read.
He needed to reach Level 5 immediately. From his current vantage point, he had the perfect setup to gain experience.
Ezra watched another lone mutant wander into view, a cold, determined grin touching his lips.