In Joe's house, in a dirty room, full of vomit and black saliva. Joe carefully immobilized an elderly man on the floor. The old man already had the familiar red eyes of a level 1 zombie, and tried to bite him all the time while Joe tried to bring some consciousness back by talking to him.
"Dad, please calm down, we're going to bring you back…"
"GRRR"
Rick, seeing that Joe had finally immobilized the old man on the floor, approached and used one hand to pin his head to the floor and then poured the cure potion for the ZY Virus into the man's mouth. Soon his grunts diminished, and little by little he stopped struggling, becoming unconscious.
Joe quickly checked his pulse and breathed a sigh of relief when he confirmed that he was only unconscious. As Joe put his father on the bed, Rick opened his eyes to see if the red color of the pupils would change, but it seemed that this change would not be so fast. After making the old man comfortable, the two of them quickly cleaned the entire room.
Joe still wanted to stay by his father's side, waiting for him to wake up, but knowing the urgency and security preparations they needed to make, he just left a note next to his bed. Rick also didn't know how the cure would work, nor when he would regain consciousness.
As they began to move through the village, Rick saw several makeshift walls. They were made using abandoned houses to create a circle that kept the central area of the village completely blocked off. In this way, the empty houses were robust defenses. There were even overturned cars forming walls between one house and another.
But Rick knew that this method was only good at the beginning. As soon as level 2 mutant zombies appeared, and there should already be some of them around... They could easily climb these makeshift walls or simply walk through the houses, breaking down the doors with their superhuman strength.
"We have 120 survivors, The local clinic was where the worst outbreak occurred, with many sick people. But the villagers closed it from the outside, isolating the dead and infected inside…"
'That meant some innocent people were sacrificed, but it prevented the zombies from infecting more people in the village.' Rick thought.
"Vanessa and I cleaned the clinic two days ago, that's where I got the many crystals that made me evolve to level 2."
"Are there any crystals left?"
"Yes, there are those left. I gave some to the village hunters who are helping me watch the fenced area. But the rest of the village outside this perimeter still needs to be checked house by house. There may be sick people who didn't go to the clinic like my father…"
I took about seven crystals from Joe's hand, and thought about how to use them…
"Do we have any wood supply in here?"
"A little… But we need wood for the fireplaces and stoves."
"Create a group of 7 lumberjacks, and give these seven crystals to them. You and I will protect them while they cut down more trees."
Six hours later, many trees had been cut down by the newly created group. And all of them were stored by Rick in his inventory. As soon as he returned to the village, he opened the system to see how the wooden walls worked… Basically, he could create the walls with notches and wooden nails, but if he had metal nails, the walls would be stronger. But since he had some boxes, he decided to make the inner wall using them.
After selecting the wooden wall and stretching his hand in the direction he wanted, a transparent blue digital wall appeared in his vision. Rick realized that with just a thought, the digital wall could be controlled. Size, style, and even the depth of the base in the ground could be controlled. He then changed the height until it was 2 meters and 40 centimeters and with sharp spikes on top as a defensive form, and gave the order for the system to produce it.
The wall was then erected in front of him as if by magic. Joe's mouth fell open when he saw the wall appear out of nowhere. The wood that had barely been cut was now shaped like round, pointed logs, creating an extra defense on top of the wall. Even the base was already buried in the ground.
"How is that possible? Aren't you level 2 yet?"
"It's the bracelet, it somehow traveled back in time with me. It has some functions that only colonists use, and it was enhanced by my Universal Force… I can do it using stones too, and I can increase the height and thickness of the wall, but that would take a lot of resources…" Rick told a small lie to hide the system's ability.
After that, he started walking around the makeshift wall, creating more walls. Unfortunately, he had to make every 2 meters of wall manually. But that wasn't a problem. Several hours later, when it was already night, a wooden wall was completely erected around the makeshift wall by Joe and the other survivors.
"This looks amazing, if we can put more of these around the entire village, we can have a lot more space and a lot more security by having additional walls." Joe said excitedly.
"I don't know if we need that much space, but as long as our lumberjacks keep bringing in more wood I can build even more."
"Yeah, but the mutant animals in the forest are becoming a problem too. I think I'll take some of the hunters with me tomorrow. They're equipped with bows and crossbows that we brought from the Hunt Store."
"Speaking of the Hunt Store, Vanessa and the soldier are back." I pointed to a box truck that had returned to the village.
Earlier today I already knew that my system couldn't create gates, so I asked Vanessa and the soldier to go to the store to get the huge metal gate from the garage where the bear had made its home. I also asked Ethan to connect the power to where the gate would be placed, but that would still take a few more days, so we decided to improvise something more primitive…
Night had already fallen for several hours, but with the many lights and flashlights I had in my inventory, we continued working on the gate until late. With the help of Joe and many other survivors who were carpenters and builders, the gate was finally installed on the main street by midnight. Despite being operated by two hand levers and ropes, it still served its purpose well.
And with that, we finally had a complete fenced perimeter, and as I expected, the system sent me a message confirming that we had built our first base…