The fact that the shelter’s placement door could be destroyed—and that once it’s destroyed, the shelter would eject the occupant from the space—was such an important detail, yet the system only mentioned it now.

[The current host has a 7-day newbie protection period. During this time, the placement door cannot be damaged.]

It seemed the system was trying to justify why it hadn’t informed her immediately about the door’s vulnerability.

Silently complaining in her heart, Lin Chu looked up at the entrance door.

It looked like an ordinary, old-fashioned household security door.

A liver-colored metal door with a handle and a peephole.

She quickly walked over and pressed her right eye against the peephole, but instead of the expected view outside, there was only a hazy gray mist.

[Would you like to use 5 points to activate peephole vision for the zombie world?]

“Peephole vision?”

[Yes, host. Once activated, you will be able to see the area outside your door and gain an additional “door activity” feature, which can be toggled on or off.]

[To enable peephole vision in this world, it only costs 5 points. This feature is only effective in the current world.]

Lin Chu stared at her account—she only had 5 points left. She was momentarily speechless.

But right now, she really needed that peephole vision.

Given the situation before she entered the shelter, rushing out without knowing what lay beyond could easily lead to being ambushed. Yet hiding passively inside the shelter wasn’t her style either—it was too reactive.

She had always preferred to prepare in advance and strike first.

Without hesitating for long, Lin Chu chose “Yes.”

As her points dropped to zero, the previously murky view through the peephole began to clear up.

What appeared was the restroom where she had set up her shelter. It was currently empty, but several large black footprints now overlapped the ones she had left behind.

Clearly, the spot where she hastily placed her shelter had already been discovered by other mission participants.

But they hadn’t chosen to stake out the area—for now. Probably because the time limit for shelter placement was only 30 minutes, and they were too pressed for time to deal with her immediately.

Still, Lin Chu knew this wouldn’t last.

Once they placed their own shelters—or failed to—there was a good chance they’d come back, camp outside, and wait until her protection period ended to destroy her door.

After all, in this endless apocalypse, human nature was the first thing to collapse.

Inside this restroom, aside from the stalls she and the twin-tailed girl had taken, there were three other doors. If she remembered correctly, only one of them was intact; the other two were already damaged.

Judging from the footprints on the floor, one of the men from that group had set up a shelter here.

Whether it was through peaceful negotiation or not, she couldn’t say…

Lin Chu quickly organized her thoughts and found herself vaguely missing the digital doorbells from the real world. They not only let you see outside but also recorded anything that happened at your door—perfect for a situation like this, where enemies could be lurking everywhere.

[Please level up, host, to unlock more system functions.]

The system chimed in just then.

Lin Chu raised an eyebrow—so that kind of function really did exist. She just didn’t know how many points it would cost to unlock it later.

Glancing at the mission countdown, she turned back inside. One bottle of nutrient fluid and her hunger vanished. She took off her short gray running outfit and changed into the full-length black sportswear she had just received from the starter pack.

Seeing her exposed skin now covered in black fabric gave Lin Chu an odd sense of relief.

After all, no one knew exactly how the zombie virus spread. In the face of the unknown, caution was crucial.

Once she ensured that only her head and hands were exposed, Lin Chu returned to the peephole.

No one outside.

[Mission Countdown: 00:50:36]

Lin Chu opened the door, gripped her bone club, and stepped out of the shelter.

The sun outside remained harsh.

Standing by the window, Lin Chu could see zombies wandering aimlessly around the compound.

No other people were nearby.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the restroom.

The area had already been cleared of zombies earlier when she and the others arrived. Another group had come through afterward, so there were no zombies left near the restroom.

To kill zombies now, she’d have to either go deeper into the building or head outside to Building 6, where a large horde waited.

At this stage, Lin Chu didn’t want to take too many risks.

Going deeper into the building meant she could retreat to her shelter if danger arose.

But if she went outside, the terrain was complex and she didn’t have a map—there was no guarantee she could find her way back quickly.

After deciding on a direction, Lin Chu lightened her steps and headed toward the nearest zombie inside the building.

Crack—

One blow. The sound of a skull shattering filled the air, along with a spray of thick red and white fluids.

The zombie’s grayish-white hands had barely lifted before they went limp, and it vanished before her eyes.

Lin Chu steadied her breathing, then opened her chest-worn spatial backpack for a quick look.

The zombie she had just struck down now lay motionless in the corner of the 8-cubic-meter space. It looked like she could fit at least ten more zombies inside.

It seemed her plan was working—one precise headshot, then quickly storing the zombie in the backpack before it made a sound or attracted others.

This way, she could keep the number of zombies she had to deal with at a manageable level.

Killing five zombies within an hour wasn’t too hard for Lin Chu.

In fact, during the short time before placing the shelter, she had probably already killed more than five.

Following her strategy, she took them down one by one. With 25 minutes left on the countdown, she completed the reward mission.

[Ding—Congratulations, host, for completing the reward mission. The reward has been issued.]

[The current world’s security door has been activated. The shelter no longer relies on the placement door. The security door cannot be destroyed or unlocked by others.]

Now, no one could forcibly eject her from her shelter.

Lin Chu finally let out a breath of relief—only to realize that the mission countdown was still ticking. However, the mission content had changed.

[Bonus Mission: For every 3 zombies killed within the remaining time, the shelter’s area will expand by 1㎡. Killing fewer than 3 zombies will be invalid.]

[Mission Progress: 0]

[Mission Countdown: 00:24:16]

!!!

What kind of great deal was this?

Lin Chu immediately picked up her bone club, fully alert.

As long as her own safety was guaranteed, the bigger the shelter space, the better.

In her view, surviving the apocalypse required stockpiling enough supplies—but the current cramped shelter space was nowhere near sufficient for that.

Her bone club swung harder and faster through the air.

One, two, three! …Eight, nine!

With just ten seconds left on the mission timer, Lin Chu finally killed her ninth zombie.

[Congratulations, host! You’ve successfully killed 9 zombies within the allotted time. Mission rewards have been issued.]

[Please return to the shelter to collect your reward.]

These two prompts made Lin Chu eager to rush back to the shelter immediately.

However, a new problem arose.

Her dimensional backpack was full.

Including the 5 zombies at the start of the mission and the 9 she just killed, there were 14 in total.

But her space could only hold 12 zombie bodies—2 were left on the ground.

Each zombie had 206 bones, equivalent to about 20.6 points. Those two on the ground amounted to 41.2 points—there was no way she could just leave them behind.

Besides, she didn’t know if the points-exchange mechanism for zombie parts applied only to her or to all survivors.

If it was the latter, then she absolutely couldn’t let someone else benefit from what she’d earned.

Five minutes later, a slim black figure moved stealthily through the office building in a crouch. If anyone had seen her, they’d notice how strange she looked.

In her left hand, she dragged two large woven sacks. In her right hand, she carried a human skeleton. Under the moonlight, the bones even glimmered faintly.

This person was none other than Lin Chu, who couldn’t bear to abandon 41.2 points.

So she had scavenged some broken woven sacks nearby and stuffed the two zombie corpses into them.

Fortunately, as a forensic doctor, she had gotten used to carrying corpses back in school. Now it came naturally.

The surrounding area had already been cleared of zombies earlier. On her way back, Lin Chu carefully kept her noise to a minimum and didn’t attract any new ones, soon arriving safely at the bathroom entrance.

Just as she stepped inside, Lin Chu sensed something was wrong.

The footprints on the floor weren’t the same as when she had left.

As a forensic doctor who often worked on crime scenes, she had a keen eye for these details—more so than the average person.

Then she heard it: a heavy breathing sound close to her ear.

Glancing at the shelter door just about two meters away, Lin Chu sprang into action.

She slammed her left shoulder against the open bathroom door, flinging it inward. At the same time, she hurled the woven sacks with her left hand across the floor—sending them sliding toward the innermost stall.

A painful scream erupted from behind the door.

The distant sounds of movement suggested that zombies had been startled and were beginning to approach the bathroom—but since she had cleared out the nearby ones earlier, she wouldn’t be surrounded immediately.

Lin Chu shut the door, and her right hand swung the bone club behind it.

But it hit nothing.

She had expected fierce resistance and didn’t hold back on the strike—only to find that the target… had smoothly dropped to his knees.

The bone club nearly grazed the top of the man’s head. He was trembling in fear.

“Spare me! Please! I mean no harm—I was wrong, I admit it!”

Lin Chu pressed her foot against the door and tapped the bone club against the man’s right wrist.

“Aah! It hurts—it hurts—!” His scream was followed by the clatter of metal hitting the floor.

Lin Chu stepped on it firmly.

“No harm, huh? Then what’s this?”