Hayley returned to the hotel she was staying at.

Her room was already packed with stuff. She had told the front desk that there would be deliveries, and she asked them to open the door so they could put the stuff inside. Now the tables, the floor, and even the bed were covered.

A lot of the fried chicken was still steaming hot.

Hayley waved her hand and neatly stowed everything into her inventory.

Tonight, she would stay here and leave the next day. No point wasting what she had already paid for.

Before going to bed, she did three hours of intense physical training, pushing herself to exhaustion and breaking her body's limits. Only after that did she shower and check the surveillance feeds from both her shelter and her warehouse.

Everything looked fine. She even spoke to Summer through her video bot, telling it to watch the supplies. Tomorrow morning, she'd be back.

Summer responded politely, then obediently stayed in the warehouse dog bed, keeping an eye on things.

Hayley slept until six the next day. She was woken by the blaring sirens of police cars and ambulances.

Her hotel, in downtown, had excellent soundproofing, but she was sensitive—any noise could wake her.

The first moment she heard the sirens, she rushed to the windowsill. Pulling back the curtains, she saw the street below swarming with police cars and ambulances.

The hotel was near crowded bars and entertainment venues, and that was where all the emergency vehicles were rushing in and out.

She saw an ambulance parked in front of the bar she had noticed yesterday, and several bloody people were carried out.

An ominous thought formed in her mind. At that moment, footsteps and urgent knocking came outside her room.

Hayley grabbed a shovel and went to the door. Looking through the peephole, she saw hotel staff. She tensed but saw they were fine—they had normal expressions, with no injuries or blood.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Miss, the front desk got several calls from guests feeling faint. Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine," Hayley replied through the door.

"Please stay in your room for a while. The hotel will extend your stay, free of charge. Sorry for the inconvenience!"

The staff moved on to the next room, but Hayley felt a jolt.

The apocalypse…might have started early.

She had to leave.

Hayley grabbed her car keys and left the hotel, making sure to take all the complimentary water, drinks, and toiletries with her.

She noticed the staff member heading toward a corner room, repeatedly knocking until she finally used a keycard to open the door.

Soon, a panicked voice called out.

"Sir! Sir, are you okay? Someone's fainted in Room 809! Hurry!"

The staff used their headsets to alert others. Hayley strode to an elevator, entering one going down as another opened next to it.

A group of staff came out and ran toward the innermost rooms.

As the elevator doors closed in front of her, a piercing scream cut through the air.

"Ahhh!"

That familiar sound.

The zombie virus had broken out early!

Hayley hit the button for the fifth floor without hesitation. She wasn't heading to the lobby.

The hotel was attached to a mall. The mall's lowest basement, B2, up to the fifth floor, was all part of the complex—the one she had shopped in yesterday.

It was six in the morning, so the mall was closed, and the first staff wouldn't arrive until eight. Right now, the mall area was the perfect empty zone.

In a zombie apocalypse, crowds are the most dangerous. You escape the people first.

Hayley got off on the fifth floor. Just as she predicted, it was dark—no lights.

But from the fifth-floor hall, she could clearly hear screaming outside. Looking out, she saw chaos on the streets.

A blood-covered man charged out of a bar, attacking a woman jogging by. He went straight for her stomach, tearing at her with savage bites. Her screams pierced the quiet morning as he feasted like a wild animal.

"Argh!"

"Ahhh!!"

It was only six. The city was mostly empty, with only police and ambulances working. One police car stopped to intervene, dragging the man away.

The woman lay in a pool of blood, unnoticed. Her hands and feet twitched rapidly, then she suddenly stopped moving.

"Miss, are you—arghh!"

The woman's eyes snapped open—gray, lifeless—and she lunged at the rescuer, biting down hard.

The scene exploded into chaos.

Hayley watched from the fifth floor. This was the apocalypse. The one she knew best. And it had come a whole day early.

Welcome to the age of the apocalypse.

Hayley turned and ran through the fifth floor.

She planned to use the escalator to descend to the B2 parking lot, avoiding all elevators.

As she ran through the empty mall, the displays caught her attention.

Supplies!

Running into a treasure trove like this, could she really leave empty-handed? She had to take everything.

Suddenly, a voice echoed in her mind:

Ding! [Super Lord System activated! Within two hours, for every 2,000 dollars' worth of item you carry, gain 35 cubic feet of inventory!]

Hayley, holding her baseball bat, was pleasantly surprised.

Perfect timing!

Hayley swung her bat and shattered the glass in front of her. Then she rushed in, arms outstretched. Anything she touched disappeared into her inventory.

She didn't care about surveillance cameras—there was no need now. The apocalypse was here; who was going to check the footage?

Ding! [Two hundred and seventy-nine pieces of women's fashion detected, worth 130 thousand dollars. Reward: 2,275 cubic feet!]

Ding! [A hundred and forty-four pieces of men's fashion detected, worth 116 thousand dollars. Reward: 2,030 cubic feet!]

Ding! [Four hundred and eighty-nine branded wedding dresses detected, worth 378 thousand. Reward: 6,615 cubic feet!]

Men's, women's, kids' clothes, underwear, shoes, bags, gowns—Hayley took everything.

Looting the mall this time felt even better than clearing her house.

Even if she stored everything in her house, there was only so much stuff. It was nothing compared to this—each store held items worth tens or hundreds of thousands!

She cleaned out every shop she passed and stored everything in her inventory.

About an hour later, Hayley had cleared out all the luxury stores on the few floors. She didn't leave a single thing behind.

Women's clothes, men's clothes, kids' clothes, sportswear, shoes, socks, bags, watches, makeup…even the big jewelry and diamond stores downstairs.

The newest phones and laptops flew into her inventory.

The luxury skincare she could never afford before was gone in a flash.

The designer bags she had only ever looked at, the limited-edition pieces that had to be ordered, were all gone.

The sparkling diamonds, giant gemstones, jade, and gold from the display cases were all hers.

Her inventory quickly hit over 350,000 cubic feet.

Luxury items were expensive, sure—a single bag could cost thousands—but stock was always low. Many stores only had display pieces. Customers ordering multiple items meant they had to get them from elsewhere. For ultra-luxury goods priced over 100 thousand, this mall didn't even have them. Otherwise, her inventory would have exploded in size.

Luxury stuff was truly expensive.

Hayley made her way to the food court.

She had already cleared this area yesterday. Spending money felt a little wasteful at the time, but at least it saved her time today.

Time was her most important resource right now.

The zombie virus had just broken out. People were confused and panicked. She had to finish scavenging within the two-hour limit and get out before traffic went bad.

If she hadn't spent money yesterday, she could only have skimmed these cheap, scattered shops now. Still, she grabbed a few things as she passed—ovens, ice cream machines, coffee makers—so she could cook at home later.

Moving at full speed, she arrived at the massive supermarket she had hit yesterday.

She had spent over 200 thousand on just a small fraction of it.

The supplies in here were insane.

Hayley vaulted over the barrier and dove into the supermarket. She moved faster than ever, sweeping everything off the shelves.

One shelf at a time, into her inventory.

A shelf of chocolate, a shelf of cookies, a shelf of chips, a shelf of cured meat.

She ran straight into both raw and cooked sections, grabbing frozen hams and chilled roasted chickens from the freezers.

Everything she had skipped yesterday, she took now with reckless joy. In less than half an hour, the entire huge warehouse supermarket was emptied.

She moved around in skates, gliding and collecting at top speed. By the time she finished, she still had 20 minutes left.

Hayley noticed the internal staff elevator. Big supermarkets had their own warehouses.

She hopped into the staff elevator. When the doors slowly opened, she saw row after row of boxed supplies.

Hundreds of boxes of premium pasta, imported snacks, alcohol, condiments, daily essentials, feminine hygiene products…

This was the supermarket's warehouse.

Hayley realized that the million-dollar haul she had taken yesterday was just a drop in the bucket. There was still so much.

She skated between boxes, leaving empty rows in her wake.

When the two-hour countdown ended, Hayley, drenched in sweat, popped open a cold soda and took a long sip. The warehouse in front of her was completely empty.

This round, she collected over 520,000 cubic feet of stuff.

To picture it, that would be roughly a cube measuring 80 feet on each side.

Or, to think bigger, about the size of a ten-story building. And that was only a tiny fraction of the mall's total stock.

Just like that, the city's biggest mall was completely stripped by Hayley. Everything was now in her inventory.

She smiled with satisfaction.

Swapping her skates for running shoes, she tossed the empty soda can into the now-empty warehouse. She took the staff elevator back into the supermarket, then went down the staff stairs.

Done. Time to go home.

She didn't ride the elevator all the way down—she just used it to get to her floor, then pressed the button to B2, the parking garage, so it would descend as she made her way down by stairs.

Elevators made noise both ways, so if there were zombies in the garage, they would be attracted. This way, she controlled the risk.

Hayley moved fast and light down the staff stairs. By the time she reached B2, the elevator she had arranged earlier arrived.

Ding!

At that moment, a woman tried to rush into the staff elevator.

She turned, screaming, "Help, help!"

Two other people in blood-stained staff uniforms followed her.

"Don't come near me, no! There's someone in there! Go and eat them instead!"

The woman moved quickly toward the elevator, wanting to grab the person inside to feed the zombies, but when the elevator doors opened… It was empty.

She froze, and a pursuing zombie tackled her from behind.

"Stop! Don't bite me! Look, it's me, your manager! No, don't!"

The woman screamed. Then, she noticed the staff stairwell doors opening. A young girl in simple athletic clothes stepped out.

She froze, thinking the girl looked familiar. A second later, she recalled that it was the girl she had insulted for being poor yesterday.

"Save me! Please, save me!" She waved frantically at Hayley. "I'll give you our store's gold card! No. I'll give you clothes—ten pieces. A hundred pieces! Save me! Ahhh!"

Hayley, holding her baseball bat in one hand, did one thing.

She nodded once, silently thanked the woman for her "help," and kept walking, letting the screaming grow louder behind her.

Hayley was grateful to the lady for being useful before she died.

Vroom!

She hit the gas and sped out of the garage.

It was just past eight; the city was waking up. Because the virus hit in the early morning, these two hours left everyone in shock and fear.

The first victims were breakfast shops, sanitation workers, buses, and 24-hour businesses. Any crowded place with open populations turned chaotic at the first infection.

By now, 911 and ambulance lines were overloaded—nobody could call for help.

City services were paralyzed.

Next came office workers, including those in the mall where Hayley had been scavenging.

Those who relied on public transport were lucky because most of the buses and cars were stuck on the roads.

The unlucky ones were the people who had already boarded.