Zane pulled out a long, rusty dagger made of steel, with a pointy edge, which was ideal to destroy the cores of the undead creatures.
As he tried to peek from behind the shelves, a crunching noise came from under his feet. He stepped on a bag of chips. In this tense silence, it was like a thunderclap.
'Damnit!'
However, before he could finish that thought, the Spawn's vacuous eyes lit up and turned into a frenzy. Just a moment later, it lunged at Zane without a hint of hesitation.
Zane just barely had enough time to dodge the attack to the side.
The Strugglers used their hands and mouth to attack most of the time, so knowing that they lacked intelligence, it wasn't hard to predict their movements.
Arriving in Zane's previous position, the Struggler's arm slashed sideways in his direction.
Thankfully Zane could deflect it with angling his sword upward, so the zombie's hand was sent flying in the sky.
'He's a quick one, huh..'
Not disturbed by the stomach-turning odour of the beast, he kicked it in the stomach, making it stumble, momentarily paralysing it.
Not wasting even a second, Zane thrust his dagger forward, straight into the middle of the zombie's chest, shattering his core.
This was the quickest and easiest way to get rid of a Struggler, since just as awakened, Strugglers had cores too in the same place as humans.
'Must have been an athlete when he was alive. Maybe a baseball player? That speed of his arm was well out of order.' Zane thought, as he pulled the rusty dagger out from the monster's chest and shook its smelly blood down from it.
He came across the perfect-for-Struggler-hunting dagger while exploring a small museum for antique items next to the Shelter. He was lucky to stumble upon it, since it was wrapped in some cloth and stood in the corner, which was probably the reason for why nobody else took it with the other weapons before.
He also thought it would be cool to put on one of those old, clinking armors, but quickly realised that it would just slow down his movements, since he wasn't a brute Roman soldier, who could wear a heavy armor all day.
'Hey, it's not the time to reminisce about such things, let's focus on the task at hand!'
He made sure he didn't draw the attention of any other Struggler with the fight, and continued his vital expedition to find some canned sardines and instant ramen.
...
While covering about half of the supermarket, he fought and defeated another two Strugglers. They were much weaker than the first one he encountered, so he defeated both without much effort.
So far he came across the snack aisles, frozen section, and the place for fresh produce. Besides the fruits and veggies, it was still stocked up relatively well.
While inspecting the frozen veggies, he heard noises coming from the entrance. He crouched down behind the freezers out of habit, and carefully observed the source of the noise.
After a few moments passed by, he could hear that it was coming from a human, or at least he didn't know if Strugglers were capable of mimicking human voice or not, so he hoped that it was an actual person.
'Are they stupid? Why are they chatting so carelessly in a place which has so much potential danger?' frowned Zane.
A few more moments later, he could kind of make out that they were humans, despite of the fact that it was a bit dark, since these big supermarkets didn't have windows.
Two slender figures were coming from the same place, where he defeated the first zombie. One of them was a shorter girl, with her hair in a ponytail and revealing clothes wrapped around her supple figure.
The other was a taller man with short hair. He had a masculine frame, broad shoulders and strong looking arms.
'They are probably from the Shelter.' Zane thought, since he didn't know of anyone living in the ruins of the city by themselves besides him.
As they were slowly approaching him, he needed to decide whether to avoid them completely and come back another day, or engage with them and try to conquer the supermarket together.
Evaluating his options, he decided to go with the latter. He was out of food and he already came so far, so he didn't want to turn back empty handed.
'Alright, let's try this...'
Zane didn't want them to accidentally attack him, thinking he's a Struggler, so he tried to make it obvious that he's a human too.
"Excuse me.." Said Zane in a high-pitched tone, as if trying to make sure they were human.
He was a bit further away from the two figures, so this is the first time they noticed him.
Stopping with the chatter, which Zane didn't hear the contents of before, but now he could make it out that they actually didn't want to be here and they were just blaming each other for ending up in this situation. They both looked in his direction and went silent for a moment.
"Um, yes?" Said the petite girl with a hint of hesitation in her voice.
"Are you looking for supplies here too?" Asked Zane, trying to not come across hostile.
The two strangers looked at each other, then the man said in an even tone, "Well, no, we have been sent here to find members of our cohort, who came here a few days ago and they hadn't come back since."
"They were actually quite strong," continued the girl.
"Anyway, what are You doing here?" Asked the man curiously, emphasising the "You".
"Actually I came here mostly for food, since I've run out of it at home. I live in the city." Said Zane, guessing the reaction of the strangers.
After looking at each other, they looked at Zane with a smirk on their faces. "Wait, so you're that crazy kid who left the Shelter, because you were made to do chores, and they didn't let you out for scavenging? I can't believe you are still alive." said the girl.
'Crazy? Kid? I can't believe they spread such things about me.' Thought Zane while trying to not let it show on his face.
"Well, I'd phrase it differently, but yes." Hearing that, the smirk on their face grew even bigger, almost breaking into laughter. Almost.
Since what happened next wiped all joy off from their faces...