12 – An unfortunate meeting
[A/N: Whoops, forgot to post the chapter]
A few days passed since the slaughter and the police have mostly calmed down, but remained tense and alert, waiting for another night when the killers would strike again.
To Zeref's surprise, Kyle, his first customer returned and apparently earned quite a bit of money, and also was apparently now out of ammunition that he purchased from Zeref not too long ago.
"What did you do? I'm curious," Zeref asked his first customer, who was about to hop back into Fallout.
"...I hunted down the rest of the men that forced me into debt and forced me to work for them or suffer the consequences," Kyle spoke with venom.
'Hmm...Two vigilantes? And they are currently my only customers? What are the chances..." Zeref mindlessly thought while humming, not believing that somehow his only customers, were both vigilantes.
'I guess playing Fallout really did have an influence on him, whether positive or negative, only time would tell...'
Focusing back onto Kyle, Zeref commented, "Good for you, keep up the good work, though the word of the wise, only kill those truly deserving it, as for the others? Make them never forget the consequences of their actions."
'Wonder if Frank will take a liking to him? Hmm...Na. Frank is too much of a lone wolf. Wonder how he's adjusted to his Assaultron.'
Seeing Kyle go back to his favorite computer, one of the two closest to Zeref on the left side of the cafe from the entrance, Zeref wondered just how far he would go, would he complete Fallout 1 and stop? Or would he continue his journey, becoming the Chosen One, the Lone Wanderer, The Courier, and the Sole Survivor? What adventures would await him, from Big MT and Zion Valley, all the way to Far Harbor or Point Lookout and maybe even the Zetan spaceship, Zeref could only wait and see.
---
Humming, Zeref floated far above the Earth, the Earth of Fallout.
He's been done with Fallout for a while now and has begun working on Project Zomboid, which was quite a bit easier since he already had the 'base' that was Earth, meaning all he had to do, was add details and modify it to become more like the game.
Project Zomboid was greatly different from Fallout with Project Zomboid being set in 1993 making it much more modern compared to Fallout.
While Fallout had a nuclear holocaust, Project Zomboid got a Zombie Apocalypse instead.
In the vanilla game, the player is alone with only a mention of other possible survivors due to a Helicopter event where a helicopter flies overhead drawing all Zombies in a large radius to your location.
Other than that event, the player is alone with countless zombies in the fictional Knox County of Kentucky
The player must survive, and that's all they can do until they eventually die.
The player must scavenge for resources, clothes, weapons, food, water, building materials and tools, and so much more if they want to thrive in the zombie apocalypse.
You can get infected by zombies, die from bleeding out, starvation, dehydration, infected wounds, and so much more.
The game could be considered to be quite a complex open-world zombie survival game, and if Zeref remembered correctly, it was still getting frequently updated, Zeref even remembered that the developers were intent on adding animals soon to the game.
But because the game's boundary was limited to Kentucky, Zeref had no idea what he'd do for the rest of the world, how he would 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥 upon their work.
Luckily for Zeref, he also had the Mods made for the game stored in his mind, which would greatly help in his work, especially when it comes to the vehicles, guns, weapons, and more from Mods.
The hardest part that Zeref feels he would have the most trouble with would be the story.
The game didn't have much of a story besides some commentary from the Radios in-game that describe what happened just before the outbreak in the county and the Military trying to contain it.
The other thing that Zeref will have a bit of difficulty with is the loot table since the game lacks quite a few things that would appear in a modern world.
Essentially, Zeref wants to make sure that the players will be able to find anything that suits their needs, including things to relieve their boredom such as books, magazines, and more, even board games, card games, and whatever else Zeref could think of.
Now, why was Zeref looking over Fallout if he had so much work to do on Project Zomboid? Simple, he was training and testing his ability to split his mind.
At the moment his mind was split four different ways, and while it was difficult, to begin with, he's slowly becoming used to it, and he's even noticed that there's no diminishing effect for splitting his mind so many times.
One mind was focused on watching over the store, another watching his customer play Fallout, the third working on Project Zomboid, and his fourth just peacefully watching over Fallout's version of Earth.
Curious about testing something else, Zeref cast 'The Gaze of the Abyss.'
To his surprise, it worked, even though he was inside a 'mental' realm. Though now he is wondering if it truly is a 'mental' realm instead of a real one.
He looked upon the creatures of the void and looked over his many other spells.
Some of his spells were simple, some were complex, some were rituals, some were utility spells, some were summoning spells, and there were even spells that allowed Zeref to make a contract that he could use to do various things, such as hire something or someone to become an employee in his store, or something as simple as an 'Oath' that would provide punishments to whoever broke their oath in the contract while warning the other.
It was fascinating. Especially after thinking about the summoning spells, the horrors he could bring forth made him mentally smile for a moment before shaking out of it.
He may just be a tad bit sadistic.
Just ignore the games that force the players to feel all 100% of the pain and feel the coldness that is death, and ignore the fact that whoever plays Project Zomboid will be suffering for a while until they become smart and strong enough to survive and any future games that may or may not make someone go crazy or mad enough to surprise even the Joker or the Daedric Prince Sheogorath, *𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩* *𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩* Soulsborne games.
---
Hours passed and night arose as Kyle continued to play Fallout and became an even better fighter after going through fight after fight while Zeref continued working, and without Kyle even realizing it, he was nearing the end of the first game, even after so many setbacks and resets.
A while ago he found the water chip and brought it back to the Vault, the very same component he was tasked to get by the Vault's Overseer at the beginning of the game, only for the Overseer to kick him out again and command him to stop the Super Mutant threat in order to save those in the vault from the different and new threat.
He had two ways in which he could proceed.
Heading North-west where he encountered Super Mutants frequently in his earlier sessions, constantly dying to them because he was too weak, or, go to the Cathedral and confront the Master.
Kyle could either go straight for the leader or go after the Master's army, either way would be a crippling blow.
While Zeref left Kyle wondering how he should proceed, he instead focused on the cafe, seeing as his other customer finally arrived.
"Hey Frank, how's the Assaultron?" Zeref asked the clearly tired Punisher.
"Better than I would have ever thought..." Frank replied.
"Have a busy night?"
"Yeah..."
"So, what can I help you with?"
"I need five stimpaks-" Suddenly a gruff voice interrupted Frank from behind him, "So you are the supplier..."
Looking past Frank to the person who spoke, Zeref quickly grew annoyed, "God damn it, Frank, you just had to bring him with you."
Standing right behind Frank, was, of course, someone Zeref did not want to see, Batman.
"Just curious, did you enter my cafe with no precautions? Ah, who am I kidding, what can I do for you?" Zeref asked, wondering just what Batman had up his sleeve in case either of us attacked.
"Who else are you supplying to? Where do you get your products? What are you? How long have you been on Earth?" A series of questions came from Batman without pause, annoying Zeref quite a bit.
"Will you shut up?! Ask one question at a time!" Zeref shouted in annoyance, unknowingly causing pressure to fall on the 'Hero.'
Noticing the quiet atmosphere in the room, Zeref decided to speak.
"Sorry for the outburst, now, why don't we start over? You can call me Zeref, and I am the owner of this cafe, what can I help you with today?"