DEAD CITY: A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
The apocalypse didn't come with an instruction manual.
Good thing Riccardo downloaded the ultimate cheat code.
Riccardo Gonzales was just a regular college student stressing over a midterm.
But when he wakes up to find the streets of Manila burning, mutated horrors tearing through the sky, and his neighbor trying to eat him, his poli-sci degree is officially useless.
Trapped on the fourteenth floor, he has only one goal: cross a city of the undead to save his fifteen-year-old sister.
Then his phone buzzes with an ad for a zombie survival game. One mistaken click changes his reality forever.
Bound to the Military Survival System, Riccardo is no longer a defenseless civilian.
He can track stats, earn gold from kills, and summon an elite squad of heavily armed, fiercely loyal soldiers directly into his living room.
When a lucky spin on the daily Fortune Wheel drops a five-million gold jackpot into his lap, Riccardo stops running and starts buying.
The undead might have the numbers, but Riccardo has the firepower. And he’s about to turn this apocalypse into a tactical warzone.
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Chapter: CHAPTER 5 ~ WHEELS OF FORTUNE"Hold up," Riccardo said, stopping on the landing between floors twenty-eight and twenty-seven.The column of soldiers behind him stopped with the immediate, silent precision that he was still not entirely used to. Hayes appeared at his shoulder without being summoned, which was either impressive or mildly terrifying depending on the hour."Sir?""There is a tab I have not opened yet," Riccardo noted as he pulled up the interface and scrolled past the stats, skills, inventory, and mission tabs to finally reach a section he had clocked earlier but had not yet found the time to examine. The tab was labeled 'Zombie Encounters', so he confidently tapped it.The tab opened into what could only be described as a comprehensive bestiary. It served as a catalogued archive of every infected variant the System had on record, completely organized by threat tier and complete with behavioral notes, physical descriptions, and specific engagement recommendations. At the top of the active list sat an
Last Updated: 2026-03-27
Chapter: CHAPTER 4 ~ FIRST BLOOD, FIRST COMMAND"Before we talk strategy," Riccardo said while holding up one finger, "I have a question about you guys."Hayes stood at parade rest with his hands clasped firmly behind his back and his expression completely neutral while the nine other soldiers waited behind him with the same disciplined stillness. None of them seemed remotely bothered by the impossible fact that they had just materialized from a mobile phone application a mere twelve minutes ago.Riccardo pulled up the troops tab on the holographic interface and read aloud that they were supposedly fully human and military-trained personnel integrated directly through the System deployment protocol before looking up to ask what being fully human actually meant in this bizarre context."It means exactly what the manual says, sir," Hayes replied smoothly."Do you need to eat?" Riccardo pressed."Yes, sir, we absolutely do.""Do you also require sleep?""Yes, sir, we need sleep as well."Riccardo paused and scrolled further down the m
Last Updated: 2026-03-27
Chapter: CHAPTER 3 ~ SOLDIER UPRiccardo pulled the overturned kitchen chair off the floor, set it upright, sat down, and stared at the holographic interface floating in the middle of his apartment as if it paid rent."Okay," he said as he took a deep breath to steady himself. "We are really doing this."The interface pulsed gently before a small blinking prompt appeared at the bottom of the glowing screen.[ MANUAL AVAILABLE: RECOMMENDED FOR NEW HOSTS ] Read now? Y/NHe reached out and tapped the affirmative option.What unfolded in front of him was not a simple pamphlet or a quick-start guide, but rather the most comprehensive and exhaustively organized survival document he had ever seen in his life. It was structured with absolute military precision into tabbed sections where each one expanded into sub-sections containing incredibly detailed explanations, diagrams, and footnotes. Riccardo had written a forty-page thesis during his last semester of college, and that massive academic paper looked like a mere sticky
Last Updated: 2026-03-27
Chapter: CHAPTER 2 ~ THE SYSTEM WAKES UPRiccardo kept the chain lock firmly secured on the door."Who are you?" he called through the door with his bat raised and his back pressed against the wall beside the frame. He knew to never stand directly in front of a door because he had learned that lesson from every horror movie he had ever watched, and it appeared that today was the day that specific education finally paid off."My name is Amanda Cruz, and I am begging you to help me because I live on the sixteenth floor, but I came down the stairs, and there are three of them on this floor right now, so please just open the door.""Are you bitten?" he asked sharply.There was a heavy pause before she asked, "What did you say?""Are you bitten?" he asked again, enunciating each word clearly as if she were hard of hearing. "It is not a complicated question, so I just need a yes or no answer.""No, I am absolutely not bitten, and I am completely fine, but I just need somewhere safe to wait until this is over.""How do I know that
Last Updated: 2026-03-27
Chapter: CHAPTER 1 ~ THE WORLD GOES TO HELLThe alarm had been screaming for forty minutes.Riccardo Gonzales finally slapped it silent at 9:47 a.m. before rolling onto his back and staring at the water-stained ceiling of his condominium unit on the fourteenth floor of Avida Towers, Makati City. Morning light bled through the gap in his curtains while a car horn blared somewhere outside amidst the usual morning chaos of EDSA traffic.He groaned and rubbed his face, muttering, "Dude, why."His phone showed three missed calls from Professor Harmon, fourteen unread group chat messages, and a calendar notification screaming MIDTERM PRESENTATION AT 8:00 AM in bold red letters."Oh, you have got to be kidding me."He was already typing a frantic apology message to his group mates when the building shook.It was not the rumble of a passing truck or construction equipment, but rather a deep and bone-rattling tremor that sent his glass of water sliding off the nightstand and his bookshelf swaying against the wall. Riccardo grabbed the d
Last Updated: 2026-03-27
