Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

The girl leader looked at Gray and asked, ”Do you have any gas to spare?”

”Yes,” Gray nodded. ”I just need to go get my car. Wait here for me while I go get it.”

Gray turned around and jogged back into the thick woods. Once he was deep enough in the trees to ensure they weren’t looking, he opened his system interface to summon one of the cars he had purchased a few hours earlier, Dom’s Dodge Charger, to be exact.

When he selected the option, he was surprised to see a change in his system interface. Instead of the vehicle instantly spawning directly in front of him, a glowing green digital outline appeared in his vision to show where he wanted the car to land. Gray experimented by aiming the green outline out onto the empty road a few feet away from his position. He didn’t entirely expect it to work, but the muscle car materialized perfectly on top of the asphalt. He didn’t have to be in physical contact with the car at all to summon it anymore.

Next, he opened his shop, bought a full 5-gallon container of gasoline, and placed it safely inside the passenger seat. Finally, he sat behind the wheel and turned the key. The massive engine roared to life with a loud, aggressive rumble, but Gray didn’t care about the noise. He shifted into gear and drove back up to the small group of survivors.

The five survivors looked completely surprised when they saw the vehicle roll into view. Because their truck was still completely surrounded by the bloodied piles of dead walkers, Gray pulled the Charger up and stopped a bit ahead of them to clear the path.

He climbed out of the car, grabbed the gas container, and walked over to hand it to the group. While the women quickly started refueling their truck, Gray decided to utilize the time to clear the asphalt. He stepped into the piles of dead walkers and began moving the bodies out of the way. Seeing him work, the other two men from the group stepped forward to help. It took the three of them a few minutes of fast-paced dragging to clear a clean lane so the truck could eventually drive past without running over a single corpse.

Once the road was clear and the container was empty, Gray turned to the group. ”Show me the way to your camp. If you happen to know where those bandits live, you can show me that area too. If not, I can just look around for them later. But what’s most important right now is getting your entire group packed up and moved out of here as soon as possible.”

The five survivors agreed to the plan. They all climbed into their newly refueled truck and told Gray to follow closely behind them, explaining that their temporary camp wasn’t very far away. Gray gave them a nod and slid back into the driver’s seat of his Charger.

They drove down the main road for about ten minutes before the truck went off-road. Gray followed them as they went deeper into the thick woods, bouncing over tree roots and dirt paths for another five minutes. Finally, a small clearing appeared ahead, revealing their camp base...if you could even call it that.

Gray parked his car and looked out the window. There were only about three people standing around the perimeter trying to keep watch. The rest of the survivors were huddled around a few small campfires, sitting near a collection of basic tents. Other than the thick trees, they didn’t have a single wall or fence protecting them from the outside world.

Seeing the expression on Gray’s face, the girl leader walked over to his car. She let out a heavy sigh, looking back at her people. ”We didn’t use to live like this,” she said, her voice filled with exhaustion. ”We were actually huddled up safely inside a big building until that group of bandits ran us off a few days ago. We were only able to grab a few basic things before we had to run.” She gestured out to the open woods. ”We’ve been trying to find a real place to live ever since, but every single spot we go to is either completely overrun or it requires a lot more work than we can handle.”

Gray looked around the open camp, instantly realizing how much these twenty-five people were going to struggle out here. Hell, even a medium-sized horde of walkers would completely wipe them out if they happened to stumble across the clearing by accident. They had no real defense.

Gray turned back to his steering wheel and shifted the car into reverse. ”Where are you going?” the leader asked, stepping closer to the door with a worried look.

”We are going to need a much bigger vehicle to move everyone out of here safely,” Gray told her. ”Tell your people to start packing up all of their belongings right now. I will be back very soon.”

Before he pressed down on the gas pedal to leave the clearing, Gray reached into his back and pulled out a paper map, holding it out. ”Show me exactly where these bandits are living.”

The girl took the marker and carefully drew a dark circle around a specific spot on the map, the raiders’ base was only a few minutes away from their current location. Gray thanked her, rolled up his window, and drove out of the campsite, the loud rumble of his engine echoing through the trees as he sped off to handle the threat.

Gray drove back onto the main road, pulled over to the asphalt shoulder, and stepped out of the Dodge Charger. With a single thought, he sent the vehicle straight back into his system inventory. He took one last look at the location the girl leader had circled on his paper map, bringing up his max-level integrated map to drop a digital pin right on top of the coordinates. With his target locked, Gray extended his massive white Seraph wings and launched himself high into the sky.

He flew over the treeline, instantly activating his Wraith Sight to scout the area ahead. Not even a minute later, he dropped silently out of the clouds and touched down directly onto the flat roof of the bandits’ headquarters.

Standing on the roof, he saw his glowing vision pierce the solid structure below. He quickly counted exactly 13 people inside the building. Gray also activated his Sin Vision. Every single person inside the compound had a track record of innocent kills staining their past. They were a ruthless pack of raiders. But as he looked closer, he noticed that one specific guard had several counts of rape attached to his name. By the looks of the text, that one guy wasn’t even the boss... he was just a low-level grub doing menial chores around the base while the rest of the gang was busy celebrating their recent plunder.

Gray frowned beneath his mask, deciding he didn’t even want to waste more time on these monsters. Instead of using his high-tech weapons, he chose to use the magic he had newly mastered from Merlin’s library.

Focusing his mind, he cast a spell that manifested two separate, indestructible magical cubes. The first cube snapped into reality directly around the low-level rapist, trapping him in place. The second, much larger cube instantly materialized around the entire main building, sealing the remaining twelve raiders inside a perfect perimeter. With the trap locked down, Gray raised his hand and unleashed the Exterminate Ray.

A blinding beam of pure magical energy erupted from his fingertips, completely vaporizing the large building and instantly disintegrating the twelve raiders trapped within the larger cube. The structure vanished from reality, leaving only the smaller cube containing the lone rapist floating silently in the empty air.

Gray floated slowly down to the ground, landing directly in front of the floating cage to look his enemy in the eye. But to Gray’s complete disappointment, the guy inside the cube had already passed out cold from pure terror after witnessing his entire base and friends get erased in a flash.

Not wanting to leave it at that, Gray used a magic spell called Purgatory Venom on the unconscious rapist. The intense pain from the magical poison woke the man up instantly. The rapist didn’t even have time to say a single word before the deadly venom killed him just a few seconds later. Once the guy was dead, Gray simply willed the floating magical cube to shrink. The transparent walls tightly closed in, getting smaller and smaller until it turned the dead rapist into meat paste.

Gray glanced at his interface clock, deciding to wait around thirty minutes in the area so the survivors back at the woods would have enough time to pack up all their gear. Once the time passed, he walked out to the main road, opened his inventory, and spawned the large school bus. He climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove back onto the off-road trail leading toward the survivors’ clearing deep in the woods, leaving behind nothing but an empty patch of dirt where a massive building had stood.

Before heading back to the clearing, Gray checked his system map. He found a small cluster of buildings with some alleyway just a short distance from the survivors’ camp. Since the group had already seen him drive away in his car, he needed a reason for how he suddenly got a school bus. He spawned the Charger on one of the abandoned alleys and locked the doors. Leaving it behind, he hopped into the school bus and drove it back toward the woods.

It took Gray about fifteen minutes to get through the rough dirt path. The moment the twenty-five survivors saw the massive bus rolling into the clearing, they got super excited. Gray stopped the bus, got off, and looked at the crowd.

”Start putting your belongings inside,” Gray told everyone. ”If your bags do not fit, we can tie them up on the roof.”

The girl leader walked over, staring at the bus. It did not have a single scratch; it looked brand new. She wanted to ask questions, but when she saw the happy faces of her people, she decided to keep it to herself. Instead, she asked, ”What about your car?”

”I had to leave it behind for now,” Gray said. ”But it is directly on our way out. We can grab it on the road, and then I will lead the way to our base.”

Gray started helping the survivors pack their things. It took them an extra thirty minutes, but once they were done, everyone got into the bus. Gray started driving off toward the cluster of buildings where he had left his car, while the truck they had refueled was right behind them.

Once they reached Gray’s car, Gray got off the bus and unlocked his Charger. The girl leader climbed into the bus’s driver’s seat to take over the driving, and Gray got into his car. He drove off toward the prison, while the bus and the truck followed close behind.

The journey back took almost an hour. At one point, they had to stop because the survivors’ truck had run out of gas again. Gray and a few other survivors simply siphoned fuel from a few broken-down cars on the side of the road. Once the truck was refueled, they got right back to driving.

Finally, they made it back to the prison. Up in a guard tower, Glenn saw Gray’s car approaching and instantly opened the gate to let them through into the courtyard.

Rick, Shane, and the rest of the newly formed council walked out into the courtyard to meet the convoy. Seeing all the new faces pouring out of the school bus, they immediately activated their newly acquired Sin Vision. A massive wave of information about each person’s past flashed directly into their minds. They scanned the entire crowd carefully, but to their relief, not a single one of the twenty-five survivors had any innocent blood on their hands. They were all completely clean.

Gray climbed out of his car, intending to step forward and introduce the newcomers to the council. But the moment his eyes locked onto the girl leader, he froze completely in his tracks. He realized a hilarious, massive oversight... he hadn’t introduced himself to her yet, nor had he asked for either of their names. He had literally just saved them from a horde of walkers, shown them a video on a laptop, and asked them to join his base without a single introduction.

Seeing the awkward, processing face Gray was making, the girl leader burst out laughing. Once she finally caught her breath, she stepped forward and extended her hand toward him. ”Name’s Maria,” she said with a smirk. ”Took you long enough to notice.”

Amy, seeing the way Maria looked at Gray, narrowed her eyes... she planned on keeping an eye on her.

Gray shook her hand, scratching the back of his head with his other hand, embarrassed. ”Sorry about that. My name’s Gray. And these people right here are the leaders of this place,” he explained, pointing his hand directly toward Rick, Shane, and the rest of the council.

Maria looked completely surprised, her eyes darting from Gray’s heavy armor back to the council. ”So you’re not the leader? After seeing the way you shoot and just completely take charge of the situation back there, I would’ve imagined you’d be the absolute boss of this place.”

”Ah, well, yeah,” Gray muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. ”I actually just stepped down to let all these guys take charge. But don’t worry, you and your people are in perfectly safe hands here.”

Gray then turned his attention directly to Rick. ”Rick, if you would, please bring these people inside to some of the clean cells and show them around the place, would you?”

Rick nodded, preparing to lead Maria’s group toward the cell blocks. Gray started walking back toward his private stone house enclosure, but before he could get too far across the courtyard, he suddenly remembered a vital detail.

”Wait, hold on a second, Rick,” Gray called out over his shoulder. ”Can I talk to you for just a minute?”

Rick stopped in his tracks, turning back around. ”Yeah, what’s going on?” he asked, walking a few steps closer to Gray to speak privately.

Gray looked at him seriously. ”Just make sure you don’t tell any of these new people I bring in about my powers. Let them think I’m just a normal person.”

Rick nodded, a smirk breaking across his face. ”Understood. You’re the boss.” He turned around to head back to Maria’s group.

Gray simply watched him walk away, mumble-whispering under his breath, ”I’m not... anymore.”