Dad was about to explain, but I pressed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Don't say that, Uncle Garrett. I'm just doing a kind deed by helping Aunt Cassia see what kind of man she married. I'm sure great things and luck's coming my way for what I've done."

Garrett turned to Dad and snarled. "What a sharp-tongued brat!

"We're cutting ties right here and now, Milton! From now on, I won't lift a finger to help, even if your family starves and begs on their knees.

"Ronnie, let's go."

Ronnie disgustedly brushed at the wet stains on his clothes and shot me a look of pure disdain.

"Ugh. I never wanted to come to this dump in the first place. It reeks of poverty.

"Let's go, Dad. When I land a steady government job, I'll live it up while they're stuck regretting everything in this shabby little grocery store."

I watched them walk off and whistled. "Take care, Uncle Garrett!

"Oh, and even if you've severed ties, remember to pay back that 5,000 dollars you owe my dad, or I'll post the whole story in the family group chat and pin it to the top!"

Garrett stumbled and nearly face-planted on the pavement. Then, he rushed off without looking back.

There was a chime before the system said, "Uncle Garrett's blood pressure is spiking! +200 rage points.

"Rewards include 20 pounds of fresh premium beef!"

20 pounds? It wasn't a massive haul, but in an apocalypse where fresh produce and meat weren't available, it would go a long way.

While I was going through the inventory in my mind, my parents looked at the mess on the floor and sighed. "He's still your uncle, Flint. After this, we won't even be family anymore."

After tonight, there would only be the living and the dead. Family wouldn't even mean a thing again.

I dropped my smile, and my gaze turned sharp. "We're better off without a family like that, Mom.

"I have some insider information that the freezing doomsday is going to hit tonight. From now on, we're locking down the grocery store and letting no one in, no matter who it is."

Mom and Dad were skeptical, but I'd been the one calling the shots in the house for years now, and the conviction in my voice was hard to argue with. In the end, they nodded.

While they cleaned up, I walked up to the entrance of the grocery store and muttered to myself, "Use the safehouse upgrade card."

The ordinary rolling shutter immediately transformed into a titanium-alloy explosion-proof door. Every window silently shifted into bulletproof glass, and a top-tier thermal insulation layer integrated itself into the walls.

When everything was set up, I checked the clock on the wall and noticed that it was 12:00 am.

The lively carolling and chiming of bells had suddenly stopped. In its place was the bone-chilling, howling wind.

In just ten minutes, the temperature had plummeted from 23 to -58 degrees Fahrenheit and still showed no signs of stopping. Heavy snow fell in thick sheets, carrying a strange, deadly virus within them.

In my past life, Garrett's family had stayed after dinner to play poker cards and narrowly avoided the freezing cold outside. They'd seized my parents' warm master bedroom and forced them to squeeze into my room.

But in this life, they were still on the road after the Christmas Eve fallout.

…

I sat in the grocery store, which was maintained at a steady 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit, holding a roasted chicken drumstick I'd pulled from my system inventory.

While I took a large bite, Mom and Dad were wrapped in blankets, visibly shaken as they looked out at the terrifying blizzard.

"Good thing we listened to you and stayed in. What's going on with the weather these days?"

That was when the family group chat blew up with notifications.

Garrett: "Milton! My car broke down halfway home, and we're freezing out here. Where's your delivery truck? Come pick us up right now!"

Ronnie: "Uncle Milton, my hands are numbing from the cold, so hurry up! If you're not coming, we're calling the police!"

As I listened to Garrett's shivering voice over the sound of the howling wind, I let out a cold sneer.

Oh? Weren't we supposed to have cut ties? Now that things got tough, they came crawling back to us for help.

Did they think we were that pathetic? It was bad enough that we had to endure his arrogance, so why should we risk our lives to save them in such terrible weather?

I pressed on the voice message button and replied in a lazy, bored tone, "Oh, bad timing, Uncle Garrett. I never got my driver's license, and Dad's been drinking, so he can't drive either."

"Here's an idea, Uncle Garrett. Maybe you and Ronnie ought to wear those steady paychecks as hats. They're clearly thicker than your skulls and might keep off the wind.

"Or Uncle Garrett, why don't you try doing a few more squats? I recall you had a pretty good form doing those back when you were locked up."

The group chat went deathly silent.

A few seconds later, Garrett sent a voice clip that was nothing but a string of curses, though his voice grew noticeably weaker.

With a chime, the system's voice echoed in my mind. "Uncle Garrett's family is raging helplessly in the freezing wind. Physical and mental trauma detected. +200 rage points!

"Congratulations, Flint. Rewards include 50 infinite-charge hand warmers and elite combat mastery."

A surge of warmth spread through my body, and I could feel my muscles rippling with power. I clenched my fist and threw a quick punch that cut through the air with a sharp gust of wind.

Perfect.

The first night of the apocalypse was off to a peaceful start, but I couldn't let my guard down because something even more terrifying would come after the freezing doomsday—the zombie outbreak.

People who froze to death on the side of the road would soon stand back up with twisted limbs and bite anything they saw.

Garrett's family was surprisingly lucky. They managed to ditch the car and retreat to their high-end apartment complex, but the water, power, and gas were cut. All that fancy interior design meant nothing against -112 degrees Fahrenheit.

With no food stockpiled, they probably had to gnaw on their expensive leather couch.

Driven mad by hunger, Ronnie kept arguing with Garrett until they nearly came to blows.

Finally, hunger won out over fear and pride, so Garrett led a small group of neighbors he'd rallied and showed up at the front of the grocery store.

Heavy pounding shook the door as the neighbors banged on it.

"Open up, Milton! It's me, Garrett!" Garrett's voice was hoarse and desperate.

"The power's out at our place, the heating's gone, and even the windows are freezing and cracking! Let us warm up! We're all starving out here!

"We're family, Milton. You can't just stand by and let us die!"

When Mom and Dad heard the voices, they instinctively moved to open the door, but I stopped them. "Check the camera, Dad."

On the security screen, Garrett was clutching a crowbar, while the men behind him were armed with steel pipes. They weren't here to take shelter; they were here to loot.

More deafening bangs sounded when someone started hacking at the door with an ax.

Dad broke into a cold sweat from panic. "What do we do, Flint? There's a whole mob out there; if they actually break in…"

Mom was already in tears. "Should we just give them some food?"

I looked at Garrett's treacherous face on the screen and let out a cold laugh.

In my past life, he'd used this exact guilt-tripping trick to force my parents into opening the door and letting the wolves right into the fold. But unfortunately for him, I was not about to fall for the same trick.

I flipped the switch for the external loudspeaker by the door.

"Well, well, if it isn't Uncle Garrett, the man with the recession-proof paycheck!

"What happened? Did that steady paycheck of yours fail to put food on the table, so you came a long way just to beg for scraps at my doorstep?"

Behind the door, Garrett froze for a second, then snapped in anger. "Cut the sarcasm and open the door, Flint. I'm your uncle!"

"That's right! Don't be so heartless, kid. Share the food with everyone!"

As more voices joined, I smiled and paused before saying, "Relax, everyone. I'm fine if you want food, but Uncle Garrett, we play by my rules now that we're in the middle of an apocalypse."

"What rules?" Garrett barked.

"Give me five million dollars, or you can start calling me 'boss.'"

A few of the neighbors behind him couldn't help but let out a series of snorts and muffled laughs.

Garrett's face turned dark red, and his body was shaking with rage.

That was when they heard the faint, guttural moans of zombies in the distance. Their shouting and commotion had drawn the zombies in.

Fighting zombies in the open was a death sentence, so Garrett gritted his teeth and stared into the camera. Then, he forced the words out through clenched teeth.

"B-Boss!"

With a chime, the system announced, "Uncle Garrett's dignity is completely trampled, and humiliation levels are maxed out. +300 points!

"Rewards include a fully automatic multi-functional fishing rod with a 500-pound weight capacity!"

"That's a good lad," I cooed. "But I've got enough underlings, so you might as well stay out in the cold and enjoy the breeze. My place is too small for someone of your stature anyway."

"Flint, I'm going to kill you!"

Garrett completely lost it. He swung the crowbar and slammed it against the rolling shutter while screaming at the top of his lungs, "The zombies are coming, so break it down! This place is packed with food; whoever grabs it keeps it!"

The neighbors behind him went feral at his words. They charged at the door with their steel pipes raised high, but the system-reinforced titanium-alloy door didn't even budge. Not even a single flake of paint was chipped off.

Instead, the force of Garrett's slam recoiled so hard that it split the skin between his thumb and forefinger. While he screamed in pain, a horde of zombies rounded the corner of the street, just less than 300 feet away.

Sweating profusely from panic, Garrett suddenly looked up at the second-story window of the grocery store, where it was still open.

His eyes lit up as he barked an order, "Quick! Get a ladder and climb up so we can hide inside!

"Once we're in, the two old farts and that brat are at our mercy. We'll toss them out to feed the zombies and keep everything for ourselves!"

In the control room, Dad was shaking with rage as he crushed the teacup in his grip. "Monsters! They're absolute monsters!

"We've never treated Garrett badly. Now, to think he'd kill us over food and treat his nephew like that…"

I patted Dad on the shoulder, and my gaze turned cold. "This is who he really is, and he'd always hidden it well, Dad. We're the ones who'll die if we don't act."

Dad closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Do you know what you need to do, and don't worry about me, Flint."

"Alright."

A cruel smile curved at my lips. I'd intentionally left the window open.

"Come on up, Uncle Garrett."

Holding the newly rewarded, fully automatic and multi-functional fishing rod, I headed over to the window on the second floor, where the mob had propped up a ladder outside.

Garrett scrambled up the rungs with a greedy grin plastered across his face, as if he could already see a house full of food and me begging for mercy.

Slowly, he got closer until his hands gripped the windowsill. After hauling half his body inside, he laughed and excitedly shouted, "I'm in! Flint, you little piece of—"

Before he could finish, my size 11 slipper slammed right into his face.

I looked down at him, casually dangled the cold, shimmering fishing line in front of his eyes, and bared my teeth in a wide grin.

"Merry Christmas, Uncle Garrett.

"I know how much you used to love fishing, so I decided to go for a big catch today too. Would you be interested in helping me out?"