Book 1, Chapter 3: A Step Forward

[Alen]

A young man stood in front of a hole that led upwards. Light shone from above, and small glimpses of the dreary gray sky could be seen from the opening. He stood still, grasping a sharp rock in his hand until his knuckles turned white. He had bags under the bloodshot eyes of his gaunt face. His black hair had streaks of white in them, the same color of white that colored the furs of the corpse-eating beasts in the forest he currently resided in. His black hoodie was torn in numerous places, and his jeans were covered in dirt and blood. The most noticeable thing about him however, were his emerald green eyes. They hadn’t always been like that, for they were a dark brown in the past. But as he stayed in this world, changes had slowly been occurring to his body, changes that the young man didn’t care to notice.

Behind him was a dark little crevice. At the corner was a pile of belongings, a dirty pencil, a piece of paper full of unintelligible scribbles, some berry seeds, and finally, an object that didn’t exist in the world he was currently in; a phone, and the earphones that were plugged into it.

The young man glanced at the items behind him and gritted his teeth, raising his foot to step forward. He took the first step, but faltered right after, returning his foot to its previous position.

What was he doing?

The look in his eyes reflected that very thought. He’d wasted away in the cave for three days now, and the berries he had stockpiled had run out a day ago. He was thirsty. He was hungry. And he was angry.

Alen was angry at himself. Even now, as he tried to force himself forward, his foot felt as if it was made of lead, and as he finally planted the first step, it had gone back to its previous position. This wasn’t a curse, nor a disability. Alen was doing this himself. He hated himself for it. His face morphed into a terrifying expression of frustration and anger. He hated himself for being afraid, hated that he couldn’t even take a step outside. He hated the fact that he finally entered the fantasy world he’d always dreamt about, but ended up like this after a single encounter.

He gripped the rock further, its uneven edges sinking into his skin. He gripped it tighter. Tighter. Until blood flowed down his closed fist. It didn’t matter. It would regenerate in a day. He grit his teeth tighter, feeling as if they were about to shatter as he turned around and started walking to the corner he’d lifelessly sat in for the last two days. He’d sit there once again, and stare at what could have been. Like he’d been doing for the past three days.

What was he doing?

Suddenly, Alen whipped around, his eyes burning with a fierce expression as he ran straight at the slope, the exit that led out of his cave. Every step felt heavier than the last, as if he was in an impossibly deep ocean, pressure squeezing his body from all sides as every part of his mind told him to turn back. Sit down back at his little corner of self-pity and die alone just like that. Forget himself and everything else, and let the fear take over until there was nothing left to fear. To hold his breath as he sank to the bottom and hoped for the best.

He wouldn’t. His appearance was no different from that of a corpse’s, but he would not let himself die.

“Shut the fuck up!!” He screamed as he ran, grasping the sharp rock and stabbing it into the palm of his other hand roughly, he screamed again, pain, fear and anger mixing into as single roar as he burst through the exit, stepping foot outside for the first time in three days. His foot was caught by a branch and he tripped, rolling through shrubbery and feeling their brambles scrape at his skin. He tumbled past the shrubbery and collapsed on his back, panting as tears rolled down his face. He curled up and grasped his hand, slowly taking out the sharp rock with shaky breaths.

In his rage, Alen hadn’t cared for his own safety, and had stabbed the rock in forcefully. His wound was deep and spurted out an incessant flow of blood. He’d even managed to gouge out a portion of his flesh. He cried for the first time in years, the suppressed feelings of despair and helplessness flowing out with the sharp waves of pain that battered his mind.

He moved his mana and let it flow all over his body, its cold, numbing effect alleviating the pain in the same way it stilled his hunger. Alen slowly sat up, wincing as he cradled his left hand, and faced the source of his fears.

In front of him was a zombie.

It was in horrible shape. Its intestines trailed behind it due to its lack of a lower body. Something had ripped it clean off, leading the zombie to resort to pulling itself forward with its arms to move. The zombie had heard screaming from nearby, using is mangled arms to drag itself forward, it finally saw what it was looking for. A human. It laid still on the ground and stared at the human in confusion. It instinctively felt something deeply similar between it and the human in front of it. It was confused.

Was this human something it should eat? Was this human part of its kin?

The human approached the zombie with staggering steps and a face so pale it was reminiscent of a corpse. The zombie looked up at the corpse in front of it. Maybe this human and itself truly were kin after all—

It stilled in its movements as a sharp rock was shoved into its eye, ending its un-life.

The zombie had made a miscalculation. The human in front of it was not a corpse.

Alen had taken his life back, and he was not going to let himself die a second time.

Alen ravenously devoured the berries he’d taken half an hour to gather, ignoring the horribly sour taste to fill his stomach. Afterwards, he took the old shirt wrapped around the shrub beside him and squeezed with his unwounded hand, water flowing down into his mouth in a steady trickle. Draining the shirt of a few days’ worth of water, Alen felt satisfied. Gritting his teeth through the pain in his left hand, he ripped off a part of the shirt before tying the larger piece back over the shrub. He took the small strip of cloth and began to wrap it around his left hand like a bandage. He winced as he wrapped it tightly, but thankfully, the surge of necrotic mana he’d gotten from killing that zombie temporarily numbed the pain in his body enough for him to gather food and bandage his hand.

He stood up and stared at the forest around him. Somehow it felt… less terrifying than he expected. It was creepy, sure, but in the days he’d cooped himself up, the image of the forest in his head continued to morph into a more and more terrifying form. Now, it was kind of disappointing, in its own twisted way.

The forest was as quiet as always, especially in the direction of the corpse-eating white bear. Alen decided it was about time he went back to the old battleground. That place had a lot of items and scraps he could use, and if his new spell worked, it would make his way out of the forest easier. Just before he could head in that direction, he heard a familiar shambling and sound of movement to his left and back. He froze, the fear once again seizing him for a moment before he flinched from the pain of subconsciously tightening his injured hand into a fist.

Alen snapped out of it and quickly moved behind a tree. He wasn’t going to be a little bitch about this. He wasn’t going to be a pussy, he told himself, cursing under his breath as two zombies tumbled into sight.

These two had probably heard his screaming a while ago and decided to check it out.

The two zombies milled about, before gorging on the body that Alen had just killed. He grimaced at the sight, looking away before letting out a breath to calm himself. Alen crouched down and hid behind some bushes. Looking at the two zombies, he held out his hand and formed a ball of his mana, using his Mana Programming to remake the spell he’d created and improved over the last three days. Within less than two minutes, he finished.

Three days of experimenting taught him how to efficiently create this spell, shortening the creation process. Though he was hoping that he’d learn how to cast it instantly, that was something he’d worry about at another time.

Alen let the little ball go, the mana program turning it into a tendril as it slithered toward his target. He’d created this spell after figuring that undead were kept moving through some sort of magic in their rotting bodies, and created this program to replace that mana with his. If he could do that, he could take control of one of the zombies and go from there. Or at least he hoped so.

“Come on cunt, I choose you,” Alen muttered as the black tendril entered the zombie. A few moments passed, and the zombie collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

He stared at it in a daze. What the fuck just happened? Alen looked at it and felt a tug. He frowned and looked down at where his mana gathered. It tugged again. And just as Alen was about to see what was wrong, he suddenly felt a large chunk of his mana slip out of him, entering the collapsed zombie in a thick cloud that was visible to only him.

The corpse twitched around on the ground, ignored by the other zombie as it busied itself on eating its kin’s rotted intestines. Eventually, the zombie on the ground stopped twitching, and Alen felt a sort of connection between both of them. It felt disgusting. To him, it felt like there was a little thread that tied him and the corpse together, and it caused his stomach to churn—and not in the mana-way. Alen looked at the still corpse and thought for a moment. What now?

He let a ‘program’ flow through the thread. Not really a complicated program in the same way he created his spells, but more like a command in the same vague-as-shit magic-y format. Alen blinked as the zombie stood up, following his command.

This was easier than he thought. Just as he thought this, a notification popped up in front of him.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have created the skill Control Undead! Skill trees are available for this skill. Unlock them by improving this skill further.

Alen grinned despite himself. He had to admit, this was cool. Now, it was time to see what this zombie could do. He let a command flow through the thread, telling the zombie to fight and rip out the throat of the other zombie as its main priority.

His first zombie, which Alen had promptly named Cunt in his head, moved, diving at the other zombie and digging its nails into its kin’s rotten skin. Cunt immediately went in for the kill, biting at the throat of the other zombie as its right eye was gouged out by its enemy. The other zombie bit at Cunt’s shoulder, tearing at the flesh as the two zombies flailed about on the ground, tearing each other apart. At this rate, his first zombie wasn’t going to survive this encounter, so Alen decided to intervene.

Changing Cunt’s primary directive to self-preservation, Alen began recreating his other spell. This one only took about 10 seconds to re-program, as it was simple enough, especially with his three days of tinkering with the spell. He designated the zombie as the spell’s target, and let it loose, the cloud of black-green mana rapidly turning into a needle as it flew. It hit the back of the zombie, which had gotten on top of Cunt, and did what his spell was created to do. Wreak utter havoc.

The magic compressed in the needle rapidly expanded in multiple directions, turning into a viscous black-green liquid that ate away at the flesh of the zombie, rotting it even further as the decaying properties of necrotic mana were put on full display. The partially exposed spinal column of the zombie began to weaken as well, making its movements slower. Taking this chance, Alen ordered Cunt to move out from under the zombie and focus on destroying the slowly decaying part of the spinal column.

Cunt used both legs to push the zombie away before standing up and avoiding a swing of the zombie’s claws, getting behind it and digging its own claws into the zombie’s back. Cunt took that chance to rip out a piece of the spinal column, robbing the zombie of movement.

Alen ordered his zombie to crush the enemy’s head with a rock, and the battle ended just like that.

The cold, numbing feeling of mana surging into Alen’s body made him shiver. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to that sensation as he felt the goosebumps on his skin. He ordered Cunt to move the two dead zombies far, far away from his cubby hole to take away the disgusting smell of rot. Seeing his new minion go to work, Alen let out a breath of relief. He felt repulsed every time he was near Cunt, even a little afraid that it would slip out of his control. Alen tried his best to ignore those feelings because this plan was his best hope of making it out of the forest.

Alen looked at the message that told him he’d passed his mana threshold opened up his status screen. He was curious as to what a level up would do to him.

Status:

Name: Alen

Race: Human

Type: Necrotic

Health: 68%

Stamina: 55%

Mana: 48%

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 11

Agility: 9

Constitution: 10

Vitality: 11

Resistance: 9

Intelligence: 14 (++)

Wisdom: 13 (+)

Control: 16 (+++)

Skills:

Mana Programming, Control Undead

His stats had mostly increased, but his three priorities had truly gotten a disgusting amount of growth. Just his Control alone went up a whole three points. He hoped this rate of growth wouldn’t slow down, but it looked like he would have to see. He could feel it in the way his mana churned, but the next threshold wasn’t going to be passed just by killing a few more zombies. It looked like it increased exponentially every time he passed it.

Alen looked at his remaining mana. The Control Undead spell really took a lot out of him. A whole 40% of his mana was chunked away just like that. Seeing that he’d passed his threshold, Alen changed the priorities, setting Wisdom as the highest, and Intelligence as the lowest. He still wasn’t sure what Intelligence or Control did, but he was certain that Wisdom had increased his mana pool by at least a bit. He waved away the screen and looked at the icon that represented his friends’ private message server, and sighed. No. He’d talk to them tonight, but right now, he still had things to do. His mana was probably still small in comparison to this world’s standards, hence why he decided to prioritize Wisdom first.

He had about enough mana for another Control Undead spell, so Alen decided to head towards the old battleground, his first zombie Cunt trailing behind him.

Eventually, he spotted a lone zombie and casted Control Undead, waiting a few seconds for his control to fully take hold. Having the zombie stand up and feeling the two strings of mana that connected him to his minions, Alen felt satisfied despite the disgust he felt. He was determined to focus solely on other undead minions after he got out of this place, and develop spells that would let him create those and raise the dead, but for now, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Cunt and Alen’s second zombie, Dickwad, gathered scrap from the ground as commanded, picking up useable equipment and weapons. Most were ruined, but could still barely be made use of.

As his zombies collected the items, Alen stared at the decayed corpse of the first zombie he had killed. The wound on his back, the one that had long healed, stung for some reason. Alen’s jaw trembled, and he walked away, sitting down on a stump and surveying his surroundings. He refused to get ambushed at the exact same place again. He probably didn’t have to worry about his zombies, but he was a prime target for the undead that roamed this forest. Alen wondered if there were skeletons anywhere here.

Alen looked and saw that his zombies could carry no more. Nodding to himself, he led the way back, avoiding undead carefully. Minutes later, he entered his little cubby hole and ordered his zombies to dump their finds inside before sending them away.

He suddenly paused however, as the invisible string of mana that tied him and the zombies together grew taut. He hurriedly ordered Cunt and Dickwad to return, closer to his hole. About 10 or so meters away from his crevice. Alen frowned. If he pushed those zombies farther, would they escape his control? He wanted to get as far away from them as possible, but it seemed that wasn’t possible. Well, he would test it later, when he had enough mana to regain control of one of them if pushing them too far really did destroy his command over them.

If so, his spell was pretty flawed. Alen guessed that the skill trees would help a lot, but he apparently had to improve his skill to even unlock them. Alen guessed it involved improving his mana program further.

Sitting down and eating the berries he had gathered on the way, Alen squeezed the shirt he’d brought along, sating his thirst at the water that dripped down. It quickly stopped though, which prompted Alen to wrap it around the bush again. It seemed he had to wait a day for a decent amount of water to form.

“Fuck me these berries taste like shit,” He grumbled, hesitantly biting into the berry and swallowing it right afterwards.

Alen took away the cloth covering his hand and grimaced at the sight. He’d been using his mana’s numbing properties this whole time to suppress the pain, but he could still feel a portion of it. Added to the sight of the ugly wound, he couldn’t help but wince. It wasn’t as bad as before, displaying this world’s effect on his regeneration, but it was still bleeding a little despite the fact that the flesh he gouged out had put itself back in. He cleaned the wound best he could with the non-bloodstained parts of the cloth and wrapped it around his hand again.

In the few minutes he’d been outside, his mana had returned to a crisp 61%. His watch told him he’d been outside for about 20 minutes. It seemed like even mana regeneration was relatively fast in this world.

He walked to the pile of ruined weapons and armor and tossed the more intact ones outside before ordering his zombies to put them on. He’d see if they were capable of using swords tomorrow, because he was going to be experimenting for the rest of today. Hours passed, with him draining his mana as soon as it replenished, and soon, he was able to confirm a few things about his magic.

First, Necrotic mana had three properties he currently knew of. Decay, numbness, and undeath. He’d used the decay property for that attack he aimed at the zombie’s spine, numbness to repress his wounds, and named undeath as the property that let him control undead. Second, creating a mana program was easier if he made it extremely long and detailed, but it seemed that making it concise and compressing all the little nuances into a line of code—will as he called it, would increase the quality of his spell. He’d tried it with the decay-property offensive spell and not only did it increase in power by completely annihilating his test berries, but it also decreased in mana cost. He could cast ten in rapid succession without losing mana now. He’d even gained a skill by improving it.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have created the skill Lesser Blightbolt! Skill trees are available for this skill. Unlock them by improving this skill further.

Now he could properly assume that ‘improving’ a skill meant increasing the quality of his mana program. Next, he would try to add extra effects to his skills, like possibly increasing the distance limit of Control Undead. Maybe that would unlock the first part of that skill’s tree. He was also able to compress the Control Undead program to lower the mana cost. He tested this with the distance of the skill, which he discovered was about twenty meters. When his undead passed that mark, he would lose control of them. He quickly regained control of Dickwad using the new version of his spell, which instead of the original 40%, would only theoretically cost 30% of his mana pool to take over a zombie.

He wasn’t that amazing though. His changes most likely only lowered the cost by a bit, as he had a lot of trouble figuring out how to compress the spell’s mana program. He suspected that the lower cost was mostly the result of his increased mana pool through leveling Wisdom.

Alen also asked Sam about how he figured out changing the UI and the message screens, but he was told by Sam that he didn’t really know what he was doing. Apparently, Sam was just going by the feeling to create it according to his imagery. Sam had also managed to pick up a bit of magic, things like making the air blow, or lighting a small fire with mana. It seemed he was most proficient in ice-type spells though, and had started eating ice cubes periodically. He’d asked about his friend’s location, and it seemed Sam was staying over at some Orc tribe, and the shaman had taught him a little about magic right after he assimilated, and left him to figure things out on his own.

As for the rest, Adam had met some wood elves and was currently staying with them while doing tasks like helping them skin and hunt animals, while Anne and James had both tagged along with some traders and travelers, constantly on the road and hopping from city to city as they learned a bit of their groups’ respective trades. James was learning how to make potions as compensation for his help, while Anne was being taught how to play the lute by some minstrels.

Bernard meanwhile, had been pointed to becoming a blacksmith’s apprentice, while Jamal was recruited into some country’s spear militia. Apparently, it was nothing new in this world for people to randomly appear out of nowhere. Something about the gods and all that shit, as his friends said. They told him that it was common courtesy for the people of this world to help what they called ‘new arrivals’. That involved giving them jobs and a source of income until they could stand on their own two feet. Anne and Bernard had even decided to meet up, as the route of the minstrels Anne was associated with would pass the town Bernard was currently staying in.

Sam had also shared his discoveries regarding customizing the system UI with the rest as well, but Neil and a surprising amount of others encouraged staying in the main message room to share information and the like.

Alen cursed his own luck. Some people in the main chat room were still lost like him, and some had stopped sending messages altogether, which made Alen worried, but most had found people that were willing to help. Apparently, even the guy that got his wallet stolen in the first day was forcefully recruited into some thieves’ guild and given work.

He was the only one still standing around. Everyone else was moving forward, discovering the world, while he wasted away in this god-forsaken forest. A sigh left his mouth. He really needed to get out of here. Alen looked at his mana that rested on a solid 96%.

It was time to gather an army of poorly equipped undead.