Chapter 25: Eyes Wide Open

As usual, I woke up with the voices inside my head and they were gibberish evil groans. Although I slept without a nightmare last night, I was starting to get used in this chaotic state of mind like it was normal. Dear god, please help me!

I tried to call god, but he wasn’t answering. Yeah, I removed the capitalization in my prayers, so it would grab his attention. None of it worked. I wondered if the Dark Lord was blocking my communication with god. If so, god was right. I really fucked myself up.

It was already morning. When sunlight crept from the crevice of the wall and hit my eyes, I forced myself to get up and did some stretching. I was in the mood of taking a bath today, so I gave myself a nice and cold bath. It’s hard to do things with just one hand, especially when taking a shit.

Normally, I’d use my left hand to wipe my butt and my right hand to rinse it with water. Unfortunately, I lost my left hand and I was forced to use my right hand for both wiping and rinsing. It’s disgusting, but I made sure to wash my hand thoroughly with soap.

I was feeling good today, so gave myself a haircut. There was a mirror in the bathroom and god, I looked horrible. My hair and my beard were unkempt that I really looked like a mad man. I trimmed my beard to a few centimeters and I didn’t like to shave it clean because it would make my skin itchy when it grows back. Shocking, I know, but I do have a sensitive skin.

After that, I continued with my journey and the place seemed more familiar. I was getting closer to home and from my pace, I’d probably be there at night. Of course, I wasn’t expecting Jen to be there if she was still alive, but it would give me clues as to where she went. I just hoped that she survived the Merge and the earthquake.

Slime Lvl. 28 “KILL THEM! KILL THEM!”

“SHUT UP!” I screamed.

The voices in my head were starting to speak in comprehensible language again and thank god, they stopped. I continued to kill every slimes on my way and looted them. These slimes, not only they could be frozen easily, were also extremely flammable. A spark of my flame was enough to evaporate them within seconds. I guess it’s the price of being immune to physical attacks.

Unlike the other day, the EXP per kill was much lower and levelling up while grinding these monsters were taking too slow. Although 0.61% per kill was considered fast in MMORPGs, in real life, it wasn’t that fast because of non-programmed actions and I needed to be constantly aware of my environment.

In MMORPGs, you can grind monsters over and over again while your mind is in ‘auto-pilot’ because all you have to do is click and tap some keyboard buttons. Unfortunately, real life didn’t have macros. Sure, my skill [Auto-cast] can be considered as a macro, but it wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, one of the burning slimes spat out something as my mind slipped off and went on auto-pilot again. It spat out a slimy projectile and I tried my best to dodge it on the last second. Unfortunately, I was only partially successful in dodging and a handful of it got into the left side of my face.

“AHHHHH!!!”

I let out a cry as the acid continued to dissolve my face. In my panic, I grabbed my staff and poured water directly to my eye to ease myself from the pain and to remove the acid. After a few splashes of water, the acid was completely removed, but I was blind in my left eye.

As the slimes surrounded me, I stood up and unleashed a ring of flames to burn all the slimes in my fury. Not minding the pain, I burned every single slimes around me leaving nothing behind but smoking remains on the ground.

Level up!

I tried to find more of them, but I think that’s all. Damn it! My eye was stinging in pain. There was a building nearby and I immediately entered it to cover myself from the monsters while I heal my wound. I sat down to the floor and took out a mirror from my inventory to assess the damage.

The acid burnt almost half of my face and my eyeball was melted off completely. I cast [Heal] on myself to fix my disfigured face. The burnt skin fell off to the floor and healed. Although it was a success, the skin was scarred and it looked like scales. My left eye was missing and only a hollow eye socket was all that was left.

It was still morning, so I decided to delay my journey for the day and try to restore my eyeball as much as possible. I cast [Living Matter Manipulation] and analyzed my right eye thoroughly. After I memorized its size, tissues, cells and its entire structure, I cast the spell again to grow my eye from the optic nerve.

The pain was unbearable as if the spell was discouraging me from restoring my left eye. I pulled out a face towel from my inventory and placed it in my mouth in order to prevent me from biting off my tongue. There were times that I fainted because of pain and wake up doing it all over again. After several hours of forcing to grow my eye, I gave up and called it a day.

I was fuming over the loss of a limb and now, the loss of my eye and that was just in a span of two fucking days. Goddammit! My luck was at all time low. As much as I wanted to hunt down every slimes in this area and perhaps tear down the dungeon itself, I was so close to my destination and I would finally return home.

As I calmed myself down, I noticed that I was in a small drugstore. I looked around to see what I could use. I grabbed all the bottles of Valium and Ritalin I could find. I knew that self medication was dangerous and drinking both of them at the same time would surely fucked me up. But I once read that Valium could help me in my anxiety and Ritalin can help me focus. Anyway, these drugs would only be my last resort when I’m really desperate. Maybe I can get myself high when I have the time.

I also found an eye patch. I wore the eye patch to cover my left eye and when I looked myself in the mirror, for the first time, I was pleased with my appearance. Holy shit on a stick! I really looked badass with an eye patch, especially with the scaly scar on my left face. I looked like a plump version of The Governor in The Walking Dead. Not in the comic book, mind you, but the TV series.

Now that I have all the drugs I needed. I decided to try again. I regretted that I didn’t take pain killers when I restored my left eye. God, I was stupid! I didn’t realize earlier that I was in a drugstore. I took a few tablets of pain killers. I’ve waited for a few minutes for the drugs to take effect and I cast [Living Matter Manipulation] on my left eye.

Like the first try, the pain wasn’t lessened even for a bit. In fact, it was more painful. I stopped casting my magic and tried to grab a knife and made a small incision in my arm to make sure the drug was effective. I came into conclusion that the pain from using my magic wasn’t physical, but mental. More like magical, actually. It didn’t make any sense at all.

I took out a corpse of a dire wolf to experiment with my magic. I did the same thing last night. Analyzing the anatomy of the wolf then using my magic to modify its body structure. I had an idea that perhaps I could use the dire wolf’s eyeball to replace my eye, but I decided against it as it could turn me into an Abomination.

It was clear that I was doing something wrong with my magic. What the hell was that pain? Even with my passive skill [Masochism], the pain was unbearable. It was possible that this was the same reason why Jormund and his Abominations became crazy.

I think it’s already midnight and I couldn’t sleep. With nothing else to do, I looked around the drugstore and I found a locked door in the back near the freezer. I was curious, so I forced the lock to open by heating it up until it melted.

I raised my staff to prepare myself. I didn’t know what monster to expect in that dark room. I summoned a small flame on the top of my staff to guide my way into the darkness. The room has a metal spiral staircase leading downstairs into the basement. Whatever it was, it’s obvious that the owner of this place had a secret.

There were dozens of pots of plants that I suspected to be marijuana. The owner was growing weed in the basement at the place of his business. How ironic that he chose drugstore as a front for his illegal operations. I was actually expecting meth rather than weed. There were also processed weeds packed in plastic which I assumed were ready to be sold and a wooden pipe used to smoke it.

I opened my inventory screen and unfortunately, there was no more space. I took out some unnecessary items from my inventory like the wolves’ corpses and some junk weapons and stored the bags and pots of weed. I was thinking that these weeds would fetch a high price in the market and I should try some too. I took the wooden smoking pipe and went upstairs to get high.

You see, never in my life I ever did any drugs. And when I say drugs, those drugs that could get me high and illegal drugs. My mom was a cop and a very strict. She actually had me take a drug test when I was in high school because I was suspected that I was doing drugs even though I was doing really good at school.

It was only a false rumor and some dumbass teachers and even the principal and my favorite science teacher believed it too. I suspected that it was the same reason why I was not chosen as a valedictorian in our batch and that bitch who earned that award was probably the one who started the rumor. I was completely innocent and the only persons who believed me was Eric, Dianne, Jen and my mom. My mom only did what she did because she wanted to prove those assholes that I was innocent.

That day I realized that the world doesn’t care whether you are innocent or not. People are always quick to judge and with or without proof, they will believe whatever they want to believe. It’s unfair, but that is how the world works. Only fools like my mom would believe that there is justice in this world.

Anyway, enough with that. It was my first time to get high. It was a shame that I would experience this alone. I prefer to share it with others. Eric and Richard would probably join me on this trip. I don’t know if Claire, Dianne or Melissa would allow it though.

I put a pinch of weed inside the pipe. I summoned a small flame on my finger and lit it. I was nervous and excited at the same time and my mind was having second thoughts of doing it. Fuck this. I will get high this night and no one can stop me!

I took a puff and let the smoke ravaged my lungs. It’s unhealthy, I know, but I already lost a hand and an eye in just two days on my journey. I was more afraid of dying from the monsters than from lung cancer.

After a few minutes, I started to feel the effect. It was awesome. I felt like I was floating in the clouds and the voices inside my head were like whispers of seductive women. If this was the effect of weed on me, I’d definitely smoke this shit every day. I was glad that I probably have all the weed for an entire lifetime.

But then, I had an uncontrollable urge to laugh at every single thing I saw. I was reading my book about the monsters and wow! I never realized before that this book was ridiculous.

I snuffed out the smoke and stopped smoking. I think I had enough weed and I was getting too high.

The sun would rise in a few hours, so I decided to sleep for a bit.

I think it was already late in the morning when I woke up. While I was asleep, my mind seemed to be completely awake and it stayed aware as I think of another way to restore my limb. I took out the dire wolf’s corpse again and continued where I left off last night.

I cut off a forearm of the wolf and removed the skin and muscles using [Living Matter Manipulation]. My idea was to see with my own eyes (Correction: eye) on how the spell really works. Using my sword’s blade, I cut the bone into two, then I used my magic to glue it together.

I also tried to crush a bone into a fine powder and used my magic to rebuild the bones. Surprisingly, it worked. Although the bone’s shape was flawed compared to its original shape, the bone dusts were turned into a piece of solid bone again. This means that I could use this spell to make another hand and reattach it to the stump of my left hand.

The problem with that solution? First was the fleshy part of the hand. I could try to use my own flesh to cover the bones, but that would also be painful. Second, my body would probably reject new hand. It will rot and I will go into a septic shock. And finally, there’s a possibility that the operation would turn me into an Abomination. The risk was unacceptable.

No matter. I’m sure I’ll come up with another idea. On the bright side, It was great that I didn’t have a nightmare. Ever since I left Camp Aguinaldo, not once, did I have a nightmare. Although I could still hear the whispers, I felt better and much more energetic than ever. I looked around the drugstore again to make a last sweep the place for valuables before I leave.

I was excited that there might be more hidden treasures around this place like the weeds I found last night. Alas, I found nothing but junk. I decided to continue my journey. I’d probably reach our house this afternoon considering the fact that I’d fight monsters on the way.

I fought the slimes with [Chain Hellfire], but as soon as they burn, I ran into cover until they die. I was successful at preventing them from spitting at me and I realized that I was just lucky the other day that they didn’t try their acid spit attack on me. This time I was extremely careful even if the monster density was lessened from my grinding on the other day.

As I reached Ilugin river, I noticed that there were no more slimes on the other side of the bridge. I stopped for a while to observe. The corpses lying on the road were surprisingly fresh and even though the blood and the guts on the ground were rotting and dry, some of the corpses have fresh open wounds.

I had a bad feeling about this. You see, back in the university, this was almost same scene where we walked into a sleeping undead horde. Although they were easy to kill and I knew a way to hide myself from them, I couldn’t remove the image in my head of thousands of flesh eating corpses chasing us. I was a little bit traumatized from that incident.

Now, at least I was the one who saw them first and they were unaware of my presence. I think the reason why these zombies haven’t crossed this river was probably because of the slimes. Slimes can consume anything in their path, including the bones and, possibly, the zombie’s dark mana.

I let out a deep sigh and stood up as I gathered what remained of my courageous balls. I wasn’t really afraid of the zombies, but I was afraid that Jen turned into one. I hope not. If she does, however, I don’t think I could kill her.

I pointed my staff at the lying corpses and used [Chain Hellfire] to burn them. I was correct in my suspicion though. Well, technically correct. The best kind of correct. They were zombies but a different kind. The fast kind.

Fast Zombie Lvl. 14

When the flames touched their bodies, they woke up and tried to stand up, but they fell to the ground and let out a shriek as the flames devoured their bodies in mere seconds. When I finished off all the zombies near the bridge, I left one of the fast zombies and I decided to kill it with [Rock Bullet].

I wasn’t taking any chances with these kind of zombies. I haven’t seen them run yet, but once I’m bitten, it’s over. Once I’ve taken care off of the zombies around me, I took out the dried ‘gutsy’ piece of cloth I wore back in the university and covered it with fresh blood and guts. It seemed that my nose became insensitive with this kind of smell.

As soon as I was done with my preparations, I walked through the zombie infested streets while I burned everything in my path. The zombies tried to get up and randomly flail at the unseen attacker. Some of them have guessed where I was. Obviously, they couldn’t get far.

“AHHHH!!! HELP ME!”

There was a scream in the distance. The zombies must’ve heard it too, because the voice woke them up and went in the direction of the sound and ignored me. The zombies sprinted with fervor as if they have found their meal. I didn’t know where the sound came, so I ran and followed the running zombies.

Have you ever watched World War Z or Train to Busan? I hate those kinds of zombies and the zombies around me were like those in the movies. First, they’re too fast and I’m too fat. Second, they were faster in a horde because they were pushing each other forward.

“AHHHH!!!”

“JEN! NOOOO!”

Someone shouted ‘Jen’. Could it be? I felt the adrenaline surge in my body as I heard a bloodcurdling scream of a woman. I ran while I repeatedly cast [Rock Bullet] around me. When I arrived at where the scream came from, there was a woman and a girl on the top of a trailer truck. The truck was about to fall over because of the number of zombies pushing the truck in order to get them.

“AHHHHHH! NOOO-“

I looked around and saw dozens of zombies feasting on someone on the ground. I cast [Earth Wall] around the woman and the girl in the truck as I burn the rest of the zombies to ashes. I also cast [Tailwind] to prevent me and the others from suffocating. I was hoping that whoever the zombies were feasting, it wished that it wasn’t my sister.

As soon as the zombies around the woman were dead, I sprinted towards her to look. It was clear that she was already dead as the body was ripped open and gnawed. I let out a deep sigh as I realized that it wasn’t my sister. It just happened that she and my sister had the same name.

“Help us!” The girl shouted.

Oh, I almost forgot the two survivors on the top of the truck. There were hundreds of zombies around us and they were trying to climb the wall. Again, I cast [Chain Hellfire] and since my mana pool and control were high, I easily killed all of the zombies in a few minutes and to save mana, I cast the spell for only 2 seconds per zombie and let the burning effect take care the rest of their HP. They were too close to each other and they easily caught fire.

Level up!

Remarkably, I only spent two thirds of my entire mana pool to kill every zombies surrounding us. I was getting really good with magic. After I rested for a bit, I decided to move on and leave the two survivors on their own. Anyway, I was only worried that the woman who died was my sister.

As I turned my back from the survivors, I felt a slight tug on my robe.

“Good sir...” The voice said. “Please help my fwiend, nyah!”

Did she say ‘nyah’? I rubbed my eye to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating. What the fuck is she?

“Are you for real?” I asked with a tone of suspicion.

“Please, I’m begging you, nyah!” The girl pleaded and embraced my leg.

Holy shit! IT’S A CAT GIRL! A real live cat girl!

I stared at her for a bit. She’s just a little girl and judging from her looks and height she’s around 5-6 years old. She was like a typical cat girl in anime, except that this wasn’t even an anime. Cat ears, whiskers on her cheeks and an orange tail on her back. She’s really cute! Especially with those begging cat eyes. It reminds me of Puss in Boots’ eyes in Shrek.

I approached the other survivor to see what was wrong as the girl didn’t let go of her grip on my robe. The woman seemed to have been bitten on her shoulder and she was – blonde?

You see, in the Philippines, naturally blonde hair was almost non-existent. Except, if the person was a foreigner or an albino. Obviously, this woman wasn’t an albino. I found her pretty, probably prettier than Claire, even though blondes weren’t my particular taste in women. She stared at me and mumbled something. I placed my ear near her lips to hear her better.

“Kill me. Just kill me.” The woman whispered.

“Are you sure? I can heal you.” I asked. “Probably.”

The woman did not respond, but her blue eyes that were once filled with desperation, was replaced with hope.

“So do you want to live?” I asked.

The woman nodded. “Yes.”

I know what you’re thinking. It was a stupid question, but I didn’t want to save someone who didn’t want to be saved. If I never knew a spell that could cure her, I’d probably do it. I might hesitate for a while, but I’ll do it to spare someone from suffering. How would I know that she preferred to die than to live in this shitty apocalyptic world? It was a fair question.

I placed my hand on her wound and healed it first. The woman groaned and gritted her teeth as her wounds heal. The first time I cured a zombie infection, Claire was pale and she had a fever because of the dark mana infection. But since the woman got her wound a few minutes ago, the dark mana occupied less than 2% of her mana core.

I used [Mana Transfer] to push out all the dark mana from her core. It was easy since her mana core’s size was small compared to Claire. I didn’t know what her intelligence was, but I think it was 9-10. Average. And no, I don’t believe that blondes are dumb. Anyone can be dumb be it, blondes, brunettes, redheads, big tits or small tits.

“Is it done?” She asked.

“Yeah, you won’t turn into one of them.” I said to her.

The cat girl immediately embraced the woman and cried. The blonde woman’s face seemed familiar. I think I’ve seen her before, but I just couldn’t point it out. Whatever. I have no business of staying with them, so I stood up and walked away.

“Wait!” The woman shouted.

“What?”

“Can we come with you?” She asked.

“No.” I shook my head and walked away.

Saving a pretty damsel in distress wasn’t my intention. The truth was I really didn’t care what would happen to them. I healed the blonde woman because the cat girl asked me to and she wouldn’t leave me alone if I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t protect myself very well. They’re probably useless and would drag me down. I didn’t have the time nor the energy for burden like them.

As I walked through the road, I noticed that the two survivors were following me. I tried to ignore them as I killed the sleeping zombies with my fire magic. They were too distracting and I couldn’t resist, but to kill the zombies trying to get them. The zombies were attracted to their smell.

“Stop following me!” I shouted.

The woman and the cat girl stopped in their tracks as they hunched their shoulders. It was obvious that they were afraid of me. Well, I’d be afraid of me too.

“W-we’re not following you.” The woman replied as she stuttered.

“Then what are you doing?”

“We’re just- we’re going in the same direction.”

“What a lame excuse.” I said to her. “Now, shoo. I don’t need a burden.”

After a few steps, I heard footsteps still following me. I think they were more afraid of the zombies than me. I turned around and glared at them. The blonde woman raised her fire axe and returned my death glare while the cat girl trembled and hid behind her back.

“Now, what did I say about following me? Sorry lady, but I don’t think I can cure deafness nor stupidity.”

“We don’t need your protection. We can take care of ourselves.” She bragged.

Player: ???

Race: Human Level: 10 Party: N/A Faction: N/A

Player: ???

Race: Beastman-Feline Variant Level: 4 Party: N/A Faction: N/A

“Right.” I muttered.

“If you’re planning to stick around for a while, you should rub your clothes with zombie guts, so they won’t attack you. You’re like a big sign that says lunch time.” I said as I threw a pair of gloves.

The woman reluctantly did what I said. She was gagging from the smell and snarled at me as she rubbed zombie guts all over her clothes and the cat girl’s. She even mumbled “asshole” when she thought I wasn’t listening. I ignored her and waited for them to finish.

“You done?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She said with a fake smile. “Do you even know who I am?”

The aura she was emitting set off my danger meter. It was a red alarm and it said ‘Entitled bitch’. Did she seriously think I cared? For fuck’s sake. All women I met were ungrateful cunts, entitled bitches and idiots?

“Nope.” I shook my head. “I don’t care. Is this a case of amnesia? Or are you just too dumb to remember your name?”

The woman approached and stood in front of me. She stood up straight with her chin raised up and looked down on me. I think she’s trying to intimidate me or something. She was much taller than me and she was at least 6 feet in height. It sucks to be Asian.

“I’m Daria Swann.” She said.

“And so?”

“Do you live in a cave or something?”

Ah, that’s why she looked oddly familiar. She’s a singer. From what I remembered, she was prettier before, but now, I think it was just because of make-up and that she was younger. I think she was 16 when I saw her concert, but that was 6 years ago. She changed a lot from what I can tell, but I guess, this was her real attitude.

“Do you really think your fame means anything now?” I retorted. “I saved both of your asses earlier and I never heard a single ‘thank you’.”

“T-thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I said. “Now, get off of my face!”

Daria stepped back and tried her best to keep her composure. I continued to walk my way to our house, but this useless cunt and the cat girl still followed me even though they claimed that they didn’t need my protection. I totally regretted saving these two.

Author's Notes:

I was extremely busy with my work and I only had an hour per day to write. Don't worry though. I won't drop this story and I intend to finish this one. It's a long shot though. Anyway, if I ever slow down again, you don't have to worry. It's probably because I'm busy.

By the way, if there is someone willing to make a cover for this fiction, please PM me. I don't have money, obviously. But I will make sure to give you credit the cover.