Ding! Multiple Forest Shamblers have noticed you. They want to ruin your day. Uh, oh!

A brief moment after John squared up, a [Forest Shambler, Lvl 2] lunged out of the bushes behind him. Twigs snapped on its rough entry. A trail of mist and leaves followed.

The undead monster’s hollow sockets glared at John. The creature reached out with both hands, attempting to finish what the last shambler had started and failed.

Unlike the last time, John was going to keep his feet on the stage and dance.

He stepped aside and pivoted out of the shambler’s path. Its hands grasped at the empty air where John had been.

He circled around, taking the monster’s back. As the shambler started to turn around to face him, John let loose a speedy hook. The moment he threw it, he felt something was different.

It came out a little faster than he was used to. It felt a little stronger. And when it struck the side of the monster’s chin, it landed harder than expected. The differences were minute. But the sweet science of boxing required you to live and thrive on the smallest of advantages.

A split-second in speed usually made a big difference.

In this case, the shambler’s head snapped to the side as if it got hit by a bigger man than John. Its feet staggered in the same direction that its head went, which was away from John.

From here, a boxer had two choices: evade prematurely to avoid a suspected counterattack or press the offensive. For this reason, John had put a good chunk of his points in [Agility] and [Stamina]. He wanted to remain a hard-to-touch target.

So, he stepped to the side again. Good thing, too.

The shambler clawed at the space John had just moved from.

Other shamblers started to appear, wrestling out of the bushes or stalking down the trail John had taken. But they were all in front of him now. He sensed that he might have a clear path behind him.

There was no guarantee he would be safe running away, though. Instead of fleeing, John tucked his chin and planted himself where he stood.

His current dance partner twisted around and flailed its arm.

John ducked under it. When he came up, he returned three straight punches to the shambler’s face. It was a rapid and ravaging combination. It would’ve dazed most of John’s boxing competition. Just like before, John’s punches came out a little faster than usual. Snappier, too.

The shambler got its head flung back from the successive hits. Pieces of its decomposed face stuck to John’s knuckles. There was no time to get disgusted by rotten flesh. The fight mattered more.

Despite the damage, the shambler swung around both hands to grab at his neck again.

“Fuck!” John leaned back to get out of reach. Thank goodness he was tall, and his limbs were long.

Moving his feet to follow the rest of his body, John retreated to give himself time to think. He turned his ear toward the space behind him. He heard nothing shuffling or moaning at his backside. The way behind him remained safe for now.

But coming at his front were four shamblers: a Lvl 2, a Lvl 3, and two Lvl 4s. They were a dreadful sight to behold with the mist curling all around them. Their hollowed eyes and withered faces were the stuff of nightmares.

John quickly thought of the magic cores he had. With his mind racing, and his heart beating even faster, he tripped up on the names for a second.

The nearest shambler pounced at him again.

John dodged back once more. He gave himself some distance, but not much. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to get pushed around like this. What if another shambler hid below his vision and caught him around the ankles? If he got yanked down again with all of these shamblers on him⁠—he was fucked.

Suddenly, John remembered the name of a magic core.

“[Ratel Rookie]!” He yelled, even though he had no idea what a ratel looked like. He hoped it was something strong. He hoped he didn’t sound like a fool for yelling out some made-up sounding magic created by a psychotic gaming system. Thankfully, he received a sign that what he did was the correct thing.

He felt a strange heat flow through his head. It coursed down the back of his neck. Then it spread around his body instantly.

Stepping back out of the shambler’s reach again, John felt his gums itch slightly. Before he knew it, the incisors pressed against the edge of his bottom lip while his mouth stayed open. The tip of his fingers itched too. So did the skin along his arms, his back, and his neck. With a glance, he saw silver fur sprout from the back of his hands. His nails morphed next, stretching forward and hooking downward into claws.

The most notable change of all was the feeling of overwhelming aggression filling John up. His fear disappeared. His panic under duress changed into annoyance. The shamblers stopped becoming monsters and started looking like chumps. When the Lvl 2 shambler went for John again, he stepped within its reach to meet it head-on.

Instincts guiding him, John slipped outside the shambler’s arm and struck out his newly clawed hand. His claws pierced the shambler’s face. The strike plunged into the shambler’s skull, spraying rotten brain goop and bone chips.

The magic powering the shambler’s entire body cut off at once. It dropped and pulled its face away from John’s claws, hitting the ground like a bag of sticks.

Ding! . . .

The ding-dong system chimed, notifying John of his success without getting in the way of the fight. A brief burst of satisfaction filled John’s chest. Then the next shambler on the line stepped forward.

“You want some, too?” John growled, his voice sounding like a feral beast. The heat in his head started to burn hotter. He ignored it and took on the next shambler.

It swiped at John’s face with its bony fingers.

John bobbed and weaved out of the way. Without wasting the motion, he came out of the dodge with a quick, open-hand uppercut. He shoveled his claws up into the shambler’s neck, tearing open the decayed flesh before traveling right into the shambler’s chin.

John nearly scraped off its face, but his hand got caught on the Lvl 3 shambler’s jaw.

That stunned the creature, slowing it before it could retaliate.

The last two shamblers, the Lvl 4s, ganged up on John quickly.

At the same time, his head grew hotter. It was almost to the point of becoming unbearable.

Aggravated, John shoved his free hand into the shambler he held and yanked back his other hand.

Snap!

John came away with the shambler’s jaw. He moved too slow to avoid one of the Lvl 4s altogether. A flailing arm swatted hard against John’s shoulder and nearly knocked him off balance.

The trail floor suddenly dipped under his heels. That staggered him back even more. The [Forest Shambler, Lvl 4] hounded after him with loud moans. And John’s head felt like it was on fire.

“I hate this!” John punched his jaw-holding hand out. He walloped the improvised weapon into the Lvl 4’s jaw. Both jaws smashed to pieces!

Then he lashed out an open-handed hook and slashed open the shambler’s face. He sidestepped its grab attempt and thrust his hand like a knife. John pierced the side of its skull.

The monster fell.

Ding! . . .

“Stop, the pain, stop the pain!” John rubbed at the side of his head, skipping away from the two remaining shamblers.

The fire in his head started to simmer down. His claws receded into nails. The silvery fur reversed its growth. The fangs in his mouth returned to being normal human incisors. The [Ratel Rookie] magic core took away the power, returning John to normal.

He still felt a pulsating heat in his head, though, almost like a migraine from hell.

“Ugh,” John grunted, turning away to retreat a little. He needed space. He needed time. He could barely think with this throbbing heat in his head.

The shamblers kept him on the backheel. They were relentless. They were faster than the Level 1s.

Weren’t beginner-level monsters supposed to be weak?

Whatever [Ratel Rookie] was, it helped John with slaying monsters. But now that John turned it off, what other options did he have?

Fight them till they drop!

Planting his feet again, John decided his path and waited for the lvl 3 shambler to get closer.

It swiped at him again.

John twisted around at the waist and moved his head a few inches off to the side. He dodged the attack and countered with a straight punch. Then another straight punch down the middle. Then another and another.

Finally, the [Forest Shambler, Lvl 3] dropped and stopped moving.

Ding! . . .

That gave John a reasonable estimate of what he had to do to win without magic.

For the next half a minute, he duked it out with the last shambler. It was a Lvl 4. It moved a little faster and pressed the attack more aggressively than weaker shamblers. John kept his moves simple and counterattacked when the opening presented itself.

Sidestep. Strike.

Sidestep. Strike.

Duck down. Strike.

The shambler’s pattern was predictable. It only had a few attack maneuvers: neck grab, downward swipe, flail around. Then it would repeat the cycle. So, rather than get fancy with it, John drilled the basics. It was like having his boxing coach, Coach Jackson, yelling behind his ear during boxing practice.

It’s all about the basics, young man! It’s all about the basics! I don’t care if it’s boring. Boxers love the boring basics anyway! That was Coach Jackson, alright.

When the shambler fell, John glanced around him carefully to see if there were any more. Nothing moved. All was still. Satisfied, he bent forward and braced his hands on his knees. John let out a big whoop of a breath, his heart thumping loud and hard against his chest.

He won.

Ding! John, hooray!

Not only did you face a mob that continuously harassed you, but you tested out a Magic Core for the first time in the heat of battle. What an achievement! Bravo!

You’ve been rewarded bonus experience for first-time use of magic against multiple enemies and for defeating multiple enemies. You’ve leveled up from Lvl 4 to Lvl 5. You’ve leveled up again! From Lvl 5 to Lvl 6. You now have 16 Attribute Points and 2 Special Points.

Relish these tutorial bonus rewards because we’ll be expecting way more from you soon.

“What?” John groaned, feeling heavy and exhausted from the adrenaline dump. His head was still hot, but less so now. “Don’t expect more from me. I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

He got no reply back.

All was silent as death around him.

After catching his breath, John decided to interact with his personal interface first. He figured it was wise to dump the points where they needed to go before getting attacked again.

The mist didn’t seem like it wanted to depart from the area. It had a good hold here, even though John was confident it was midday.

God, he really needed to get the hell out of this forest before it turned into night.

He minded his attribute points in front of anything else, still. When he recalled the fight, he remembered the sensation of striking out faster and harder. His imagination couldn’t have made that up.

He knew his body well from the many hours of practice he’d put into drilling the sport of boxing. He knew how it should feel when everything was great, alright, or less than stellar. And at the start of the ambush, John pumped out attacks that were better than alright even though he hadn’t warmed up.

“I went with [Stamina] and [Agility] because you need those in a fight to stay light on your feet,” he said. “[Strength] is for more power if this is like the last RPG I played. Been a while, but I think that’s how it works. [Perceptions] is for senses if my vocab’s up to date, and I went with that because you gotta have sharp eyes and ears in a fight. Of course, I had points in [Resilience] for when I make stupid mistakes or get caught clean. No fighter’s perfect.”

He had a sound strategy.

On every odd-numbered level up, he would put 2 AP in [Stamina], [Speed], [Strength], and 1 AP in [Perceptions] and [Resilience]. On every even-numbered level up, he would spread out all the points among every attribute. The idea was not written in stone, however. Once he had more information on how everything worked, he would probably change it up.

He had an inkling that [Poise] or [Intellect] dealt with magic. How they’d do that, he had no clue. He was uncertain about the differences between them.

“Why do they need eight damn attributes for anyway?” Like, what was [Poise] supposed to be for? And what did it mean to have [Soul] in this world? It was creepy to think that the aspect of someone’s soul could get gamified here. That sounded blasphemous.

All in all, [Poise], [Intellect], and [Soul] were some arbitrary attributes. They made John want to pay more attention to the physical attributes for now. He’d still spread the love on an even-numbered level up, but that would be it until he found further education on all of this.

With that out of the way, John glanced at his available MCP and his two magic cores. [Ratel Rookie, MCP 2] turned out to be clutch at first until he got that killer migraine from the fires of the underworld. The migraine settled down now, leaving his head warm and sore. It was like a reminder that he’d overused [Ratel Rookie] somehow.

Seriously, what the hell was a ratel? Did he transform into some sort of halfbreed creature?

“Did I become a werewolf?” John asked, staring at his nails.

If he did become a werewolf, wouldn’t it say that? Weren’t werewolves that could transform back and forth called Lycans?

He’d heard that from this goth girl he was talking to once. Nothing happened between them, and they’d eventually faded from each other, but he’d learned a lot from her. Wiccans. Vampires. All sorts of weird but interesting occult stuff. She’d asked him once if he would prefer to be a vampire or a werewolf?

“I don’t want to burn up in the sun, but I don’t want to be anything that’s associated with sniffing butts.”

Yeah, he had a feeling a ratel wasn’t something dog-like. But he couldn’t figure out what sort of animal it was related to on earth. Maybe it was a mythical creature from Urmatia.

Yeah, that would make sense.

“It was an aggressive thing,” John said. “Had me worked up. Like the shamblers’ stole my lunch money, and I was going to get it back no matter what.”

Too bad he couldn’t use it for long. It was a little freaky, transforming like that. Especially the start of it. It made him feel inhuman. But at the same time, the damage he did to the two shamblers that got caught slipping was great. Yeah, he’d like to test this out more and figure out ways to use it without burning his head up.

Now that led to the next Magic Core, [Brightlight Orb, MCP 2].

“[Brightlight Orb],” John said. His head burned up a little. It wasn’t too harsh, but he now knew he was using the same power source that [Ratel Rookie] used.

His body didn’t itch this time, however.

An actual bright light appeared next to John’s head. It was the size and shape of a tennis ball. It shone white light around him. When he looked at it directly, he didn’t suffer from light glare. He could look away and see perfectly fine. It was precisely the thing the spell suggested it was.

And that’s random as hell.

“Is this magic roulette?” John asked. “Why’d I get something like [Ratel Rookie] paired with this thing?”

John waved at the glob of light. It bobbed up with his movement. Curious, he gestured his arm around again. The orb didn’t move. He gestured again while having the intent for the light orb to move. It did as requested. His head didn’t burn that badly throughout. It felt like a very slow tick upward in heat compared to using [Ratel Rookie].

“How far can you go?” John asked. This time, using only his mind, he directed the orb to go forward.

It did just that, piercing through the mist with its light. Shadows shifted around while it moved. The light revealed a [Forest Shambler, Lvl 4] that was leaning against a tree trunk. It would’ve stayed hidden while covered in the creepy mist and forest shadows.

The shambler didn’t respond to the light. It stayed where it was, but John knew it would spring to action as soon as he got near it. The heat in John’s head ticked up a tad more.

Before the magic migraine became unbearable, John shut down [Brightlight Orb] with a thought. It winked out as if it was never there. The shadows gathered where they liked. The shambler didn’t entirely disappear, but it melded with the forest background easier. Anyone unsuspecting would’ve gotten their neck seized and wrung when passing it.

“Okay, let’s grab the loot, then deal with that thing,” John murmured. The shambler stayed put. “Deal with that thing, then follow that weird feeling pointing me in a certain direction. It could be that [Inner Compass] in the talents section.”

Before he got to looting, John put 2 MCP into [Ratel Rookie], raising that to MCP 4.

He might need it for another fight soon.

A few minutes later, John gathered an interesting haul. From the four bodies, he found four pouches. That could possibly mean every shambler would have valuables on them. Beyond that, he saw that each one had a copper or two in the pouches.

In total, he now had 7 Celcia Copper Coins.

Through his rummaging, he found 2 more poor vitality stones. He also found 3 poor stamina stones. And he found a poor mana stone. However, he didn’t find any essence stones, which made him think those were valuable after all. Everything could fit pretty well into one pouch, but John tied a second pouch to his rope belt just in case.

“I got a clue what’s going to happen if I smash some of these, too.” He felt tired from the fight. His head was still hot and throbbing.

John dropped a stamina stone and a mana stone. He crushed them under his heel with a few stomps. Yellow and blue sparks fizzled through the air and circled around him, drizzling recovery dust. Once they faded, John felt some of his energy return. His head cooled a good amount.

Looking down, he saw his knuckles were bruised up.

“Should I?” John asked. Yeah, might as well.

He stomped on a vitality stone and watched the bruising around his knuckles mend. He also felt some of his other aches dull away. He hadn’t realized he was pretty bruised up even though he only took a few hits.

John shook his head, feeling incredulous. This is insane. I can box up gamified zombies until they drop dead again. I can heal, recover my stamina, and make my magic migraines settle down by crushing colorful stones. And I get rewards like power-ups and loot. Wow.

“Why do they have these things in their pouches anyway?” John asked. Was that a system thing? Or did they die with these items on them? Could it be a religious practice? Whatever it was, they had a random person like John coming around and taking their stuff.

Does game nonsense have to make sense?

“Hello! Is anyone there?”

John jerked at the sound of another person’s voice. It sounded like a young guy around his age, maybe younger.

“I woke up strangely like I was resuscitated. And it’s very misty. Where am I?” yelled the new person.

They weren’t far away based on what John could hear. But they weren’t near either. Maybe 200 feet off the trail and into the forest. Maybe more.

Who am I kidding? I have no idea.

Heart pounding, John glanced at the tree that had the shambler waiting to attack someone.

The monster was gone.

The mist thickened.

John Wright, Lvl 6

Race: Outerhuman, Rank 1

Weapon Art:

Heroic Blessing: One Good Punch, Rank 1

Total AP: 48

Resilience: 6

Stamina: 9

Strength: 9

Agility: 9

Perception: 6

Poise: 3

Intellect: 3

Soul: 3

Unspent: 0

Talents: [Identify, Rank 1], [New World Linguistics, Rank 1], [Inner Compass, Rank 1].

WA Skills:

Magic Cores (Max. 2): [Ratel Rookie, MCP 4], [Brightlight Orb, MCP 2].

Available MCP: 0

Gear & Loot: [Leather Boots, Poor], [Trousers, Poor], [Tunic, Poor], [Rope Belt, Poor], [Small Pouch, Poor], [Essence Stone, Poor], [Vitality Stone, Poor], [Stamina Stone, Poor/2], [Celcia Coin, Copper/7].