I am not a picky eater, although my mother may beg to differ. And, perhaps, as a child, I had refused to eat carrots, or broccoli, or chili soup. But those where my childish actions and as I grew up and matured as an adult, I realized that I would be fine with anything, as long as it was easy to make. Making food for yourself just doesn’t have the same return on investment to it as making food for others does. When I am alone, I grab whatever may be hanging around my kitchen and eat it on my couch, stale or otherwise.

That said, the wynot I ate was beyond a description so mundane as stale. Even words like dry, bland, overcooked, and tough do not come close to approaching the dish that is freshly cleansed wynot. While it is considered a local delicacy, I am afraid the dish leaves my palate wanting a lot of things.

Oh wynot, shall I compare thee to several saltines? Thou art more dry and dusty. Large gulps of water barely ease the discomfort you bring. I am parched more thoroughly after eating you than any spoonful of cinnamon.

Or shall I compare thee to that of a hard chunk of gum, where no matter how much I chewed, it refused to breakdown under the might of my molars? Nay, tis you who have surpassed them all, leaving only a fleeting memory of their existences.

Alright, all kidding aside, the wynot was a tough bastard to kill and even tougher to eat. But eat it I did because for everything that it was it wasn’t disgusting and it filled my stomach. That could not be said about anything else here so I am counting my blessings carefully on this one. I had to almost literally choke the small bites down, but, eh, it could be worse. At least I wasn’t throwing them back up immediately.

I finish my dis-satisfying meal and think perhaps that I should leave a poor review anonymously instead of making a scene. I am sure my message will get across to the correct people if I word it properly with cutting phrases that would make the head chef pale.

The little set of jaw bones and teeth from the wynot are sitting on my dresser where I had left them, looking for all its worth like a miniature set of very sharp vampire teeth. Should I start collecting these and string them up as a necklace? That would be pretty badass, I would become like a tribal person, showing off my might by displaying the bones of my fallen enemies. But maybe the wynots ar low class monsters here and I would only be making a fool of myself. Besides, the little jaw is creeping me out, so I instead pick it up and toss it outside.

As I step out, I notice that there are two zombies ambling towards me, looking tired and hurt as if they are lost travelers, seeking only a roof under their heads to pass the night and perhaps a light meal. Not only am I going to have to decline their request though, I’m also going to have to bash their heads in with thor’s hammer. I’m not racist, It’s just the homeowners association's policy towards these vagrant types.

…

Where are these things coming from anyway? Are they simply spawning? And why now, is there a timing mechanism?

...

I look around quickly but I do not spot any other zombies or skeletons. I hope that this is not another mob scene or trap and quickly step back in to reach for Thor’s hammer. I leave the knife though, it failed me when I needed it and does not get a name today. I’ll try the other one tomorrow, but I do not think I will need a knife for this zombie work. And I’ll probably just hurt myself again if I try to use it. The only experience I have ever had with knifing flesh is cutting half frozen chicken breasts.

…

Dang, I am still hungry. However delightful the Wynot was, it was not enough.

…

I scout out the area again from my door, but I still do not see any extra players involved in this raid. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself at the doorway to engage the enemy.

Warning! You have been infected by airborne instance bacteria!

Negative effects will stack

God damn it.

I cleanse myself and move forward. After taking out a bunch of these earlier today, I go out and easily smash the skull of the first zombie. Gee, human’s adaptability is amazing. It was only early this morning that I was trembling in my room as a zombie banged on my door. Now I am out here, taking care of business like it is my job, which, I guess it kinda is at this point. I do not feel daunted by these two undead. I prepare to take out the next one, quickly getting around behind it and I consider my flare skill.

Of all my skills, my flare skill is my most powerful and while I seem to have explored the possibilities of cleanse pretty thoroughly at this point, I know a lot less about the limitations of flare.

When I used it against enemies in the past, the skill explosively dealt damage to these undead, even with very little force behind my hits. Case in point, I coat Thor’s hammer in flare and lightly tap the back of the skull of my last opponent. As if I set off an bomb, the skull explodes away from me, the headless and necklace corpse fall sideways on to the ground.

I really don't want to look at my new fallen foe, but I suppose I should study a fresh one if I want to understand my skill better. Grimacing in distaste, I squat down next to the rotting zombie.

…

If this thing jerks up at me in some jumpscare, I am going to lose it.

…

Thankfully, the zombie appears to have expired, whatever unholy energy that was animating it has left it completely. Also, looking as closely at the neck as I can stand, I see that the skin and flesh there is slowly disintegrating, suggesting the effect of my skill is still working on it.

Fascinating. I study it for a couple more minutes as the effects keep decelerating and then eventually stop, its effect now dissipated. After a few more minutes I reach out and grab the zombies disgusting shoulder and use cleanse on it. I see the shoulder smoking and turning black before eventually just disintegrating away. I pull my hand away and the effect stops immediately. Huh, I thought that might be the case. I was sure it wouldn't cleanse itself into a lump of white flesh like the wynots did, considering the fungi’s lack of interest toward it, but it is a little comforting to know that cannibalism is off the table.

I then reach out and use my heal skill on the zombie. This will be the first time using it on an external object, but I am confident I can figure it out. I feel the cold chills inside me, but I force them over and out of my right hand. A cold blue flame appears on my right hand and I touch the zombie with it. I really hope this does not reanimate it or something.

Nothing happens at first, but I keep it up for a few more seconds, ignoring the discomfort of my right hand. Eventually nothing does happen and I let it go. It appears to have a neutral effect on this undead zombie.

I consider my heal skill, I have already used it to try to fix my eyesight to perfect 20/20, but alas, it didn’t work. I am still stuck with glasses. I had used it earlier on my scars on my body to great effect. I had a long thin scar on my left bicep were I burned it on the oven several years ago, it looked convincingly like a knife wound. It's gone now. There was a small round scar on my belly where a mole had been removed about ten years ago and biopsied. Considering my father’s history with skin cancer, the epidemiologist thought it was prudent to take the suspicious looking mole away for testing and it left me with a nice scar. The result was negative for the cancer too, but now my belly is without blemish.

My left index finger, I think, was broken when I was a kid, the first knuckle just doesn’t look quite right. It doesn’t affect me at all though, so I had only suspected it. It was confirmed when I used my heal skill on it though, and that one really hurt. I guess it broke it to fix it, but man, if I had known it was going to feel like that I would not have done it.

My left ankle had been rolled really badly at a basketball game two years ago and it has been sensitive and a little sore ever since. Not anymore. And my left knee where I rammed the handlebar of my bike when I rammed into a tree on a trail? It got sore easily, but it is all better now.

I admit I was a little bit giddy at having all of these things fixed.

But my eyesight? That it would not change, nor my colorblindness. I don't know why, I guess it is because its a pre-existing or natural thing. Genetics, you know? That was what my DNA told my body to do, so who does the heal skill thing he is to contradict my DNA?

But this means several other things which I am immediately concerned about. Sure, if I make it back to earth while retaining these powers, I could probably heal my dad’s chronic skin cancer issues. And also my mom’s arthritis, and possibly my eldest brother's wife who has some sort of bowel disease. But those are not the real issues, no. The real issue is my second brother’s wife, she has multiple sclerosis, or MS for short. Also, it is the, worse, progressive kind.

Her story is simple and tragic. She had had a few symptoms during her early marriage, such as a mild numbing of the face from time to time, but the issue was never diagnosed. When she had her first child though, her pregnancy accelerated the process and within a few short months went from being strong and healthy, to weak and in a wheelchair. All the cups got replaced with plastic ones in her house as her grip weakened and the stairs became and impassable obstacle.

Worse yet were the treatments, but that’s the heart of the issue of what MS really is. It is an autoimmune disease, where my sister-in law's body is literally attacking itself, in this case, her spinal cord. There is no cure and treatments mean literally poisoning her body to stop her immune system from attacking her nerves. The several years of disease, treatment, illnesses, and doctors and hospitals and universities had left her a shell of the once bright and energetic person she was.

She is actually doing much better these days. Last year she ditched the doctors and hospitals and universities and drugs and her “treatments” and went for a more holistic approach. It is very diet based, whole, organic food and what not and she is doing very well. I think it's just because she’s not getting poisoned anymore, but am I the one with a doctorate? No, I am not. I just know she walked upright with a walker for the first time recently and she and my brother intentionally have another kid coming their way. I never would have thought that they would want that again.

But that brings me back to my healing skill. Will it work on a disease like MS, a disease where the body is attacking itself? If I do make it back with my skills instact, it had better work on her or I will be super pissed. To have a heal skill that wouldn't cure my sister-in-law? What a joke.

When I am done experimenting with my heal skill, I turn toward my final skill. I reach out again and grab further down the arm and try to coat with a little flare.

The result is astounding as the skin and flesh I am touching just explodes, the arm being torn in half from the kinetic force and little bits of zombie falls everywhere, including on my face.

I am once again glad my mouth is closed and my glasses are on. With a quick cleanse, my new infection is gone and worries abated.

This finding suggests several things to me. The first is in the nature of a light attribute, which I suspect to be the kryptonite to these undead things. The cleanse skill, which is also a light attribute skill of course, does damage to zombies and wynots but from earlier tests, not any of my books, dressers, or bed. I had already deduced that light and dark, positive and negative, are fixed objective points according the the system and even my light based cleanse skill that is supposed to be a supporting function is super effective against these undead.

I suspect that my flare skill is the same, as I can easily coat object in my room with flare, but any interaction with these undead types inflicts massive damage to them.

And, judging by how everything explodes on contact with the flare skill, I think it is like certain highly reactive elements in nature, like putting an alkali metal into water. When the skill touches undead the undead itself seems to explode and disintegrate at the same time. Since everything here is undead, that makes my flare skill pretty op here. As long as I have the mp to back it up.

I stand up and survey the land around my house, a little unsatisfied that I hadn’t gained another level at that last exchange. While I don't see any bars or values towards getting the sweet sweet nector of experience points, I feel it’s there somewhere and that I deserved a level for what I had accomplished since my last one. If this was pokemon first gen, I would be checking my status every wild pokemon I defeated now. Maybe these zombies are just too low level, but I feel pretty low level myself at four. Then again, I don’t even know what spread of levels there are out there and what the figures would possibly be for mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. There could be level gazillion people out there for all I know.

I look over my house again, and man, it looks like a warzone out here. There are over twelve bodies lying around my house, along with two impressive piles of human bones. It looks like I have gone through a zombie apocalypse.

I actually had a really good plan for the zombie apocalypse should it ever occur. My twin and I had spent and evening drawing one up back when we were in high school. It mostly involved guns, swords, and securing an area outside of town where we would be able to eventually start a new community with the ability to grow our own food. It was like a five year plan, but it was made before my twin had a wife and kids. When I get back, we are going to have to make some significant adjustments to it to keep it up to date. Somehow, a zombie apocalypse sounds only too plausible now.

Despite how good our plan was, it also involved me staying on earth, not getting moved here, so I guess that point is moot now. Oh well.

I see a big flaw in the plan anyway, looking at my yard. When we draw our next one up, we’ll have to include this variable. What on earth do I do with all these bodies? It would take some serious leg work to move them all away from here and I can hardly get my motivation to move neatly cut and stacked wood that the energy company left around my yard in the real world.

...

I guess I’ll move the once closest to my door at least. I can’t have these bodies clogging my path.

I walk up to the first one and study it, trying to figure out the best way to move it. Carrying it is out of the question, I had heard the old adage about how difficult it is to carry dead bodies. I’ll just grab it by the shoulders and drag it away.

As I grab and pull, the zombie’s right arm just comes right off, throwing me off for a second. Then I just stare at it wondering what on earth had happened to me to have me dragging around dismembered zombie corpses across my lawn on a Saturday night. And here I thought I led an uneventful life.

I stare at the arm in my hand. Little bits of black blood and goo are dripping off the torn end.

…

I can feel my face turning green and I want to throw the thing thing are far away from me as possible. But I don’t, something on it has caught my attention. The clothing.

The sleeve of the ragged shirt has come off with its arm and I have to wonder. What kind of material is this?

I am no tailor, and even worse I probably could not differentiate cotton from wool if my life depended on it (I think wool is itchy, so maybe I could?). But I think I could recognize a modern piece of clothing even if it is completely soiled. And this piece of cloth does not appear to be so.

I look closely at the stitching on the seams, they are too imprecise to be a machine, I think. I carefully put the arm back down next to the zombie as if I accidentally stole it from him and take a look at the rest of his outfit, or what is left of it. The results are intriguing, but I don’t really know what to make of it. It looks like somebody just googled, “What did people wear in the middle ages” and then dressed this guy up in the first link that they found. A dark brown tunic, stockings for their legs, and sandals (if anything) on their feet. I didn’t bother looking for undergarments.

I leave the zombie there and move to the next closest one. Sure enough, he is wearing the same clothing, albeit with different colors and a different level of decay and disrepair. I go to the third and confirm the same. Lastly, I look around the whole area and discover that all of them are male too, no women to be found.

Huh. Either something zombified all the men in a nearby medieval village or a designer created generic zombies to throw at me.

…

Crazy, just crazy. I guess this proves that I am in some sort of game. This conclusion really simplifies things for me. Am I in any less danger though? Absolutely not.

Fatal and dangerous games are all too common throughout human history. An example that most people would be familiar with would be the gladiator rings during ancient roman times. Slaves, beasts, and warriors fought (often) to the death for the entertainment of the masses.

Have I been thrown into this world, virtual or otherwise, to fight for the pleasure of those in control here? That seems likely to me now. And considering it seems I already have an enemy, he is probably my opponent I am to face in order to win and live.

Dang, this sucks. Am I going to have to kill a real person? I honestly don’t think I can do that. Hopefully it's just these undead enemies and a game boss in the end.

With my new conclusion motivating me, I start dragging the bodies as far away as I can and consider the issues. Water, security, shelter, and (kinda) food is secured but unstable. In a way that is good for me because then Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs won’t raise its ugly head ugly head. I don't have to worry about my social needs as a human, I can keep focusing on surviving. And with the idea for an end to this by defeating my enemy, I have hope to keep on moving forward. Nice. hopefully once I defeat this guy it won’t just put me into another, more dangerous level.

…

Don’t think about, man, don’t even think about it.

Back on track, with Pesos respawning at me everyday, probably getting stronger and smarter every time she returns, it means that time is not on my side. Also, considering my food supply is currently stale bland meat from blood sucking demons, I don’t think living here for long term is a sustainable plan anyway.

So here is the plan, tomorrow, bright and early, search and destroy that bastard. It’s simple and easy and I already have a clue for the direction. Take advantage of my class and smite the fool and then return home. With any luck, nobody would even have noticed I was gone.

…

That’s assuming a lot of things, but, hey, it’s all I got.

…

I’ll probably need some travel rations if I want to have the energy to do this…

…

Goddamnit, I’m going to have to go and “harvest” more wynots, aren’t I? I wasn’t completely filled by the single one anyway. Blast, blast, blast, blast.

I finish moving all the dead zombie bodies and give a big sigh. Maybe I should have piled them up around my house as a warning to all future zombies to stay away. But maybe that would not work, you’ve seen one undead zombie, you’ve seen them all, right?

I glance at the dim and ugly sun overhead. There is not much light left. I hope there aren’t too many attacks at night.

With nothing else for it, I return to my room and grab my knife, carefully this time. I’ve got some wynot to hunt. I take my plastic container with me, then I go down to the river. I did not go down there to pray.

When I return about an hour later I come back with five dead wynots, a bloody knife, a bad attitude, and a level up. I am so getting out of this hellhole as soon as possible.