Chapter 11-Horde

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Eric wakes to pounding fists on the door. With his mind still half asleep he wonders who would knock on his door this late at night.

It takes him a moment to orientate himself, remembering where he is, and what happened the last few days, but when he does Eric hears the groaning coming from the other side of the door.

Having heard that groaning repeatedly yesterday Eric knows that it comes from zombies and from the sound of the pounding and groaning there are a lot of them outside trying to get in. Fortunately, he already has his bags packed, so he grabs them along with his staff and stumbles towards the window to escape through it.

Instead, the window shatters, pieces of glass fall all around the window and arms start flailing around in the air as the zombies haven’t realized that the window disappeared. Only seeing one possible direction to flee to Eric stumbles into the bathroom, closing the door. The door is made of a thin and cheap material which Eric could breakdown himself, let alone an army of zombies.

Understanding that the bathroom might not have been the best place to flee towards Eric can’t help but panic a bit.

“Shit shit shit.” ‘Zombies are inside the store, they are about to break down the bathroom door and then eat me.’

This is the moment when Eric for the first-time regrets being a spellcaster instead of some melee fighter with a sword. In all MMOs and RPGs, he always plays spellcasters, using spells to deal a ton of damage or other odd effects was always more interesting than hitting something with a sword. Now though Eric wants to be a melee fighter who doesn’t need spells or skills to fight and can simply stand his ground fighting down hordes of these brain eaters. Instead, he is a spellcaster who needs time and mana to cast a spell, if they were all far away, lined up and coming at him he might be able to deal with this, but in close quarters being overrun by zombies is not a good situation for Eric.

‘I’m a spellcaster, so I need to solve this with my mind and not with my muscles.’ Feeling that his momentary panic subsides a bit Eric tries to figure out what he can do. None of his spells would help against these numbers. Shadow Ball can kill them but at this distance, he would be lucky to kill one, let alone a dozen. Abyssal Tendrils is more useful if he can create some distance, then he can run and gain a lead.

‘So my spells won’t help, what else is there?’ Eric frantically looks around hoping to look for something that he can use.

‘Sink, no, it is attached to the wall. Toilet, no, it is attached to the ground and I can’t flush myself down. Cabinet, no, contents of the cabinet, no. Toilet paper, no. Ventilation, YES!’

Eric’s only hope is the ventilation shaft. In movies it is easy to remove the cover and then move crawl through it.

Eric gets on the toilet seat hoping that he doesn’t need to unscrew the cover to remove it. As bad luck would have it seems to be firmly bolted on, even if he had a screwdriver he couldn’t open it.

He finds it on that it is bolted shut but doesn’t have time to think about that. Luckily he has a way to break the cover off. Filling the spell formula for his spell Eric takes aim at the cover.

“Shado…” CRUNCH

The sound makes Eric lose focus and fumbles the spell. Checking to see what made the noise Eric starts to panic a little. It seems a zombies arm flailing around through the hole in the door. Eric nearly expected the zombie to say a line from the shining, instead all Eric heard was:

“Uuuuhhhhhhhhh.”

Quickly Eric tries to cast again.

“Shadow Ball”

The spell hits the cover and creates a large dent in it, luckily also tearing out most of the bolts. Eric grabs onto the cover and shoves it to the side. The ventilation shaft is near the ceiling and he needs to stand on the toilet, put the cover is moved easily to the side.

From behind he hears how the zombies are dismantling the door and looking back Eric sees that the door is already broken down. Fortunately, the zombies are falling all over the remains of the door and subsequently each other. This gives Eric some breathing room, but he doesn’t think it is long before a zombie reaches him.

Grabbing his bag and the staff he throws them into the ventilation. Next Eric grabs onto the edge and hopes he can pull himself up. In gym class, Eric never managed more than 3 pull-ups, and in his senior year he didn’t take gym, so he hasn’t been exercising for over a year, but with the adrenalin in his body and the desperate wish to live he believes he might manage.

As Eric starts pulling himself up he notices that it is a lot easier than expected, the only reason that it is difficult is his bad grip. This greatly surprises him, but he won’t complain and is happy to have made it up. Just as Eric pulls himself into the shaft a rotting hand grabs his leg and starts to squeeze and pull him backward.

Grabbing onto the seams in the shaft Eric pulls himself forward while kicking the hand with his foot.

“Let go.” Eric grunts, but of course the zombie doesn’t care about what Eric wants and continues to pull. The tug of war is at a stalemate, but Eric doesn’t think he can hold on much longer. Luckily it seems that the zombie that is holding onto him is being jostled around, preventing it from using its second arm.

Then with a snap, after one of Eric’s kicks, the pull on his leg disappears and he can pull himself further in. Looking back, he sees how it was the zombie’s wrist that snapped, but the hand is still gripping Eric’ leg, and no matter how much he kicks against it, the hand stays firmly attached to his leg.

Eric starts to crawl with his things through the ventilation trying to find an exit, the entire time he hears the groaning coming from behind him. Whenever he looks back he doesn’t see any zombies, so he thinks he is safe for the moment.

His thoughts move back to the memory of him pulling himself into the ventilation and how that was easier than expected. Having a hunch Eric pulls up his status and checks his strength.

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 3 Age 19 Strength 11(0) Gender Male Constitution 10(0) Race Human Dexterity 13(0) Class Warlock Agility 13(0) Profession - Intelligence 24(2) HP 97/102 Wisdom 19(2) Mana 189/250 Charisma 10(0)

‘So that’s it.’ As he was still level 1 his strength was at 7, which is below average for level 1, which according to that tutorial is 10, but now he is above average at 11. 'I increased my strength by about 50% in compared to what I had at the start of all of this.’

This is the first physical improvement Eric notices after leveling up. The largest increase was in his intelligence, but Eric doesn’t notice an increase in his intelligence, so this was the first time he noticed a difference.

He also notices that he doesn’t have debuff from the undead. That means that the previous one ran out and Eric slept at least 4 hours before he awoke. Furthermore, it leads to believe that the debuff only applies if a zombie causes an open wound as the zombie only caused a bruise. With that he starts crawling through the tight space, trying to find an exit.

After a few minutes crawling around Eric finally manages to reach the ventilation cover leading to the customer bathroom. He didn’t find any other exit, the only other path leads to a ventilation unit which Eric was not confident he could get past.

Checking the cover to the bathroom he finds that it is not bolted on and is easy to remove, unlike in the employee bathroom.

‘I wonder if there is a story behind that.’

Regardless Eric wouldn’t complain, so he carefully holds on to the cover with one hand while tossing his bag out with the other. Eric then carefully drops the cover onto his bags so as to not create a lot of noise which could attract the zombies.

After Eric lowers himself to the floor Eric grabs onto the hand that is still holding his leg and pries it off, there is no strength in the hand, it seems to be in a state of rigor mortis. He doesn’t see an open would but simply putting weight on it hurts a bit, not enough to hinder movement but enough to indicate a bruise is forming.

Next, he grabs his things and slowly sneaks towards the door. Carefully peaking outside Eric doesn’t see any zombies in the store proper. There is a lot of groaning coming from deeper in the building, but far enough away that Eric doesn’t think he is in danger.

Wishing for a sneak skill Eric sneaks out towards the exit, looking back towards the break room Eric sees that they still haven’t broken through the door. There are a lot of dents and even a fist-sized hole but otherwise it doesn't seem like the zombies will be getting through.

Wanting to know the level of the zombies he analyzes one.

Name - Level 2 Race Basic Zombie (Human) HP 120/120 Description: Zombies are undead beings that can turn other creatures into zombies upon their death. This one is a Basic Zombie, meaning that it doesn’t have any conscious thoughts and acts purely on instinct. Zombies possess the trait Horde Mind.

‘Horde Mind? What is that? None of the others had that.’

None of the zombies Eric previously analyzed had that.

‘Does that mean that they were different kinds of zombies or that their information updated?’

Eric isn’t very clear on what Horde Mind is but it is clear that is responsible for all these zombies being here.

‘Maybe it is like a hive mind but for zombies.’ Checking on all zombies they all seemed to have it.

Regardless there are 4 zombies pounding on the door and the door is about 20 meters away from him. He could attack them and with the help of his new spell probably kill them. This would attract the attention of the other zombies in the building, but they act on instinct, so they might try to chase after me in a straight line, which has a door blocking their path. Alternatively, he could simply turn around and leave, but the door does have the bell, so they would hear him leaving, resulting in these zombies chasing him through the woods.

Deciding that killing these zombies is safer he waits until his mana regenerates and the starts casting the first spell. He doesn’t have to mana to kill all of them with 2 hits, he has 250 mana, Shadow Ball costs him 40 mana so he can cast it 6 times. That is enough for 3 zombies. Alternatively, he could cast Shadow Ball 5 times and Abyssal Tendrils for 60 mana once if he regens 10 mana during casts. With the first option, he could kill 3 or 4 of them if he got 2 headshots. With the second he could kill 3 if he gets at least one headshot and has relative safety when running away. In Eric’s mind the second option is by far the safer one, so he takes aim and starts the fight.

“Shadow Ball”

The first shot travels quickly and because Eric had time to aim it hits the zombie in the back of his head. Without waiting to see the result he starts to cast his second spell.

“Abyssal Tendrils”

Between the time that the first spell hit, and the second spell was cast the 3 other zombies have just enough time to turn around, the 4th zombie lies unmoving on the ground, presumably dead.

After the second spell, tendrils rise out of the ground at the zombies’ feet and grabs onto them, slowing their movement down to a crawl. This gives Eric a good chance to aim again.

“Shadow Ball”

This next shot also hits it target right on the head. The zombie is knocked backwards, falling into the mess of gray tendrils, the tendrils in the meantime happily wrap themselves around the body.

“Shadow Ball”

The next shot travels towards the 3rd zombie, this is the zombie whose analyze screen is currently open to him. This time though the shot doesn’t hit the head and instead hits the zombie on the torso, and instead of dying like the other 2, this one stumbles back a little, and continues trying to get through the tendrils.

Eric uses this opportunity to use Analyze the zombie to determine the damage of his spell.

Name - Level 2 Race Basic Zombie (Human) HP 56/120 Description: Zombies are undead beings that can turn other creatures into zombies upon their death. This one is a Basic Zombie, meaning that it doesn’t have any conscious thoughts and acts purely on instinct. Zombies possess the trait Horde Mind.

Analyze level Up!

1→2

Eric doesn’t know why his ability leveled up, but he doesn’t have time to worry about that this instant.

Just as Eric is about to cast shadow ball for a 4th time the tendrils start sinking back into the ground and disappear, signifying the end of the spell. This allows the zombies to move towards Eric again. Their move at about a jog and can reach Eric in a few seconds.

“Shadow Ball”

Eric shoots the spell from his staff and it hits the injured zombie again in the torso. The zombie immediately starts falling to the ground. Surprisingly the analyze screen from that zombie updated automatically without him needing to cast the spell again.

Name - Level 2 Race Basic Zombie (Human) HP 0/120 (Dead) Description: Zombies are undead beings that can turn other creatures into zombies upon their death. This one is a Basic Zombie, meaning that it doesn’t have any conscious thoughts and acts purely on instinct. Zombies possess the trait Horde Mind.

The last zombie in the meantime has gotten within 10 meters of Eric, giving only enough time to cast one spell, which doesn’t matter much because checking his mana Eric sees that it is quite low.

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 3 Age 19 Strength 11(0) Gender Male Constitution 10(0) Race Human Dexterity 13(0) Class Warlock Agility 13(0) Profession - Intelligence 24(2) HP 102/102 Wisdom 19(2) Mana 36/250 Charisma 10(0)

Even if the last zombie was further away Eric couldn’t cast the spell again. He had hoped to get each zombie with a perfect headshot, killing them all in one hit, but that was a little optimistic.

So, he grabs his last crystal, the mana crystal, and pops it into his mouth while rushing out the store. Immediately Eric can feel mana flooding his system while the doorbell jingles.

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 3 Age 19 Strength 11(0) Gender Male Constitution 10(0) Race Human Dexterity 13(0) Class Warlock Agility 13(0) Profession - Intelligence 24(2) HP 102/102 Wisdom 19(2) Mana 86/250 Charisma 10(0)

Outside he is happy to be met with nothing other than the night sky and the forest. Moving away from the door and turning to the door Eric prepares another Shadow ball and waits for the zombie.

Eric isn’t disappointed when the door is shoved open and the zombie steps out. Eric had enough time to prepare the spell and so took aim and let it loose.

“Shadow Ball”

The spell flew the few meters between Eric and the zombie in less than a second and due to the proximity, it was easy to aim at the head.

The zombie barely had time to look at Eric when the spell hit him straight in the face, knocking it back through the door and landing back in the store.

Happy with his success in killing the zombies without taking a single hit Eric orientates himself and jogs down the street, in the direction of the closest town, hoping that there will be others with who he can group up. He really needs a tank or something to prevent zombies from approaching him.

Eric's Status Screen

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 3 Age 19 Strength 11(0) Gender Male Constitution 10(0) Race Human Dexterity 13(0) Class Warlock Agility 13(0) Profession - Intelligence 24(2) HP 102/102 Wisdom 19(2) Mana 46/250 Charisma 10(0)