Chapter 16-Clean Again

“This is the church of the town as you probably guessed, Claire and I fled here when all of this started. We hid in a back room until the next morning and after we read through the tutorial we grabbed our starting gear and checked the entire building. We were lucky and there were only 2 zombies, one was the priest, and the other was the baker’s daughter. After we killed them we started heading out of the church to look for people and some answers.

“It didn’t take us long to start finding people, we first found Bruce. He was in the woods camping as it happened. Apparently, nothing tried to kill him, but we soon found each other and he had no problem helping us. Over the course of the day, we found some supplies and the old people back there and brought them here so that we can stick together.”

“This morning we went out again to look for people and supplies, we were barely an hour out and then we found Alastor with his brothers, those two teenagers, and brought them here. Alastor decided to help us fight, saying that he can’t defend the church alone anyways so he might as well help us. After a couple of hours of searching for people and supplies, we were ambushed by those boars and the rest of the story you already know. Here we are.”

As she talked Anna led Eric down the corridor to a door and opened it. Inside there wasn’t much but there is a bed with clean sheets which looked heavenly to Eric.

“This will be your room, the church doubled as a small unofficial hotel for travelers or when a local got too drunk to walk home safely. Let me show you to the bathroom so you can get cleaned up.”

“that would be nice. I probably smell worse than a barn.” Eric says, excited to be able to get clean.

“This here is the only bathroom in the building so be careful.” Trying the door, Anna finds it locked.

“Sorry, it seems that Claire is inside cleaning herself and her gear up. Me, Claire, and Bruce spend more time cleaning our things than others. Being melee has the downside to getting all your things bloody.”

She said this last bit so plainly as if it didn’t bother her all the killing, which struck Eric as impressive, he didn’t like killing those two zombies with his stick and still got a bit sick just thinking about it.

“Don’t worry, I’m mostly only sweaty, not bloody like you three, it makes sense for you to have priority. How do you wash things though?”

“We use the Orb of Water, which is a problem for us at times because our mana pools are so low that we can’t keep a continuous water flow going, but we manage.”

“You know you could instead all wash your gear together with me and Alastor providing the mana, together we should have enough mana for all of you to wash your gear and then you only need your own pools of mana to clean yourselves.”

“I’ll bring the idea up later tonight to the others, cleaning our gear can get very messy. Luckily the drains still work and even the toilet to some degree. It still flushes without great problems, you only need to use the orb to fill the tank. I am usually last to wash my stuff, you can head to your room and relax a bit, I’ll knock on your door to tell you when you can wash up.”

With that Eric and Anna parted ways, Eric heading to his room and Anna head to what Eric thought was hers.

Inside his room, Eric checked to make sure that all his things are still there. There isn’t a place for him to put his things, so he places them on the floor and lies down on his bed. It isn’t the softest mattress but still far better than the couch at the gas station. After some time, he is about to fall asleep when Anna knocks on his door and telling him the bath is free.

So Eric grabs his things, making sure not to forget to grab a roll of toilet paper and heads outside towards the bathroom. It is a simple bathroom with a toilet, a sink and a bathtub with a shower attached.

After locking the door Eric proceeds to take off all his clothes and use the toilet. After he is done with that he fills the tank with his orb and looks down at his clothes. He can nearly smell them from across the room, and proceeds to wash them in the tub as best he could while using water from the orb. He doesn’t know how effective it is but doesn’t think that it could have hurt. After washing his pants, socks, underwear, shirt, and robe Eric goes ahead and washes himself. There is no soap so he figures he must do without. Only taking a moment to rinse himself off he already feels incredible. Eric then goes ahead and pulls out his fire orb and places it in the tub with his wet clothes. Hoping that this will dry his clothes rather than burn them he starts channeling a bit of mana into the orb. He started with his underwear and after using half his mana pool the piece of clothing feels dry to the touch, and so he puts them on.

“Mmmhh. Toasty.”

After waiting for his mana to fully regen (about 7 and a half minutes) he also dries his other clothes, he managed to dry his pants, socks, and his shirt when he hears knocking on the door.

“Eric, it’s dinnertime.” It is Alastor.

“Coming!” Figuring he will do his robe after dinner he grabs it with his other belongings and carries them to his room. After that, he walks to the main area of the church and sees that he is the last one to arrive.

“Sorry that I am late.”

“No problem young man, you did smell bad, so we are glad you washed up,” said Sara as she passed Eric a plate of noodles.

‘Real food.’ Even though it might sound awesome eating junk food for days anyone that has actually done that world knows that it is horrible by the end, at which point normal food seems like a miracle.

“This is really good.”

“Thanks, but it is simply noodles, I wish I had some sauces to add some flavor,” Sara laments.

After that, the topic of discussion turned to the newest person in the group.

“So how did you survive alone so long, especially as a spellcaster?” Bruce was the first to ask a question which Eric knew was coming, and as such Eric started telling them of the last few days. Starting with heading to the bathroom on the train all the way up to running into the battle with the boars. He doesn’t mention him killing those first 2 zombies and his analyze ability, wanting to keep it a secret for as long as possible.

Once he reaches the battle with the boars Anna and Alastor take over the story and talk of the battle from their perspective. Everyone seemed impressed with Eric with the exception of Claire who seems more pissed off by the fact that it was impressive, Eric also had the impression that Bruce a bit impressed that he managed to survive multiple near-death situations.

Claire then asked, “You carried a bag full of toilet paper for hours, why did you do something like that?”

Erik could only respond chuckling, “I hate it when I run out of toilet paper, so I wanted to make sure.”

This brought a chuckle from everyone.

“There someone has his priority straight. You said you were at the gas station, did you see Kevin there by any chance? He works there, and I believe he had a shift around that time,” David asks.

“Sorry, I can’t tell you I did, I only saw zombies in the area.”

“Don’t worry about it, I never really thought he wouldn't have survived anyways,” David says with a far-off look in his eyes.

“He was a good man, but an absolute pervert,” Maria said in a remorseful tone.

‘Did that magazine and calendar belong to him? If yes, then thank you Kevin.’

After that, the conversation moved on towards lighter topics from favorite food to past life, and much more. When the sun goes down the only light available is the campfire, but Eric is told that there are a lot of candles, one of the good things about being at the church.

After a bit, Claire gathers Bruce, Anna, Alastor, and with great reluctance Eric and discuss what they will do the next day.

“I think it would be best if we continued to do what we did today tomorrow, there isn’t much else to do and we might still find others. So what do you want to do Eric? Stay here at the church or head out with us?”

The way Claire said that gives Ric the impression that she wants him to come with them, either because she finally saw reason and that his help would be useful, or to keep an eye on him. Regardless, Eric sees that getting stronger in this new world is vital for survival so he readily agrees to head out with them in the morning.

With that their impromptu meeting ends and with everyone being exhausted from the day they all head off to bed.

Just as Eric wants to head to his room Anna holds him back, not one to deny a beautiful girl Eric stays back and once Claire, Bruce, and Alastor have passed out of earshot Anna starts to talk.

“Sorry for Claire being such a bitch to you. I don’t have any idea why she acts like this though. She was always eager to help people and she knows we need more people able to fight, but the moment she saw you she acted as if you pissed in her cereal. It is not like you did anything.”

“I was wondering if I did something wrong, but no matter how much I think about it I can’t figure it out. I hope we can eventually reach at least a neutral stance between us, but only time will tell.”

“Thanks for understanding, I’ll try to figure out what is wrong and then tell you what I find. Just in case it wasn’t clear, thanks for helping us out earlier and then coming back with us. Also that you are willing to risk your life to help everyone here, we are the only ones that can truly head out. Good night Eric, sleep tight.”

With that she heads to her room before Eric can wish her a good night too, so he heads to his room, and dries his robe. Once the robe was dry Eric locked the door, laid down on the bed, and went to sleep.

Eric's Status Screen

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 4 Age 19 Strength 13(0) Gender Male Constitution 12(0) Race Human Dexterity 14(0) Class Warlock Agility 14(0) Profession - Intelligence 29(2) HP 114/114 Wisdom 22(2) Mana 296/296 Charisma 12(0)