“Ooh…what happened? Huh?! YOU! What, where am I?!”

“Hey, hey, calm down there.”

Reese was practically trying to rip his seatbelt apart. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me.

“Why am I still alive?”

“I wouldn’t say you were alive…”

He pulled up his hand to punch me, but I wasn’t going to flinch. Besides, he saw his hand and the fire within his skull transformed into two burning balls of light and his jaw just hung there. I guess he was slack jawed…Surprised, that is.

“It seems you turned into a BOSS after I turned you.”

“But why am I a freakin’ skeleton?”

“You’re also on fire. Here, take a look.”

I pull the visor down and pop up the little flap so Reese could see his own reflection. After evolving to a Level 3, his body seemed to be surrounded by a strange smoke. I checked my monitor, but he wasn’t there.

I decided to send him a friend request and a Clan request. What? I needed his power. Besides, he’s cool. Or warm…I’m lame.

“Huh? What’s this?”

“You can accept if you want, but if you leave, you might be chased after to become Skills and points.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Nope. Just a little fact. I can’t have you coming back and causing me problems. Why would I do that?”

“Sheesh, you remind me of my Dad.”

“Oh?”

Ooh…intriguing!

“Yeah, he was a prick, too.”

“Geez, that was uncalled for.”

“Hey, where did this hat come from?”

“Does it look good?”

“…Yeah, it sorta does. Why?”

“Oh. No reason. Keep it. Hey, if you join, you will be one of the toughest dudes here. Leader of the blockade or whatever you want to call it. The protection of the Area.”

“Where are the others?”

“They went through the same process, but they are all a Level behind you and need some time before changing.”

“Fine.”

“Eh? So quickly? I was going to give you til the end of the day!”

“Naw, if I did that, I might waste my chances for some stuff. You see?”

“Hey, say the first and last words of what you just said.”

“Naw…See?”

“No, needs a little ‘eya’ sound like Nyah, see?”

“…I hate you.”

“What’s the deal?”

He ignores me and just unbuckles himself and gets out of the car. He reaches into his blazer and finds the cigars.

“Hey, where did these come from?”

“How should I know? You were smoking them before. I didn’t even tell…wait…speaking of, I still can’t figure it out.”

I could tell Reese was expecting an answer.

“Well, when you were a zombie, you could only do things I told you. I don’t know how you were able to hijack some cigars and actually smoke them.”

“That would be my doing.”

“Oh, hey Navi.”

“Yeah, I thought he’d look cooler this way. Did the same with the other guys, too!”

Nice. I gave her a thumbs up when Spot, Chance, and David burst out from around a house. They were dragging the corpse of the wolf which was three times larger than a normal one.

“Looks like you did something while we were gone, huh?”

Reese stiffened up and immediately got in a defensive stance with his hand at the ready.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“He’s strong.”

“Yeah, I just sent him on a trip to hunt another BOSS.”

“Huh? You teamed up with the humans?”

“Yeah? As you can see, we aren’t contagious anymore. That’s only the Level 0 zombies. Hey, Spot, Reese retained his past life.”

“Dang, and he still decided to work with us? Wow!”

Spot walked up and dropped the wolf and proudly hefted his huge rifle that had arcs of yellow electricity racing up and down it. This must have been his weapon and the special military uniform he was wearing must be his armor.

“What Skill did you get?”

“I don’t know yet. Haven’t seen the broadcast.”

“Oh, right. Hey, we need to talk.”

“Right.”

“Let me go grab Rebecca, I think she needs to be here as well.”

“Umm, how about”

“I am flattered you want to tell me, but I think anyone who has a Skill and is past a certain age needs to hear this. Am I right?”

“…Yes. Let’s go. Chance! David! You two as well!”

“”Yes Sir!””

Reese was looking really confused so I walked behind him and pushed him towards my house. He was really enjoying the electricity and the comfy luxuries we didn’t have to give up. In fact, I think this was our main selling point.

Sure we can’t communicate to others, but we can live nice and easy with food and clean water. Although this apocalypse is really easy to begin with. The zombies aren’t fast and the powers one can receive are immense. Someone can easily just gain an Ability by killing zombies repeatedly. Eventually, they need to kill an Ability User and then they will get it. This is a really simple set up.

One meant for combat. Kill those with powers and take them. To the winner go the spoils. No wonder this system was practically forcing the Humans to come fight me. But there was one thing that bothered me the entire time.

The military.

Where were they? Surely if it was just killing twenty zombies, then the armed forces would be super powerful by now! Commanders would be flying through the sky, swinging weapons and splitting buildings!

But yet, we were up shit creek without a paddle. That was until I met Spot and his dynamite duo. I recognized his military background since I had family that were also part of the Army and the Navy. Heck, I also had a grandfather who was in the Air Force! I would think I could tell if someone was a trained soldier.

I also knew, thanks to the monitor, that Spot was hiding something from me. Now, hopefully he explains it.

Are you mad I didn’t clue you in? Why? It must not have been that important. I mean, we survived this far.

The others sat at the table while I went upstairs and gently woke up Rebecca. She saw my face and slightly smiled sadly. I bet she must have thought about her husband or something.

“You remind me of Dillon in a way.”

Your son?! And you slept with me?! I am wondering if this Title is actually necessary for you…

“What’s with that look? I’m not a pervert!”

She picked up a pillow and swung it at me. It wasn’t going to hurt, so I didn’t dodge or block. My face was covered in the pillow, but when it slid off my face, Rebecca’s was right in front of mine. She then moved closer and stole a quick peck on the nose.

I was surprised, and then I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. It helped that Spot was yelling at me.

“Hey, let’s go. Spot wants to tell us something.”

“Carry me, I’m still tired.”

“I will carry you like a sack of potatoes if you don’t hurry up.”

She puffed her cheeks out and started to sulk. What is with us being so lazy?! Is it the environment? Or is it me? Either way, I might have to fix this!

After she put on her clothes, we walked downstairs with Rebecca leaning against my back, her tail sliding up and down my arm. It was covered in that flesh just like her horns. I bet her wings are the same way. I don’t know, I was a little scared to touch them since she was having an emotional moment.

I was kind of afraid she would change targets upon seeing the others, but she only tightly grabbed onto me and tried to shrink into my arms. When I sat down at the table, Rebecca pulled her chair to be right next to mine and she leaned against me, grabbing my hair and rubbing my body.

I will need to work on self-control somehow, otherwise I would fall prey to her schemes eventually.

Spot cleared his throat and began to speak.

“Okay. So I and these two here are part of a special task force created by the government.”

He paused to see our reactions. I feigned surprise for a second before returning to my straight face. Reese actually snickered. Gosh, it is good to see reactions. Maybe he likes the sarcasm? Or maybe he never really had the chance to laugh before. Unamused, Spot continued.

“We had knowledge of this event before it began.”

Here we go. Rebecca looked up and a flash of anger appeared in her eyes. I would be mad too, if the government could have warned us about this. Then maybe her family wouldn’t have been split. But how could the government know precisely about what would happen?

Reese, on the other hand, was more surprised than angry. He seemed more like a kid who was interested in conspiracies like Bigfoot and Area 51. Hearing that we were somehow involved in our own conspiracy lit a literal fire within him. His fiery eyes burned even brighter, but somehow didn’t mess with his hat. How strange.

“Now hold on. Every major power in this world received an audio transmission that seemed to be sent from everywhere on the planet at once. It said that the world was going to change. Each country was sent a special message of which places would become important in the future. We had no idea it was going to be like this. If we had known, we would have spread out all of our forces.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Rebecca was mad. You could tell from her voice. I slowly stroked her wings and she shivered before settling back down onto my shoulder. Yep, like skin.

“We thought to keep our forces prepared in case of other countries were to take advantage of the incoming panic and chaos. Our orders were to make sure we defeat this threat and keep the populace protected.”

“Really? Then why do you look so guilty?”

I couldn’t help asking aloud. Both Chance and David winced, pain appearing in their eyes.

“We finally received our next mission. It was to defeat any BOSSes or Nobles that appeared and were negatively affecting the civilians.”

“…Okay, and?”

“Huh?”

“I am not affecting anyone negatively, am I?”

Reese put his hand up.

“Well…you did kind of kill all of my friends.”

“Speaking of which, why do you act so young?”

“Because I am only 19.”

“What?! You tossed people into a pit and shot them while a Molotov burned them to death and you weren’t even legal to drink?!”

“…Yeah. My Dad made me do it. Before he turned. Mom had become a zombie and bit him. He killed Mom and wanted me to kill him.”

“Shit…sorry.”

I was really surprised, but seeing Reese’s diminishing flame, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorrow. That was probably how I would want to go. I was too scared to kill myself and I still wanted to amount for something. Helping my son become one of the strongest people would certainly do it, though I doubt his father expected all of this.

“Afterwards, I grabbed my buddies and we went around killing zombies. Then you appeared.”

“Sorry. You can blame that little guy, the one with no abilities. I guess he was a new recruit.”

“Ah, Sammy. He was indeed new. He was a slimy bastard. He didn’t want to do his bit.”

“Okay, enough about that, can we return to what I was saying?”

“Yeah, sure Spot.”

“Hah…so we were actually told to kill the strongest person as well in order to dominate the Area or Region.”

Hmmm…my new gun should be better equipped for closer combat. Should be easy to win, especially with Reese and Rebecca near me. Wait, can’t have Rebecca die, so I would need to watch for her.

“Haha, you don’t have to worry, we had no way to reply. We can say that we didn’t receive our orders and were just continuing our previous orders.”

“Ah, but the seed of doubt has been sown. You guys are even already at BOSS Level as well.”

“”Huh?””

Chance didn’t say anything. But the other two were surprised.

“Yeah, David and Chance each killed their own Ability Users the other day so they both have two Skills each. Now that Spot killed the wolf, he gained a Skill. He will probably get one tonight as well. Heh, especially after you got announced throughout the Region earlier.”

“Forgot about that.”

Chance was not surprised and David was quietly thinking to himself. Only Spot replied to me.

“Now then. Why not kill me?”

“…”

He wasn’t surprised by my question, although Rebecca did grab me tighter.

“You hold a chance to create a feasible army. I think you are the very person who was labeled as important by this voice.”

“Probably God or something,” I couldn’t help but interject.

“Anyways, if we killed you here and needed your power later, we would be dead. And you aren’t the brightest of the bunch, although you are getting better so we expected we could use you. Speaking of which, why do you seem so reliable today?”

I don’t want to answer. He said he wanted to use me. I’m the one using him! This isn’t fair.

…I guess I can answer him this question.

“It’s a game.”

“…So?”

“I like games. I want to win with an overwhelming advantage. I will practice for hours or grind my characters as much as possible to win that way. This is just another game to play. I’ll be damned if I lose here at the beginning.”

“The beginning?!”

Spot looked a little incredulous.

He should be. I was planning on something big. Something nobody ever managed to succeed at.

Taking over Uniting the world!

I totally meant uniting the world…

Probably could have split this into two chapters, but who cares? Not me!