Chapter 5- Snap!

Zaki woke up in a cold sweat, his head pounding from the light that shines in through the window. He looked at his ceiling before remembering last night's events. The gruesome scene still lingers in his head and the thought of her skin suit being worn by that guy made Zaki wince.

“I’d like to believe it, but I doubt that’s the worst thing I’ll see here. I have no clue what that man intended to do, but I’m guessing it has something to do with why he made a skin suit out of her.”

Zaki yawned before getting out of bed. He put his new clothes on before heading out the door. The hallway he was in looked exactly like how motels looked in the real world, he was on the second floor of a three-story-tall building.

-According to the locals, it took twenty years to make it with their current technology.

Zaki made his way down the outside stairs and went inside to the first floor of the building. It was a cozy inn that had breakfast, lunch, and dinner for sale. The nice reception lady was at the front desk, writing a letter to who Zaki assumed to be her husband. In this world, traveling takes people’s actual time, and when people don’t age, they assume the best thing to do is live their life how they want to.

The only problem with the reception lady as she was a cat demi-human, a female one at that, which gave her a really weird lisp.

“Hello Zakyi, you’re just in time for bweakfast, today’s special is omwets. We got wucky wast momf and found two chickens outside of towon, we twook them in and bwed them. We’ve got a whole lot of eggs to use now, so omwets it is!”

The lady was nice, She had told Zaki that she has only died once just like Zaki, but from the way she seemed to be enjoying herself, he assumed she had died a peaceful death on Earth, how she died in this world is still unknown by Zaki, but he hopes whenever he gets appraisal he’ll find out.

“I haven’t had real food in a few days! Omelets sound amazing right now, my mouth is watering just by thinking about them!”

Zaki made his way into the dining room. It was really nice, this town may have been small but it definitely used the people’s taxes wisely. There were a few people already down there and eating so Zaki decided that he’d get his food fast, so he looked down at the buffet.

“Omelettes, eggs, octopus sausages! This place is exactly like Earth, I’m so glad I didn’t get reincarnated in a world with dragons!”

A man from behind him cut Zaki off and corrected him.

“Well, there are dragons, just not many right now, you see, when God put the first few people in the sanctuary he made sure to keep the dangerous enemies to a minimum for a few hundred years.”

Zaki turned around to see a human man, he had black hair and wore very elegant clothes. Zaki was surprised he knew so much about this world, he knew very little other than the hell it’s been in the past few decades. Zaki decided to ask the man a few more questions, hoping to get some information on what really happened to the sanctuary.

“You sure know a lot about this place, how is that?”

The man was happy to answer the questions, he truly enjoyed exploring the lore of the land.

“Well young man, this place has been around (according to my calculations) five hundred thousand years, relative to time. That's only a speck in the history of what we know as life. I spent my days on Earth learning about the history of it, now I wish to do the same here.”

Zaki was happy to meet someone who wasn’t a Demon or crazy, someone who genuinely cared about the world they were standing on.

“I must get going now, I hope we meet again someday, maybe I can give you more information on the world when I’ve learned more. I've only been here for a few years so I’m but a baby in this world! Goodbye!”

Zaki didn’t even get his name before he left. The man seemed to be in a hurry so Zaki didn’t even get to ask, but he guessed since the man was so busy trying to figure out the world that he needed to leave town and continue his quest.

Zaki looked down at the sausages, he remembered a skill he gained last afternoon, tentacle. He wondered to himself if everyone had a set power and if he was going to be some sort of tentacle-type user. Zaki scrolled onto his menu to check his stats

1 SKILL POINT

“That’s right, I have a skill point for hitting level five, I guess I better get an appraisal like any other person.”

Zaki scrolled through the list of skills before finding appraisal, under it in red was a skill called “Demon”.

“That doesn’t give too much room to guess, well I’ll check it out next time to get a skill point, but for now, APPRAISAL PLEASE!”

The skill glowed as he selected it, it grayed out and disappeared. Zaki looked down at his sausages and used appraisal.

APPRAISAL: SAUSAGE,

COMES FROM PIG,

MEAT LEVEL 3 OUT OF 5,

STATE: HEALTH

“Well at least I know I’m eating something good.”

Zaki had fun using appraisal on different items, eggs, his clothes, and even the floor. It seemed that a few things were left out but he hoped that when he leveled it up, that it would show more details. Zaki’s final use was on himself where got to know a little more about himself.

APPRAISAL: ZAKI LEE

LEVEL: 5

AGE: TOO OLD

HEIGHT: 5’6

RACE: ???

“HEY SCR- Wait, my race is unknown? That has to be because my appraisal is too low.”

Zaki used an appraisal on the reception lady, it showed she was human. It was strange how it showed everyone else’s race except his, he had zero clues on the reasoning behind the weird restrictions of it, he didn’t care though, now that he could check levels, he was set.

Zaki finished his food and got up from the table, he looked around and noticed a man from behind, sitting at the table was the man who had killed the succubus lady, Zaki quickly looked away from the man. He was one hundred percent the man who killed her, not only that but it was that weird guard guy he saw at the gate, the one who didn’t speak. Zaki turned around and used an appraisal on the man to check his level.

“He’s level eight, six-foot, and his race is Human, it seems that getting another race other than human or demi-human is harder than I thought.”

Walking away, Zaki got a bad feeling that today wasn’t going to go well for him, he went outside just in time to see a crowd had formed, they were at that same alleyway he was in last night. Zaki quickly rushed over to check what was going on, he looked down the alleyway to see two people washing away blood and guys, and another guy holding a bag filled with bones and organs.

“WHO THE HELL DID THIS!”

“WE’RE ALL NEXT! THEY’LL KILL US ALL!”

People in the crowd screamed their lungs out, hoping to get attention to the situation. It was turning into a game of Salem, instead of finding out the witches, they’re trying to find the killer or killers.

Some people in the crowd looked at Zaki and began questioning him.

“You’re new in town, how can we trust that you didn’t kill him?!”

Another man joined in

“Yea, he’s right, how do we know we can trust you?!”

Zaki sighed, he decided to tell the people upfront how it was.

“If I wanted to kill you all, I would have done it by now, I have a magical sword that basically means the end to anyone it touches. Plus I’ve only been in this world for a few days and on Earth, I was never one to dissect someone. This person has been clearly doing it for ages.”

Once Zaki said this, people started to calm down, they could rule out a few people, anyone who was new to the world was probably still a bit pure, too pure to gut someone like a pig, and if they weren't then they’d usually take a job in the food making business. Another way to tell if someone was able to do it was from if anyone saw them last night, most people lived together since finding a good job was hard.

“Standing here won't do nothing, don’t forget she’s still alive technically. She may be mentally unstable for a bit, but to find this man we need to work together!”

The town leader stepped up and calmed the people with his words. A young elf with blonde hair and silver eyes, he wore a robe and seemed to care for each of his people. He walked over to Zaki to ask for help.

“I know it might be a lot to ask for, but could you help us find the murder? We don’t have much to offer but I think a free stay in this town for eternity should be enough, right?”

Zaki thought about the offer a lot, for just helping them today when he already knew the killer, to get an eternity of free life at the village seemed like a deal, he’d be a fool to not take it.

“Alright, I’ll help!”

The town leader was happy to hear, he got up to talk to the crowd in hopes to calm them down some more.

“EVERYONE QUIET! We have help from an outsider, he’s only been alive for a few days yet is already level five! I want one person to teach him magic and one person to teach him sword fighting!”

Zaki questioned sword fighting since he was already pretty decent at it but the town leader insisted that he learned the most out of it. Zaki hesitated but ended up taking the training, his first two hours of the day would be spent training using a sword.

Walking over to the sword training building (that he only guessed from the sword on the sign), Zaki walked it. The place was open and had a mat in the middle of the floor, it was like a dojo back on Earth, Zaki had taken karate for a year or two back on Earth so this kind of place seemed familiar to him.

“Welcome Zaki, I’ve been waiting for you!”

A deep voice came from a back room in the dojo. A tall human man with red hair, eyes that lacked sleep, and a training outfit on. He walked over to Zaki and handed him one of the training outfits.

“For the next two hours, you’re going to be my bitch, and as my bitch, you’re going to become so advanced in sword fighting in these two hours that you’ll be ready for any close-quarters combat… Back on Earth, I spent my days learning everything I could about hand to hand and sword fighting, now I’m in a world where I actually need to use it!”

The man handed Zaki a wooden sword, it was a tad heavy for Zaki so he would struggle to keep pace.

“Walk out onto the floor when you’re ready, you’re not leaving until that two-hour mark ends, if you hit me, I’ll heal you!”

The man laughed with excitement, he had watched Zaki fight the bandits last night so he knew that if anyone was gonna put up a fight, it was going to be him.

Zaki took one step onto the mat before full force jumping straight into the middle of it. He stood there staring at the man, waiting for him to attack.

“We can stand here all day, I’ve mastered the art of waiting, you’ll have to attack first, bud!”

Taking his advice, Zaki rushed the man but as soon as he went in for a strike, the man hit him in the stomach with the back of the sword and when Zaki went to hold his stomach, the man bopped him on the head. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was a slight annoyance for Zaki. Trying to rethink his way around things, Zaki decided he was going to use his special dodge on the man.

Zaki again rushed the man, this time with a plan. He went in front of the man and faked an attack but as soon as the man went for the same attack, he brought the sword back to him and used his dodge. Now in a sort of slow-motion, Zaki went behind the man and swung his feet at the man's legs. Inches away from the man’s legs, he dodged, he jumped in the air so high that when Zaki went to look, all he could see was the lights. The man disappeared from Zaki’s vision. He checked around from him, but the lights were so bright in there, he couldn’t even make out the roof.

“You’re very good at this, I’ll give you that, most people would have given up ten minutes in, but you’re the closest son of a bitch to come close to hitting me in a long time. I spent every single one of my points on speed and melee damage, hitting me will be your biggest goal yet!”

He heard the location of the voice and he jumped for it, but instantly was knocked down by an invisible force. Zaki was confused, he got up and tried again, but like clockwork was knocked to the ground again. Zaki knew what was going on.

-He’s so fast that when I try to get up there with him, he jumps down to hit me for a quick attack. I need to get rid of one of those lights, preferably the one in the middle.

Zaki had another plan, this time he hoped it worked. He began running and again jumped into the air, this time it was different though, after getting knocked to the ground he waited and listened.

*SMASH*

Zaki’s sword came falling to the ground. Without the man even noticing, Zaki was able to throw his sword at the light right after jumping, that way the man was more focused on Zaki than the actual light.

“Hot damn, that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever had someone do against me, I’ll give you that one kid!”

The man enjoyed his taunting and his compliments equally, he enjoyed what he did so finding another person so closely equal to him was exciting.

Zaki searched around the room, spotting a discoloration in the lights, he grabbed his sword and jumped towards it, launching himself ten feet off the ground, the man came down for an attack for after fighting with the man for as long as he was, he could see a slight outline of his movements. He used his special dodge on the man but instead of going for an easily counterable attack from behind, he reached the roof, where he used the ceiling to propel himself off into the man. Zaki held out his sword and screamed from the top of his lungs, the man turned around but it was too late.

*CLASH*

The man had been hit, they both fell to the floor exhausted. Zaki looked over to the clock, it had been two hours on the dot.

“How’s that possible, it only felt like twenty minutes at the most.”

The man laughed.

“When you live forever, time seems to move differently, you know? You did well kid, I’m seriously proud that I was hit by someone like you, and I know that you’ll do well in helping the sanctuary become a peaceful place again!”

Zaki was so happy to hear the words of kindness out of the man's mouth, he knew this village was not a normal sight here in the sanctuary, and as soon as he left, he was open to dying over and over until he quit life.

“I’ll keep on fighting, don’t you worry! I have my goals and I’ll train to achieve them!”

Zaki smiled at the man.

“Come back if you ever need a reliable swordsman to help you fight!”

The man smiled back. Zaki put his fist out for the most passive way he knew how to end a conversation. With a fistbump.

Zaki walked outside, it was afternoon now. He had to go straight to his magic class and finally learn how to use magic. He only knew one spell, tentacle, it was a trap spell but it could still be very useful.

Magic class was an outside class, that way when they used magic, it didn’t explode and kill anyone.

“Welcome Zaki, I’m Miss Vis, I’m going to be your magic instructor for today!”

A short Elf with green hair, Zaki had thought he was an Elf, but clearly wasn’t, his ears weren't as long as her’s but according to appraisal, she was an Elf.

“Alright, Zaki. First I’ll mention something quick, every person in this world has their own magical affinity chosen when they come here, mine’s creation. I can create anything I want as long as I know what it looks like. Using magic uses MP also known as Magic Points, when you run out of MP you can no longer use magic until you refill it. You can refill it by resting, eating, or drinking mana potions. Does all of this make sense?”

Zaki looked at her dumbfounded, most of it he understood since it was pretty much exactly like an RPG but the magical affinity part, he didn’t get. Was his magical affinity tentacle since it seemed that was the one he was given?

“I was given a tentacle affinity I think? I have a magical ability called tentacle which is a trap spell that allows me to grab someone and keep them in place.”

Vis looked excited at the thought of something so different.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen someone with an affinity for something that moves! I need to check this out, use it right now!”

Zaki went beet red, there was only one problem with him using his magic, he didn’t know how to.

“Yea, about that. I don’t really know how to use magic like I can create a fire from my finger, but I don’t really know how to imagine tentacles going through my veins.”

Vis laughed at Zaki, he was thinking of his affinity as being a part of the world instead of a part of himself.

“The four main elements, Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire, all branch off into subcategories that only top tier magic users know. An affinity, on the other hand, is something ONLY you have, it’s something you just know how to use, for now, just try to focus hard on something and scream TENTACLE! It might sound weird but once you get the feel for it, you’ll be able to summon it without thinking!”

Vis created a test dummy that he could use it on, she placed it a few feet back before getting ready.

Zaki looked at his hand before pointing it at the dummy. He stood there trying to think if he’s going to look stupid, but before he could get all the bad thoughts out onto the floor, he screamed.

“TENTACLE!”

A glowing purple light appeared in Zaki’s hand, it slowly came out and launched towards the dummy, it sank into the ground before reappearing, snatching onto the dummy, it trashed wildly, tearing the dummy in half.

Vis couldn’t stop laughing, the amount of power in a simple tentacle spell was exhilarating for her.

“OH OUR GOD, THAT’S TOO GOOD, TOO GOOD, ZAKI! Who would have thought, I would have someone so rare here. Zaki, you’re one funny guy you know that?”

Zaki laughed back too, he released how funny it was that a tentacle could do that much damage, nonetheless that it came out of his hand.

“Alright, now that we know your affinity that'll be easy. I want you to do one simple thing, try to get the tentacle in your hand, but this time use your fire magic. Before you ask what this’ll do, I’ll explain. For me, let’s say I want to make a sword, I imagine that sword with and use fire and earth magic. When that sword comes out, it makes a sword with fire and earth enchantments.”

Zaki interrupted in a funny mocking voice asking.

“What exactly do earth enchantments do Miss Vis?”

“I’m glad you asked, let’s say some dick head tries to attack me, I could simply block with my sword instead of a shield and it would create an earth wall in front of me, if they hit said earth wall, it would trap them inside of it, giving me enough time to CUT THEIR GOD DAMN HEADS OFF!”

Zaki hollered in the air with excitement, he enjoyed edging Vis on, he thought her outbursts were top tier and gave him a slight joy in the day.

“Time for me to try.”

Getting into position, Zaki focused his mind, he thought deeply on it, he screamed tentacle and tried keeping the beast inside him, the tentacle tried its best to escape, thrashing on his arm and throwing him about, Zaki decided to let it go without wanting more damage being done to his body.

“How- the hell- do you do that?”

Vis looked concerned, she had an idea why it wasn’t going to be easy for Zaki so she decided to explain further.

“Since your affinity is technically alive, it’s going to be a lot harder to keep the son of a bitch inside of you, your best bet is to keep practicing, that’s simply all I can tell you.”

Zaki looked sad, he looked over at the thrashing tentacle and walked over to it, he squatted down giving it a look before reaching his finger out to touch it, without hesitation the tentacle wrapped around Zaki and absorbed into his arm. Nothing was noticeable at first until he heard the speaker.

NEW MAGIC SPELL UNLOCKED: TENTACLE MANIPULATION

SUBCATEGORY UNLOCKED: MAGICAL TENTACLE (FIRE, EARTH, WATER, WIND)

Vis ran over to Zaki to ask what it all said since other people cannot hear what your speaker said.

“It said I unlocked a spell called tentacle manipulation and a sub-category called magical tentacle.”

Vis started to run and jump around using her magic to throw confetti everywhere.

“This is great! Use it for me now! Please! Please! PLEEEASE!”

Vis was so excited to see this in play. Zaki stood there, remembering what she told him, he needed to keep it in his arm and allow the fire to seep into it.

“TENTACLE”

The purple glow came again on his hand, this time it stayed, it didn’t try to escape, it stayed calm in his arm.

“MANIPULATE”

As soon as he said that, Zaki’s arm started to contract into a jumble of tentacles, he reached his arm out and launched one towards a dummy, he was able to direct it like a homing rocket. It hit the dummy and began to burrow deep inside of it.

“That’s amazing Zaki! Now you just gotta add some flame, I won’t make you do that today though since it’s still a living creature and probably doesn’t want a piece of fire on its ass!”

They both began to laugh before an explosion erupted and little pieces of dummy started to rain down. They both looked at each other and started dancing, holding each other's hands while jumping up and down. Together they screamed.

“EXPLOSION!”

Zaki finished training with Vis before leaving her area, it was two PM so Zaki decided to meet up with the town leader. He walked into the town hall building before seeing a deadly scene before him. The town leader was dead on his desk, a stab to the back. Zaki tried backing up before falling to the ground, he looked around for any clues to who did this before he looked to the ceiling, he saw the town leader sitting up there watching him.

“DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT GOD DAMMIT!”

The town leader hopped down before explaining his situation.

“I had a clue that someone was gonna try to kill me so I used my affinity, which is clones I might add to set up a decoy. I know who the killer is now and I was waiting for you to come over so we could brutally kill him.”

The leader was scary, he was a cat demi-human with blonde hair, he wasn’t too talk, and not muscular at all but he’s clearly killed a few dozen people.

“Dammit, man, I don’t even know your name, how about you give me that before we do anything hard.”

The leader looked at him and smiled his creepy “I’ll kill you smile”.

“I’ll give you my name after we finish this job.”

Zaki sighed before walking out the door with him, he didn’t think the guy would be dumb enough to try and kill the town leader. They walked outside and made their way to the gate, he was right. The quiet gatekeeper was indeed the killer.

“You tried killing me didn’t you?”

The leader smiled at the man who was sitting there staring into the vast forest. He didn’t reply to the town’s leader so, filled with anger, he punched the guard.

“Answer me when I talk to you, alright?”

The leader’s voice was filled with hatred and a crowd started to form around Zaki and the leader. The leader continued punching the man until he finally spoke.

“They’re everywhere.”

The leader stopped the beating before stepping up and asking him questions.

“Who’s everywhere? What the hell are you talking about?”

The man looked at the leader before with one single punch, he hit him across the village, a trail of blood and dust could be seen on the ground, and at the end of that was the village leader on the ground.

“What the hell!”

Zaki pulled out his sword and put it against the man's throat.

“What the hell are you doing!”

The man got up before walking over to a child and ripping his head off, taking a bite out of it like an apple. His blood ran down his chin like some sort of zombie or undead creature.

Zaki watched as the man ruthlessly killed two more people, each one screaming for Zaki’s help, but he was too scared to move, he watched as the man took their bones out and used them to beat people’s skulls in.

The man walked over to Zaki before grabbing a sharp bone and cutting Zaki’s cheek with it. He was toying with him, the man started a beat down on Zaki while people who ran looked back and watched. Blood splashed against the dirt road and the check-up table nearby.

Zaki was finally launched into the gate. He slowly got up, asking himself why he was so weak.

- Just kill him, or at least, do something, anything, just don’t let him kill this village! Please, Zaki, MOVE!

The man slowly walked over to Zaki, but something was different. When the smoke cleared a boy was standing there, he was all beaten up, but in his hand was his tentacle, a purple flame came out of it, and little orbs flew around. Zaki showed no emotion on his face, he had watched countless people get ripped to shreds, this wasn’t a video game, it wasn’t a movie, it was real. He saw real people getting their bodies devoured in ways he never thought possible.

Zaki walked towards the man with the flaming tentacle in his hand. The guard rushed Zaki but when he came near, Zaki used his special dodge to turn behind him, he used the jump training from the dojo to bounce off of the gate and launch all of his tentacles into the man. The man stopped for a second, the tentacles burrowed into his, ripping and tearing at his flesh, he thought it was over. As the tentacles stopped burrowing, Zaki noticed the man's insides start to leak out, the fire from the tentacles was making his insides melt from the inside!

Slowly the guard walked towards him, nervous Zaki drew his sword, but before the man could get near him, he exploded, guts flew everywhere, turning everything and everyone in a ten-foot perimeter into blood bathed contestants.

Walking up behind Zaki was the leader, he limped his way over to him with his fist out.

“My name is Gabriel. Nice to formally meet you, Zaki Lee, you’re one crazy son of a bitch, I’ll tell you that.”