Chapter 6- First Blood.

“WHAT? You’re telling me this guy was nothing but a low-level zombie, how high is their intelligence?”

Zaki was speaking with Gabriel about the incident that just occurred. The two were still out by the gate and people were still surrounding them.

“Yea, he was a living person at one point, sadly he was probably bitten while patrolling the gates at night, if he makes his way back here he should be able to get his position back.”

Gabriel seemed very nonchalant about everything that just happened, Zaki guessed he had probably seen tons of people die but it still should affect him.

“So the people who died today, how long do you think it’ll take them to come back here?”

Zaki felt the need to ask this question since he felt somewhat responsible for the dying, he was so scared to move that he watched multiple people get devoured by the zombie guard.

“Hmm, well, it does depend. If a person dies too many times they could be sent back to God for re-evaluation, meaning there's a chance that if someone didn’t do quite enough in their lives, they’d have to spend a few hundred years in purgatory. But those guys didn’t die too many times so I’m guessing a few years.”

“A FEW YEARS!?”

Zaki was certainly surprised at how easily he said that almost like a year there was nothing here, which, it kind of wasn’t. When you live forever time slips you by, you might not even realize you’ve been walking for so long.

“Hey, Gabriel. So tell me about yourself, like what happened to you.”

Zaki took a step back to look at Gabriel and give him an evaluation, he had blonde hair, silver eyes, and had pointy ears like an elf, when Zaki used appraisal on him he notices that his race was also questioned out, he didn’t want to ask since he used appraisal without permission on him. Gabriel’s final noticeable feature was his robe, it was one you’d see some sort of magical adventurer wearing.

“Well, you know my name, it’s Gabriel. My race isn’t really important to you. My magical affinity is clones, I can set up to three at a time right now but I hope for more in the future. It doesn’t matter how I got here. And finally, I use magic as my main source of an attack. That’s all!”

“Those are all really frickin’ vague.”

Gabriel laughed at Zaki. He kept his mysteries to himself, keeping Zaki in the dark and making him guess all of his secrets. Gabriel cracked a small smile before answering back.

“Yea, I know. Let’s get you in the bar to fix you up a bit and get you a satchel to put healing items in.”

Gabriel put his arm around Zaki and took him through the crowd into the bar, it was time for them to celebrate their victory.

***

Sitting in the same position was the same girl as before talking with her butler.

“M’lady it seems the elf has defeated one of our lower-ranked bandit groups, but weirdly he didn’t kill them, just sent them running home. I hate to burden you, but do you think that he’ll mess with the Veil company?”

The girl sat back in her chair and stretched her arms, she looked at the ceiling, a hood concealing her face. It seemed that she hid her face for a reason, lots of people wanted her dead since she was the head of a large company trying to keep the integrity of the sanctuary alive.

“So what shall we do m’lady? I don’t wish for him to be someone to be worried about in the future.”

She leaned the chair back, balancing it on its two back legs before sitting back down into a formal place.

“I can’t have him destroying what we have, I must ask you to exterminate the village. Whatever you do, make sure he dies.”

The butler, also known as Zei, bowed his head towards the girl before turning around and swiftly leaving the room.

***

Zaki and Gabriel entered the bar, it was crowded with people who were celebrating a victory. They rarely had any trouble showing up in town and since the zombie was dead, they knew that they’d be okay for a few more years.

“Drinks are on me today!”

Gabriel shouted while handing a glass to Zaki.

“Uhh, I’m not much of a drinker.”

Gabriel laughed at Zaki, he handed him another. Zaki didn’t like drinking at all, he had never been the one to go out and party when he was alive, but not that he’s dead, he might as well try getting drunk once, right?

“Zaki! It’s not like I’m killing a mockingbird. You know, at your age, you’ve probably seen some things you wish you hadn't, a drink to calm the mind they say!”

Zaki looked down at the alcohol in his hands and lifted it to his lips before a bell ringing in the background caught him off guard.

“AR-ARMY, COMING FROM THE SOUTH, I REPEAT, AN ARMY-HUNDREDS OF MEN ARE COMING FROM THE SOUTH!”

Gabriel and Zaki looked at each other before running outside to see the sky was hellish red, flames could be seen from miles away. The ground thumped as the army drew nearer.

“Why the hell would there be an army coming towards your village?”

Zaki looked at Gabriel who was staring blankly at the flames.

-He must be trying to map out a plan

Zaki left Gabriel’s side and hopped up onto the bar. He looked south, towards the army. There were hundreds of people, smashing down tiny huts on the outskirts of the village, killing anyone in their paths.

“Holy shit, why would they come to some small ass village like this?”

Zaki hopped down and started to touch Gabriel, asking him for the plan, when Gabriel didn’t answer, still lost in thought, Zaki decided his best move would be to forcibly take him out of this state. He made a small tentacle with just his finger and placed it by his armpit

Gabriel instantly started laughing as the little tentacle tickled him.

“Alright, now that I’ve got your attention. What the hell are we going to do? I say we must evacuate the town!”

Gabriel smiled at Zaki before saying the harsh reality.

“We can’t back down and let just anyone take our lives away. We’ve been here for hundreds of years and you think some tiny ass army is gonna be the ones to take us down?”

Gabriel patted Zaki on the shoulder before jumping onto the bar himself.

“LISTEN, EVERYONE! That army is gonna kill every single one of us, I don’t know why they’re here but we need to be ready to fight, as soon as they get within twenty meters of the village, we’ll rush the gate and kill!”

The village people started gathering around him, they all looked up at Gabriel with passion, like he’s the only one that could lead a tiny village to fight an entire army.

“Zaki, I’ll ask this favor for you, I’ll give you anything you want when we’re done, even if we die, I’ll repay it, just help us fight.”

Zaki thought for a bit, he looked at the villagers getting ready for the fight, putting armor on, and equipping their weapons, he used appraisal on all of them, not a single one of them was past level ten.

-The sheer love for their village is what’s keeping them from giving in, they don’t want to lose what’s theirs, I don’t think it’d be fair for me to tell them to leave. Nothing is fair here.

Zaki looked at the crowd again, imagining the child who died to the zombie guard and how sad he’d be when he realized his village was gone. Zaki started to remember his death, how much it hurt, how long it felt like it lasted, all for him to come back again. He walked up to the bar before looking up.

“I’m in.”

Zaki hopped up onto the bar again, he wasn’t too high of a level, sitting just shy of level six.

“Thank you, Zaki, it’s going to be a hard fight, I don’t expect them to want too many people dead, all you have to do is kill as many as you can.”

Kill, something Zaki hasn't done yet, he doesn’t remember anything about the fight with the zombie after he blanked out, when he found out he was just a zombie, Zaki didn’t seem to mind at all. But knowingly killing a person, even if they could come back, could Zaki do it?

Zaki’s legs were shaking, he didn’t want to die again, he knew it wouldn’t hurt too bad if it was fast, but still, the thought of slowly losing his energy till death was scary.

“It’s alright Zaki, everyone dies a few times, even if you do end up dying, just continue getting stronger, then you’ll never have to feel pain again.”

Gabriel smiled at Zaki before turning around to face the army, they were less than one hundred meters away. Zaki and Gabriel hopped down from the bar, Zaki stumbling as he fell, he still wasn’t too used to being able to jump so high and fall from higher heights without breaking a leg. They walked towards the gates, Zaki with his sword in hand, and Gabriel with a ball of fire in his hand, a fireball even.

A clone of Gabriel appeared out of him before taking a stance as well, he looked over at Zaki who was looking dumbfounded at him.

“See, this is a clone, it’s just a little weaker than me. The more clones I summon the weaker they are so I’m only gonna summon this one.”

Zaki replied with a question.

“Are you sure you trust me to kill people?”

Gabriel looked at Zaki again, with a slight bit of anger in his eyes.

“The goal of this world is to have everyone be equal, everyone has their own power, everyone is immortal in their own ways. We come back, again and again, just to die again. If you don’t want to die, you need to fight. Do you hear me? YOU HAVE TO FIGHT!”

Zaki watched as Gabrial shouted towards the heavens, asking for God's blessing as he turned around to motivate the villagers.

“If you’re ready to fight, then fight! Come with me now men and women, let’s fight for our lives!”

Gabriel and the villagers rushed towards the fight, leaving Zaki in the dust. Zaki quickly regained his mind and began to rush down with them, running into the trees. Zaki no longer had the bar to stand on so seeing through the thick trees was hard.

Zaki heard fighting around him, men screaming in pain as he heard swords slashing through their bodies. Suddenly silence, they say when you’re in the wild and the world goes silent, it’s not because things are sleeping, it’s because there’s a predator nearby.

“DIE!”

A man jumped out of a bush, crashing down on Zaki, he began beating him senseless, Zaki’s face was being turned into mush, breaking his nose and cutting his eyelid open, causing swelling in his face. Zaki kicked up dirt into the man's face before kicking him straight in the nose. The man fell straight on his back, smacking his head on a rock. The man, filled with adrenaline and rage, got up and rushed towards Zaki, who had already drawn his sword. With a graceful manner, like butter, the man ran right at the sword which impaled him instantly. He looked down at Zaki.

“Bested, by a goddamn level five elf! I’ll kill you next time you little shit, just you wa-...”

Zaki kicked the man off his sword, sending the man's body flying into a small river, which slowly drugged it downstream. Zaki fell onto his back, blood rushed from his nose and the pain slowly kicked in. His face was all swollen and he could only see from one high.

-My face hurts so bad. I taste blood and I don’t think this is saliva in my mouth.

Zaki looked over and spit on the ground a glob of blood.

CONGRATULATIONS! LEVEL 6 ACHIEVED!

ALL STATS INCREASE

BASE DAMAGE STAT DOUBLED DUE TO STRENUOUS USE!

“Oh look, level six.”

Zaki’s wounds started to heal slowly as his level and Elf blood kicked in, he got up and walked towards the water, he washed all of the blood off of his face before looking down into the river. He never questioned it before, he wasn’t human anymore, he looked nothing like himself. Zaki Lee was nothing anymore.

A sudden branch crunched in behind him, Zaki swung around and threw a fire tentacle at the sound.

Two men jumped from the bushes and tried rushing towards Zaki. He no longer wanted to feel pain anymore, he wanted to help the village fight and win. Zaki’s right hand transformed again into a tentacle, the purple glow of the little orbs coming off shined in the dusk sky. The men attacked at the same time but to no avail, Zaki dodges both attacks before turning both allowing the tentacle to also take over his left hand. Turning both hands into monsters, Zaki used a tree as some sort of trampoline before sending himself flying into the men.

“What the hell did you do to us?! We’ll get you, you son of a bitch!”

The man took one step before stopping, slowly he and his comrade’s body started to fall apart, the loud man looked over at Zaki who was watching with a disturbing smile on his face. The man screamed out to his friends who couldn’t hear him, his partner grabbed him on the shoulder, trying to calm him down before coughing up a bunch of blood.

The men fell to their knees as they looked up to Zaki, who was already talking away.

“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch! SON OF A BITCH!”

Blood splattered out of the man’s eyes, nose, and ears. Slowly his body fell to the floor, right on top of his dead friend.

“You know, killing isn’t so bad, mostly pieces of shit like these people.”

Zaki walked through the forest, exterminating any enemy in his sight, he slowly made his way towards the general before meeting face to face with them. They were young, it was a girl. A young black-haired girl with black horns sitting on a log in an empty field, blood and dead bodies surrounding her.

“I finally found ya. How’s about I kill you fast, would that be good for you?”

Zaki walked up to the girl who was staring at the freshly made mood. The stars made the world brighter than ever, Zaki hadn’t noticed that he could see her from such a distance until he noticed the stars.

Zaki took his blade out and put it to the girl’s neck, the girl slowly looked over to him, letting the blade cut her. A tear ran down the girls face before she spoke the words

“She’ll be pleased to know it’s you.”

Just as quickly as he spotted her, he watched as the girl grabbed his sword and plunged it into him, blood shot across the floor, and Zaki screamed. The girl took the blade from Zaki’s belly and licked the blood off of it before putting it to her neck. She got on her knees and said something Zaki couldn’t hear.

*thump*

Zaki’s face lit up in horror as he watched the girl’s mutilated body smack against the floor, she had killed herself. Zaki got onto his back, panting from pain, his sword wasn’t any normal sword, it had a strange enchantment on it. Melting, a ten percent chance to melt the person it stabbed and Zaki won the lottery. He watched as his skin started to melt, his health drained fast, nearing close to zero.

“ZAKI!”

Gabriel ran over and kneeled towards Zaki.“What happened? Everyone just started killing themselves, like dying meant nothing to them!”

Zaki looked up at Gabriel, trying to talk.

“Join me… On my… Quest to… Free the… Sanctuary.”

Zaki looked up at the stars, the same stars that lit the world around him. They were precious, there was nothing like them in the real world. With the lights in the cities, stars were rare to see but here they were.

“I’ll join you, but you need to live! Drink this potion, Zaki!”

Gabriel put a red potion up to Zaki, it entered Zaki’s bloodstream to no effect. Zaki’s skin continued to melt, and his inside went along with it. Blood started leaking from his nose.

-Again, Zaki Lee again, you’re going to let yourself die. It hurts. Why, why god, why does it hurt?

Zaki started to pant harder, harder. Gabriel started to pick Zaki up but Zaki broke free and hit the ground with a bounce. He crawled over to the log he once saw the girl sitting on, a blood trail following him.

“Rest.”

Gabriel looked down at Zaki’s sword. He knew from what Zaki just said what to do but didn't know if he could do it.

“Dammit, Zaki. I know you’ll come back, but dammit, it’ll be years if we’re lucky. DAMMIT!”

Gabriel grabbed the sword with force, tears started to come down his eyes. His skin was covered in blood from the battle.

Zaki nodded. His clothes were ripped to shreds from the beating earlier. Zaki pointed his head up, not saying a single word to Gabriel.

“Free us. Zaki…”

A swift cut put an end to Zaki’s life.

Appearing in an empty field appeared a girl, the girl was the same age as him from the looks of it, she had red marks on her face, it was paint on her face.

“Zaki, why did it take you so long to get here?”

Zaki couldn’t speak, nothing came out of his mouth. It was like a cutscene in a video game, he couldn’t do anything but watch.

“I had to make sure it was you, or else I’d get my hopes up as I did twenty years ago.”

Zaki tried to walk over to the girl but before he could darkness hit him like an explosion. He awoke in the Sanctuary again, he was in his life pod, looking out into the factory he was in. He kicked the and punched at the living pod before it popped open. Zaki fell to the ground, naked, afraid. His body was shaking from the feeling of death, it felt like he no longer had knees from the way his body shook.

CONDITIONS MET!

MELT RESISTANCE LEVEL 1!

SELF HEALING LEVEL 2!

Zaki sat down, looking at his stats.

“That’s good, it looks like I only lost the XP I gained while I was level six, that shouldn’t be too hard to get back.”

The air was cold on his body, winter was coming, and again Zaki was afraid, naked, and scared. The world was harsh, it could be days, multiple deaths, or an eternity before he found another soul. Zaki knew he needed back to the village, he needed Gabriel to free the Sanctuary.

Suddenly, a sudden shout echoed through the world.

“NO, NOT AGAIN, PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP!”

A female voice echoed through the factory, Zaki ran towards the sound, stepping on glass and cutting up his feet as he ran along. He ran into a room filled with nothing but two entities, that creature from before was on top of some girl. Zaki grabbed a stick off the ground and smacked the creature on the head.

“GET OFF HER!”

The stick was useless, the creature turned around and got off the girl, she had a towel wrapped around her which she probably got from her life pod. The creature smacked towards Zaki but he used his special dodge, which drained his stamina, he dropped the stick and relied on his fist since he leveled up his fist damage anyways. He punched the thing in the face and heard a satisfying snap, its neck snapped, the creature screamed before the girl in and stabbed it in the face with a shard of glass.

“PAYBACK FOR TRYING TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT ME YOU DICK!”

The creature ran around the room amusingly before smacking into a wall and dying. The two were both out of stamina and collapsed on the ground. A beautiful, young, white-haired girl with a halo over her head sat in front of Zaki. They looked at each other before asking at the same time.

“Who are you?”

They laughed at the coincidence.

“My name is Takana Aiko! Well, that’s what it was in the real world, I was a teacher for a school when suddenly, BOOP! It exploded!”

Zaki looked in awe at the revelation, it was Mrs. Tanaka from his exchange trip.

“My name is Zaki Lee, I was in your class, Mrs. Tanaka!”

“Zaki?! Finally, I found someone I know! How long have you been in this world!?”

The two exchanged what had happened to them in their time being in the Sanctuary. Zaki told his stories about town but decided against telling her about his power and secret talents.

“Zaki, we should sleep, and then first thing in the morning we go search for that village you were talking about!”

Zaki nodded and made an affirmative sound with his mouth.

“Before we head to bed, I’m gonna go find the towel I spawned with, it’ll get chilly tonight.”

Zaki started for the door before he was grabbed by Aiko, she looked at him and smiled.

“There are tons of monsters out there, it’d be best if you didn’t go out there, here, we can share mine, they give females two long towels since they have more to cover, we’ll use one to divide our bodies and one to cover us!”

Aiko had a look of intellect on her face like she made the greatest plan of all time, she even made a smug face to go along with it. Zaki on the other hand was shaking.

“Alone… Next to… You?”

Aiko bobbed her head up and down smiling, she truly was the most innocent, naive person ever. After some convincing, they finally started to get ready for bed. The floor was hard but he wasn’t cold. The body heat from Aiko, who passed out the second she hit the floor, was enough for him.

Zaki looked at the ceiling, he wasn’t alone or afraid anymore. He smiled before closing his eyes, resting his soul for his next adventure.