The next time I opened my eyes the gas station ceiling came into view. My head was pounding and I was covered in a thick and disgusting layer of sweat. I tried to sit up but could only let out a low groan before falling back down.

“You’re awake! How do you feel?” Jessica must have heard me as she came to my side.

“Like complete shit,” I said plaintively. “How long have I been out?”

“You’ve been lying there for two days… when I first got you back, you were burning up and murmuring while unconscious the entire time. It got so bad I was sure you were going to die. You were like that for a full day, and then the fever broke and your temperature started to come down.”

“Water… please,” I said. I felt incredibly dehydrated and my stomach was begging for liquid to fill it. Despite that, I couldn’t help but smile. I was alive. I was alive! I opened my stats and took a look at myself from the view of the game system I was now a part of.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: None Level: 4 EXP: 35%

HP: 30/235 MP: 30/30

STR: 3

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 10

WIS: 1

Available: 0

Skills: [A] Summon Skeleton LV. 2, [P] Sixth Sense [P] Bravery [P] Mutated

To judge by my low HP, I was just outside death’s door. Putting the 6 points I had available into VIT had most likely been essential in my survival. I turned my thoughts from my narrow escape to the two new passive skills I could see.

Bravery I had seen when checking my status before my collapse, but the situation was so dire I hadn’t had time to check it. Mutated, however, was completely new. Naturally, I read each of them.

Bravery: Helps you find the strength to overcome adversity.

Mutated: You have been changed in an unknown way.

Bravery was definitely useful, and perhaps it had been a factor when I had overcome my instinct to run when Jessica was down and two zombies and a wolf came into view? But I also had felt a strong desire to help the only person I knew for sure was still alive. I couldn’t say for sure, obviously, life or death situations were something completely new to me. It was possible that Bravery had stopped me from fleeing in fear. I was never particularly brave.

Mutated, however, worried me. Getting the skill must have been a consequence of being bitten by a zombie, but in what way was I mutated? The ‘passive’ tag didn’t help in any way to understanding it. A horrible thought occurred to me. Perhaps I was going to turn into a zombie? I guessed I would need to wait and see.

Jessica returned with a bottle of water and some chips. She opened the top and the bag for me before sitting down beside me. “Thanks for saving me. Those monsters would have torn me apart. If you hadn’t put yourself in between them and me, I’d be gone.”

“Teammates help each other out. You paid me back already by getting me back here, safe and alive.” It was then that I remembered I had picked up a skill book from one of the monsters. There had been no time to look at it before.

I pulled it out and the thick, glowing tome hovered above my hand. Jessica looked on in awe, “Is that what you meant by a skill book?”

“It is. Mine gave me the power to summon skeletons. This will be yours and it could make all the difference to us. Let’s see what it is.” I turned the cover for both of us to read the front page.

Book of Sharpshooting LV. 1: Fires a projectile with pinpoint accuracy. Requires: Projectile Weapon.

I drew a blank… “Isn’t this kind of useless right now?” We didn’t have a bow or a gun or any kind of projectile weapon.

I didn’t bother reading the other skill stats because it wasn’t even usable at the moment.

Jessica looked up from the book, and had an uncertain tone in her voice. “Should I learn this? It seems a waste. Perhaps you should hold on to it and maybe we will find a projectile weapon, or a different skill book.”

I nodded and when I put the book away, felt that Jessica didn’t seem too bothered about it. Did she appreciate how important a skill was for our survival and progress? I was disappointed this hadn’t been more useful.

It suddenly occurred to me to ask, “Did anyone else come by the garage while I was out?”

My question wasn’t just based on hope for more human allies, I was also concerned about our food supply. As time went on resources would slowly become scarcer. People would continue to search for food and water, and that would eventually lead them here not as friends but rivals.

“No one,” Jessica responded.

I found that I was more relieved than disappointed. I finished my chips and took another big gulp of water before laying my head back down. Right now, I felt too weak to move. Fortunately though, I could see my HP was steadily recovering. Even in these few minutes I was 2 HP better. It seemed to me my HP was ticking upwards a little faster than before I was knocked out. Probably, VIT made a contribution to the rate of restoration as well as the absolute HP score.

In another day I would be back in fighting shape, and we could return to the city to explore more. I was determined to continue leveling up; whatever the meaning of this game, it was clear that levelling was central to it. My main fear was that things may have changed in these past two days.

Despite having been asleep for nearly two days already, drifting off again wasn’t difficult. My body felt like absolute trash, and after eating and drinking my fill I went back under without any delay.

The following morning I felt renewed, and seeing that my HP had recovered back to full, was good to go.

“Are you ready to try to get more E.X.P?” I asked Jessica. She must have felt trauma from her injury and near death. Once you experience that fear, it stays with you and is hard to get rid of. I was almost expecting her to say ‘no’.

“Let me eat my breakfast. We should spend a bit more time being careful, though. A spear in the leg is not something I ever want to experience again.” She half laughed.

Her mood was surprisingly cheerful and I admired her for it. I also noticed that she wasn’t walking with a limp at all. “Does your leg hurt?”

“Just a dull aching since it was bandaged. It’s been slowly getting better since then though.” She looked at me, “what about you? Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Good as new. My ten VIT has ensured that.” To Jessica I wanted to project that I was calm and composed, but in truth I was worried. Out of necessity, I had put a ton of points into VIT, even though my combat tactics were to rely on my summoned skeletons. If the monsters in town had become tougher in the last two days and if there was no scaling for my current skill, we might become stuck, unable to progress. Level 10 seemed to be far away.

Trying to be more positive, I reminded myself that if the zombies and goblins remained easy kills, then we could slaughter them without care, in which case level 10 would be reachable in just a few days grinding by our two-person party. The risk of a ranged attack against us was my biggest concern and probably Jessica’s too from what she’d just said. It was fine to say we’d go slowly but those attacks were the bane of our existence. There were so many places for enemies to hide and attack from.

We had crowd control problems too. Only zombies could be dealt with efficiently en masse. The rest of the monsters – the goblins, wolves, and especially the aliens – were big threats and fighting more than one at a time increased the risk of injury several fold. We hadn’t even cracked the outer zones of the city either. What lay further towards the center? Would monsters be getting stronger? Would they change and evolve as time went on?

I shifted my thinking to the present and stopped worrying about the what-if’s. “I’m gonna fill up the tank and then we head out. Would you lock up?” I said to Jessica before tossing her the keys. She had already gained my loyalty and trust.

The city’s appearance hadn’t changed much over the previous two days. The biggest difference was the smell. It had grown milder, as the corpses had already dried out in the sun, having reached their peak stench around the time of our last journey here.

As we moved carefully down a wide street, I realized that my outlook had grown bleaker. Several days without seeing another person didn’t bode well for the survival of humanity. Was everyone holing up as long as possible? If that was the case, they would be forced to find food and water and new shelter in the coming days.

Were monsters going to be what I needed to worry about most? People could be terrible, and even more so when it was ‘us or them’. What if we met people of higher level, was there anything in the system to stop PVP? Or was it going to be that the strongest set the rules?

As we moved, I realized that while the buildings looked the same, the pattern of the spawns was different. When we started to see monsters, they were always in large groups. There were no more singles, only packs of them. Although they moved around, it always seemed to be within a limited area.

Being careful was no longer a suggestion but an absolute requirement. “Let’s avoid the goblins at all costs.” I suggested. For now, their ranged attacks posed a serious problem. The alternatives were packs of zombies, our little alien friends, and a new monster type that I hadn’t seen before.

The streets were now crawling with enemies to fight, which potentially meant more EXP, but also way more danger. Fortunately, both Jessica and I were wielding spears from goblin enemies. With my two skeleton warriors we had four bodies to fight with.

“What about those over there?” Jessica pointed to six zombies. Her choice was good, they were a risk but it was lower than for any other group of mobs we’d seen.

“All right. Let’s see how they react to being attacked,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s possible to pull them separately.” Even if we somehow pulled five or all six of them at once, I felt we could handle the fight.

I took a moment to find a corpse and then I summoned my skeleton warriors. Jessica had picked up some rubble from the ground and looked at me. Her intention was clear; she was going to try to beam one of the zombies with a rock.

It was a good idea so I gave a nod. “Worst case, everything starts coming, we run like hell and don’t look back.” She gave a nod and then tossed out the piece of rubble. My expectations weren’t high, but to my surprise she managed to clock the zombie directly in the head.

The zombie that was hit turned in our direction immediately, even though it didn’t know exactly where we were. There was a moment when I thought it might come alone, but then four more turned and began rushing in our direction as well.

“This is fine.” I assured her. “Let’s move back a bit.” We moved off the debris we had perched on and into one with a lot of wreckage around us. We positioned ourselves between several totaled cars. We could easily funnel the incoming mobs one at a time here.

I sent the skeleton warriors out first, with instructions for them to deal with two zombies on their own. They would do well: the scratching and biting attacks of the zombies would have a lot less effect on bone than skin. That left four rushing zombies for Jessica and I to deal with.

The remaining zombies came at us while awkwardly tripping and hobbling over the corpses and downed infrastructure. They battered into the burned car frames with almost no sign of intelligent pathing. With no windows to block us, we stayed on the far side of cars and pierced their heads from one side of the car to the other when the opportunity arose.

My skeleton warriors easily cleaned up the original two, and I received a very welcome system message that filled me with relief.

Summon Skeletons has leveled up.

I opened the skill description for Summon Skeleton and took a look at what had changed.

Summon Skeleton LV. 3

Cast time: Instant

MP Cost: 7

Distance: 3 Meters

Summons three Skeleton Warriors to fight for you. Skeletons can only be spawned from a corpse.

I had gained one more warrior at the cost of 2 extra MP per cast. I cast it again on a zombie before it despawned and three fresh warriors appeared in front of me. My hope had been that a new level would increase their strength, and that this was true was as clear as day looking at them.

Their boney frames now supported a few pieces of metal armor. The axes they wielded were slightly larger now. Looking at them was enough for me to see they were definitely more dangerous.

“Got another bandage.” Jessica said while walking over to me. So far, neither of us had found a single equipable item yet. I was starting to wonder if they even existed. Up to now, I had been convinced I was in an RPG system. Yet an RPG without drops and gear wasn’t really an RPG.

Perhaps though, the issue was that we hadn’t killed much more than twenty enemies, if that. Maybe this was a system where gear was rare, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. It meant whatever we found would be that much better and more valuable when it did drop.

For now though, we had to find a way to level given the change in monster behavior. There was no point continuing along these roads that no longer had easy pulls, and instead we went in the other direction, but still along the outskirts of the city. Our search for an encounter we could handle ended up being a walk of over thirty minutes of movement away from our vehicle, which was not a great idea in itself.

“Wait…” I said. There was a commotion ahead of us, some shuffling inside a former grocery store. “Do you hear that?” I whispered.

Jessica looked at me and nodded her head, and then we both started to scoot forward stealthily, eventually we reached the corner and she peeked her head around to take a good look. “There’s people!” she said in an excited but low whisper.