We ended up sleeping in the car that night, which actually didn’t turn out to be that uncomfortable. There was more bad news though: the two brothers had slashed every tire on all the vehicles.

The gas station was basically destroyed. The following morning, we searched the still warm ruins and managed to find some drinks that had escaped destruction in the coolers along with a small amount of untouched food. Maybe a week’s worth.

I managed to find another bag in Rick’s truck that Jessica could use and we took whatever our backs could carry. From here on out, we would truly be like rats scraping by. This incident had changed my outlook, hardened my resolve.

I never again wanted to look at someone and feel scared or the need to avoid them. No, I was determined to become so strong that no one could threaten us. Whoever met me with harmful intention would learn to avoid me or fear me enough to never try to take me down.

Killing the two brothers hadn’t resulted in any EXP gain, which told me something. Whatever or whoever deigned this apocalypse didn’t want the playthings having any incentive to hunt each other.

Unfortunately, human nature was going to work against that design. This wouldn’t be the last time I would need to deal with enemies in the form of humans. I was sure of it.

There was nothing left tying me to this place anymore, so we set off on foot towards the city. After a brief discussion Jessica and I had agreed we could level there, and also scavenge for food and water. It was the best place to be but it was more than an hour walk on foot, which further showed the determination those brothers must have had to find us.

“A mistake now will cost us our lives, but not giving our all will do the same,” I said. “Leveling is the number one priority.” It had occurred to me that leveling would eventually bring me to a state where I could not be easily killed by normal weapons. That rock smashing into my head should have made me unconscious, but it only stunned me momentarily. A single night of rest had healed the damage completely.More hit points, more abilities, and more strength in general—then no one could take advantage or look down upon us.

Once at the outskirts of the city, I found the first corpse available and summoned skeletons. From then on, we worked together to grind up EXP. It was necessary to take risks for some of the pulls because our encounters were double or triple packs of mobs. We took them all on, even goblins. For goblins specifically though, we always took cover and I pulled with my skeleton warriors. After they aggroed the goblins, I would pull them back into an enclosed space. Once there, we destroyed them without fear of spears being thrown unexpectedly from side streets.

By mid-afternoon, I had reached Level 5 and Jessica had got to Level 4. The required EXP per level was steadily increasing, and I expected she would be Level 5 before I even reached Level 6. Still, our increased power meant that our killing speed against the monsters of these streets had increased tremendously.

Up until now Jessica hadn’t decided on a specialization, and we still hadn’t found a skill for her to use. In the end, like I did, she put a few points in VIT and ended up saving the rest. I kept my three stat points in reserve as well. For now, I was pleased with how smoothly I was progressing.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: None Level: 5 EXP: 1%

HP: 250/250 MP: 28/35

STR: 3

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 10

WIS: 1

Available: 3

Skills: [A] Summon Skeleton LV. 3, [P] Sixth Sense [P] Bravery [P] Mutated

I hadn’t gained any new passive abilities, which was disappointing. My intuition was that defining moments would possibly grant one. In which case I might gain another passive skill should I kill more people. The thought was disgusting, but it crossed my mind all the same: this new world had attuned my mind to efficiency.

There was no place for normal human decency in the world anymore; not that I wouldn’t act in a proper manner, but my attitude would never be the same. People would be treated with decency until they didn’t return that decency. Then I would be merciless.

The hierarchy of the world had changed a week ago, and I didn’t want to be on the bottom rung of that ladder. “Let’s pick up the pace,” I said, confident we could tackle larger groups. “The sooner we hit Level Ten, the sooner we can stop worrying about others and focus on surviving.”

Having said that, I had the thought that there would always be a concern that we would run into someone else actively leveling up, someone with hostile intentions. In a dog-eat-dog world, the threat of assault was even greater for Jessica. She was a woman, and the chances something untoward happening to her was much greater than for me.

Jessica didn’t seem at all displeased with my suggestion; in fact, she openly welcomed it. “I want to find a skill today. I can’t keep holding you back.” While I didn’t think she was actually holding me back, I understood her sentiment: there was a limit to what she could accomplish with just a spear when I already had three beefy warriors with large axes.

We pushed deeper and harder into the city and reached places we hadn’t seen for over three days. “Let’s not get tangled up and lose our direction,” Jessica warned me. We were pushing quite fast, and in the case of needing to escape, there was only one path—the one we entered through.

Further towards the city center the monsters were becoming more powerful, which gave us both pause. It was clear from just a glance that they were stronger, and would be more difficult to battle. There were still goblins, and zombies and those weird crab-like creatures roaming about, but now too there were ghastly looking female humanoid figures that floated above the ground. “Banshees” Jessica labelled them and I went with that. Without risking pulling one, it was hard to decide if they were like ghosts; they were translucent and perhaps that meant weapons would simply go through them. Another new monster type were big brutish monsters – like ogres – with bulging muscles and huge meat hooks as weapon walking around.

To top it all off, there was a mega-sized ogreish, meat-hook wielding foe who was obviously different than the rest. Despite a similar hair-covered body and set of ragged clothes and weapons, he was just huge. A boss, an elite enemy perhaps?

The good news though, was that none of the new mob types were organized in a pack. If we wanted to, it was possible to get them separately and at worst we might have a goblin or zombie as an addition. “Let’s pull one of the meat hook guys,” I suggested.

Looking at our potential targets from the corner of the building we were hiding behind, it seemed like an ogre would be melee-based monster, and would use the meat hook to attack, while the banshee might be a spell caster or have some unexpected skill, which could prove difficult to fight, and more dangerous.

We waited until an ogre came close enough and then I sent out a skeleton warrior to meet it. Once it came back, we brought it through an alley and waited on either side of the exit. Three skeletons surrounded its burly body while Jessica and I stabbed at it with spears. The monster had a lot of hit points but I could tell right away we were going to win, despite the ferocious blows of its weapon. In the end, the ogre managed to smash apart one of my skeleton warriors before dying, which was troublesome. Regardless of whether I needed to resummon one skeleton or three, the MP cost was still 7. My WIS being so low meant my MP regen wasn’t that high. The 7 MP would take several hours to recover.

The monster however, was worth more EXP than six goblins. Just four more of these and I would hit Level 6, and Jessica would be right behind me. I bit the bullet on the skeleton warrior and we waited for another ogre to cross our path and pulled it the same way.

This time, I made sure to micromanage my warriors, making sure never let the same one get hit twice in a row. There was no guarantee this was effective because I couldn’t see any HP bar over my summoned skeletons, but we killed three ogres without losing a warrior.

Another benefit to stepping up the challenge was the increased drop rate. We obtained two skill books in only four kills, which seemed absolutely insane. I wondered if that would change over time, that skills came more often at low levels, to get us going. Another thought I had was that stronger monsters were gradually pushing outward from the city center and that if humans were to have any chance, we’d need these skills: eventually there would be no place completely safe from their spawning. These lower level monsters would cease to provide a path to those starting out, and harder monsters would continue to appear. If that was the case… people who weren’t actively leveling now would lose their chance forever and try just to go into hiding.

The first skill to drop was a defensive one.

Book of Bone Armor LV.1

Cast Time: 1 Second

Duration: 10 Minutes

MP Cost: 10

Covers the body in a shield of bone, greatly reducing damage taken from Physical and Magical attacks.

Bone Armor was active skill that didn’t have any damage dealing potential, which nevertheless was quite enticing to me. One of the biggest fears I had was of encountering people with guns. Did it really matter how much HP you had if someone shot you in the head with a gun? Maybe this would save me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a new skill slot until level 10.

Book of Quagmire LV. 2

Cast Time: 1.5 Seconds

Duration: 15 Seconds

MP Cost: 5

Summons a quagmire in the targeted location. Enemies caught within have reduced action speed and movement speed.

The second skill was interesting too. Frustratingly for Jessica, neither allowed her to deal more damage. Of the two skills, Jessica definitely preferred Quagmire, but she was hesitant to learn it. “Let’s kill a few more and maybe we’ll find something.”

The Quagmire skill honestly wasn’t bad, and if she used it in conjunction with my skeleton warriors, it was unlikely there was a foe nearby we couldn’t deal with. Regardless, we pulled three more of the fat brutes and actually found not a skill book, but an item: a weapon, to be precise.

Crude Composite Bow: A bow of decent craftsmanship.

There was no damage range on the item, but it looked promising, assuming we could get a regular supply of arrows. This drop acted as a reminded that we still had the unused skill book Sharp Shooting, and maybe going down the route of becoming an archer was the right one for Jessica.

“Try it.” I handed the bow to her and she took it in her hands. I watched as it disappeared and reappeared: Jessica must have been putting it in and out of her inventory several times. Eventually, she grasped the bow and pulled back the string to get a feel for it. To both of our surprise, once the bow was fully knocked, an arrow materialized on the string.

“I guess it’s not a game world for nothing,” I said. So the bow didn’t require arrows: honestly that was a huge benefit and meant the archery strategy was viable. Carrying arrows around and worrying about how many you had would have been terrible. “Maybe you should take Sharp Shooting as your first skill: it is the right choice to go with the bow,” I suggested.

Jessica was silent for a moment, and then looked thoughtful, “Wouldn’t Quagmire be just as good? Enemies can’t dodge my arrows if they can’t move… It would make hitting them easier. Quagmire would also make escaping much safer, too.”

It seemed that she had been thinking about the way forward much more carefully than I had. Both of her points drew attention to the benefits of Quagmire. Damage didn’t seem to be an issue at the moment, while anything that increased our chance of surviving a bad pull was definitely welcome.

“In the end, it’s your decision. I think Quagmire is also a good choice when you put it that way.” I passed her both books and allowed her to choose. She put the bow away and held one in each hand.

It took her around a minute of careful contemplation before she passed me a book back, the other she kept and learned. “Level Ten won’t be that far off,” Jessica said, possibly to reassure herself of her decision. The book I had in my hands was Sharp Shooting, and it seemed she valued the overall benefits Quagmire brought to our party more than her damage rate.

“Let’s keep pulling,” she proposed, “just because I have a bow doesn’t mean I can shoot it well. I’ll need some practice, for sure.”

“If you have unspent attribute points, STR and DEX may help,” I said. I couldn’t be certain, but STR would definitely make drawing the bow easier. The question was how useful DEX would be to her overall accuracy. Only time could tell.

Jessica nodded thoughtfully, “I’ll try without making any changes, and then add a single point at a time and go from there.” With that, I began pulling more enemies into our EXP blender.

“Whoops, sorry,” Jessica said, as on the second pull she shattered the skull of one of my skeletons. When an ogre was crowded by my skeletons, she sometimes had trouble hitting the monster, even though it wasn’t moving. It was disappointing that the game system allowed party members to harm one another, or at least their summoned allies, because that skeleton was destroyed.

Soon afterwards though, she announced, “It seems DEX helps my accuracy more. I’ve been putting in points one at a time and can tell the difference.

After the third ogre was dispatched efficiently, Jessica called out with delight. “I’m Level Six now! Those extra points in DEX should help a lot.”

“Congratulations!” I felt admiration for my lithe friend who each time she drew the bow looked more and more the part of an archer: a beautiful one. She had closed the gap to me. A quick check on my character sheet showed that the difference was only around 20% EXP.

“I should be able to pull a single Banshee from a distance now, let’s do that and find out what they are,” Jessica suggested. After putting in her new points into DEX, it seemed she didn’t have any problems hitting a non-moving target accurately in the face. I also didn’t need to worry about using Summon Skeleton to pull anymore.

“If you can hit that one from here in one attempt, I’ll agree,” I said. The banshee I pointed to was a fair distance away, so it wouldn’t be easy to hit the slender floating frame. It was also moving at a slow pace as well, which was encouraging if we discovered it was necessary to run from it.

It also occurred to me that if Jessica could hit the banshee while it floated along at long range, then she could probably get at least one more shot off as it came towards us. She nocked the bow and took stance. Even the way she held the bow looked more refined than before—more elegant.

I watched with extreme concentration as she released it, the slightly glowing arrow making a perfect arc in the air and piercing directly into the side of the banshee. The monster let out a low wail on hit and then turned in her direction. She drew again and released a second arrow: another direct hit!

The banshee picked up pace and then suddenly stopped, a blue glow forming between her ethereal hands. “Careful, get in cover!” I shouted. The banshee had started to cast some ranged attack. Jessica immediately canceled her current pull back and dropped low behind anabandoned truck.

Less than a second after she hit the floor, a projectile thumped into the side of the vehicle. Whatever it was shattered on impact and caused shards to fall all over the concrete. I couldn’t help but crouch downto get a better look: it was ice. The banshee had shot some kind of frozen projectile at her.

As soon as Jessica was out of line of sight, the banshee came floating at us with incredible speed, and into melee range. My fearless skeleton warriors rushed at it, completely surrounding it and raining axe blows down upon it. The banshees couldn’t manage to cast another spell before it faded into ghastly shards and then fully disappeared.

“Seems banshees are also on the menu now,” I said happily. They gave even more EXP than one of the ogre-types did. About six of them would bring up to my next level. As long as we could pull individual banshees then it was clear we should continue to do so. There was the danger from their spell though, and we didn’t yet know how much damage it did.

If the pull was bad and Jessica was hit by the freezing projectile, would she die? I doubted it would one shot, but couldn’t know that for sure. And there might be secondary effects, like being slowed or frozen to the ground.

“Another?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah, go again. This time just take it safe though and hide after the first arrow. We can’t afford to make mistakes; we only have your one bandage,” I replied. Until we had built up a store of remedies we needed to be as efficient and smart as possible.

Jessica waited nearly five minutes before a new banshee moved into a location that was safe to pull from. Flawlessly, her arrow once more smashed into the monster and this time the banshee never had line of sight on Jessica and it didn’t pause to try to cast. It ran at us and was met by my skeleton warriors. Once held in place, Jessica shot arrow after arrow at it.

We had now developed a strategy for every enemy nearby, and were employing it flawlessly. All that was left was to continuously pull and kill them. The EXP started to flow in, and so did the items.

Ration: Satisfies a certain amount of hunger and thirst. Three uses remaining.

An item that looked like a biscuit dropped, and that was definitely super useful. An item that we could eat and could be stored, with no expiration date, was invaluable.

Minor Healing Potion: Instantly restores 75 HP.

I had been expecting potions to exist and was glad to finally get one. Bandage was super useful, but it took time to ‘wrap’ the wound. Using this heal, however, was as simple as pouring the liquid into your mouth.

Morning Star: A large metal ball covered in spikes on the end of a chain.When it hits, it deals massive physical damage.

We had found several weapons before, which wasn’t exactly bad. From the point of view of starting out, you needed a decent weapon to kill enemies. You could make it through the first two or three levels without armor or spells.

I hadn’t been fighting in melee though. My spear was ‘melee’ and I considered swapping for the morning star, but the range the spear had was almost twice as much. I would be putting myself in considerable risk getting close enough to use the new weapon, especially to the meat hooking brutes.

It was when I was about to put the spare weapon into my inventory when I looked at my skeleton warriors and had a bright idea. I beckoned one over and had it drop the axe it currently wielded to the floor. After that, I instructed it to take the morning star from me.

To my delight, it was able to take the morning star and even wield it. I made it swing the spiked ball around and then checked that I could take the weapon back. Jessica was smiling.

“What?”

“You are like a mad scientist, experimenting on your Frankenstein monster.”

“I feel like one. And I’ve another test I want to make.” I returned the weapon to the skeleton and then re-summoned them all.

Two of the summoned skeletons came up with axes, but I was thrilled to see the third was wielding the morning star. When I tried to request the item back this time though, it couldn’t give it to me.

It seemed that I had permanently equipped one of my skeletons with this new weapon, but the original copy had been lost in the process of despawning and respawning. Neither Jessica and I were going to use the morning star anyway, so the loss wasn’t that great.

I still had a concern though, which was that the weapons wielded by my warriors might be purely cosmetic. It was possible that I had wasted a good melee weapon for a skin transfer. We decided to pull a brute to test this and see if the functionality had at least changed.

As the brute closed in, Jessica casted a Quagmire and I restrained my two axe-wielding skeletons in place. The skeleton with the morning star went to town on the monster.

I counted the amount of attacks required for the creature to die, and then did the same with an axe wielding skeleton. The result wasn’t really a surprise but was very welcome all the same: the morning star-wielding skeleton had killed the ogre-type monster almost fifty-percent faster than the skeleton with the axe.

Not only had I learned that I could continue to level my Summon Skeleton skill, I could equip the summoned warriors with weapons and perhaps with gear too. My original attitude to the skill had been too unappreciative. The scaling potential of Summon Skeleton was large, and it meant that I should move in this direction as my full focus.

A strong summoner was definitely a force to be reckoned with. It was one of the few classes that could fight many enemies at once. Your minions were tanks and damage dealers at the same time. Not only that, you were much safer during combat than if you were in the front line. If I continued to scale my warriors, defensively and offensively, I would be well off. Potentially, I could be a one-man army. That thought continued to cycle through my head until I convinced myself it was a fantastic idea.