'Because of your repeated and experienced fights with shields you are rewarded with the new skill (Shield throw)'

Sam fell on the floor next to the zombie corpse. He was panting heavily holding his injured arm.

"That was close, let me distribute my stat points first, after that I will check on Jack's condition. His injuries don't look too serious."Sam said.

"Let me put two points in health and another one in defense this time"

'Stat points allocated'

The pain in his arm subsided quite a bit after putting two points in health.

"It seems that the health stat is responsible for the pain someone feels. Injuries won't hurt as much or hinder you while fighting. Let me check on Jack before looking at the new skill." Sam concluded and stood up.

Jack didn't look well. The right side of his face was swollen and his right eye had turned blue.

"At least he wasn't bitten.Hey, hey Jack, come on man wake up!" Sam shook him strongly.

Jack opened his eyes. He sat up and looked around in panic. His eyes got wide when he saw the wolf zombies corpse.

"Sam, you...you killed it?alone? How did you do that?" Jack asked.

"I got lucky, furthermore you helped out as well and saved my life." Sam answered while smiling.

"It's good to see a familiar face. How did you survive the last days and under what circumstances did you meet your comrades?" Sam asked.

Jack was still sitting on the floor. He looked at Sam and after more than five minutes started telling "The first day everything changed was the worst of all. I had the early shift this day when the announcement happened. I chose my class but when I returned about five colleagues had already turned into zombies and started attacking the rest of us. Most of the people dropped their weapons and started running away even though I held on to my weapons. After seeing the zombies I was nearly scared to death, I never thought about fighting and hid at the first occasion....I heard them dying. Many of the workers were caught running away and got bitten. Some fell down dying horrible deaths. I heard their screams filled with agony while the zombies slowly devoured them. I will never forget this day and their shrieking and pleading for death." Jack was pale white and his voice was full of sorrow.

"I stayed in my hiding spot until the next day. The zombies left the factory until there was only one left and because of him being quite far away I decided to kill it! I missed my first three shots so I hid again and retrieved my arrows after the zombie stopped searching for me. After another two misses I hit it right in the left eye. It died and I leveled up to Level 1. Afterwards I left the factory and ran into the group of Jonas and the others." Jack narrated and looked at the dead delinquent on the floor.

Jonas, the delinquent, had been the leader of their team. The Samson brothers had been two beggars working for him before Day 0.

Jack continued "The chinese guy is called Han. The black haired girl is his younger sister Sun and the blonde girl is called Nina. Han is an excellent fighter, he had already been Level 3 after two days, he must be just a bit away from Level 4. His sister and Nina are afraid of fighting, I think they only killed one zombie each, so they are both Level 1."

Sam listened, meanwhile walking to the corpses of the Samson brothers. He searched and found a light damaged shield under one of their bodies.

'At least I have a shield again...even though a steel shield would be much better.' Sam thought and went back to Jack.

"Let's Head up into my apartment first, we can continue talking there. We should search for loot and.." Sam stopped, seeing the corpse of the delinquent slowly standing up. He had died because of losing to much blood but that wasn't relevant when he zombiefied. Sam took this chance to activate his new skill for the first time.

He threw his shield in a straight line and hit the zombie right on the nose. With a sickening crunch it's nose got shattered and the zombie staggered back for three steps.

Sam had already started after throwing his shield and was in reach for his club, when the zombie regained it's posture.With a quick overhead slash Sam had killed the delinquent a second time.

'Level up!'

'Congratulations Sam Williams for rising to Level 4!!! You can distribute one stat point now'

'Now that I met Jack I can focus more on health and defense. I think health is more important right now!'

'Stat point allocated'

After another point in health the pain in Sam's arm completely vanished.

Sam turned to look for Jack, who was still sitting on the ground looking at Sam dumbfounded.

"H..How could you kill him so easily?" Jack asked.

"Well I got my first skill when I killed the wolf zombie, or to be more precise, I got it from repeatedly using my shield in combat! Maybe that is the way to get one or even more skills!!" Sam grinned from ear to ear.

"What exactly is your skill?" Jack asked him.

'How do I look at my skills?...Skills...Skill tree...Skill menu!' Sam thought and a red window appeared in his view.

The only skill was:

(Shield Throw Level 1

- Throw your shield to attack enemies or defend your allies in the distance [ 0,05% mastered])

When Sam focused on a little question mark besides the skill another screen appeared

(Leveling up Shield Throw will increase the distance it can be thrown and times it can be used.

Level 1

Distance: 5 meter

Cooldown: 1 hour )

'So that's how it is!' Sam got a lot of information this time.

"I can throw my shield to attack or defend, but the cooldown is one hour, so I will save it for emergencies." Sam responded after he had checked his skill menu.

"I have some more questions for you as well, but let us go upstairs where the floors are cleared." Sam proposed.

They searched the whole apartment and went back upstairs afterwards. Both of them were worn down, physically and mentally, so they decided to search the other floors on the next day.

They arrived at Sam's apartment.

"My home is your home! We are already brothers in arms, you saved my life and I saved yours. I trust you and that is something I don't do easily, especially at times like this." Sam said and gestured Jack to sit on the couch. They started talking again after eating some scavenged food.

"So what is your current Level and why did you pick archer?"

"I reached Level 3 at the first floor. I chose archer cause I liked shooting arrows when I was younger. I always pick archer classes when playing RPG's. Dude,tell me, I need to know how you got that skill." Jack eagerly asked. As a player himself Sam knew how Jack felt, so he said " I threw my shield to distract the zombie and after the fight I got the message. But the message read that I got the skill for repeated fighting with my shield. In my opinion the best way is to train as much as you can. For you that means shooting as much zombies as possible. Even if there aren't any zombies you should do practice shots. Eventually you will get a skill as well." Sam and Jack spoke for another hour before both of them fell asleep totally exhausted from fighting.

When they woke up it was already midday. They must have been totally fatigued so they had slept about 15 hours.

They ate a light meal while talking.

"By the way, where are the remaining people of your group?" Sam asked.

"I saw them running upstairs when I returned from the forth floor. They must have used an apartment on the fifth floor to sleep. Do you want to go upstairs? I will introduce you to them. They are good people." Jack suggested.

Sam nodded and both of them left for the fifth floor.