The Witch Tamer, Book 1

by Naosu N R

  So there's a dual wield skill, just like in those cool RPG games?

  Still, its got to be hard to use, because you have to think about 2 things at once. No wait, maybe four things at once, if you count the opponents arms and arms wielding in opposition to your own movements while not cutting yourself up.

  Interesting.

  So maybe Miguel was lying about not being able to wield a blade.

  I should be careful with him.

  Josh has his hand on a knife tucked into his belt a lot also while we're driving. And that makes me nervous. With a normal person I'd ask them not to do that. But if these guys are really thinking about offing us, then it might force them to panic and act even more irresponsibly.

  It got complicated also with the driving.

  We found the pick up spot.

  But we had to also start luring zombies away from it, so that when those guys come they won't get bit.

  Shit!

  Zombie maps are so freaking dangerous!

  I'm starting to realize how dangerous this map is!

  Without the car, we would have had tons of game overs already!

  "Where is the zone exit, and entrance that leads to level 5?" I asked the others.

  "Its right there, only a block away from this meet up spot your friends picked," Sadie pointed out.

  I'd gotten lucky there too.

  The others hadn't been willing to tell us the entrance spot that leads into this map from level 5, until now. Sadie had to have been desperate for that.

  "Can we make it? Should we make a run for it?" Sadie then asked Josh.

  "We can't go yet! We need Jay and Mandy to find my family too," Miguel said in pure anguish.

  "That's the exit. We're so close to safety!" Josh muttered.

  Both he and Sadie are anxiously checking out the door to what a building that looks strangely enough like the Sears Tower in America.

  'That' is the entrance to level 5's safe zone!

  Still, it seems like a pretty risky safe zone to be only one floor away from a huge map full of zombies.

  I reviewed what I knew so far...

  Dungeon level 1 is tunnels with giant rats, slimes, and small time monsters.

  Dungeon level 2; I've been told is like level 1 but with more stats and levels. But I haven't verified this.

  And level 3; "Unknown?"

  Level 4; "Unknown?"

  Level 5; Safe zone dungeon map with a hidden town inside. (I'm anxious to check out these hidden dungeon towns. They sound interesting. But I don't know if this means ALL of the fifth floor is a safe zone or not, or only certain parts. I'll have to ask more about this later.)

  Level 6: Zombie town map (Where we are currently)(Darklings, zombies, sometimes orcs)

  Level 7; Josh and Sadie say we're not ready for this. And that its harder than this map. That sounds very scary. (But how could it be worse than a whole town the size of Chicago or New York City, full of zombies that swarm?!) Possibly an orc map?

  Level 8; 'Unknown'

  Level 9; 'Unknown'

  Level 10; Another hidden town, but that's all we know.

  There are many levels past level 10. In theory they could go on for some time.

  And does this mean every 5 levels is a town?

  Per Mandy, the answer to that is "not necessarily. Its dangerous to assume with dungeons."

  "Sadie now!" Josh shouted suddenly while we were discussing details and how to survive.

  What's happening?

  The entrance to level 5 is just over there.

  Suddenly Josh and Sadie, had thrown the car doors open and jumped out of the car while we're driving down the street! They'd ditched Miguel and the rest of us in an effort to save themselves!

  "No way! I can't believe they did that!" Mandy cried.

  "Let them go. Idiots. We weren't holding them prisoner. That's stupid. If that's what they wanted to do they should have told us ahead of time and we'd have helped them do it," I said.

  I guess this had partly to do with the fact that they didn't want to help Miguel's family who were missing and stranded. Plus, Miguel being wounded and unable to help himself. And they had become desperate by seeing how terrible and bad it was on level 6.

  Honestly, part of me was tempted to think that way also.

  Level 6...we definitely aren't ready for it to be honest. These guys are all level 20s ranges and had huge problems here! And I'm only level 8!

  "My gosh! Get the doors shut fast!" Mandy cried while the car lurched from her shock.

  Even worse zombies are less than ten feet away from the car!

  "Those fuckers knew this would get us killed! They did it on purpose! They left the car door open on purpose! I know them!" Miguel yelled full of anger.

  I reached over and got the door to my left shut, where Josh used to be. I barely got it shut before a zombie got close.

  Mandy had to do another turn.

  But then I had to stun another zombie coming at us, that was about to jump in the right front seat where Sadie used to be!

  Success! The stun works.

  I then had to hit stun twice more on a few other zombies while Mandy is burning rubber on high speed turns as we keep circling this block.

  Another problem is that this block is also getting more undead the longer we circle it!

  "There! I see 3 people running towards us!" Miguel spotted them first.

  Mandy guns the gas pedal and then roars the engine towards the 3 women running towards us.

  Wait, there's 3 of them?! Not 2?

  The sounds of their booted feet running towards us can be heard. But that loudness is attracting the zombies also.

  I can see Melanie's desperate looking face running towards us. She's also bra less and certain things bounce a lot. She's trying to outrun some zombies while carrying a lightweight pack frame on her back.

  Then next to her must be Simone wearing a mask?

  No wait. That's not Simone. Simone is next to her.

  But who is the third person with them, wearing a mask?

  We'd done pretty good this far, avoiding car damage.

  But then as we're speeding forward I bounced a zombie off the side door by pushing it open against one.

  The metal didn't give, thank goodness and that zombie slapped his whole face and head against the pavement.

  "Get in! Fast!" Mandy yelled.

  I was shocked as Simone leaped over onto my lap. Melanie had to crawl over Miguel, who was screaming in pain. And the last figure ended up getting into the car through the trunk which Mandy had popped. They'd done really good getting this far without getting bit.

  Then Mandy floored the gas pedal, to get us out of there.

  Briefly about six zombies had gotten hold of the bumper and back end, until Mandy peeled out as fast as she could.

  Zombie bodies, really do rot it seems.

  Two of them had their arms ripped off as they wouldn't let go of the car while we had taken off like a rocket.

  One more was still hanging from the car, but Mandy lost him in the next high speed turn.

  "Whoa, I can't believe we're alive!" Melanie cried.

  "That was so fucking scary!" Simone gasped also in anguish.

  "I'm so sorry! I'm really sorry!" I said.

  "The hell? A team of women? This is weird. Nice but weird," Miguel said in surprise.

  If he weren't in pain, he might have been excited. But instead he's bewildered.

  The back seat popped open on the left, and then I see Melanie's sister crawling into the back from the trunk.

  Shelly!

  Wait, what class is she?

  OK, I remember now. She was a healer, while Janey was the dark knight, and Melanie was an amplifier. Shelly is some kind of healer.

  This isn't good. If Shelly came then Sue might get upset. If I have that family's only healer, that could be a huge problem.

  "Shit! That was a real adrenaline rush!" she laughed.

  "OK, so where are we supposed to
go hide? We need some kind of defensive fortification right?" Melanie asked me.

  "That's right. That would be ideal. But shit, how the fuck are we going to survive without a ranger with the forage skill?" Miguel asked in shock.

  We took care of one problem.

  But now we have a few more bigger problems.

  Without a forage skill user, this map will take us out pretty harshly. And there’s something about the way the dungeon magic works, that severely increases the results of the skill while also making it so others can’t just ‘let’s try as if we had that skill’.

  Chapter 28

  I began to think fast while we're fleeing the scene of the zombies chasing us, in style, in a new car.

  "Did they make it?" Shelly asked while trying to get out of the trunk through the back seat slot. It wasn't easy and I ended up having to lean into Simone a lot to help her get through.

  "Did who make it?" Melanie asked.

  "The other 2. Did you see a man and a woman running towards the zone exit, where you came from?" I asked.

  "S-sorry. We didn't."

  Both Simone and Melanie are breathing hard from pushing themselves hard to make it alive to our car. You can see how stressed out they are also.

  Simone helped Shelly while we're speeding also around a corner.

  We all sort of bumped into each other.

  I'm so glad to see them! These two are my best friends. With Simone and Melanie here we'll do great, especially with Melanie's job being an amplifier!

  "Sorry. I couldn't slow down on that turn. There's too many of them," Mandy said. She's very nervous I can tell.

  "W-who is this?" Shelly is giving Mandy a rough look.

  "I'm Mandy, Jay's bodyguard. A pleasure," Mandy greeted.

  "This isn't the time to talk. Get us out of here," Melanie seethed while clutching anything she could hold onto.

  Mandy's driving skill looks really terrible because of evading zombies. And at times the car lurches, as she swerves to avoid them in the road.

  Thank goodness she's very good at driving.

  We sped off.

  "Shelly? Did you get permission from mom before you left the house?" Mandy asked.

  "Uh...no. But when I heard you were on level 6, I knew it wouldn't work without my help. And I needed a chance to XP, and help keep my sis alive," Shelly said.

  Weird, its not like Shelly to help out. What's up with this?

  "You know who she is?" I asked Mandy.

  "I've been briefed on everyone. Your family will notice if one of their only healer classes is missing. They are really valuable. This will be a mess on the fallout of you running off," Mandy said.

  "I'm not a kid. I can think for myself," Shelly told her.

  "Look out! Watch the road!" Melanie yelled.

  Mandy swerved to avoid a huge zombie.

  What the hell?!

  That one was like 12 feet tall!

  "Oh shit. That one looked at us!" Simone said.

  "No it didn't," Melanie bit her lip and appears to be in denial.

  Wait, he is looking at us.

  They...couldn't be sentient right?

  "I think it did," Simone argued.

  The others wanted to get far away.

  Its also unnatural that an undead body could get that tall anyway, so we don't dare take chances.

  ...

  It took some time to get away.

  We gave Miguel some alcohol to help numb the pain of his hand.

  I did an equipment check.

  Shelly has anti-undead spells she says.

  Melanie has a baseball bat, and good boots but no good equipment. The others think she's nuts for coming in to join me. (Part of why Shelly is here.)

  Shelly has real dungeon armor and equipment! She even looks like something you'd see in a fantasy role playing online game! Plus, her gear is enchanted. She has some kind of healer staff also. (She won't reveal her stats or level.)

  Simone has no equipment, but feels relieved to leave the house. Because of how she'd arrived at the house, that's why she wasn't able to get anything resembling a weapon.

  "You guys are crazy. You should have good gear. Level 6 is insane! Its a death trap!" Miguel yelled at them.

  "Take it easy," Mandy said, calming things.

  But then she got upset at them also.

  It appears my charm effect and hold over Melanie and Simone is stable, but somehow even better than it was before. Both kept trying to hold my hand, even in front of the others.

  (I hope this won't put me out with Mandy.)

  And thank goodness this is still working! I should try to figure out more about what determines how long it works for, but I can't do that right now.

  Miguel is drugged to avoid the pain, making him pretty much useless and nearly passed out if not fully so. But eventually he'll notice its odd that I have girls all over me. I'll have to think of a way to explain that to him besides mind control.

  There wasn't any alternative to not drugging him though, given that any crying out in an undead map is pretty deadly to others. But moving him won't be easy and may take all of us also, once we figure out where to lay low.

  ...

  We circled around near the exit, but it was difficult.

  The object was to try and see if we could see what happened with Josh and Sadie, who ditched us.

  Still, there's no room in this car.

  "Wait, where's your truck?" I asked Melanie.

  "Um...its parked in level 5 of the dungeon, in that city. We couldn't afford the gate fees to drive it in," she said.

  "Wait, you can drive a car into level 5, and other levels with towns?" I asked.

  "The guards allow it. But they do charge money. It costs a lot to move a vehicle from the outside to level 5, as its the only way to get them in here. But remarkably the Tower is big enough to fit vehicles like cars in it. But its hard to get gasoline here," Mandy said.

  So it appears Mandy had considered this route also. And it seems not many people actually end up doing so, because of gas worries and supplies.

  Shelly gave us all party invites.

  After confirming acceptance, I see all our names in the same team list of a status screen team window with its own box view, complete with health bars.

  We also verified that nobody has zombie bites. Thank goodness!

  "Wait, how do you know nobody won't steal the truck if you left it in level 5?" I asked.

  "Actually we counted on that. Its being mage locked into a mage warehouse. Nobody can get it out. Only me," Melanie said.

  (So there's something called a 'mage warehouse' also. It seems to be like a special kind of global enchant item vault, that works in the dungeons in exchange for storage fees.)

  ...

  For now we considered the next part of the mission is to get everyone armed.

  Luckily we have spare weapons.

  Since I'd enhanced Mandy's crowbar, she donated a baseball bat for Simone to call it even. She also donated a spare buckler for her.

  I found out Shelly has a skill that does fairly high damage to undead. But she has no forage skill. Healers also don't get the forage skill, only rangers get it.

  Simone doesn't have a dungeon job class yet either.

  With my help, I'm sure we can level up Simone enough and coach her into a dungeon job. Most normal humans can acquire dungeon jobs, they just have to hit the pre-requisites first. But they do tend to have lower stats than people like me, with mana in their blood, and genes connected to others that have been in the murim world awhile.

  "So I really can acquire a dungeon class?" Simone asked after I told her I would help her get a dungeon class.

  "We need to fix that right away," Melanie said.

  "How do we do that? Can we even do that?" I asked.

  "Sure we can. Its not that hard. The hard part is keeping her alive while she swims in the deep end, so to speak. That's how you can get someone a dungeon job. But it won't be instantly done. It may take
a few weeks of hard work," Mandy said.