Chapter 34
Michael took a step forward with a solemn expression. He said slowly, “Your group has killed six of our members. This is unacceptable. When humanity should be working together to survive, you instead kill. It’s pathetic!”
“Don’t preach to me boy,” The Boss’ snapped. The boss raised raised his hand and pointed around as he said, “Take a look around. Do you see humanity? No, it’s been wiped out! How many do you think are left? A few million at most? It’s over. The rules have changed. It’s survival of the fittest now.”
Michael wanted to respond, but actually, he agreed with the boss. How much longer would they have to fight? To survive? Wasn’t it best to become a dictator for the last few years, or months, of his life? Still, he couldn’t just say what he was thinking. He put on a show. He frowned and said, “It looks like our two groups can’t coexist. If that’s the case… then we’ll have to wipe you out!”
“A fight? Good!” The boss roared with laughter. He had been profoundly sad since his sister died during the boss fight. Now he could vent his emotions by wiping out this group before him!
Michael pointed at the boss and yelled, “Everyone, attack!”
The students clenched their teeth and cast their skills. Fireballs, ice lances, wind blades, and earth bolts shot forward. Whack widened his eyes in horror. Over 50 spells were heading in his direction. He wasn’t like his boss. If he was hit, he would die! Unfortunately, he was too late to react. He let out a yelp as he was instantly killed.
The boss disappeared. He was hidden behind a plethora of skills. There was no scream from him, so the students thought he was instantly killed like Whack. Michael glanced at the two young men next to him and frowned. They were calm. Too calm. Wasn’t their boss dead?
“Is that all?” The boss’ voice was heard as he stepped out of the ball of fire. He looked different than before. A layer of rock covered his entire body, except for his eyes.
“What!?” The students staggered backwards in horror. Didn’t he look unwounded? How was that possible? How did he survive their barrage of attacks? What level was he? 100?
At this time, Greg yelled out, “That’s earth armor! I have a skill point in it, but there’s no way I could escape alive from that attack. What level is his skill?”
“Oh?” Michael quickly asked for information about the skill from Greg.
Earth Armor - Level 1
Cost:
1 Skill Point
Requirement: Level 4 elemental skill.
Skill:
Activate to form a layer of rock around your body for 5 minutes. Costs 5 mana. All attacks will be reduced by 5 damage.
Greg added, “I’m guessing his earth armor is around level 6. That’s the only way he could survive our attacks unharmed.”
“Then how… how will we damage him?!” Michael felt a sliver of fear for the first time. The situation was getting out of control. He couldn’t predict the result.
The boss chuckled, “Well, your half right, but I won’t bother to explain.”
The boss glanced at his skills and titles. He let out a smile of satisfaction. If he were to liken himself to something, he would be a human tank. He wasn’t quite on the level of the tank boss he fought, but he was close.
Indestructible
Effect(s):
Reduce all damage taken by 5.
*Acquired after being attacked 1,000 times without taking damage.
Earth Armor - Level 4
Cost:
1 Skill Point
Requirement: Level 4 elemental skill.
Skill:
Activate to form a layer of rock around your body for 5 minutes. Costs 5 mana. All attacks will be reduced by 20 damage.
Tenacious Skin - Level 5
Cost:
1 Skill Point
Effect(s):
Passively reduce all damage taken by 10.
The combination of his skills and title made it so that an attack had to do more than 35 damage for him to be hurt. There was no human alive who could do such a thing. This was why the boss was confident in facing over 50 people.
The boss took a step forward. As he did, the students stepped backwards in fear. Even Michael did so. The only person who didn’t… was Eric!
Eric stepped forward with a grim expression and said, “I’ll be your opponent.”
“You? Do your best, haha,” The boss didn’t recognize Eric, but he must be their strongest member if he was confident in facing him after seeing the earth armor. It was still useless.
Eric ran forward. When he reached the boss, he twisted his waist and swung his mace. There was a loud crack as the earth armor cracked. Eric staggered backwards from the recoil. His mace was vibrating so hard that his hand grew numb. His face fell as he read the screen in front of him.
-3
When had he done such little damage? On the first day! How long had it been since then? How much stronger had he become? Even with all his increased stats, he could only deal 3 damage? He was shocked to the core.
What he didn’t know was that the boss was more shocked than Eric, though nobody could see it because of the layer of rock covering his face. He thought to himself, “W-what?! This kid did 38 damage with a single attack? Was he using a skill?! Yes, that must be it. He used his strongest skill!”
What the boss didn’t know was that Eric didn’t use any skill! That was really only a simple attack.
When Eric recovered, he charged forward once again. This time, the boss moved. Before, he was arrogant and stood still as Eric attacked. He had wanted Eric to feel despair. But now he had to take the fight seriously.
The boss attacked from above with his steel sword. Unlike the boss, Eric would be heavily wounded if he took such an attack. He quickly stepped to the side and ran behind the boss. Eric realized he was much faster than his opponent.
After Eric dodged the sword, he activated heavy blow. The boss felt tremendous pain as he staggered forward. Bits of rock fell from his earth armor. Since when had he felt such pain? Never! No one had ever broken his defences. The boss glanced at his health. He felt like he was struck by a thunderbolt.
Health: 103/150
He lost 44 health in that attack? He realized that he was wrong. Eric didn’t use a skill the first time! This was a monster! He was fighting a monster! The boss started grew panicked. He understood that Eric could kill him in 3 more attacks. If that he was the case, he would go all out! He wouldn’t waste time dodging or attacking.
As the boss thought all of his, Eric shook his hand in pain. His mace had nearly fallen out of his hand when he attacked. He was striking rock, afterall. There was bound to be recoil.
“I can do this!” Eric thought to himself when he saw the damage number.
Eric was filled with great confidence as he ran forward. The boss didn’t move as he closed in. Eric thought he had given up, so he attacked with increased vigor.
Suddenly, he felt a tingling sensation from below. He barely had time to react as he jumped to the side. Blood flew through the air as the students exclaimed in shock, “Eric!!”
A massive pillar had risen from the ground, stained with Eric’s blood.
Eric felt dizzy as he clutched his side. He looked down and saw that the side of his stomach was missing. Beads of sweat dripped down his head. If he hadn’t dodged at the last moment… he would have died. He would have been impaled on that rock pillar. He had to thank Veronica. At the last moment, he activated the skill shrug it off. Even though he dodged, he would have most likely lost all of his health if he hadn’t cast the skill in time.
The boss’ eyes shrunk as he exclaimed, “You dodged that attack?!”
Eric struggled to his feet as he clutched his side. He clenched his teeth and ignored the pain. He was too confident before. He thought the boss gave up, that’s why he was motionless. Instead, it was a trap. Eric had learned a painful lesson. Always use your full strength when fighting an opponent! Don’t get careless.
&n
bsp; As Eric walked forward, the boss staggered backwards in horror. He didn’t have enough mana to cast earth pillar again. He had nothing left, except his steel sword. He grit his teeth and lunged forward as he roared, “DIIEEE!”
Eric took a deep breath as he twisted his body to the side. The steel sword knocked against the ground and flew out of the boss’ hands. Eric felt terrible pain from his stomach, but he forced it down. He activated stunning strike and hit the boss. Regardless of his armor, he was stunned for 1 second.
Eric felt dizzy from the pain as he used all of his strength. He activated heavy blow and swung his mace at the boss’ head. There was a loud crack as the boss’ neck snapped from the force of the blow. It was a critical strike! Like a zombie, a human’s head was their weakness.
The boss collapsed to the ground, motionless.
As the students cheered, Eric’s vision faded to black as he lost consciousness.
Chapter 35
Eric slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He found himself lying on a bed in the hospital facility. He felt pressure on his chest and looked down. His sister, Emily, was sleeping on him. She felt him move and woke up. With puffy eyes, she asked, “You okay?”
Eric rubbed her head as he nodded, “I should be fine now.”
He looked down at his stomach. There was a bandage wrapped around his waist. The chunk that was missing was now regerated, thanks to the miracle of the hospital facility. Even someone whose arm was severed was restored. It seemed that any wound would be healed here.
Someone entered the hospital facility with a plate full of food. It was Greg, the person Eric rescued during a blood moon. Greg smiled when he saw Eric was awake.
Eric asked, “Greg… how long was I out?”
“A few hours,” Greg responded and held out the plate of food, “you hungry?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Eric took the sandwich and began to eat.
Greg leaned in with bright eyes. He spoke with awe and reverence, “Dude… how strong are you? You damaged that guy that no one else could.”
“Pretty strong,” Eric grinned mysteriously. He still felt that he wasn’t strong enough. If he was more experienced, he wouldn’t have taken any damage.
When Eric finished the sandwich, he asked, “What happened in the end?”
“Hm,” Greg gathered his thoughts before explaining, “When you killed that gang leader, the fog moved in. A few undead spawned in the power plant, but they were quickly taken care of. Roy acquired the territory and then transferred it over to Michael.”
“What about those two… Johnny and Lenny?” Eric asked hesitantly
Greg sighed heavily, “They were killed.”
“I see…”
Silence filled the hospital room for a few seconds before Eric asked, “What about the rest of their gang?”
“In the end… there was a vote. We decided that they were to be given a warning to not enter our territory or kill our members anymore. If they did, we would kill them!”
Eric smiled slightly, “That’s for the best.”
“I agree,” Greg nodded. He wasn’t comfortable was massacring over twenty people.
Eric recalled the skill that the gang boss used. Wasn’t Greg going down the earth path as well? Maybe he knew about it. Eric asked, “By the way, do you happen to know what skill that guy used at the end?”
Greg shook his head, “No, sorry.”
Eric tried to remember how much damage he took from that single skill. If he hadn’t used shrug it off, he most likely would have taken 80 damage. That was a lot. Not only that, but the guy he fought had over 100 health. He had much more than Eric. Eric had barely put any points into vitality, but now he was thinking that perhaps that was a mistake. He decided that from this point on, he was going to start raising his vitality. He needed to be able to survive a few attacks at least. He couldn’t help but think that humans were too fragile.
Greg stood up and prepared to leave. He said, “Well, now that you’re awake and healed, I’ll head out.”
“Thanks for watching over me.”
“No problem.”
Eric got off the bed and stood up. He picked up Emily and asked, “Where’s mom?”
“In our room,” Emily replied as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Eric went to find his mother and grandmother to tell him he was alright. He spent some time reading a book with Emily before leaving to go to the quest board. He had been putting off the boomer zombie quest because it was so troublesome, but after his near death experience, he wouldn’t avoid it anymore.
E Grade Quest
Goal: Kill 25 boomer zombies.
Reward: 1 skill point.
*May only be completed once.
It took him a few days to complete the quest. They were somewhat rare to find, but that wasn’t the hardest part. Every time the smelly liquid splashed onto him, he would be attacked by a horde of zombies. If it wasn’t for his high stamina, he would have had to flee.
When he completed the quest, he heard from Elizabeth that he was one of the few people who were having a hard time killing boomers. Elizabeth herself killed the boomer from afar, so she wasn’t attacked by a horde of zombies like him. Eric could only sigh at the unfairness of the world.
With the nearby gang taken care of, Michael and his group once again took control over the gas station. It was just like safeway, except that instead of respawning food, it respawned gasoline. With the gasoline in hand, the group once again felt confident about handling the blood moon.
As an added bonus, the safeway landed in their hands. Now they acquired a wider variety of food to eat. Eric’s family were delighted. Now they could cook more recipes.
Everything seemed to be going well. Their standards of living were much higher compared to the first day, and everyone started to have hope for the future. Thing weren’t so bad afterall. They were surviving, adapting, and growing stronger.
On the 33rd day, an unexpected group arrived at the school. It was the military.
Michael rushed towards the cafeteria after receiving the message from one of the students. He couldn’t believe it. The military actually arrived? Wasn’t it a little too late? It’s been a fucking month!
He arrived in the cafeteria and entered the crowd of students. All of them were looking towards the stage. A group of fifty military soldiers were standing on the stage. Michael’s anger dissipated as he saw them.
All of them were muscular men. Their expression were firm, and they had a bloodthirsty aura. The strange thing was that they were equipped in medieval looking armor. They wore steel armor and had a shield on their back. They had a short sword on their hip and held a spear in their hands. They all stood in formation.
The students were intimidated. This was a real army. They felt that if both groups fought, they would be annihilated!
One of the soldiers stepped forward and took off his steel helmet. He had a buzzcut and a short beard. His eyes were much softer compared to the other soldiers. He looked around at the students before he smiled and said, “My name is Lieutenant Sanders. I’m here to represent the U.S. military. Do you perhaps have a representative?”
All of the students looked towards Michael. Michael coughed lightly and stepped forward, “I suppose I’m the leader.”
“May I ask for your name?”
“Michael.”
Sanders nodded slightly, “Hello, Michael. I’m surprised that a group of students like you have survived so long. I truly admire you all.”
Michael shook his head, “Our losses were large…”
Sanders sighed heavily, “You aren’t alone in this. The world is in bad shape right now.”
Michael cut to the chase as he asked, “What are you doing here?”
Sanders’ soft look disappeared and was replaced by a solemn expression. He spoke with authority, “I’m here under orders to look for survivors and lead them to our base.”
Murmurs broke out among the students. They were finally be
ing rescued!
Michael was calm as he asked, “How many does your group have?”
“Over 10,000 strong!” Sanders said with a booming voice.
Today was the day when Michael’s leadership ended and was transferred to Lieutenant Sanders. It was done without a second thought. Not by Michael, but by the students.
Sanders gave everyone one day to gather their belongings. After everyone packed their things, they headed out. Their destination was the heart of the city. The shopping mall!
ZOMBIE SLAYER!!: A LitRPG Apocalypse Page 18
