JohnWillStab clung to the creature as it tried to throw him off.
"I can't get a clean hit! If I lift my hands to stab it I'll be thrown off for sure!" he thought as a ball of what looked like liquid fire flew out from the distance and onto the bull as it let out another roar, the beast leapt into the air giving JohnWillStab the chance to let go of its hide with one hand and burry the poison blade in its throat.
At first, it squirmed in mid-air, then hit the ground and as it tried to let out a dying roar it went limp.
He felt a tingling on his right hand, he looked at it and his level increased to "two" and his XP was now at 16/125
"Is somebody out there?!" JohnWillStab called out.
No reply came.
JohnWillStab hid behind the corpse of the bull as the sound of footsteps came from deep within the forest.
A man stepped out, he had long white hair which curled strangely, like scrolls and dark skin, like on a scale of the average Irish ginger to the average African he was a 48.6221 out of 100.
While we're on the topic, JohnWillStab's skin colour in-game was a 7.2 on a scale of white chalk to blue mould.
"I thought you were some bandit..." exclaimed an irritated-sounding voice.
"He sounds apologetic... wait, does that mean he was aiming at me AND the bull?!"
"Alright! Don't shoot!" JohnWillStab said standing up with his hands raised.
The man wore a red tunic with orange flame patterns on the sleeves and belt area, below he wore white trousers.
In his hand was a wooden staff.
He kept a lit cigarette in his mouth.
"Don't worry, I won't," he replied making his way towards the still hesitant JohnWillStab.
[https://i.imgur.com/7ETR64b.png]
"Where'd he get the cigarette?" thought JohnWillStab.
"I guess you're looking for food too, eh?" the man asked squatting down next to the bull.
"Food?"
"No, I'm just trying to level up, y'know," JohnWillStab explained.
"Level... up?" asked the person.
JohnWillStab let out a sigh.
"Wait, you're an NPC, right?"
"An NPC? Like from a game?" he asked.
"Guess that's a no..."
"Do you... know what's going on?" JohnWillStab asked.
"I have no idea... but it looks like I have this weird stick that works as a flame thrower..." he explained.
JohnWillStab cut the bull's stomach open.
"Are you gutting it right here?!" he demanded.
"No, I'm just looting it," John explained as he widened the hole in the bull's chest with his hands allowing the stranger to see the loot-organ.
JohnWillStab tapped it and inside were eight coins and a pair of boots.
"He helped me kill the bull, and I still got the 100XP from the quest... but I didn't get any XP from the bull itself... guess you're better off going solo when grinding basic monsters..." John noted.
"What's your name?" JohnWillStab asked picking up the eight coins and the boots.
"I'm Jordan... Jordan A-" he was cut off, "I asked about your character name."
"My character name?" the man wasn't sure what JohnWillStab was asking.
"Alright, Jordan... I'm kind of in a rush to do my thing so I'll give you the run-down quickly." JohnWillStab explained.
Jordan nodded.
"You have been transported from Earth into the world of a certain MMO, how? No idea, why? No clue."
"You start at level one, and slowly progress your stats upwards."
"So... it's a game?" Jordan asked.
"I suppose you could say that."
"How do I leave?"
"No idea, I doubt you can leave at all." JohnWillStab shrugged.
"What?!" Jordan demanded, he sounded upset.
"I mean, we didn't have the choice not to come here, we can either live here or disappear," he explained.
"Screw this, I'm getting out of this world!" he exclaimed.
"Good luck!" JohnWillStab said tossing him five of the eight coins, he didn't realise one of them was a "2" instead of the normal "1", so Jordan was actually even better off than John thought.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He caught the coins in mid-air.
"Aren't you looking for a way out?"
"Nah, I'm basically as happy as could be, granted there is one change I'd make..." - "I WANT MY DICK BACK" - "But in general, this is paradise for a no-life like me." he laughed.
Jordan's irritated expression turned to a wry look of disgust.
"So you're alright with staying here?!"
"Yeah."
"You were abducted and put into some simulation or... or some fenced-off place for the amusement of someone else!"
"I still like it here, you can improve your stats, do magic and everything!" JohnWillStab was starting to get defensive about the topic.
"Don't you have family, neighbours, friends even?!"
"The only people I care about got isekaid here too." he shrugged.
Jordan turned around, not facing JohnWillStab, as the hand with which he clenched the staff turned white from how hard he clenched it.
"My name is Joh- J- JaneWillStab..." JohnWillStab almost revealed his non-dickless name.
"Whatever, I don't like you."
"That was blunt..."
"Alright, fair enough..." he shrugged.
Jordan started walking away from John.
"Hold up! Don't you want the boots?"
"I don't want your boots, JaneWillStab!" he scoffed doing finger-quotes as he said his name.
"A-alright..." he wondered how to check the stats of the item, surely there'd be a way since you can check your level and your stats.
JohnWillStab took one shoe off his foot and equipped the new one.
He checked his stats by tapping on his right hand.
"Stamina: 2"
He took the boot off.
"They give you a stamina boost, it'll help you get tired slower and stuff," he exclaimed holding the boots out in his direction.
"How?"
"I'm sorry, what?" John was taken back by the question.
"What about a pair of boots surgically placed into a poor animal, makes me go faster?"
"Surgically?! More like... magically!"
"Look, if you don't want them, I'll keep them - though the choice for me is purely cosmetic," he explained.
"Whatever! I don't want your blood-stained shoes!" with that Jordan stormed off, leaving JohnWillStab alone once more, equipping his stamina giving boots.
As it turns out, one boot gives you "2" stamina, so equipping both actually gave him "4".
JohnWillStab stood up, patted his clothes and looked back to his starter boots, it looked like they didn't give him any stats.
"It'd be for the best if I just throw them out, starter gear is never worth much." he was about to throw them out when he had a sudden revelation.
"There aren't many undead in the game... so undead-dagger clothes might be completely exclusive to me!"
He put the boots into his sack.
JohnWillStab reached into his pocket to have a look at the quest paper, but when he felt around he didn't just feel the paper, he felt a pair of gloves and a slab of meat.
"Wait, aren't those the quest-rewards?" JohnWillStab thought pulling the gloves and meat out.
The gloves looked grey in colour like they were made from the hide of the werebull, unlike the boots that looked like generic bull-hide.
He equipped the gloves and saw his dexterity jump by two and his strength by one.
JohnWillStab looked back to the werebull, "It might be my mammal bias, but I feel sort of bad for the bull... I mean aren't bulls always aggressive?"
JohnWillStab walked up to the bull.
"Don't you dare take me for some hippie." JohnWillStab threatened as he got his dagger and sunk it into the ground, slowly making a hole, with infinite stamina, the task was more boring than difficult, and JohnWillStab was able to finish a (pre-werebullified) bull-body-sized hole.
He dragged the body of the bovine into the hole and covered it up with some of the piled on loose dirt.
"Thou were a stout foe, alas thou may rest now."
"Yeah, for a fucking bull you did alright..."
"You... were strong... or something... y'know..."
"WHY CAN'T I PULL OFF A JOHNWILLSTAB IMPRESSION AS GOOD AS THE OTHERS?!"
JohnWillStab patted his clothes clean of the dirt.
"Alright, we should keep going if we want to find the others before they're max-level." he laughed.
JohnWillStab turned to leave before getting the idea to look around the farm, there were a good few fenced-off areas and three main buildings, a home, a large, shed-looking building and the barn.
JohnWillStab headed for the shed-looking one first, since it was closest to him.
Slowly he opened the creaky door, the room was filled with a scent of death, the ground below soaked in a slurry of blood and soil.
JohnWillStab felt his gut tighten, every cell of his body wanted to leave that building.
With every second that passed, he could feel his body trembling, at this point, the idea of entering the cursed room was impossible.
In a sudden and short-lived burst of courage, JohnWillStab moved away from the door, letting the light of the moon shine where his shadow previously hid.
Inches away from where he stood was the twisted face of a corpse.
His eyes gave off no glow, they were just black holes and his skin was blood red, the blood from the soil below burying deep into his skin such that he was redder than Joseph St*lin (and soaked in a comparable amount of blood).
JohnWillStab jumped back, "It was just an undead!" JohnWillStab thought.
Unbeknownst to JohnWillStab, he was fighting a blood ghoul, a higher-level zombie that is drawn to sources of blood, they often appear in massive battlefields or abandoned slaughterhouses.
The monster lunged forward, its bloodied flesh hands slashing at JohnWillStab, in his hand he held a butcher's blade.
JohnWillStab dodged each swipe thanks to his dominant dexterity and athletics stats.
"I feel like I can dodge him forever, my stamina is pretty OP here... but my damage-" his train of thought was cut short when the undead let out a gut-wrenching battle cry, he vomited up a large amount of blood and chunks directly into his open palm, then he pulled his arm back and flung chunks of hardened blood, bone and gore at JohnWillStab.
"Ah! Shit!" he called out as the projectiles flew past him, one burying into his arm, the pain was definitely decreased thanks to his undeath, but it was far from painless.
The projectiles flew into the trees behind, splintering the wood they crashed into and causing the tree to fall over.
"IS HIS ARM A FUCKING RAILGUN!?"
JohnWillStab ran into the house as he thought of a solution.
"Back when this was a game... did I have any ranged abilities? Yeah! dagger-throw!..."
He rushed into the house, grabbing a table and tossing it in front of the door as he ran.
"CaNt HiDe FoReVaAaA!" the blood ghoul screamed as he unleashed another volley of gore upon the house.
JohnWillStab looked around the house, he had the choice of what looked like a kitchen and the upstairs, the entire place smelled like mould and was covered in dust and cobwebs, he chose the height advantage and began running up the stairs as another volley of projectiles was unleashed upon the house.
JohnWillStab ran into what looked like a bedroom, in it lay a dead skeleton, a nice alternative to an undead skeleton.
"Now, what level could I use-dagger throw?"
JohnWillStab tried to remember the details, but couldn't - as his speed-levelling tactics came into play, he found himself gaining abilities left and right, most of which he didn't use or fully understand.
Another projectile flew past him, exploding the thin, wooden wall of the house beside him like a cannon bursting through the walls of a ship.
"NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT LEVELS! I NEED TO DO IT!" he took out his basic dagger, it did slightly less damage than the poison one, so that's the one he was alright losing.
He ran up to the opening in the wall and pulled his arm back, blade in hand.
He threw it at the enemy, the blade flew fast enough to catch the blood ghoul off-guard, it flew into his torso causing his massive belly to pop like a blood-filled balloon.
"I hope that did something!"
JohnWillStab looked to his empty hand only to find it strangely un-empty.
He looked back at the undead and saw that the blade was in fact, gone.
"I get it! Since the weapon isn't actually used-up in-game, it just teleports into my hand after the cooldown!" JohnWillStab realised as he came up with a new idea.
"Zombie, get ready for JohnWillStab's-Two-Handed-Dagger-Throw-(Trademark)!" he called out before jumping down from the hole in the wall.
"YoU SoN oF a BiThhhh!" the zombie cried out as it tried desperately to drag the blood from the ground, mixed with dirt to form a crimson mud, back into his gaping gut.
JohnWillStab was ready to throw the two blades at the ghoul when he noticed its hair turning white, it's skin flaking off.
"I NeEeEeD MoRe BlOoOoOD!" he cried as he turned to JohnWillStab, on all fours it crawled towards him, seemingly unable to survive without the blood.
Any undead need magic for sustenance, the process isn't mechanical, but magical, so you can have a zombie run on dirt in theory, different fuels provide different levels of mana, generally this depends on the emotional energy of the items, so blood will give more magic than water with gold flakes or oil.
Unlike regular undead, raised by a magician or raised by their own negative emotions, blood-ghouls are created thanks to negative emotions too small to keep them alive, but live on thanks to blood.
Like a parasite that shouldn't even exist, but can persist due to very specific circumstances.
JohnWillStab saw the ghoul die before him, turning into a blood-soaked skeleton.
"I wonder who the other skeleton was then..."
JohnWillStab let out a sigh, he wasn't tired, but he needed his leg and arm to heal, he decided to rest up in the barn.