The mutilated corpse pulsated with a light grayish blue color the same as the zombie did. Jean again was frozen out of fear and panic. This was too much for him to handle.
Please don’t do this. I wanted to save you. Please don’t become one of those things. I’m not ready for something like that.
Trying to control his breathing Jean started to try to stand up. He was exhausted. His limbs were shaking and it felt like there wasn’t blood in them at all. He got one foot on the ground from his kneeling position. Then after a few seconds of panting, he stood up all the way. Swaying back and forth, he stared at the glowing body. It twitched. Jean jumped, his heart pounding again. Moments passed as the same thing happened again and again. With one last twitch, the corpse began to move. With it, Jean numbly backed away.
As the half-devoured girl stood, Jean numbly thought,
I think it’s going to try to eat me. But…. I don’t want this. I want her to be ok. I want to be ok… I think I have to kill her.
He took a step towards the rock next to the girl, thinking that would be the way to end this girl’s life. But as he took a step forward the thing lurched forward dashing 10 feet in a moment and sliced off Jean’s forearm with claws that Jean had not even realized it had. Taking a sharp breath, not feeling pain, Jean turned and ran.
The thing just stood there eating his detached arm while Jean ran and ran.
Check your inventory.
Running Jean screamed, “How?!”
Blur your eyes and look into your soul.
Jean crossed his eyes and sensed a space in his chest, filled with stuff. Hurriedly he searched and found a lesser healing potion.
Would you like to use a lesser healing potion?
“Yes!”
Jean felt his arm tingle, but he was unwilling to look down at it while he ran.
Behind him, he heard a too-human scream come out of the thing. He looked over his shoulder and saw that his forearm was gone and the thing started to move toward him.
How am I supposed to kill that thing?? He thought while running.
Use your essence ability.
Realization struck that he could still feel the ground and bone wanting to spurt out of it. He felt like he could do it. Like he could stab the thing with bone from the ground.
His thinking had been too slow. The thing, the fleshy dead girl, was only feet behind him in a moment. Jean shot a bone spear from the ground and it found the thing’s foot. Behind him, it slapped the ground, its momentum carrying it to the floor with force. Instinctually Jean pushed another spear out of the ground up into the creature's face. The bone shot threw it, growing higher and bigger as Jean felt his energy leave him until his vision started to blur, and he cut off the flow of energy coming out of him.
Once again Jean fell over.
Quest complete. You defeated the evolving zombie strain. Reward: Two hand awakening stones.
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Jean lay there, looking into the sky.
What the hell is going on? I just killed a couple of zombies, and I still don’t have any clothes. And I think there’s someone else in my head giving me tips, and rewards? He lifted his now stump of an arm, which surprisingly wasn’t bleeding. How am I going to survive without my left hand? I have so many questions. Wait…
“Can I ask you questions?” Jean asked the sky.
Yes.
“Ok, ok, ok… Ummm. Well..” He signed, “Who are you?”
I am your outworlder ability. Transcendent Conscience.
“What?” Jean asked blankly.
You are an outworlder, and you have abilities. I am part of that.
“Part?”
You have several outworlder abilities. Transcendent conscience, Soul inventory, Repent, Loot, Translate, astral affinity, and Quest system.
“Ahh,” Jean said more confused than before. Still, dazed and exhausted he asked, “So that’s where the potion came from? My Soul Inventory?”
Jean tried the same thing again, crossing his eyes to look inward. He sensed several things. A gym bag, a skateboard, 29 iron spirit coins, and two stones that looked like fists. He focused on those stones.
Would you like to use an awakening stone of the hand? Four available slots in the Essence of Bone.
“If I say yes, what will happen?” Jean asked the air.
You will gain an Essence Ability of the Hand.
“Ok. But what kind of ability?”
….
“Alrighty then.” He said with resignation. “I don’t know what is going on, but I need something to help me survive. Yes.”
Essence ability awakened. Bone growth. Grow and reshape your bones. Mana’s cost is dependent on the amount of growth or change.
Jean again felt a tingling around his bones as he instinctually knew that he could shift them, or make them more or else dense. He lifted his stump of an arm considering if he could grow it back. He tried and felt like it might be possible, but he felt his exhaustion wave over him as he tried.
He decided to just lay there. He thought back to his inventory and realized that his gym bag was in there. He tried, and the bag popped into existence in front of him, falling on his chest with a light thump. Surprised, Jean shimmied his way up into a sitting position and unzipped his bag. He found his soccer uniform, socks, cleats, phone charger, two water bottles, a towel, and a protein bar. Unable to get up, because he was too shaky, he decided to sit there and drink some water before trying to put his clothes on.
After sitting for 10 minutes he drank a full bottle of water. Then he ate a bite of his protein bar before looking sideways at the corpse and spitting it out. Jean was able to stand up and put his soccer get-up on, most grateful for the shorts and cleats.
He looked again at the girl’s corpse and thought about looting it. It felt too wrong. He couldn’t do that to someone who was someone like him. He could have been eaten and turned just as easily had he just woken up maybe 30 seconds earlier. He decided to walk away from the gruesome scene of bone piercing through the head. It was unbelievable that he, Jean Perez, part of the catholic club at school - Jean, could have done something like that.
At least I’m alive. And if I’m not wrong, I still have a quest to save other outworlders.
“What are outworlders?” He asked.
Outworlders are people from a different world, who were changed somehow in the process of transferring worlds.
“Ahh, I’m ‘changed’ whatever that is supposed to mean.” “What do my outworlder abilities do? Actually, I think I get all of them but Repent. What’s that?”
It is a time ability. You may experience up to 5 seconds in the future to change a wrong decision. You may only do this once every 100 hours.
“Oh.”
I guess that could save my life.
“How do I use it?”
It is instinctually triggered.
“I’m not sure what that means, but I guess I don’t have to?” Jean said without receiving a response from his transcendent conscience ability.
I still need to see if I can find and help the others. I think there were four or five others who got up and ran. But can I even help them? He looked back to the now distant bone spear jutting from the ground. The spear vanished. And he continued to walk. I think I can do something to help. But I’ll need more strength.
Jean pulled out the second awakening stone of the hand, and absorbed it.
Essence ability awakened. Bone Claws. Grow and retract bone spines from your bones. Low mana cost.
A now similar feeling came from his bones, along with the intuitive knowledge of how this ability is supposed to work. He flexed between the knuckles on his remaining hand. Three sharp bones protruded from the skin.
“Ha!” Jean surprised himself with a short laugh. “I’m wolverine!”