When Luke woke up, the smell of rot assaulted his nostrils. Bile rose in his throat, and he had to fight off the rising waves of nausea. Standing up, he moved away from the slaughter.
Once his stomach was under control, Luke got his bearings. His surroundings hadn’t changed. He was still on a floating train, inside a dungeon, trapped with no idea how to escape, while aliens invaded the world outside. I’m so fucked.
It was only then that Luke remembered his injuries.
Holding his hand up to his face, he examined the limb. There were barely any traces of an injury, and if he didn’t vividly remember the sight of flesh and bone, he would have doubted his own memories. The only discrepancy was that the skin had a grey tint, but was otherwise smooth and unblemished.
His healing was nothing short of miraculous, and Luke silently thanked the system. Dumping his free points into [Recovery] had clearly paid off. As he stretched his powerful frame, he noticed something else odd.
The system had healed his crippled arm, but several smaller wounds hadn’t improved at all. It was as if the healing energies had focused their attention on the worst injuries first, which was what he had been hoping for. He had a large but shallow cut running over his torso and had collected several smaller grazes across his body. The cuts had scabbed over but were tender to the touch.
Luke took out his phone. The battery was dead, which was hardly surprising. Switching the fancy smartphone out for the dead man’s old brick, Luke smirked with wry amusement. The older phone’s battery was still practically full.
According to the digital clock, it was nearly midday, so he had been unconscious for twelve hours. He felt nicely refreshed, but whether that was because he slept in or because of his new [Recovery] stat was unclear.
Exactly what each attribute did remained a mystery, but so far Luke’s hunches had been correct. Reviewing his blue boxes, Luke confirmed he had raised his [Recovery] attribute to thirteen, but when he did, he noticed something alarming.
A new concept had replaced his [Dormant Zombie] effect.
[Concept gained: Undeath - Starting rank Bronze. Earned for repeated exposure to the undead. Reaching Gold Rank will transform your soul into an undead. Natural cultivation is not possible for an undead soul. They grow by preying on the living, and cultivating with stolen life-force. This is a heretical domain. Warning: only Humans have access to the System. Removing this concept is recommended. Take the tutorial on domain management for additional guidance. +1 Endurance, 15% necrotic resistance. Death doesn’t have to be the end.]
There was a lot to unpack. The description of the concept set off multiple alarm bells, and unlike his hastily accepted [Murderhobo] and [Forerunner] concepts, there was no option to decline.
Had it been auto-accepted while he slept? That’s such bullshit, he thought.
Luke exhaled.
While it wasn’t something he would have chosen for himself, it wasn’t all bad. It still provided Luke with a welcome boost to [Endurance], and unlike the zombie condition, it didn’t impose a penalty on his [Empathy]. He was back to normal in that regard; If Luke had ever been normal.
Expecting a surge of emotions, he was a little surprised at the lack of guilt he felt. Perhaps it was the [Murderhobo] concept protecting him from remorse… or maybe these were his true feelings.
Luke felt bad for killing a man, but he didn’t really think it was his fault. Zombie or not, the guy had attacked him. Luke had acted in self-defence, and the guy would have died from his wounds, regardless. There was nothing he could do to change the past.
At least this way, Luke got a powerful attribute boost from [Murderhobo] to escape the dungeon. Luke had always been good at compartmentalising.
Deciding to start his day with a bit of exercise, Luke pushed aside any moral quandaries. Before he began, he did the best he could to rub the dried blood and gore off his body. I would give my right arm for a shower, he thought, before backtracking. It was a bit too soon to joke about.
Luke looked out of the window at the river. Spectral figures filled the water, and drifted slowly downriver, but only a few of them were near the edge. Luke wasn’t that desperate for a wash, but he would have to find a drink soon. As far as he could tell, his attribute gains diminished, but didn’t replace his need for food and water.
To escape the lingering stench of rot, Luke moved to the empty carriage at the back of the train. He warmed up with a few sprints up and down while he stretched out. The carriage was too short for him to get up to full speed, but he could tell he was moving significantly faster than before.
When he was catching his breath between sprints, Luke wondered if his considerable [Strength] affected his speed more than his less impressive [Agility]. He opened up the blue screens to check things over.
Concepts:
Forerunner (Copper, 10%): +1 all attributes. +5% experience gained.
Murderhobo (Gold, 89%): +5 Will, +3 Strength, -1 Empathy. +40% loot.
Warhammer (Bronze, 97%): +3 Strength, augments hammers.
Undead (Copper, 7%): +1 Endurance, 15% necrotic resistance
Attributes
Will: 16
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Empathy: 10
Intellect: 11
Wisdom: 11
Agility: 11
Strength: 17
Endurance: 12
Recovery: 13
By a narrow margin, Luke’s largest attribute was [Strength], so he put it to the test.
After breezing through a hundred push-ups, Luke grabbed onto a standing rail and tried a few pull-ups. This was an exercise he struggled with at the gym because of his large bodyweight, so the before and after comparison was informative. His new [Strength] made a big difference, and he could complete a set of twenty with ease.
Buoyed by the powerful feeling his new strength gave him, Luke picked up the hammer and practised a few swings.
Throughout his teenage years, Luke had dabbled in different martial arts to channel his many frustrations; his younger self had no shortage of those. He had never progressed very far, in part because of his poor fitness and childhood obesity, but he had a basic familiarity with a few different fighting styles.
None of these disciplines covered fighting with a hammer.
Luke was going to have to learn as he went along. His fight against the rat pack had offered some valuable insights, such as the effectiveness of the claw end, but also its tendency to get stuck.
Ten minutes later, Luke had riddled the train’s upholstery with claw marks and left dents all over the walls. The weapon felt good in his hands.
Despite the abuse, the hammer showed no sign of wear or tear. Perhaps it was his [Warhammer] domain, or some other system magic, but he could almost feel a bond forming with his hammer. It enjoyed breaking things.
I’m definitely going crazy if I’m talking to my hammer, Luke thought, but he wasn’t really too concerned.
As he admired it, Luke noticed the hammer had its old owner’s surname engraved on the side. The picture of the girl in the wallet came to mind, and Luke wondered if the hammer had been a gift.
The dead construction owner’s corpse was still a bloody mess in the carriage ahead. Luke wouldn’t cry about it, but leaving the remains like that didn’t sit right with him. As he walked back towards the front of the train, he tore open some of the blue seats and gently laid the dead man inside.
“I’m sorry I killed you,” Luke apologised to the makeshift coffin. He wasn’t good at speeches.
Feeling awkward, Luke looked away, and instead fixed his gaze on the dilapidated and overgrown city below.
He suppressed a shiver when he spotted a pair of shadow giants in the distance. They seemed to mostly wander over by the out of place gothic cathedral. He was curious, but had no intentions of getting close.
If a few low-level rats had almost killed him, he certainly wasn’t ready to face a single giant.
However, as Luke searched the streets nearby for any points of interest, he spotted danger closer to home. A few blocks away, a small group of roughly ten people marched in tight formation along the waterfront.
Details were hard to see, but not impossible to make out. The figures wore heavy metal armour painted black. Each of them held a nasty-looking pike that was twice as tall as they were. They were short and squat and looked to be led by a mounted captain wielding a maul adorned with skulls.
The leader rode a creature that loosely resembled a boar, but a thick layer of bone armour encased it. Luke didn’t get the impression that they were here to rescue him.
The small band of what Luke assumed were undead dwarves were marching in the opposite direction to him, and Luke prayed they wouldn’t notice him. They hadn’t noticed him banging around the train with his hammer, but he still held his breath until they were further away.
The dungeon was full of danger, and Luke wanted out.
Using the train’s radio system to communicate with the outside world was a long shot, but perhaps he could drive the train himself. It was worth checking out before exploring the dangerous city below.
With his hammer in hand, Luke proceeded to the next carriage.
He felt a pang of sympathy for the remains scattered across the carriage floor, but not enough to gather them up for another improvised burial. Sentimentality could wait. Luke did, however, grab the deceased woman’s handbag from the floor to have a look for anything worth taking.
Rummaging through the bag, he discovered a book, some makeup, and another phone to add to his collection. Luke was most excited to find a bottle of coke and a bar of chocolate.
He inhaled the fizzy drink in a single gulp before devouring the chocolate bar. It was far from a healthy breakfast, but was more than he could have hoped for. A single chocolate bar wouldn’t give him diabetes.
After a moment’s consideration, Luke kept the handbag. It was a brown leather sack of a decent size and was bound to be useful. There wasn’t anyone around to judge his fashion choices. He slung it over a shoulder and pressed onwards.
The rest of the train was mostly empty until Luke came to the penultimate carriage. There, he spotted a person in a floral dress. She was sitting down near the front of the carriage and appeared to be swaying slowly from side to side. Her blood-stained dress suggested some kind of fight had occurred.
Luke was pretty sure she was a zombie, but before he killed another human being, he wanted to be sure. She could just be in shock from her injuries.
Instead of opening the door to the carriage, Luke tapped against the glass with the shaft of his hammer. The woman remained seated, showing no signs of having heard him.
To replicate his earlier strategy, Luke smashed the window.
This time, he hit hard enough for the plexiglass to shatter into smaller pieces that exploded into the carriage. That got the woman’s attention.
The woman’s sudden rise to her feet was abrupt and revealed the gruesome state of her torso. She was an elderly woman, clad in a knitted sweater with greying hair, and unmistakably dead.
Whatever killed her had splayed her ribcage open grotesquely, and her lungs and heart conspicuously absent.
“Are you ok?” Luke dumbly asked, and immediately felt like an idiot. Facing a human-shaped monster made him more talkative. As expected, the old woman didn’t respond. Instead, she charged straight towards him with alarming speed.
“Shit, fast zombie!” Luke cursed under his breath, steeling himself. He intercepted her charge with a forceful swing. The heavy blow ended the zombie’s existence with an explosion of grey matter, but her forward momentum nearly knocked Luke off the gangway and onto the runic bridge below.
After steadying himself, Luke shoved the zombie backwards.
He put his hammer back in his tool belt and cautiously opened the door, before turning his attention to the system messages nagging at the back of his consciousness.
[You have killed a Level 1 Zombie, a common undead monster created by reanimating the corpse of a living creature.]
[Concept ranked up: Warhammer - Silver. Affinity gained for killing monsters with a Hammer. +3 Strength. You have enough affinity with this concept to create an Ability. Take the “Manifesting Concepts” tutorial to find out how. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.]
A vein throbbed on Luke’s forehead, hidden beneath an unkempt fringe. The system kept telling him to take the tutorial but was too stupid to recognise that it wasn’t an option.
Just to make sure, Luke went back to the main menu of the blue screens and tried to open it again. The same message as before greeted him.
[Tutorials are not available within a dungeon. Please leave this dungeon and try again.]
Irritated, Luke made his way to the driver’s compartment and attempted to open the door. It was locked and had no window to smash through. Luke grabbed his hammer again and started taking out his frustrations on the door.
Using the blunt end of the hammer, just left dents in the metal door, so Luke reversed his grip and used the claw instead. The claw punctured the door, leaving a tiny opening.
Luke grunted as he pulled it out.
To his surprise, when he looked down at the hole, a milky white eyeball peered through from the other side, looking straight at him.
More zombies? Am I the only person left alive?