I climbed out of the window back into the open space below the archway and looked around once more.

I immediately spotted another zombie clambering over the opposite window and wasted no time in rushing at it with my sword. Before it could even do anything, I caved in its skull with my glowing sword and it vanished into mist a few seconds later.

It still felt sickening to do that, but I was slowly getting used to it. Although I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. Would I be a murderous psychopath by the time I made it back to Earth? Was that all part of that damn phoenix’s plan?

I shook my head and instead refocused on whatever was happening in chat.

JamieWasTaken3: mb she can eventually summon us as helpers

Jeofffff: oh that would be cool

PrestoFive55: now you’re just fantasizing

bloopbooper: blooop! (•̀ᴗ•́ )و

Apparently, the discussion had gone back to how this whole isekai stream was possible and now they were theorizing about the streamer skill upgrades eventually including summoning viewers.

“You know… That would be pretty cool. Summoning some of you guys here,” I mused as I slowly advanced through the empty hall. “As much as having you all in chat is cool, it would be nice to actually have someone here with me for real… But I would feel bad if you were stuck in this world just like me. I would be no better than that damn Phoenix if I just kidnapped you.”

I saw movement to my left and whirled around, ready to fight again. Unfortunately, there were two of them and they were climbing out of two separate windows that were far from each other.

I spat fire at the one on the left and quickly charged the other one. This time, however, the zombie moved before I could slay it and swiped its hands at me. I instinctively brought up my free arm to guard my face and screamed as pain swelled in my arm.

Somehow, I managed to not drop my sword and immediately brought it down in a wild swing, slicing straight through its neck as I jumped back.

“Shit…” I swore as I held my arm with huge scratch marks on it. The sleeves seemed to have blocked part of the attack at least, but it still left me injured.

Then my eyes went wide as I noticed the scratch marks began closing fast enough to be visible.

What the heck? Did I have super regeneration someho–

The stomping of limbs behind me knocked me out of my musing and I turned around to see a flaming zombie running at me like a wild beast as well as two more zombies climbing out of windows again. And unfortunately, they were all between me and the dungeon’s entrance. I had to fight through them.

I grit my teeth and silently berated myself for charging the zombie further into the dungeon. I could have just used fire on it and charged the one closer to the entrance.

Regardless, I steeled myself and as the flaming zombie was about to slash at me with its nails, I side-stepped it while slashing with my sword, somehow managing to cut off its hand, making it stumble.

I pushed away the queasiness I felt and pressed my advantage. I brought down the sword and caved its skull in.

Just in time for the two other zombies to hurl themselves at me.

I dodged to the side and watched as the two crashed into each other mid-air and landed in a pile of limbs. My gamer instincts screamed at me to use an AoE attack since they were all bunched up and I used the strongest fire breath I could manage without knocking myself out.

Even as the fire engulfed them, I began rapidly checking my surroundings to make sure that no more ambushes were going to get me again. Luckily, there weren’t any more zombies and I could refocus on the two burning ones that were inevitably going to come after me again.

I watched as the two flailed around and saw one of them accidentally scratch the other one’s blank face in its manic movement. The scratched one abruptly stopped moving, letting the first one finally untangle itself. It lunged at me in the same way the others had and I side-stepped it while slashing at it, this time managing to hit its head and ending it.

A few seconds later, both of them as well as the fire vanished into mist.

I took one last look around just in case, and when I saw nothing, I slowed down my rapid breaths, took one last shaky breath and slowly let it out as I relaxed. A second later, a system window popped in front of me.

‘Novice fighter’ achievement unlocked!

+1 Skill point

“Wha–?!” I jumped in surprise and the grip on my sword tightened before I realized what had happened. Uh… Oh. Right. The achievement for defeating ten dungeon monsters. Forgot about that… That was exactly ten, wasn’t it?”

JamieWasTaken3: holy shit that was intense

SpoOo0oOon: is your arm okay?

GonguuH: you’re being careless again

Jeofffff: one died to friendly fire though lol

I glanced at my left arm and gently touched it with my other one – carefully not to stab myself with the sword – and found that besides the lines of blood, the scratch wound had completely healed up.

That was great but… I had many questions.

“Chat, am I gonna turn into a zombie…?” I tried to say in a joking manner, but couldn’t help but be worried about the very real possibility of it happening. I barely knew anything about how things in this world worked besides the system, after all. “Why did I heal anyway?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

GonguuH: probably the potion

Jeofffff: check your race in status

bloopbooper: blooop?! Σ(ﾟ口ﾟ;)//

Irid123: uh oh foreshadowing

“Oh yeah… The potion. I do feel a bit more tired now so that’s probably it… I guess it used up some of that energy to heal me…? I hope it’s not an indication that I’m turning at least…” I shook my head. “Still, why are some things still so video-gamish? Makes no sense…”

I quickly opened up my status window and found out that my race still said human and not zombie or human-who-is-slowly-turning-into-a-zombie, so that was good. It didn’t mean I was safe though.

I sighed and glanced at the chained gate in the distance, thought about it for a moment… and then turned around and began to slowly walk back to the dungeon’s entrance.

“Okay, you know what? I think I had enough action for today, chat… I know I said I would go all the way to the gate but… I have a bad feeling that there are even stronger monsters waiting for me further in. And if I can’t even deal with the basic zombies, I’ll probably die to whatever is waiting for me.”

GonguuH: probably the smart move

Jeofffff: yo you can get that appraisal now

RetconRanger: Get some sleep. You deserve it. I’m gonna get going too now. Bye.

“Oh yeah, I can get appraisal now… Ah, bye, Ranger! And thanks!”

Even as I spoke to chat, I made sure to keep glancing around and briefly putting on heat vision… Not that it had helped much before.

Surprisingly though, no more zombies jumped me on my way back and I safely made it across the threshold where I felt the familiar sense of relief wash over me.

“Well, look at that, chat! I’m leaving normally instead of being on the verge of collapsing! I’m improving! Yay!” I sarcastically cheered.

JamieWasTaken3: gj!

GonguuH: we’re all very proud of you Nana

GeorgeDoshington: sup whatd i miss?

GonguuH: keep it up and you’ll conquer the whole dungeon

Jeofffff: so about that appraisal…

“Thanks, Gong… Hey, George. Just in time for me to wrap up for today,” I said with a smirk. “Anywho, appraisal! Let’s see…”

There were actually two other skills I could get with my two skill points – soulbound item and craftsman. And considering how precious every skill point was, I wanted to double check to make sure appraisal was the right choice. So I once again opened up all three skill descriptions and carefully read through them as I sat down on the grass just outside the dungeon. “Actually, let me check the other things too…”

Soulbound item:

Bind an item to your soul. A soulbound item can’t be lost or stolen in any way. You can unbind a soulbound item to free up a soulbound slot, but doing so will destroy it.

Upgrade: Soul pocket (2SP)

Upgrade: Dual wield (3SP)

Upgrade: Blacksmith (5SP)

GeorgeDoshington: whattttt cmon

Jeofffff: useless

GonguuH: this could be useful eventually

Jeofffff: there isn’t even anyone who could steal your stuff

I nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, this sounds cool and all, but it doesn’t really do anything… Also, I don’t know how I feel about sticking random junk to my soul.” I shook my head. “Let’s look at the upgrades, though. Maybe they are good?”

Soul pocket - Grants access to a small pocket dimension where you can store your soulbound item. Touching it is required for putting it in or bringing it out. A small amount of your Tempor reserves are locked for this sub-skill.

Dual wield - You can now have up to two soulbound items.

Blacksmith - You can now use Craftsman’s Fusion sub-skill on soulbound items an infinite amount of times.

“Oooh! I see. Yeah, okay. The soul pocket would be super convenient… I imagine you are supposed to use it on your weapon, right? And then dual wield for your offhand item… or maybe your armor? Oh, you can totally do a magical girl transformation by grabbing an outfit out of that pocket dimension and putting it on yourself, can’t you?” I giggled at the thought. “No idea what the last one means… Let’s look at the craftsman skill then…”

Craftsman:

Infuse Ether into your tools and hands to more easily create products from raw materials.

Upgrade: Empower (3SP)

Upgrade: Fusion (6SP)

I hummed and opened descriptions for the upgrades as well.

Empower - Infuse Ether into the resulting product, making it sturdier and more powerful.

Fusion - Combine two items together to fuse their function and quality. Resulting item quality is capped at rare. Fused items cannot be further fused but can be separated again. Uses a varying amount of Ether based on the quality and size of items fused.

My jaw dropped.

“O–kaaaay! That’s literally a video game mechanic! I mean, seriously? Fusing two random things together gives you an upgraded version? Chat, what the heck?!”

Jeofffff: that sounds super useful though

JamieWasTaken3: hey what if you combine random junk to get food?

GeorgeDoshington: lol crafting system

bloopbooper: bloop… (￣ヘ￣)

“What? Like… combining bush leaves with that slime? You think that would give me something edible?” I frowned, feeling skeptical. “I mean… Maybe? Depends on how video-gamey it is, I guess…”

Then I grimaced.

“But I doubt I can get six more points for that upgrade before I starve to death, so… Yeah, maybe later.”

Appraisal:

Glean information about a target item. Uses a minor amount of Intra.

I hummed and nodded.

“Appraisal is super simple, but… You know what they say. Knowing is half the battle, right? Yeah, maybe I’ll try the other skills once I have spare skill points, I think it’s still appraisal right now.”

Purchase the skill [Appraisal] for 2 skill points?

Y/N

I mentally said yes and proceeded to equip the skill into my last empty slot with a nod.

‘Stocked up’ achievement unlocked!

+1 Skill point

I blinked.

“Huh? Wait, what’s this one…?”

Stocked up - Fill all your skill slots [COMPLETE]

Jeofffff: unavoidable achievements are lame

JamieWasTaken3: nice

I stared for a moment before shrugging.

“Well, free skill points are free skill points. Didn’t even notice that one befoooaaa–” The end of my sentence turned into a yawn and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop it.

“Welp… I guess it’s time to sleep…”

I looked around the spooky night-time forest – the Sun had set quite some time ago while I’d been in the dungeon – and felt a little unnerved, but considering I had yet to meet any kind of living creature outside of dungeons, I also felt fairly safe to sleep wherever.

Jeofffff: don’t you dare go to sleep without trying appraisal

I smirked and rubbed my eyes.

“Ah, jeez. I’m so tired I can’t even properly see chat anymore. I guess I’m just gonna plop down right here in front of the dungeon and go to sleep.”

Jeofffff: youuuuuu

SpoOo0oOon: good night Nana!

RetconRanger: Good night!

JamieWasTaken3: gn

I yawned again as I lay down on the grass, which made Jeoff spam more annoyed comments.

It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep by any means, and there was still some of that energy from the potion, but mentally, I was totally exhausted, so it didn’t take long before I fell asleep.