I walked past the pools of death water while carefully scanning my surroundings. My hands gripped my naginata, ready to strike at anything trying to ambush me.

As soon as I was between two different pools, I heard sloshing to the side and whirled around while pointing my weapon at the threat.

As expected, something was coming out of the water.

It looked like all the other zombies I’d encountered so far except… it wore a pair of inflatable sleeves on its arms, a pool ring around its waist, and was dressed in a one-piece female swimsuit.

Contrasted with its hobbling and general zombie-like movement, it looked both creepy and ridiculous.

I was only weirded out for a brief second before I stabbed my weapon forward and shot lightning at the thing’s midsection.

Due to the zombie’s erratic movement, the lightning hit its pool ring instead, and to my surprise, instead of destroying it, it got absorbed by it. The pool ring sparkled and then gained a glow around it. The zombie only stumbled a little, but otherwise remained unaffected.

“That’s cheating!” I yelled in surprise.

Since when did pool rings act as lightning rods? Stupid dungeon nonsense.

Before the zombie could completely recover, I let go of the naginata with my left hand, lined up a shot and fired off a bubble at it. Immediately afterwards, I re-grabbed my naginata and shot lightning at the bubble a moment after it smacked the zombie in the chest.

The thing exploded in a burst of water, as expected, and sent the zombie flying.

Like, flying.

The sheer ridiculousness of the zombie dressed in swimming wear ragdolling through the air made me snicker out loud.

The zombie splashed back into the pool and my surroundings went silent save for my giggling.

GeorgeDoshington: LMAO

bloopbooper: bwoooop ( ≧ᗜ≦)

uptonMIKE: careful, it might come back

“Ha… Yeah, I know. Still… It just looks ridiculous, you know?”

Just as I got my giggles under control, there was another splash behind me. I reacted instantly. My body whipped around as I slashed with my naginata, sending a lightning slash at the two zombies fumbling their way out of the pool.

One of them got hit in the head and knocked back inside, but the other one blocked it with one of its inflatable sleeves.

“That’s so annoying…” I grumbled but was already charging forward.

Just as the zombie stood up at the edge of the pool, I drove my naginata into its head, splitting it in two, and making it lifelessly crumble to the ground. It dissipated into mist a few seconds later.

“Feels really easy, though… They take so long climbing out, I have all the time in the world to push them back. Even if they have… er, armor, I guess.” I shrugged.

I wasn’t going to complain. A breather of a floor after the last one would be appreciated. Although something told me that this was only the beginning and I was going to regret calling this easy.

uptonMIKE: that’s a death flag…

GeorgeDoshington: ez floor

GeorgeDoshington: gonna be boring

I side-eyed the comments, but quickly prepared for the other zombie I’d hit with the lightning, not believing that a single lightning attack had been enough to kill it.

I waited for about ten seconds in the silence before my eyebrows creased into a frown.

“...Is it dead? Why isn’t it coming out?”

GeorgeDoshington: despawned lol

“I doubt that. Nothing in this dungeon despawns or respawns… It’s probably waiting for when my guard is down, ugh.” I grumbled to myself.

Or it could just be dead. After all, this was lightning from my upgraded weapon, not to mention, the zombies were already covered in what I assumed was a conductive liquid. That ought to have done more damage than usual, right?

Regardless, I turned around and continued walking while keeping an ear open for any splashing noises.

Naturally, the moment I relaxed a little, I saw three arms shoot out of the pool to my left and grab the edge of the pool before pulling themselves up.

I set my feet, lifted my naginata, and as soon as their ugly faceless faces broke the surface and hobbled to the edge, I slashed with my weapon while releasing lightning as usual.

Two of them blocked it with their sleeves, one got hit in the head and fell back into the water.

I stepped closer before they could fully make it to the surface and brought my blade down on one of their heads, splitting it in half. I quickly pulled it out, back, and then stabbed forward at the remaining zombie just as it stood up on all fours on the surface.

I missed.

The zombie lunged at me, past my naginata.

My eyes went wide and I gasped, but managed to act quickly. My hands let go of my weapon, I summoned my key sword to my right hand, and swiftly brought it down on the zombie’s head, ending its charge.

I breathed in and out a few times frantically, staring at the zombie as it vanished into mist.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“O-Okay, chat. A bit of a downside of the naginata–”

Then my ears picked up on wet footsteps behind me and I whirled around to intercept my attacker, but I was too late.

A clawed hand struck me in my left arm, making me scream and stumble. But even through the pain, I quickly found my assailant and swung the key sword at it.

I did not expect the zombie to lift up its arm and block the sword with its stupid inflatable sleeve, though.

I had no time to complain about how bullshit that was before the thing pounced on me, its one free clawed hand reaching for my neck.

My sword had gotten blocked and my left arm was screaming in pain so I couldn’t easily lift it to shoot bubble at my opponent.

Replace [Appsaisal] with [Flameguard]?

Note: [Appsaisal] will not be re-equipable for 24 hours.

Y/N

[Flameguard] equipped.

I immediately burst into thick flames strong enough to repel the zombie’s lunge and push it back.

Both of us stumbled back a step. I quickly recovered, since the fire also partially healed my left arm, lit my key sword on fire and readied myself to swing again.

But the zombie, who was on fire now, turned around, scrambled to the pool again before plunging back into the water.

I stared in confusion, fear, shock, and anger while frantically looking around for any more ambushes.

“...You little bastard,” I growled under my breath.

GeorgeDoshington: oh shit shes swearing

GeorgeDoshington: shit is real now

RetconRanger: Are you alright, Nana?

“...Sorry. I’m alright,” I mumbled as I lit my bleeding arm on fire again to heal it.

So this was the theme of this floor. Ambush from unexpected angles while I fought other enemies.

I wasn’t sure, but I suspected the last guy had actually been the very first zombie I’d encountered – the one I’d launched with the bubble cannonball. I hadn’t noticed it climbing back up at all since I was too busy dealing with the three in front of me. The splashing sounds and the noise from the lightning had been enough to drown out the sounds the ambusher had made.

I groaned.

“This is going to suck even more, chat… Last floor, I could at least take my time sussing out ambushes. But now they come at me while I’m in the middle of fights already…”

I wasn’t very good at noticing other things while I was focused on something. If this happened again, I could be in serious trouble next time.

Sure, I could use this opportunity to train my situational awareness or whatever, but… Ugh…

Suddenly, I had an idea.

I glanced at the fake water with a critical eye, seeing as that burning jerk hadn’t emerged yet.

Now, I knew that it wasn’t real water, but maybe it had some properties of water? Like… conducting electricity? If the stupid zombie wasn’t going to come out on its own until it could ambush me again, I could smoke it out.

“Well, how about I just don’t let them?” I said with a smirk before putting away the key sword, grabbing my naginata from the ground, and slowly approaching the pool of ‘water’.

uptonMIKE: wait what are you doing?

“I’m doing… this!”

I pulled my weapon back, fed it as much Ether as I could, and then stabbed it forward at the pool, causing a giant bolt of lightning to shoot out and connect with the ‘water’.

RetconRanger: This is a terrible idea!

Not just the one pool I’d hit, but every single pool on the third floor that I could see lit up and crackled for a brief moment before growing still once more. A moment of silence followed.

They were all connected. Of course they were.

“There we go! That ought to teach–”

And then it began.

Dozens… Hundreds of trembling hands suddenly shot out of the pools and grabbed the edge all around their perimeters.

I froze in my tracks as blood drained from my face.

Oh.

Oh FUCK.

What have I done?!

One by one, zombies began to slowly pull themselves out of the lake and I forced myself back to reality to do something about this.

RetconRanger: I told you this was a terrible idea!

I pulled my naginata back again, loaded it up with Ether and shot another bolt toward the pool, hoping to catch everything inside as well.

It worked… sort of. Since they were all still at least partially submerged, every single one of them spasmed and faltered in their advance for a moment.

What I didn’t expect was for a whole other horde of arms to reach up from the pool and try to drag themselves out again. As if shooting that lightning had automatically triggered a horde, regardless of whether there were any zombies in that pool or not.

I briefly remembered what Appraisal had told me about the water. It created the monsters. I’d attacked the water itself and now it was attacking me back?!

“Stupid video game mechanics!” I screamed before quickly running for it as quickly as I could, hoping to get out of the dungeon and lose aggro.

Naturally, I didn’t get very far before my path got blocked off and I was swarmed with zombies.

I activated Bullet Time and the tumbling limbs of the undead suddenly slowed down to a near halt. I proceed to weave through the bodies, cutting down those who were directly in my way and hurrying the hell up toward the gate.

The zombies abruptly snapped back into their normal speed and I grit my teeth before lighting myself and my naginata on fire while I continued to barrel through the horde.

Somehow, I managed to make it all the way to the gate and was stupid enough to briefly look back.

My eyes went wide as the sea of zombies all hobbled their way toward the gate without stopping. I swore under my breath, turned forward again and kept running through the corridor of floor one.

Just as I thought I was scot free, a pair of swimmer zombies suddenly emerged from the windows right in front of me, making me yelp and abort my sprint.

That was unfortunately enough for the rest of the horde to catch up. I felt something tear through my back and screamed while lighting my whole body on fire once again.

My knuckles went white with how hard I clutched the naginata in my hands and I spun around with it, hoping to knock as many away as possible. I could barely parse what I was seeing in all the fire and avalanche of bodies, but I could clearly feel my weapon snagging on things as I spun.

I managed to get a moment to catch my breath thanks to my zoning move, but I couldn’t keep doing this for much longer. My Ether was reaching dangerously low levels. I needed to either finish it or get out now.

Unfortunately, since it was so hard to see because of all the fire and zombies, and because of my spin earlier, I couldn’t tell which way was the gate and which way was the dungeon entrance.

I took a gamble and picked one at random, praying to the fucking Fate Weaver that I picked the right one.

A few minutes of slashing through more zombies and stumbling on rapidly vanishing corpses, I found myself… back at the golden gate.

Motherfucker!

I frantically glanced back, ready to charge right back in, only to falter as more and more zombies climbed out of the windows. Because apparently, in the few minutes that I’d been running, the hordes decided to settle down on floor one instead.

I considered charging through anyway, but decided against it in the end. For whatever reason, there were now fewer zombies on floor three than there were on floor one. I had no idea how that had happened, but it was probably safer to stay here for the time being.

But safer didn’t mean safe. Just a couple of zombies were enough to ruin my day, after all.

Before too many of the zombies on floor one could get any ideas, I ran toward one of the fast food buildings, tore the door open, and then slammed it shut again before any of them followed me in.

Then I grabbed one of the surprisingly heavy boxes lying around –probably meant to imitate a box of ingredients for the fast food even though there was nothing inside – and dragged it in front of the door to block it.

Then the banging and scratching on the door began and I cringed away from it while trying to calm my breaths.

I wondered if the dungeon was going to give me another secret chest for doing something this dumb again.

‘This is my new pet’ achievement unlocked!

+1 Skill point

‘Serial kidnapper’ achievement unlocked!

+3 Skill points