Jonathan sat in the living room opposite the flatscreen television that showed “We are experiencing technical difficulties please standby” on all channels and seethed. Outside the farmhouse, the survivors that hadn’t gone to the McPearson’s farm with Gary were getting to work, only after irritating objections.

Jonathan had explained the idea of kill-pits to the rest of them, and Gary had provided the shovels, but as soon as Gary had left, the remaining members had voiced their doubts.

The woman with one eye, Silvia, the older gentleman Peter and the ever-questioning Fran, had all decided they weren’t keen on the idea of killing people, even if they were zombies. In fact, they’d decided, they weren’t keen on any of this at all.

“Look,” Jonathan said, “I didn’t make up the new rules, or set zombies running loose all around the world. But we have to adapt if we’re going to survive, and one way we do that is by killing the undead to get experience points so we can get stronger than them. I’ve already levelled up, and I plan to do it again.”

The trio of doubters continued with their objections. Fran was at the forefront, but Peter and Silvia were nodding along. Even Chantelle seemed on the fence about all of this. As the debate went back and forth, notifications popped up in the corner of Jonathan’s eye about tests of leadership. Apparently, he wasn’t doing well, despite the bonus he’d gained in the service station.

Finally, Jonathan had enough.

“What the fuck is wrong with you all?” he’d asked. “Don’t you want to live?”

“Well, of course we want to live,” Peter said in a placatory tone, “It’s just... I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can kill things, even if they are undead. I mean, they look like actual people, a lot of them, don’t they?”

“Then you’ll bloody die, won’t you?” Jonathan said, his frustration plain for all to hear, “We all will! We need the kill-pits and we need to level up if we want to survive.”

“Well, so you say,” Fran commented, “But that’s not the only way to level up, is it?”

Jonathan stared at the woman, who, he’d learned earlier, was a hairdresser.

“What do you mean?”

“It says that you can also level up through study and practise, gaining small amounts of experience as you do. Not only that, at level two and above, you can choose to go on quests. Well, I quite like the sound of that, going on quests. Much less messy than murder.”

Jonathan was used to feeling like he wanted to kill someone. It came with the territory of being a teacher. He’d never thought he’d get this close to acting on it, however.

“Where are you getting that from?” he asked, curbing his sudden desire to run Fran through with his longsword.

“From the system guide,” Fran said, “It’s tucked away on the left side of your character sheet. It’s got all kinds of useful tidbits if you cared to read it.”

“It’s true,” Peter nodded, “Some interesting stuff in there.”

Jonathan opened his character sheet and groaned. Sure enough, there was a tab he hadn’t noticed earlier, labelled ‘System Guide.’

It was bad enough dealing with Fran without her knowing more than he did. So now here he was seething and reading through the instructions to the new rules of reality whilst the others got on with digging four kill-pits around the farmhouse, grumbling as they did so.

“Welcome to the Multiverse!” the guide began. “This quick guide is here to help you navigate the new rules of reality that you’ve been upgraded with. You’ll find many things to be as they were, and yet in other aspects your reality has been vastly improved, as I’m sure you’ll agree!”

The whole thing read like an over-enthusiastic sales pitch by a junior copywriter desperate to get finished before the weekend began.

“Fucksake,” Jonathan muttered to himself, still fuming that Fran and the others had found out about this before he had.

Once he’d read through the bombastic and self-congratulatory introduction, he got into the system itself. Most of it was stuff he’d already gathered from his experience of levelling up. The system displayed your current statistics, skills and abilities, and your proficiency in them as a percentage bonus. Most situations, the manual continued, had a difficulty rating, which was matched against your skill percentage, statistic bonuses and any other bonuses you might have, as well as a random variable, to see if you succeeded or failed in your endeavour, or critically succeeded or failed.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

So far, so good, Jonathan thought. He’d noticed when he gained the percentage bonus of using the longsword, he’d been able to feel it, like he had both the knowledge and the muscle memory of how to use the sword.

He skimmed the gaining experience and levelling up section and noticed that Fran was right. There was a reference to practising skills in order to gain experience, but it was a slow path and was unlikely to allow advancement beyond level 3 or level 4 for most people.

He pressed on to the chapter titled Mana, where he discovered something interesting.

“Mana!” the chapter began “Is the most wonderful resource in the multiverse and the one that your reality has long been missing access to. Now that’s fixed, let’s look at some of the wonderful things you can do with your mana...”

The instructions listed things like casting spells, special devout abilities such as the handful he gained from his sword, and then added:

“Mana is not just for the spellcasters and the devout, however, oh no! Anyone can use Mana to improve their chances of success at doing, well, anything at all! If you are attempting a task and you don’t think you’ll be able to manage it without a little boost, try focussing your mana to increase your chances.”

Okay, that was useful to know, Jonathan thought.

There was more. At level 5 and above, most classes, including his own, gained the option to build and fortify a base, using “residual mana”. This would allow Jonathan to – as near as he could understand – literally grow buildings from the ground. There were, according to the instructions, 30 levels to be gained, but even beyond that, there were still incremental gains to be had.

Jonathan’s foul mood wasn’t just about being caught out by Fran. It was also about the events of the previous night. As bad as everything was, having to kill the kid zombie was a line Jonathan had never in his wildest nightmares imagined he’d ever have to cross.

But the thing really pissing him off was the quest that he had taken on in the heat of the moment the previous night. Every time he clicked on the quests tab, it revealed the same information, three words highlighted and blinking at him, as if taunting him.

He checked again, and the three words remained.

He noticed another tab called Creature Compendium and clicked on it. This opened a list of the creatures and undead he’d defeated, and gave him access to their statistics. The Creature Compendium was huge, but aside from level 1 zombie, all the entries were question marks with a ‘locked’ symbol in front of it. So far, all that he’d unlocked was level 1 zombie. Clicking on that drew up information about level 1 zombies, including their statistics, that they were slow, and an admonition to make sure to either decapitate them or burn the bodies so they couldn’t rise for a second time. A connected box, marked “Zombie level 2: Heavy”, was locked. Jonathan gathered that if he defeated a heavy, then the box would unlock, allowing him to see its statistics.

And the only heavy around is Gary at the moment.

After level 2, for the zombies, things got interesting. There were variants of what the zombie could evolve into from level 3 upwards. These paths were hinted at in the text for a level 1 zombie, including evolving into much bigger and stronger zombies, becoming zombie leaders that could raise and control the dead, or evolving into a different species entirely, such as ghouls, vampires, wights and liches.

So if Gary levels up again, fuck knows what he could turn into, Jonathan thought.

His feelings about Gary were mixed. True, the man had proven an asset, but he might be dangerous. If he turned on them, became an actual zombie... Jonathan suspected Gary wasn’t telling him everything about what was going on with him. The other man had talked about voices in his head, and earlier in the morning Gemma and James had taken Jonathan to one side and mentioned that Gary had been talking to himself.

What if he’s losing it?

None of this was at the forefront of Jonathan’s mind, however.

Having gleaned everything he could from the over-enthusiastic system introduction and the Creature Compendium, he turned his attention to the true source of his foul mood. The previous night he had sworn he was going to kill whoever was responsible for this mess, and the system had congratulated him on making an oath, and then informed him he was now on something called an Epic Quest.

Epic Quest: Kill the Immortal Overlord!

The Father of Death has brought destruction and horror to the multiverse for almost a thousand years. You have sworn a vow to bring him to justice by killing him. You will gain a 10% experience point bonus and a 10% combat bonus whilst pursuing this quest.

Just beneath that was the three words blinking in red that were pissing him off.

Difficulty level: Impossible

And beneath that blinking word, a postscript:

No, really, forget about it. Hundreds have tried. Probably thousands. Who knows by this point? Who even cares? It can’t be done. Give up now. Give up, yes/no? You will lose your class benefits for twenty-four hours if you give up. You may not take another quest until you have given this one up. Epic Quests fill all three of your quest slots.

There were other, easier optional quests listed, such as securing the farmhouse, find more survivors, kill ten zombies and secure food and water. All minor quests and achievements that he could take, but only if he gave up the epic quest he had chosen.

“Fucksake,” he muttered, “I mean it was heat of the moment...”

Peter interrupted his considerations by calling into the living room, mild panic in his voice.

“Jonathan, come outside, quickly!”

“What is it? Zombies?” Jonathan shouted back through the open door.

“No, maybe worse, maybe better – I don’t know, look...”

Jonathan raced out of the farmhouse and gazed in the direction that Peter was pointing.

In the distance, a vehicle was driving towards the farmhouse.